Podcasts Culture Reflections from the River The smell of poverty

The smell of poverty

Published: June 28, 2020, 5 a.m.

Poverty smells. It smells like yesterday’s cigarettes on today’s clothes. Like unwashed bodies. Like stale sweat. Like half-burnt motor oil from aging cars with bad mufflers and rusted out floorboards. Like overflowing toilets and full diaper pails. Like coal smoke and chemical factory fumes.