Jen Fitzgerald: A Poet Without a Home

11/15/21 • 24 min

During the pandemic, Jen Fitzgerald, a poet and teacher, became a statistic, forced to find an apartment under duress as the city closed down around her. The situation the fifth-generation New Yorker and single mom found herself in has everything to do with what has happened to her city—and other hyper-prosperous American metropolises—during the last decade. They are now built to exclude the poor and even the unstable middle class, and certainly most of the poets.

In COVID lockdown, Fitzgerald was thrown back on her resources, which included poetry she wrote about her period of homelessness. Her greatest asset might have been her robust social network, which she reached for in her desperation. And it was through community that the light poured back into her life.

On this episode of Going for Broke With Ray Suarez, Jen tells her story, and shares her profound poetry that came out of the experience. We also hear from Matthew Murphy, executive director of the NYU Furman Center, a think tank devoted to trying to solve the housing crisis.

Want more from the Going for Broke team? Join us on Wednesday, November 17 at 8pm ET for a special event, featuring Ray Suarez and Ann Larson, hosted by Laura Flanders. RSVP today.

To be the first to hear all the episodes in this season, subscribe to Going for Broke with Ray Suarez on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes premiere each Monday.

Going for Broke With Ray Suarez is a podcast by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Nation. To learn more about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, sign up for our newsletter. To support all of The Nation’s journalism, including our podcasts, subscribe today.

Want more from the Going for Broke team? Join us on Wednesday, November 17 at 8pm ET for a special event, featuring Ray Suarez and Ann Larson, hosted by Laura Flanders. RSVP today.

Previous Episode

John Koopman: A Veteran of America

John Koopman has been a Marine, a war correspondent in Iraq, and a manager at a strip club, among other things. His journey through precarity in the weird 21st century started in earnest after the bottom fell out of the newspaper business. That was when sacrifice or experience seemed to matter, and John found himself laid off and out of the middle class. It was a different war than the one he had experienced before: This time the battle was for consistent and meaningful employment, and its timeframe was indefinite.

On this episode of Going for Broke With Ray Suarez, John explains how he went from Baghdad’s Firdos Square to working at a strip club, and all that came next, including stints at a dive bar, driving for Uber, and more. You’ll hear how John came to rely on a vital safety net: the Veterans Health Administration. We’ll also hear from Aaron Jackson, a scholar studying the VA at the University of California–San Francisco, about how the agency could be a model for the health care system the rest of us need.

To be the first to hear all the episodes in this season, subscribe to Going for Broke With Ray Suarez on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes premiere each Monday.

Going for Broke With Ray Suarez is a podcast by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and The Nation. To learn more about the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, sign up for our newsletter. To support all of The Nation’s journalism, including our podcasts, subscribe today.

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Coming November 5: Going For Broke on the Care Economy

Going for Broke returns and this time, we're talking about the care economy.
This three-part series hosted by broadcaster Ray Suarez centers on Americans who have lived on the edge. They share their sometimes startling economic experiences and also insight into our society as a whole. Each hour also includes some of our country’s top thinkers on income inequality, among them the legendary writer Barbara Ehrenreich, author of the classic “Nickel and Dimed,” who passed away in September 2022.
In each episode we ask: what would result if we put more care into how we dealt with housing or mental health crises or our workplaces? Going for Broke explores these questions, moving from powerful personal accounts to visionary solutions.

Going for Broke season 2 is a co-production of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project and PRX’s "To The Best of Our Knowledge" at Wisconsin Public Radio.
Learn more about this season at ttbook.org/goingforbroke