This article is talking about the minimum wage increase being discussed. After what we have learned in class about the minimum wage, we know the minimum wage now is nowhere close to what is needed to live off of. Different states are considering different numbers but it seems to be going in the right direction.
Category Archives: Causes of Poverty
Crime of Homelessness
It has been interesting to see that most people think that homeless people are in the situation they are in because they are lazy and/or have no work ethic. This being said, for my teaching project, I have been trying to find real stories of people who are trying their hardest to get out of their situation as well as break the societal cycle.
Yesterday, a social reform type blog posted an article that did just that. Shanesha Taylor is a homeless mother of 2 that was offered an interview. Because she had no one to watch or care for he children, she had me wait in the car. When she was done with the interview, her life became much more difficult. She was then arrested and her children we taken to child protective services. Since the story did not explain why she was homeless in the first place, it still shines a bright light on the issue of single mothers and their poverty level. The article says that about 1.6 million kids in America are considered homeless and that sets them up for immediate failure as it makes it much more difficult to rise out of it. After hearing this story, many people reached out to Shanesha and donated money for her to help regain her children’s custody. As this situation was not her choice, it shows that society is constructed by giving the unfair advantage to those who need it the most. Now Shanesha and many women in similar situations have to deal with systems that will cost even more money and time. It is sad to think that people get in trouble for being in a situation they have no control over.
http://socialistworker.org/2014/04/02/the-real-crime-is-homelessness
Increasing Animosity Towards Homeless Population
Looking for recent news articles relating to homelessness, I stumbled upon one published by Diane Turbyfill in the Gaston Gazette online site entitled “Is Something Bringing Down our Downtown?”. The article focused on Gaston North Carolina where a reported increase in homeless population has been negatively impacting dining and entertainment areas by decreasing business according to the business owners. Being fed up with this, one owner reportedly created t-shirts saying “Throw the bums out, Gastonia, N.C.”, creating a media frenzy around this business. The article went on to say that while some people have formed an increasingly negative view towards the homeless as a result of this, the majority of the population in this area expressed embarrassment by the actions of this business.
Because in this city the shelters that are available to homeless populations are nearby the busy downtown area, the homeless have no other option but to walk by this part of town when going from one shelter to the other. While the people in this city have an awareness that there exists a homeless population, they don’t want these individuals to be visible in areas of high traffic business because of the simple fact that the homeless make the rest of the population uncomfortable.
In the article, the author mentioned an interview with Capt. Mark Hunter with the Salvation Army of Gastonia who described the homeless population by stating “That’s why they’re on the street. They don’t like structure. Those people are always going to remain homeless”. I found this to be extremely shocking due to the fact that this man works with the homeless population for a living. It is clear that he sees them as those who have placed themselves on the outskirts of society purposely by not adhering to social rules. In this way, he is making generalizations towards the entire homeless population when in reality the cause of homelessness cannot be summed up in this way because there are endless amounts of reasons for ending up on the street. However, his statement further illustrates the ways in which homelessness has been socially constructed to be thought of as an individual issue and not a larger structural issue.
While Hunter shows a point of view suggesting that the homeless are responsible for thier situation, when speaking about the apparent increase of homelessness in the area he stated “Ignoring it is the worst thing we can do. There’s a problem, and we just need to come together.” I think thta this is the correct way of looking at tackling the issue of homelessness that should be encouraged in this town and everywhere. The problem with this is that members of society are so far removed from the homeless population. Just like these business owners who wanted something done about the increase of homeless in front of their businesses, people generally want to pretend homelessness does not exist by keeping themselves far removed from it. Out of sight, out of mind.
Raising the Minimum Wage
I saw this image on an Upworthy article, which can be found here. This map shows how many hours a minimum wage worker in each state would have to work per week simply to afford a 2 bedroom apartment, without paying more than 30% of their income. Not a single state’s minimum wage is high enough to adequately cover the costs of housing without working at least 65 hours a week. This means that housed minimum wage workers are either having to sacrifice other necessities for life such as food, child care, transportation, etc., or they are having to work two or more low wage jobs. Most likely, many low wage workers are doing both of these things just to survive.
We have seen several examples throughout this course (and on this blog) that show that a huge cause of homelessness is the imbalance of housing costs and wages in America. It seems so obvious that the current state this nation is in is not sustaining so many of its members. Raising the minimum wage is one way we can start addressing this issue. Gov. Peter Shumlin (Vermont) and Gov. Dan Malloy (Connecticut) wrote a piece on CNN’s Opinion section called “No brainer: Three reasons why a $10.10 minimum wage is good for America.” Their third reason was that “it’s the right thing to do. No American working 40 hours or more a week deserves to live in poverty.” The governors go on to debunk the bogus arguments many make against raising the national minimum wage: “Republican governors across the country have also stood in the way of progress. Some have pandered to stereotype, suggesting that a raise in the minimum wage should be rejected because it would only help young workers rather than acknowledging that 88% of workers who would be affected by moving the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour are over the age of 20, and more are over the age of 55 than are teenagers.”
