Updated with corrections Jan. 6, 2025.
Winter holiday season spotlights realities of poverty’s impacts across the community.
As a single mother on Texas Street in Bellingham, Trudy Shuravloff would receive gifts from Toys for Tots for her children. Once she was in the position to give back to her community, she wanted to create a memorable budget-friendly holiday shopping experience for her students.
Shuravloff, executive director of The Whatcom Dream, a nonprofit that offers financial empowerment classes in Whatcom County, came up with a pop-up store she calls the Christmas Shoppe.
In the Christmas Shoppe, students and graduates of financial literacy classes can shop for brand-new toys, bicycles, electronics and gifts at a 75%–90% discount from the retail price. Most donations come from Bellingham residents and local churches, but Dewey Griffin Subaru in Bellingham makes a large business contribution to the Christmas Shoppe.
This year’s Christmas Shoppe took place Dec. 14 at Northlake Community Church in Bellingham.
“When students and graduates participate in our Christmas Shoppe, they give others the opportunity to become financially empowered,” she said. “It is a way to ‘pay it forward’ so we can support other families in our community.”
All proceeds from the Christmas Shoppe go toward The Whatcom Dream’s Financial Empowerment scholarship fund, which covers the costs of financial education courses.
“The Whatcom Dream is about people and progress in low-income communities,” Shuravloff said. “Our goal is to serve neighbors who are struggling with poverty — strengthening their confidence in their own capacities and inspiring them to take action on behalf of self, family and community.”
Low-income residents in Skagit County will have the opportunity to take financial literacy courses with The Skagit Dream at Skagit Valley College in 2025.
Erosion of the safety net
The erosion of Washington state’s social safety net, along with sky-high rental and mortgage costs, and the low level of affordable housing has had a significant impact on the communities of Northwest Washington, said Greg Winter, executive director of the Opportunity Council in Bellingham. The nonprofit serves San Juan, Whatcom, Island, Skagit and Snohomish counties, focusing on basic needs, housing and homelessness, children and families, job skills and financial well-being, and individual and community healing.
“Poverty is a collective issue with lasting impacts on the community as a whole.”
Around 10.3% of Washington state’s population lived below the poverty line in 2023, a slight increase from 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. As a result, more and more residents in Washington state are relying on donations from charities and nonprofit organizations to make ends meet.
“Poverty is a collective issue with lasting impacts on the community as a whole, and is not just an individual problem,” Winter said. “Poverty costs all of us: it creates barriers for people to be able to access the benefits of their community and deprives the community of their meaningful contribution.”
People in poverty make use of community resources like food pantries, soup kitchens and clothing banks. If they are eligible, they then can apply for government assistance programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
“When people are facing tough times, like an unexpected illness or losing a job, they can easily be pulled into poverty,” Winter said. “Also, high housing costs are increasingly forcing people to make gut-wrenching decisions about cutting back on basic needs like heat, food and child care.”
The United States as a whole is facing a housing crisis, Winter said. He calls on the government at all levels to step up to invest in building affordable housing, and to protect people from runaway market rates.
“Housing prices are so out of reach for so many in our region that this traditionally important path to building wealth is much harder to attain, thus making it much more difficult for people to escape poverty,” he said.
In the gaps
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a lingering impact on Whatcom County, said Patricia Boyce, director of development and community impact at United Way of Whatcom County. Poverty initially dropped in Whatcom County because of stimulus payments from the federal government, but inflation and supply chain challenges have contributed to current cost-of-living increases.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported in September 2024 that an estimated 22% of Bellingham residents now live in poverty, up from 14% in 2022.
“People in poverty are getting pushed out of Bellingham and Whatcom County, which traditionally has strong recovery services,” Shuravloff said. “Those living in poverty need to stay within city limits to take the bus to a library, a supermarket, a hospital and local schools.”
Poverty also looks different beyond Whatcom and Skagit County. The San Juan Islands has one of the highest wealth gaps in the state between affluent and working-class residents, said Jennifer Armstrong, executive director at the Joyce L. Sobel Family Resource Center — formerly known as the San Juan Island Family Resource Center — in Friday Harbor.
Many employment opportunities are seasonal on the San Juan Islands, while those with several part-time jobs often lack health insurance, Armstrong said.
