This is Rumbel Strip and this is Part 10 of what class are you, Kathleen.

You know, I consider doctors, lawyers, you know, people who have a good income, upper class. I mean if you can afford every year to go on a two-week

ski vacation or you can have someone come clean your house or your pool.

That's upper class.

What is your experience of upper class?

None.

I mean, I've seen it on TV.

That's Kathleen Patrick.

She lives in Derby, Vermont in a subsidized apartment with two cats, two pugs, and about 400 clocks.

She really likes clocks.

Kathleen was working as a home health aid until COVID hit.

She received COVID funding and rent assistance until

she didn't and now she's working at the deli at Price Chopper and she's months

behind on her rent and she's facing eviction. I met Kathleen through her daughter Katrina who I

interviewed for this class series last year. Katrina has been couch surfing for the

better part of two years and for the last eight months or so she's been sleeping on her mother's

couch while she's working to save money for her own place and also trying to help her mother

with her expenses. It turns out that being poor is a learning curve and it takes a lot of time.

Most any benefit from housing subsidies to health care requires a whole lot of complicated paperwork.

Kathleen has subsidized housing and health care and she receives food assistance, but she says that if she gets a job that makes a dollar more than these subsidies allow,

she says she'll be poorer than she was before when she needed subsidies.

It's complicated. Here's Kathleen.

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