The American Dream in Palm Beach County, Florida
Hotel in Palm Beach County
In a hotel just off of the interstate in Palm Beach County, Florida, some people have turned a room into a semi-permanent home. Costing about $500 per week, it's not cheap, but is more affordable than the deposit for an apartment. These are the stories of some of the hotel's guests and some of its workers.
Audrey, a hotel maid
"I've been working here for 12 years. My dream was to play basketball, but I dropped out of school in the 10th grade and I was pregnant by age 20. I was hanging out with the wrong girls. I don't have dreams because I'm 52 years old now and just taking it day by day."
Shenequa, hotel maid
"I know the word 'poverty,' but I don't know the definition. I always ate, people did feed me, I never was that type of homeless person on the street. I was always in somebody's house. I was always surrounded by people that helped me. But always know you can do things yourself. My dream for the future? To just make money. Because really the world is all about money."
Ray and Karen, long term hotel residents
"We came from a homeless shelter to here. We were living in a nice apartment, a $1,500 a month apartment, and my husband had to have skin cancer surgery and I lost my job. As a result of that, we lost all our possessions as well as our dog. We are almost 60 years old so it's not that simple to get a job. This can happen to anyone. I am making less money now than I made when we met 15 years ago."
Dorothea, hotel maid
""What is the American Dream? It sounds good! Making money is all about life. You see that person has a nice car and a nice house. Why don't I have that? It makes me feel down. Work, work, work. Off and on it's been hard to make ends meet."
Rooms of the hotel
Palm Beach County had a poverty rate of 14.9 % according to the latest census numbers, but Dorla Leslie, CEO of the Center for Family Services of Palm Beach County, thinks it could be even higher. "I don't want to dispute what the census says but I would love for them to show us, because we have not seen it," she told the Palm Beach Post.
Portrait of Pam with her groceries
Since April 15th, Pam has lived with her middle-aged daughter, Traci, and two grandsons in a single room at the hotel. "My husband had always taken care of everything, but he had emphysema and we fell behind on the mortgage payments. When he passed away, that opened the door for the banks to tell me they weren't going to work with me anymore. I ended up not having a home. But, we still keep our heads up. Our dream is for us to have a home again. We weren't living elaborately but we were comfortable. That's all I've ever wanted."
Traci and her son Austin, outside hotel
"I was on the way to my newspaper route, and the next thing I know, I woke up at the hospital 20 days later. I made a decent income to take care of my mom and my two sons. And since the accident I haven't been able to work. Forty-four years and I never thought I would be here. Not in this position."
Austin, photographed in the hotel room where he lives with his family
"I bag newspapers. I started helping my mother at the newspaper route when I was 14. We've been in the hotel about a month. You've gotta live how you gotta live. It's better than being straight up on the streets. Because the streets ain't fun."
Christina, hotel guest
"I don't have anywhere else to stay - I'm kind of homeless right now. When you're not sleeping and your not eating and you can't shower and you don't have a job, it's hard to get a job when you don't look presentable. Like no one wants to hire someone who looks homeless. I just lost a job as a hostess awhile ago because I couldn't get to work."
Sharon, front desk worker, counting money at the end of her shift
Sharon has been working at the hotel for almost 13 years. "I'm married and I'm semi supporting myself. I pay my own bills, get my own food and pay my own doctors bills. When I first started working in 1982 my paycheck was $6.30 an hour. I am only getting $8.60 an hour now, and when I started working gas was like a dollar and change and now it's 4 or 5 dollars a gallon. Everything has gone up. A lot of things have changed. In 1982, only one member of the family had to have a job. One family member provided the income."
Jack, front desk worker
"I work 72 hours a week and it's to get out of debt quicker. The only day I have off are Saturdays. I have $7,000.00 in student loans, $430 a month in car payments and about $10,000.00 in credit card debt. A teacher once asked us in high school if the American dream was obtainable. When I asked the teacher to define it, the words that came out of his mouth were the white picket fence, the car, the garage and the dog. And I said, "That's one heck of a dream, but do you have it now?" He said, "No, but someday I will." If you are 50 and still chasing that dream, then it's no longer a dream. It's fiction. The American dream is not real."
Photos by Lauren Fleishman
