Did you catch Marni Pyke's powerful series in the Daily Herald last week on growing poverty in DuPage? Here are some highlights:

Strengthen what is in place to ease poverty crisis (I take this to have been an editorial summary, after the series had run):

Poverty isn’t picky about where it chooses to do its damage. You may think it is confined to the inner cities and rural areas. After all, you can see it. The rundown, crime-ridden streets. The abandoned flimsy barns collapsing into overgrown weeds. But poverty is not always so visually obvious. It also lies low among those places we call upper-class.

Like DuPage County.

As staff writer Marni Pyke has reported in her series “DuPage’s Poverty Crisis,” the number of people in DuPage County who the federal government deems to be desperately poor has risen from 32,163 in 2000 to 48,827 in 2003. Since 2000, the county poverty rate has more than doubled.

The DuPage poor are immigrants in low-paying jobs. They are people who have lost high-paying jobs. They are people who have become homeless because of mental illness or economic catastrophe. They share the common pain of living from check to check. Unable to find affordable housing and medical care. Unable to find a reliable way to work.

Poor easily outnumber DuPage resources

The staff [of the DuPage Community Clinic in Wheaton], which helps about 3,500 patients for free each year, is always busy.

But their best efforts aren’t enough, given the up to 65,000 people in DuPage believed to have no health coverage.

Barely scraping by in affluent DuPage

[There were 32,163] DuPage County residents in 2000 barely scraping by on annual incomes such as $19,350 or less for a family of four.

Just three years later, the numbers of the desperately poor have risen to 49,827 — a little less than Wheaton’s population.

...

Just when the demand for help is greatest, government resources are shrinking.

For example, the DuPage Housing Authority has watched the number of people seeking help soar, but for the past three years hasn’t received additional federal subsidies to take on more clients, Executive Director John Day said.

DuPage housing costs out of reach for many

To afford a $900-a-month, two-bedroom apartment — the market rate in DuPage — a minimum-wage earner would need to hold three jobs.

And with median house prices at about $300,000, home ownership really is a dream for families making less than the average income of $67,505, according to 2003 statistics.

...

While the economy in DuPage is growing, much of the increase is in low-paying jobs, while affordable housing units aren’t keeping pace.

The DuPage Housing Action Coalition estimates a third of renters are using more than 30 percent of their pay on shelter, while about one-quarter of homeowners spend more than 30 percent on their mortgages. That’s the most financial experts recommend one spend on housing.

Trapped by transit trouble

As executive director of the People’s Resource Center in Wheaton, Mary Ellen Durbin can recount numerous horror stories about the travails of people without cars in the suburbs.

One client walked from Glen Ellyn to Addison every day to keep a job. Another trudged from north Villa Park to Downers Grove regularly.

“The transportation system is set up for commuters,” Durbin said.

Poverty experts note many low-income pockets in DuPage are on the periphery of towns, far from train stations and bus routes, which isolates those in poverty further.

(...and here's another piece on the transit system: Traveling by bus? Settle in for a trip)

How the county’s poverty problem affects everyone

Health care, commute to job ‘invisible tax’ on those who live, work in Chicago region

Experts contend that failing to address the DuPage poverty crisis is already costing the community now and will only escalate with time.

The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that studies health issues, reported that uncompensated medical treatment came to nearly $41 billion last year. Close to 85 percent of the tab will be picked up by local, state and federal governments.

Another think tank, the national Institute of Medicine, found that providing health care for the uninsured puts between $65 billion and $130 billion back into the national economy.

Closer to home, that means between $60.5 million and $206 million infused into DuPage.

But to return that kind of money, the health-care industry has to spend some money.

Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, for instance, projects it has spent $16.2 million on charity care this fiscal year. It’s a dramatic increase from $4.7 million in 2000-2001, Director for Patient Financial Services Steve Marshall said.

Such expenses ultimately increase health insurance and hospital fees.

“It’s sort of an invisible tax,” Marshall said. “Everybody who has insurance, in essence, is making it possible for the people without.”

Officials with Naperville’s Edward Hospital calculated that they spent up to $5 million on charity care this year.

“And that’s a conservative estimate,” Vice President of Marketing Brian Davis said.

High housing rates also come with a price.

When people who work in DuPage can’t afford to live here, it leads to growth in traffic congestion and air pollution.