Poverty is right up there with abortion, gun laws, legalization of drugs, climate change, COVID-19 recovery, human rights, international agreements and so much more.
Who caused it?
Who is controlling, feeding into, or profiting from it?
Who is most affected?
Matthew Desmond, author of Poverty: By America, came to Oklahoma City University this past year to help put an end to the outdated, yet prominent stance of “just make more money” or “just work harder.”
Even though this book can be overlooked because of its disengaging or advanced interpretation based on statistics, it also describes his firsthand experiences growing up poor and what that looks like in today’s age.
The misconception that homeless people are all drug addicts or do not apply themselves could not be further from the truth.
Desmond talks about the culmination of improper use of government budget, allocated funds not being reasonably available and discrimination across races and genders with the distribution of resources such as housing location and education.
This is only the start of the true causes of poverty.
Another lie this “aware” society likes to feed into is the publicized glamorized realities.
In a similar source from the website Forbes, they talk about Walmart bragging about their Earth-conscious mission with electric car charging ports. What they fail to mention in the Instagram posts and TV commercials are the $76 billion in tax havens largely located in Luxembourg “where it has no retail presence”.
Like foreign tax havens allowing companies to hide behind a smile, affordable and sustainable housing is misconstrued.
The individuals in richer neighborhoods can give thousands to the building of affordable homes, but until they let those poorer individuals and families live side by side with them, there will always be a large poverty gap.
This would make a bigger impact than people believe because of the types of businesses and activities poor individuals attract. By mixing healthy, safe and adorable homes within richer neighborhoods, the standard of public resources such as transportation, schools, parks, local businesses, etc. would increase.
By the end of the book, Desmond breaks his unbiased tone and reasoning by attempting to give readers proactive measures to all the problems he has brought to the surface.
These factors are something worth contemplating during this awareness month and beyond to better educate and advocate for change – not just to be aware that a problem exists.
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