MetaFilter posts tagged with poverty

Alabamas Homeboys

proneSMK — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:09:38 -0800

Homeboy Industries (gang intervention organization) visits Alabama Village in Prichard Alabama. Videos, photos and an essay describe their visit.

Going hungry in the USA

wilful — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:46:47 -0800

Almost 15 percent of US households are "food insecure". Last year, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 per cent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce - 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes went hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million. "This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third World country,'' said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, the largest organisation representing food banks and other emergency food sources. James Weill, president of the Washington-based Food Research and Action Centre, said: ''It's frankly just deeply upsetting.'' As reported in Australia.

People are not where they live, or where they sleep

l33tpolicywonk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:14:37 -0800

Becky Blanton spent a year in her van grieving her dead father. Even with a full-time job and a writing career, a depression quickly set in which made Blanton feel like a homeless person. How do we define homelessness? The vast majority of homelessness is still linked to poverty, lack of affordable housing and eroding work opportunities. An opposing view: Apartments aren't worth the money in grad school.

Detroit and the Economy

HP LaserJet P10006 — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:50:12 -0800

Last week in Detroit, where unemployment is close to 30%, one third of all households are in poverty, and whole neighborhoods have been abandoned, chaos ensued as an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people lined up in the hopes of getting federal aid. 65,000 applications were taken for a new program that will fund only 3,500 people (via).

The Justice Gap in America

lunit — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:16:40 -0800

Nearly one million people who seek help for civil legal problems, such as foreclosures and domestic violence, will be turned away this year. A new report by the Legal Services Corporation, a non-profit established by Congress in 1974 to ensure equal access to justice, finds that legal aid programs turn away one person for every client served. The full report, "Documenting the Justice Gap in America" is available here (pdf). The 2009 report is an update and expansion on a 2005 report (available here) finding that 80% of the poor lacked access to legal aid. Some of the problem may be due to restrictions placed on non-profits that provide legal aid, including prohibiting LSC-funded programs from participating in class actions, seeking attorneys' fees, or advocating before administrative or legislative bodies for policy reform. The restrictions also make certain groups of people ineligible for legal representation from LSC-funded programs entirely and block organizations from using any other funds for any service or activity that they are barred from providing with LSC dollars. There is a bill currently being considered to end what some have deemed unjust restrictions on those providing access to legal aid.

Ten Dollars an Hour

anansi — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 06:29:21 -0800

In an area where racial divisions are very stark, the relationships between the "haves" and the "have nots" are very illuminating. Leasse William is a cook at the Sigma Nu fraternity house on the campus of the University of Mississippi. She makes ten dollars an hour. For nine months of pay this equals out at about $15,000/year. This places her well within the over 20% of the population in Mississippi that lives below the poverty line. This mini documentary by Ben Guest about Leasse shines a light on the perspectives of the various actors involved in this drama of racial tensions and class disparity.

Beyond war and crisis

Abiezer — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 06:02:06 -0800

Sustainable Security is a website launched this month by the Oxford Research Group "to be an important platform for promoting a better understanding of the real threats to global security in the 21st century and the policies that should be implemented to address those threats at their root cause." It highlights "four interconnected drivers of global insecurity: climate change; competition over natural resources; global militarism; and poverty and marginalisation. Prof. Paul Rogers makes the case for a rethink of the security paradigm.

Reaping what's sown.

uaudio — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:38:41 -0800

With inadequate access to basic health care (WHO .doc summary), impoverished Afghans turn to cheap and available opium as 'medicine' for pain relief, cough suppression and other ailments. The level of addiction among children is at a critical level. Jawed Taiman's film Addicted in Afghanistan provides some further perspective. Previously on Metafilter.

Barbara Ehrenreich on Poverty in America

ocherdraco — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:50:05 -0800

Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, has for the past two months been writing a series of opinion essays in the New York Times that discuss poverty, both new and entrenched. The pieces, so far, are "Too Poor to Make the News," "A Homespun Safety Net," and "Is It Now A Crime to Be Poor?" "Too Poor to Make the News"

In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great leveler”.... But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor.

"A Homespun Safety Net"

So far, despite some temporary expansions of food stamps and unemployment benefits by the Obama administration, the recession has done for the government safety net pretty much what Hurricane Katrina did for the Federal Emergency Management Agency: it’s demonstrated that you can be clinging to your roof with the water rising, and no one may come to helicopter you out.

