Jogging across the well-manicured lawn at Berroteran Park -- nestled between the modern Lujan-Chavez Elementary School and a row of neat two-story homes -- Eastsider Josie Hinojosa didn't think much of the unfinished cinder-block homes on unpaved streets lining the poor neighborhoods of nearby Montana Vista.

Hinojosa, a homemaker whose husband makes a comfortable living, said she tries to help the less fortunate.

But on that warm March morning, she agreed that the poor don't really affect her much.

"I'm a little bit ashamed of it, but I guess living in an environment like this, where you don't really see needy people that much, you forget that it happens," she said. "You could go all day running your errands and never really realize that there are people who are starving and need your help. It's awful."

According to economics experts, people like Hinojosa -- who believe El Paso's higher-than-average poverty rate does not affect them -- are just plain wrong.

"People who are well above the poverty line, the middle class and the wealthy, should care about the poor because it affects them directly," said Tom Fullerton, a professor of economics at the University of Texas at El Paso.

"At the very basic level, high concentrations of poverty will hit the middle- and upper-class where it hurts: their pocketbooks," he said.

Fullerton said home and business owners in cities like El Paso -- with a 29.2 percent poverty rate -- tend to pay higher taxes.

An estimated 200,000 El Pasoans live in poverty, according to federal poverty guidelines. And an additional 100,000 El Pasoans are considered poor because they make less than 150 percent of the poverty-level income.

He offered this scenario:

"A middle-class family with a child who has a cold will go to the doctor's office and use their medical insurance," Fullerton said. "But a poor family will take that child to the emergency room of a public hospital, where the cost will come out of the tax base more often than not."

This scenario, Fullerton said, applies to other social services that are paid for by taxpayers.

In El Paso, more than half of local property taxes go to school districts.

Hinojosa has children at Lujan-Chavez and El Dorado High School.

Both are modern schools with adequate facilities. But because they belong to the property-poor Socorro Independent School District, both campuses must worry about proper funding every year.

Mary Benham, the Socorro district's chief financial officer, said every budgeting period for any school district in El Paso County is "a tough one."

"Our property value per student is $98,000, and the property-rich school districts are at $300,000 or above," Benham said.

"It doesn't matter if we have some nice neighborhoods. The fact is we are a property-poor school district just like every other district in El Paso," Benham said. "Every year is a battle. Every year we have to live on a tight budget and keep our expenses down."

Keeping expenses down means few -- if any -- luxuries for campuses, even if they serve neighborhoods with high concentrations of wealth.

In fact, the only feeder pattern in the county that does not qualify for the Title 1 funds the federal government reserves for poor students is the Franklin High School area.

But even students at the West Side school said the perception that everyone at Franklin comes from rich families is wrong.

"We have public housing around our school, and I bet everyone here knows someone who doesn't have a lot of money to throw around," said Franklin freshman Gracie Gonzalez.

"Maybe they don't know it ... but they probably know someone who is poor."

This artilce was published in Week 1 of the El Paso Times Poverty Series.