Introduction; Personal Experience

After putting together this blog for my class Just 315J Poverty and Homelessness at NEIU I have become more sensitive while watching, pictures, statistics I’ve realized how serious and important is to fight poverty, hunger and homelessness. I guess I feel more compassion and sympathize with those that are unfortunate to be in such bad spot. On the other hand, I have to admit I understand and can relate to poor people in some ways, I too have experience poverty in some level. Sixteen years ago, I can remember being a ten years old child who didn’t know anything about life. Having both parents struggling to provide the basic means. Trying to settle down in a stable home but I guess the conditions and the situation at that time didn’t allowed me and my family to do it. Waking up and not knowing if there is enough money to put in the table for a family of seven, etc. So I know what is like to be poor. Fortunately the luck of me and my family changed for good after a short period of time and those bad memories are in the past. Now I’m a grown adult and I see life differently and I learned how to appreciate things in life. I hope this blog help my audience and my class to obtain a better understanding of why and how individuals in the society are force to live in this deprived conditions, inside an invisible support system. We all are vulnerable and can be victims social inequality. We society need to learn how to overcome poverty, prevent and help those that need form us.


Music

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Poverty in Chicago

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY

Make Poverty History - Bono


Hunger Action Event with Chicago Food Depository





Poverty Definition

My definition of poverty is when a person or community is in a bad economic situation where is deprived or lack the essentials meas such as such as house, education,clean water, food, health care, clothing


The changing face of poverty

Millions of Americans live in poverty, more families are suffering and hunger is seen growing. According to the most recent Census Bureau statistics, nearly 36 million Americans lived in poverty in 2003, an increase of 1.3 million from 2002. And since 2000, 4.4 million more people in this country are living in poverty.


According to Jared Bernstein, a labor economist the U.S is facing one of the worst economic situation and we have to acknowledge that those that have money become richer and richer every day and the disparities between poor and rich are astounding, there is few that falls in the middle class and what is left is either poor or rich.


Finally, Fear and hunger walk hand in hand with poverty, and last year 12.6 million American households -- 11.2 percent of all American homes -- were afraid they might not be able to put enough food on the table, according to the Census Bureau. That's up more than 1.6 million households from the year 2000.


Author; Octavio Blanco CNN
Title; The changinf face of poverty
Date of publication December 30, 2009
CNNMONEY.COM

Chicago homeless crisis worsens with budget cuts, mass foreclosures

According to the wsws.org due to the crisis the country is facing the number of homeless people has increased dramatically in the Chicago area and the suburbs in the past moths. The Chicago Coalition for homeless estimates that “21,000 people are on the street on any given night.” So this recession is not only affecting those with homes and jobs in fact are increasing the number of poor and homeless people.

For 2010, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that homelessness is expected to grow based on rising unemployment and increased rental market competition due to foreclosures: 4.5-6.3 million if unemployment reaches 9 percent. This would represent an increase of about 900,000-1.1 million families.

Author; Kristina Betinis
Title; Chicago homeless crisis worsens with budget cuts, mass foreclosures.
Date of publication; 21 December 2009
WORLD SOCIAIST WEB SITE

Friday, March 12, 2010

ENTRY 5 City presentation

 My city presentation was on Cleveland, Ohio we focused on unemployment, homeless, drug and substance abuse. According to a report on MSNBC on sep 2006. Cleveland was crushed by the loss of steel and other manufacturing jobs. Cleveland has ranked high for poverty before but never #1. A report from the U.S Census Bureau recently rated it has the nation’s poorest big city, putting it ahead of Detroit, Miami and Newark, N.J.

The mayor’s repot states that;
• 26,000 homeless in the Cleveland area
• 4,000 live in the street
• 29.50% of Cleveland population lives below poverty line.
• Unemployment is 12%


Another astounding statistic is drug-related deaths in Ohio soared 304 percent from 1999 to 2007, a trend attributed mostly to abuse of prescription pain medications called opioids. Only in recent years have federal health authorities realized that a rise in overdose deaths was due to prescription painkillers rather than street drugs. However the total number of drug users in Ohio is 42,000.


• Alcohol only 9,238
• Alcohol with secondary drug 8,494
• Cocaine (smoke) 6,270
• Cocaine (other root) 884
• Marijuana 3,070
• Heroin 3,070
• Meth 122


So as we can notice the city of Cleveland faces serious social problems of poverty and drug addiction. I think the reason Cleveland does not have a better service for homeless is because other cities have huge programs where they have a social worker visit the apartment or house of everyone who is being evicted and then work with that household to prevent them from going into the shelter system. They usually have a pool of funds available to help with security deposit or moving if necessary. The few hundred dollars spent on homelessness prevention does not even compare to the thousands of dollars it costs to house a family in an Emergency Shelter. If programs like the one I mentioned is implemented in Cleveland, can make the difference and reduce the number of homeless in the city and the streets.
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