"Is It Now A Crime to Be Poor?"

In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.

Girl on the Verge

lunasol — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:54:07 -0800

Love Me is a heartbreaking photo essay that follows the life of a 17 year old girl living in extreme poverty in Southeastern Ohio. "At this vulnerable point in her life, she is seeking love and support, but has a difficult time finding people who can provide her emotional stability." Via.

"Homes not Handcuffs"

lunit — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:58:05 -0800

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty has released a list of the 10 meanest cities in relation to criminalizing homeless. Full report (pdf) available here. Types of Criminalization Measures measured in the report: • Enactment and enforcement of legislation that makes it illegal to sleep, sit, or store personal belongings in public spaces in cities where people are forced to live in public spaces. • Selective enforcement of more neutral laws, such as loitering, jaywalking, or open container laws, against homeless persons. • Sweeps of city areas in which homeless persons are living to drive them out of those areas, frequently resulting in the destruction of individuals’ personal property such as important personal documents and medication. • Enactment and enforcement of laws that punish people for begging or panhandling in order to move poor or homeless persons out of a city or downtown area. • Enactment and enforcement of laws that restrict groups sharing food with homeless persons in public spaces. • Enforcement of a wide range of so-called “quality of life” ordinances related to public activities and hygiene (i.e. public urination) when no public facilities are available to people without housing.

He works odd jobs just to make ends meet

saturnine — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:37:54 -0800

"The 2000 census found that nearly 23 percent of families living in Letcher County, KY, fell below the poverty line. The median household income in most counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making on average $12,000 a year." The White Family by Carl Kiilsgaard You can find more of the White family (without commentary) on the photographer's own website.

Too Poor to Make the News

nooneyouknow — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 12:47:19 -0800

Too Poor to Make the News "The super-rich give up their personal jets; the upper middle class cut back on private Pilates classes; the merely middle class forgo vacations and evenings at Applebee’s. In some accounts, the recession is even described as the “great leveler,” smudging the dizzying levels of inequality that characterized the last couple of decades and squeezing everyone into a single great class, the Nouveau Poor, in which we will all drive tiny fuel-efficient cars and grow tomatoes on our porches.

But the outlook is not so cozy when we look at the effects of the recession on a group generally omitted from all the vivid narratives of downward mobility — the already poor. From their point of view “the economy,” as a shared condition, is a fiction."

You have to be rich to be poor

desjardins — Tue, 19 May 2009 08:38:57 -0800

The High Cost of Poverty : The Washington Post explores why the cost of living is proportionately higher in poor areas. Double Jeopardy: Why the Poor Pay More (pdf): a report on payday loans, the cost of homeownership, medical debt, and banking in poor communities.

On This Ground

Miko — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:48:32 -0800

The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is a directory of historic sites that interpret themes related to ethical, political, and social issues worldwide.

Child labor in Bangladesh

Joe Beese — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:51:11 -0800

Child labor in Bangladesh

ROSA LOVES

Houyhnhnm — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 09:03:41 -0800

ROSA LOVES is a non-profit t-shirt company. Their limited edition t-shirts are specifically designed to raise money for individuals in need. Each individual's story is told through a unique design on the front and also by actual text that appears on the inverse of the shirt, directly in line with the heart. They have been featured in GOOD Magazine, and AOL named them one of the top 12 businesses that could be the next big thing. Recently, they introduced a t-shirt to "support the reinforcement and perseverance of a home that nurtures the culture of music in New Orleans". I have no affiliation with this company aside from owning one of their shirts.

Brave New Welfare

Pope Guilty — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 03:54:14 -0800

"Lies about surgical sterility requirements. Questions about their sex lives. Outright threats. Here's what faces families in Georgia when their luck runs out."

