Drive out of poverty with a car

A good, reliable automobile can make the difference in getting up from the bottom, and some groups want to give a leg up.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — If filling your tank with $3.60 a gallon gas is a serious economic hardship, ask yourself this: What if you didn’t have a tank to fill up?

Wendy Mitchell of Middlebury, Vt. is a single mom who moved there from Florida in 2006 looking for better schools. Within months, she said, her Chevrolet Blazer blew a rod and, without a job or much savings, she was left without a car at the beginning of a rural New England winter.


“I was totally devastated,” she said.

Despite car-ownership costs, including insurance, repairs and fuel, the majority of even the poorest Americans own cars, according to U.S. Census data – and for good reason. In this country, life without one can be difficult at best and unmanageable at worst.

Even cities with solid public transportation networks are set up to do one thing well: move people in and out of central business districts. “It takes a long time if you aren’t doing exactly that,” said Margy Waller, executive director of the policy research group Mobility Agenda.

And these days, she pointed out, the best jobs usually aren’t in the center of the city.

CNN