Lake County Gazette

In a passionate address to the Highland Park City Council during their Sept. 11 meeting, resident Suzanne Wahl expressed her concerns about a planned poverty simulation event .

Wahl noted the perceived disconnect between the event’s simulation of poverty and the real struggles many Highland Park residents face in 2023.

“With regards to virtue signaling our city of Highland Park’s elite public servants are leading the way,” Wahl told the Highland Park City Council at its Sept. 11 meeting.

“I was horrified to learn we are now a global laughing stock because of your most recent taxpayer funded debacle, the poverty simulation event planned for last Saturday. After thousands of negative comments on Facebook and being mocked in the global news cycle. I guess we lowly taxpaying residents were fortunate that you pulled the plug.”

“However, I’m sure the money was already thrown away and I guess I’ll FOIA that to find out. My favorite feature of this event was participants are put into situations in which they do not have enough resources and are forced to make difficult choices that can negatively impact them and their families.”

“So that’s my family every day living in the reality of 2023. And I don’t think I’m alone. The average families spending $700 more a month than we were in 2020 on basic necessities like groceries, gas and utilities. To add insult to injury, city homeowners just received our new Lake County property tax assessments with market increases. Many, like mine, well over purchase price.

“Most of your residents don’t have the luxury that you do of taxpayer funded health insurance. For a family of three, our family will pay 20 $500 for premiums alone in September, which for us represents an increase of 63% over August.”

Wahl argued that the poverty simulation event was a wasteful use of taxpayer funds and accused the city council of engaging in virtue signaling. She emphasized the need for the council to be good stewards of taxpayer money and called for a public apology to residents and called for solutions to address the economic challenges faced by Highland Park, particularly the decline in small business revenue.

“For small businesses, which are the backbone of our downtown Illinois, is leading the country in small business revenue decline. With 61% of our small businesses losing revenue in August, according to a survey by the Small Business Network Alliance. One of our small businesses today called her landlord, major real estate company that owns 17 buildings in Highland Park. They told her the commercial occupancy rate is less than 65%, with no growth since 2020. So we resident taxpayers are certainly on the hook for quite a revenue shortfall. Instead of being good stewards of our money, you threw it away in a virtue signaling poverty party when really you could have just called me, I would have given you my time for free.”

“What we want from you. Number one, a public apology to your residents and anyone offended by your attempt at poverty cosplay and the immediate creation of a task force to both bring business back to Highland Park and assist existing business with their revenue growth and hiring needs in the future. Instead of expensive and humiliating virtue signaling, perhaps implementing common sense initiatives with measurable results that possibly positively impact your community would be a better idea. In other words, I do think it’s time for you to do your job.”

The “Poverty Simulation” event, aimed at promoting poverty awareness, was initially promoted by the City of Highland Park but was later canceled due to an overwhelming social media response overshadowing its purpose.

In a tweet, Chicago’s Morning Answer host Dan Proft has also expressed his stand about the event.

“Cowards. Sunlight burns bloodsuckers,” Proft said on X. 

A cancellation notice from the Alliance for Human Services was released after public pushback on the event. The organization behind the event, expressed disappointment in the cancellation but acknowledged that the negative response had overshadowed the event's purpose. 

They emphasized that the Poverty Simulation experience has been successfully conducted for many years, both locally and internationally, with the intention of promoting poverty awareness and inspiring change.

“Unfortunately, due to an overwhelming onslaught of negative public misinformation, the Poverty Simulation scheduled for 9/9 is cancelled. While we believe these types of events start community conversations that are crucial to combating poverty, the extensive social media response has overshadowed the event’s purpose. We understand the decision to cancel this event and hope it will be rescheduled soon,” the Alliance for Human Services said in an email.

“The Poverty Simulation experience has been offered locally, nationally, and internationally since 2002. It is owned and licensed by the Missouri Community Action Network. The purpose is to: ‘Promote Poverty Awareness, Increase Understanding, Inspire Local Change, and Transform Perspectives.’”