15104

kittens for breakfast — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:06:10 -0800

Braddock, Pennsylvania has been classified as a "distressed municipality." This may be an understatement: From a high of around 20,000, its population has dwindled to below 3000, many of those people unemployed. Braddock's is a landscape so grim ("a mix of boarded-up storefronts, houses in advanced stages of collapse and vacant lots") that it was selected to serve as a backdrop for the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road. Its mayor, John Fetterman, considers Braddock “a laboratory for solutions to all these maladies starting to knock on the door of every community.” Fetterman -- a Harvard grad, and non-native, who became mayor in 2005 -- hopes to draw new residents with the promise of inexpensive real estate, and to this end has established a promotional website (NYT: "...if you can call pictures of buildings destroyed by neglect and vandals a form of promotion"). Direct links to these in case they fall off the NYT article (both open with commercials): Short video version of the main story with much additional info Fetterman on CNBC, pleading his town's case for stimulus money

Paging Mr. Dickens...

dejah420 — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:39:18 -0800

When welfare benefits the rich, and starves the poor: Despite soaring unemployment and the worst economic crisis in decades, 18 states cut their welfare rolls last year, and nationally the number of people receiving cash assistance remained at or near the lowest in more than 40 years. The American tradition of guaranteeing cash assistance to the poor came to an end with the signing of legislation in August 1996. Since then, states get block grants, and state and local governments decide how to spend the money. For example; fewer than 2,500 Georgia adults now receive benefits, down from 28,000 in 2004—a 90 percent decline. Louisiana, Texas, and Illinois have each dropped 80 percent of adult recipients since January 2001. Nationally, the number of recipients fell more than 40 percent between then and June 2008, the most recent month for which data are available. In Georgia last year, only 18 percent of children living below 50 percent of the poverty line—that is, on less than $733 a month for a family of three—were receiving aid. States are spending the TANF block grants to plug budget holes[PDF], fund property tax rebates, [google book excerpt] and other discretionary spending. Because there is no federal oversight anymore, it's become a real challenge to find out where all the money goes, once it leaves the feds hands. One thing is for sure though...it sure doesn't seem to be getting to the poor.

The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep.

chunking express — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:07:02 -0800

"The city is so cash-strapped that firefighters have to purchase their own toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Their aging bunker gear is coated in carbon, 'making them the equivalent of walking matchsticks.' The firehouses' brass poles have been removed and sold off by the city." - The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep by Matt Labash.

Religious takes on the global financial crisis

desjardins — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:04:30 -0800

The Dalai Lama blames the financial crisis on a decline in spirituality. Hindus blame it on greed. Saudi Grand Mufti, Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, blames the crisis on ignoring God's rules. Jewish scholars say we could have avoided a crisis by following Talmudic traditions. Pope Benedict sees the global financial system as "self-centred, short-sighted and lacking in concern for the destitute." Is it right to pray for the economy? (a Christian perspective). A Malaysian conference brings together Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Taoists, and Sikhs to discuss the crisis.

A new vision for the future poor

ardgedee — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:14:01 -0800

Wearers of Adaptive Eyewear can make their own prescriptions. The lenses are plastic bladders that change shape and corrective power with a small syringe. So far 30,000 people who may never be reached by an optician or afford conventional eyeglasses now have corrected vision. Recipients are now able to read, mend fishing nets, sew, and perform other tasks requiring good eyesight. The inventor, Oxford University professor Josh Silver, hopes his nonprofit organization can begin manufacturing and distributing up to 100 million pairs a year.

More Than Photo Op or Foil

l33tpolicywonk — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 21:36:36 -0800

"The last eight years, in terms of engagement, [Washington] D.C. has just been a photo op for the president, or a foil," says Tommy Wells, a social worker turned D.C. Council member. Washington was never just the home of corrupt politicians, but home to over a half million American citizens. Can a city so segregated by income (my own previously) flourish with a former community organizer as President? Practice cautious optimism. On Beacon House, Leiby and Brown write:

Beacon House provides a safety net as well as a shield from the influences of the street ... "Some of them don't have a parent to give them a nutritious breakfast, help them with their homework, make sure they brush their teeth. Some mothers are just hanging on," says Stevens-Kittner, 56, who previously worked as an attorney in the Superior Court's Child Abuse and Neglect Branch. "We are surrogate parents."

"When I came here... I became a human being."

amyms — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 08:11:30 -0800

Necessary Angels. They are not doctors. They are not nurses. They are illiterate women from India's Untouchable castes. Yet as trained village health workers, they are delivering babies, curing disease, and saving lives—including their own. Photo Gallery. Video.