“It’s a choice to live out on the islands,” she said. “The cost of the ferry, along with high gas prices, doesn’t make it worth it for families to travel to the mainland to go to Costco or Walmart.”
No boots, no bootstraps
Poverty takes different forms, Shuravloff said. People experiencing situational poverty have had a temporary financial setback — like surviving a natural disaster, a health issue or a divorce — but their finances will eventually rebound.
Meanwhile, generational poverty takes place when at least two generations of families have been born into poverty, Shuravloff said. People living in this type of poverty are less likely to be equipped with the tools to break out of the cycle.
Poverty is the result of systemic barriers, Shuravloff said. Those with financial struggles often face obstacles like inadequate education, unaffordable housing, limited job training opportunities and financial illiteracy.
“People can’t really pull themselves up by their bootstraps if they don’t have a boot,” she said.
Calculating the issue
Many programs across the country tend to use data from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to assess poverty in their community — either a percentage of the federal poverty level (FPL) or a percentage of area median income (AMI), Winter said. The FPL is static across the 48 contiguous states while the AMI is calculated for each county and urban area, a more accurate reflection of local conditions.
Asset-limited, income-constrained and employed: 38% in Whatcom, 27% in San Juan and Skagit
United Way’s ALICE —an acronym which stands for asset-limited, income-constrained and employed — gives a more realistic picture of those facing financial hardship in Whatcom, Skagit and San Juan counties compared with FPL and AMI, Armstrong said. ALICE represents the growing number of families who cannot afford the basics, including housing, child care, food, transportation, health care and technology.
According to the most recent ALICE data, 38% of Whatcom County households are below the ALICE threshold to afford essentials, while approximately 13.4% of Whatcom County households fall below the federal poverty level.
In comparison, around 38% of households in Skagit County are below the ALICE threshold, while around 9.7% of people are in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. [Ed.: ALICE threshold percentage corrected.]
“Many of our systems — including public health, community infrastructure, and education — depend on equal access,” Winter said. “Means tests often overlook the strain of poverty on these critical systems.”
In San Juan County, current ALICE data show that 39% of households are below the threshold, while the U.S. Census Bureau reported around 9.4% of San Juan County residents are currently living at or below the federal poverty level. [Ed.: ALICE threshold percentage corrected.]
“So many families on the San Juan Islands fall in that ALICE level,” Armstrong said. “They have no savings; no security net. Since the cost of living is quite high, people cannot save for retirement. This puts people in poverty at a later age.”
Lost in the system
Low-income people who do not qualify for federal and state programs often fall through the cracks when it comes to housing, education, medical care and nutrition, Armstrong said.
If the poor and rich are the defining ends of an economic spectrum, then to be neither is to be in the middle — somewhere between just getting by and well-off, Winter said.
“Historically, this is the American Dream — the safety and stability in making ends meet and having a roof over one’s head that forms the foundation to create, innovate and connect in a community,” he said.
But this capitalist spectrum also exacerbates the assumption that wealth is a zero-sum game, Winter said, and that poverty is inevitable.
“It is possible to have a system that ensures sustainable growth and meets everyone’s basic needs without creating poverty as a counterpart to wealth,” he said.
Tidings of good cheer
In the spirit of the holidays, the Opportunity Council in Bellingham partners with Toys for Tots every year to run a toy drive for families who participate in their Early Learning and Family Services programs, Winter said.
“This year, we are supplying 1,700 toys to children across Whatcom County,” Winter said. “We will distribute the toys over the next week.”
The Opportunity Council also recently organized a wreath decorating party at Dorothy Place, home to domestic violence survivors in Bellingham.
Blaine and Birch Bay’s Holiday Gift Assistance Program arranges brand new, unwrapped toys marked down 75%, along with $25 gift cards, in a store-like setting where parents can shop and choose several gifts for their children.
The Ferndale Holiday Giving Store program brightens the holidays for children of low-income families within the Ferndale School District. Gifts are free to families who qualify.
Friday Harbor residents donate stocking stuffers, gift cards, and other items to several Giving Trees around town, including at the San Juan Island Farmers Market. Staff members from the Joyce L. Sobel Family Resource Center then collect the gifts and deliver them to islanders.
“The Holiday Giving Tree program has been in place in Friday Harbor for many years,” Armstrong said. “There’s overwhelming support from community members.”
— By Catherine Skrzypinski