There is no logical reason that the minimum wage shouldn’t be raised. It is clear that this would be a good start to counteracting the cost of housing and to abolishing homelessness.
How Utah Will Soon End Chronic Homelessness: A First Step?
Our Data Exercise #3 assignment pushed my level of being overwhelmed to a new height. When we ended class on Thursday with thinking about ways to possibly end these causes, I had no idea where to start or even which one to choose. Therefore, I decided to focus this week’s blog on what others are doing to end these causes. Affordable housing was one of the most common causes that were seen from Jenck’s 1980s research and the class’ updated research.
In focusing on affordable housing, a 2011 article on The Huffington Post surfaced and discussed How Utah Will Soon End Chronic Homelessness. The state of Utah has had a 26 percent drop in homelessness since 2010 and credited it to its “Ten-Year Strategic Action Plan to End Chronic Homelessness”. According to this plan, Utah will reach its goal of eliminating chronic poverty by 2014 by implementing Housingworks programs. With the Housingworks programs, the state is giving the homeless access to their own apartments that tenants will pay 30 percent of their state-facilitated income for rent, so the housing isn’t freely given. The state will also provide job training and social services to assist in keeping a job and social life. Huffington Post Blogger Anna Bahr also reports that Utah’s homelessness is at a four year low, as of 2011.
It seems that this plan had been showing progress and would help with other causes of homelessness besides just affordable housing. Does this mean we cannot just focus on eliminating one cause at a time? That these causes of homelessness are too related? In further research to see how Utah’s plan has either been successful or unsuccessful, my research fell flat. But is Utah’s plan the first step to ending these causes?
Internship at a church
One of the best ways for a student to learn is to experience the subject they are focusing on in person. But it is even more rewarding to, in addition, have individuals highly experienced in the situation to pass on information about what one has just seen.
Today was the first day that I got to start my internship and help at one of the churches located in San Bernardino. My task today was to work in the soup kitchen and help provide a free lunch for the individuals that should up between the hours of twelve to one. It was a good day to show up, because one of the regulars that usually is there was out because of an emergency, so I took her place and worked side by side with a really nice, older, Spanish-speaking lady in the kitchen. We had a number of tasks to complete and I was actually surprised and the amount of food that was donated and those we worked with. A salad, pasta, and chicken with a nice spice on it was served along side some doughnuts and lemonade. It felt quite nice to accomplish all that in a short amount of time and to have most of it gone in that hour. I ask about how many people are served during a normal lunch, which happens five days a week, and at the beginning of the month there is usually 60-70 people, but at the end of the month it shoots up to 110-120. I thought it might be due to money running out at the end of the month, and I was partly correct, but found out the real reason later on. There were a number of really nice people that I met at this time, some being the workers and some being there for the food. But as I was getting close to being done with finishing up, I met this man who talked with me for a good forty-five minutes about the shelter, the surrounding area, and a few other things. He was the IT for the church, and filled me in on the hunger and homeless in the area.
First of all he told me that none of the people in the area are ever too hungry. There is an abundance of food in the area. With about six other churches on the same street that also have free lunches, people are never in any real danger of going hungry. He said there was so much food, that some of it even goes bad. There is always some bread that is molding and the other week there was a shipment of bananas donated that were not used.
Second, he told me that the main reason that there are so many homeless people is not because of financial situations, but because of drug use. A large portion of the people coming use drugs such as crack or meth and that is the reason that there are more people later in the month. This is because money is immediately spent on drugs and as soon as their cash runs out, they come back to the church. The reason they cannot get a consistent job is because of criminal records. He made a good point, that someone may get arrested for drug use, go to jail, and then have a record for seven years, not allowing that person to get a job and get back on their feet.
The whole system needs to be looked at, because it seems to be a giant cycle keeping these people from moving on from their past, and getting stuck without anywhere to go. I plan on researching this topic further, because what he said really did change my perspective on a lot of things dealing with this topic.
