The affluent city of Highland Park, Illinois, has recently announced a collaboration with several organizations to host a "poverty simulation event" at a local country club.
The event, scheduled for Saturday, September 9, is designed to give the city's wealthier residents a brief taste of the hardships faced by those living in poverty.
The city, in partnership with the Alliance for Human Services, Family Focus, Moraine Township, and the Highland Park Community Foundation, hopes the event will "increase residents' understanding and awareness of what it is like to live in poverty in Lake County," according to a Facebook post.
The simulation, set to run from 9:00 to 11:30 am at the Highland Park Country Club, will immerse participants in scenarios where they are forced to make difficult choices due to a lack of resources. The city stated that participants will begin to understand what a 'month' in poverty feels like, and how these circumstances can negatively impact them and their families.
The Poverty Simulation, on their website, clarified that the event is "not a game," but an "interactive immersion experience" that "sensitizes community participants to the realities of poverty."
However, the event has drawn widespread criticism on social media, with many accusing the participants of virtue signaling rather than taking concrete steps to address America's growing inequality.
"Why don't y'all teach the impoverished how to be wealthy," one Facebook user suggested, criticizing the event as a "boneheaded lose-lose" situation. Another user described the event as "tone-deaf" and "absolutely embarrassing."
A Twitter user proposed a more realistic poverty simulation: "Give them $5, take away their cell phones, and drop them off in a homeless camp. They can spend a month there. Or let them live in the apartment/home of someone with little income and they have to live on the same amount that the poor person lives on. Make sure there's no food in the fridge when the month starts."
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