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Looking Poverty in the Eye
YES! Magazine / Video Report
Published: Sunday 23 September 2012
In the Chicago suburbs, a single dad was laid off from his bank and is now a regular at the local food pantry, trying to make it by with three kids.
From Emmy Award-winning producer Linda Midgett, The Line is an arresting documentary chronicling the new face of poverty in America. As Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis puts it, "more and more of our friends are in poverty—in the pews, in our workplaces—through no fault of their own, and they are slipping below the poverty level."
In the Chicago suburbs, a single dad was laid off from his bank and is now a regular at the local food pantry, trying to make it by with three kids.
On the Gulf Coast, a fisherman struggles in the wake of the BP oil spill and Hurricane Katrina, environmental crises that may mean the loss of his livelihood.
In North Carolina, we see that hard work and determination don't always lead to success.
What does this mean for the future of our country? How does it change the narrative about poverty to hear the stories of the people living in it, and look them in the eyes?
What can we do about it?
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By Tara Culp- Ressler
5 comments on "Looking Poverty in the Eye"
September 23, 2012 12:47pm
It's the high cost of housing, insurance, medical and now food. People are spending all of their income on Necessities of life and they can't make enough money to cover those necessities. There is a new subculture of many thousands of homeless that has been increasing since the early 80's. I watched it grow in great numbers over the past years as I worked with the homeless population on Los Angeles Skid Row for 20 years. First a few men, then women and men, then women and men with children as it reached many, many thousands. I took the job in the early 90's because of the population explosion of the homeless I watched in NYC in the early 80's when I lived there before moving to Los Angeles in 1992. It coincides with the Republican philosophy of "trickle down" as well as the high cost of housing. There is actually no way to get an accurate count of the homeless as there is also a nomadic culture of homeless who live in vans and RV's (not their choice) and they don't want anyone to know they are homeless (I've talked to hundreds) and there are many articles about the silent homeless out there as well.
September 23, 2012 11:41am
In a shrionking economy, and due to ec ological collapse the US economy is on a long term path to shrink, the only way to end poverty is redistribution and greater equality. Check out
http://prosperityforri.com/38-studios-and-economic-development-in-rhode-...
September 23, 2012 11:26am
I've often wondered if Americans have the internal strength and the compassion for others to help each other survive another Great Depression. We'll see.
September 23, 2012 9:40am
Ask Mitt. I'm sure he has the answer.
September 25, 2012 11:04am
Mitt's answer is that "those people" have the social safety net of the welfare state to catch them when they need it. Just like his Grandfather did when he came to America without papers to escape fighting in Mexico, and worked his way out of poverty. It's the huge size of this government teat that's responsible for poverty today, making people dependent on the government and sapping their character and moral strength, taking away their will to work.
The fact that there is no welfare state, that the "safety net" has been shredded, that even families with children are only eligible for one-time, temporary aid in some areas, that "food stamps" are only a supplement to keep people from starving and also to promote agriculture, that those who work full-time need charity and food stamps to make ends meet, and that we don't all start out at the same starting line, get the same running shoes, the same height of hurdles, and that its our parents' wealth that counts most, are the run-on sentence that Mittens and friends don't want to, and won't hear.