Help. We all need it at some point in our lives and hopefully we all have received it in some form in our moment of need. But for those in poverty or living on the streets, help is most always needed but can be difficult to come by. In a world where we pride ourselves in helping others, why is it when our own people need help that we have a hard time providing that help? Why has welfare, food stamps, safe housing, or even a shelter become so hard to come by in so many places?

This struggle for help from those in poverty has been a common theme in so many of the books and articles that I have read so far. From the removal of funding for welfare, to the lack of affordable housing available for those living on barely anything it seems as though those in charge of our country, the ones with all money and power, don’t want to provide for those in need. Now this is obviously a vast generalization of our money holders, but after reading so many stories about the lack of help and the lack of funding in so many areas it makes me question the integrity of our people of power.

There is a belief that floats around among those who are not aware of what goes on underneath the surface of those in poverty, that poverty is a self-fixing problem. That if the people got themselves into it then they can get themselves out of it just as easily. But it’s not that simple. Once someone falls into the cycle of poverty it is almost impossible for him or her to get out, and our government is the one who makes it that way. For example, food stamps are the most popular form of aid from the government, but these can only buy food, nothing else. So when kids need clothes, or cars need gas, or rent needs to be paid, food stamps get you nowhere. And there are millions of people out there who food stamps are there only form of income and who will probably never break out of the poverty circle because of this restriction. To break out one needs some form of cash flow, and welfare use to be a provider of such help. So why did the government stop funding such a program? Why did help stop being provided to those in need?

We could go back and look at all of the politics and all of the bills past over the past 50 years and could probably find many reasons why government aid slowly decreased. But in my mind I think there has been a shift in society, a shift in the heart and the care that we have for others. Of course it is not fair to say that everyone has lost their heart, but I feel that a good majority of society feels that they are better than those living on 2 dollars a day and that this self fixing problem of poverty is not their problem. This mind set angers me because it shows me how naive so much of society is to what is happening around them. What about compassion? What happened to helping others? Have all of these virtues died with the changing of our society?