This is part of an ongoing series of articles that put a face on the poor in Milwaukee, 50 years after President Lyndon Johnson declared a “war on poverty.”
Chris Nelsen was broke, but not broken.
With his six children and wife eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while huddled in a single motel room on the city’s South Side, he set out to make some money.
Twenty dollars, to be exact. His job: to shovel dog poop from a woman’s yard.
The dog owner found Nelsen on Craigslist, where he placed online advertisements, pleading with readers to hire him for any type of manual labor so he could feed his family and to pay the $250 for a week’s stay at the motel.
“I’m not the one that is important in this picture. It’s them I am concerned about. It’s them that I have to take care of,” said Nelsen, referring to his family.
For years, Craigslist has been a popular online marketplace for sellers and buyers of every item under the sun. It also has become a virtual employment center for several Milwaukee men struggling to find steady work.
Unable to make it on $7.25 an hour at a temporary job with a local paper plate and napkin manufacturer, Milwaukeean Chris Baras, 25, also turned to placing a few advertisements on Craigslist. His specialty is picking up garbage, hauling away old appliances and demolition work.
“People usually call if I set a fair price, because there are a lot of guys out there that are charging everything that you have to get rid of almost nothing,” said the father of one child.
Baras’ income generated through jobs on Craigslist fluctuates depending on demand. He estimated that he makes about $250 a week. On a good week, he can earn $400.
“It can be difficult. I have to sometimes make the choice between gas to get to work and … food for my daughter,” he said. “It’s not always easy.”
It has never been financially easy for Nelsen, a Milwaukee native. He was the only child of his poor single mother who relied on welfare and food stamps to feed and shelter him. “I came home one day from high school and she was gone,” he said. “There was a note on the door from my mother that said, ‘Moving out of the state. Have a nice life.'”
Nelsen dropped out of school and lived on the street, sleeping in boxcars, on the roof of a school on Grange Avenue and, on occasion, at homeless shelters. He eventually finished high school through Job Corps, where he took carpentry classes for a year, got married and started having kids.
A self-proclaimed survivor, Nelsen learned how to paint and tile, and made enough to support his family through small manual labor jobs until recently, when work dried up and two employers stiffed him. “I had nothing,” he said. “We wound up homeless.”
Michael Broghn, 30, a high school graduate who studied criminal justice at Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) for a while, was working a good-paying job as a forklift operator until he was laid off a few years ago.
Broghn toiled in low-paying fast-food and telemarketing jobs before turning two years ago to Craigslist, where he placed a free advertisement for his manual labor services that included a few lines about how hard he works and his contact information.
Broghn typically starts his day at about 5 a.m., republishing his advertisement for services on the free site. He then waits for phone calls and emails from those needing any sort of manual labor. “It depends. It’s crazy. You never know who’s going to be on there and what’s going on,” he said.
He now focuses on helping unload large truck deliveries throughout the city, jobs that typically pay about $50 for two or three hours of work. Broghn said there is a steady stream of truck drivers who go on Craigslist to find help unloading their cargo and are willing to pay cash.
“I don’t know why they don’t have extra help. They must rely on Craigslist when they come driving in with all of this cargo and they don’t even have a helper with them,” he said. “Obviously, they know they will find someone.”
Broghn, who refuses to take any type of government assistance, lives with his brother-in-law, who charges about $250 a month for rent and utilities. His monthly income depends on the amount of demand and the types of jobs he is willing to take. “I did a moving job for a person and (the home) was just filth with rats and rat shit,” he said. “It was horrible.”
Like Broghn, It’s that whatever-it-takes attitude that drives Nelsen. “I’m not sitting around watching Oprah Winfrey and eating bonbons waiting for the next check to be handed to me,” Nelsen said. “I’m not putting ads on Craigslist asking for money. Let me work. I’ll work. I will do something for it.”
George says
It is commendable for people like this that work hard and want to make an honest living instead of being out there begging for food. Craigslist is a great place to find work. Posting ads can be difficult sometimes because of the whole ghosting thing, but the folks at stopcraigslistghosting.net seemed to have figured out how to get around that as well. KUDOS to you the ones working hard to survive!!
Dean says
Hey, I don’t begrudge someone who’s down on their luck temporarily getting out there and making something happen, desperate times call for desperate measures and these people in this article may make for some compelling stories, BUT these guys are the exceptions, there’s a LOT more people on craigslist who aren’t in dire straits at all and who make decent incomes for YEARS and its ALL CASH!! If you don’t know what that really means, then you’re clueless, but those of us who PAY OUR TAXES are being royally screwed here by people who are far from dirt poor, these are people making decent incomes and reporting LITTLE OR NOTHING and trust me, many or most of them, unlike the one guy, take every last benefit they can get!! This includes a LOT of white people too, this isn’t some subliminal slam on ANY minority group at all, from what I’ve seen first hand, this cuts equally across all racial and ethnic boundaries.
So, when you’re looking at your next tax return, or the deductions taken every paycheck, struggling to pay that monster property tax bill (and renters pay property tax without a doubt, just not directly!) or whatever else, think about all the people on craigslist, living in the underground cash economy. Not only do they keep every cent they earn, they also qualify for ALL the bennies too! Food share, Rent Assistance, Badger Care, EITC, they get it all and the honest people pay for it all! Again, for every one of these real hard luck stories (if true) there’s 5 more guys/girls driving a car as nice as yours and living in a nice place and not paying back spit!
On top of all that, anyone hiring someone from this guy shoveling poop to the many, many illegal contractors on craigslist or whatever else is NUTS!! Better check the fine print on your homeowners insurance because if someone gets hurt on your property and the insurance company finds out you hired some (illegal) cash worker or business, expect a battle getting them to cover it when you get sued for 100 grand!
Again, I don’t hold anything against someone in hard times making an extraordinary effort to get by and sometimes that means bending or even breaking the rules, as long as its not morally wrong like theft. If you have yourself and kids to feed and no money right now and that means not paying any tax by working for cash, I don’t hold it against you one bit BUT if like many others there this is your choice of lifestyle for years on end and you’re collecting every bennie you can get on top of it, you’re a THIEF and the rest of us honest people are all paying for your thievery! (and honestly, SIX kids don’t come overnight, how did that happen if you can’t afford to feed yourself? Birth control? Personal responsibility?)
DON’T BELIEVE ME??? THINK I’M MAKING THIS UP OR TAKING A KERNEL OF TRUTH AND MAKING A MOUNTAIN OF LIES OUT OF IT??? PUT UP YOUR OWN FREE ADS AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!!! Watch just how many people will be all excited, not just for shoveling some poop for a half hour but for a full time job and who will then instantly lose all interest as soon as you mention that you ONLY pay a normal payroll, which as is the law, is reported immediately to the state!! Its not just because they want to dodge the bit of tax that gets refunded to them and with EITC, more on top of it, its because then they won’t qualify for the bennies or maybe there’s that dumb thing about that silly garnishment that jerk judge ordered for all that child support they NEVER paid a cent on! I had an honest worker bring a relative in recently about getting a job who’s supposedly a hard worker, been working for many years and I’d guess around 40. NO INTEREST AT ALL in job once I mentioned that I follow the law and report all new hires! Oh, had some child support but only 70 GRAND he never paid a cent on, been dodging it for a decade! Yeah, that’s who’s on craigslist too!