The relationship between wages, poverty, and family
Link to article discussed below:
Last week we read an article called, “This Is Why Poor Peoples Bad Decisions Make Perfect Sense”, by Linda Tirado. This article brought up some truly compelling and deeply saddening truths about what the reality of being poor is, and the downward spiral that it can promote in one’s life. Linda beings the article by stating that very rarely do people actually have poverty described to them by poor people. This fact immediately stuck out to me, because the reality of the matter is that poor people hardly ever are the ones advocating for themselves. Government officials, policy makers, and political figures are constantly bombarding the television, newspapers, etc. telling the American people what it is like to be poor in the United States and how we should or should not address it, yet very rarely do you see a person who is actually experiencing and trying to overcome poverty doing the talking. As Linda continues to write she begins to describe poverty as a “day by day” lifestyle. She describes how, “… planning isn’t in the mix”, and while exhaustion, sickness, depression, etc. are all very real factors of existing in poverty, the “lifestyle” itself does not permit such physical or emotional stressors. Linda describes feeling defeated when she tries to change things in her life. She says that trying to become middle class when you have been living in poverty, “…never works out well and always makes you feel worse for having tried and failed yet again”.(Pg. 1) This aspect of poverty is one that the people of the United States need to hear about first hand from people who are living it. To be told poverty renders people helpless, hungry, cold, etc. is one thing, but to actually here the ways in which is creates this sense of hopelessness that attaches itself to the foundation of a person’s existence and self-worth is so much more. Tirado goes on to describe her life while being pregnant, and how when you are poor, your options in regards to birth control, abortion, pregnancy, etc. are all defined and limited by either money or the perceptions and misguided notions of, for the most part, strangers. She says, “Nobody likes poor people procreating, but they judge abortion even harder”.(Pg. 1) This left me feeling heartbroken for her and other women living in poverty who find themselves pregnant and in most cases, at a loss with what to do. The thought of having to tackle motherhood without the support of a family or even remote financial stability seems daunting enough, but to have the ever present understanding in your head that society does not approve of the life you are bringing your child into is a whole different aspect to motherhood that so many women face but don’t discuss. Towards the end of the article she admits that she doesn’t specifically have a problem with being a “Poor Person”, but that she has acknowledged that it is all she will ever be. The way she describes existing in poverty was so exhausting and defeating, but for her to actually write that she understands that it is all she will ever be was more than I can describe. I cannot imagine being in a situation like hers and being able to see no real way out. She does not ask for sympathy, but instead asks for understanding on a human level. I think her article truly conveyed that understanding that poverty is not a life created through bad decisions, but a life that in so many ways requires a different way of thinking, survival techniques, and a real understanding of self-defeat. This article truly stuck out to me and I think it really provided me with some of the more personal realities of homelessness that I hope this class will continue to provide.
For this class we then read an article called, “The Minimum We Can Do”,, by Arindrajit Dube. I felt that these articles provided the exact contrast and confusion surrounding this issue that we have been discussing in class. There is this huge percentage of the population existing in this crippling hopelessness that is poverty, and then there are policy makers, economists’, authors, political figures, etc. who write about ways in which these things could be fixed. I always find it strange to read about a problem that you know is currently taking place, and then reading something else that offers a way to fix it. Setting a wage standard, as suggested by Dube, is something that I believe would seriously improve the quality of life for so many Americans, yet due to various examples of how power and money dictate most of American culture, society, and policies, it has yet to be done. Dube’s article shows studies that suggest that raising the wage standard to a price that is closer to 10 dollars an hour, would in fact end up benefitting companies and corporations that feel threatened by it. The reality is that teens are no longer the majority that is existing on minimum wage. A large percentage of adults are the ones receiving minimum wage pay for the work that they do, and yet, as stated by Dube, “… the popularity of minimum wages has not translated into legislative success on the federal level”.”(Pg. 3) Of course the reality of truly being able to change the quality of life for Americans who are living in poverty would require more than just raising and indexing the minimum wage in the U.S., I would love to discuss in class the ways in which everyone thinks it would assist the overall issue.
The last thing that I have to comment on is the activity that we did for class. We had to find the cost of living for a single parent with two young children in Redlands. After really getting to look at how much the reality of living costs, it was clear that minimum wage is not enough to raise a family on, or even live off of for that matter. I was discouraged that I was unable to make the budget that we were given work and for just a moment was able to feel that type of anxiety that was being described in Tirado’s article. I look forward to getting to see if anyone in the class was able to make the budget work.
“A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”
It is amazing how far our country has come from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s declaration. There was concern about what workers’ should make for their labor. Where has it gone? In Arindrajit Dube’s’s opinion piece, The Minimum We Can Do (The New York Times, 2013), he discusses and asks questions concerning today’s federal minimum wage policies. Dube wants to know what should be done. Yet, isn’t that what everyone would want? What is fair? However, the amount of minimum wage is what is creating inequality.
This article brought me back to a previous course assignment which truly changed my perspective. The assignment was to visit the internet website inequality.is and interact with the program. It showed statistics and situations that have led to where inequality is today. It provided comparisons of my possible income based off of my gender, ethnicity, age and education, which are all factors Dube discusses in his article. It was insightful to see the varying amounts depending on if I said I was White or Hispanic. No matter what, I had a lower income because I was a female.
Could it be that prejudice is a factor in those suffering from hunger and homelessness? Reflecting back on people I have seen on the streets and gave money to, the factors seen in both Dube’s article and the inequality.is interactive hold true. The concept of “a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work” is no longer relevant. Our country needs to stop doing the minimum in order for all to receive the maximum.