I think Annie does make some good points. Poverty is not a simple problem; it is a whole series of complex issues that has to do with living situation, family, neighborhood, etc.
I was, at one time, below the legal poverty line. I did not feel “disadvantaged”, because I had my family as a backup, had an okay place to live and basically few worries. I was not hungry, and I certainly did not have to suffer the same problems as members of the “underclass”.
I am reminded of a time I was deer hunting in Wythe County, Virginia. Coming down Big Walker Mouintain, I followed an old “trace” – perhaps a wagon road at one time. There in the woods I found a building. Inside was a huge cast iron cauldron, set in stones, with a firebox below and a flue behind. All around it were tin spouts – thousands of them.
This was a maple sugar refinery – now allowed to fall into ruin.
What irony! A couple of generations earlier, people tapped maple trees, made sugar, raised crops, put in gardens – and lived well. Yet all around me in my time was poverty – people who didn’t have the things their grandparents made for themselves.
But that seems to be the whole point- food stamps are at best a temporary solution, or a safety net for someone who wouldn’t or couldn’t save enough. They don’t address the real problems.
The point can be made that food stamps – and welfare in general – is more a part of the problem than of the solution. The welfare culture has become institutionalized amongst us.
I would suggest that terms like “working poor” give an impression that might be only partially accurate. A person might have a job for the time being, yet still have a chaotic job history and lifestyle. Neighborhoods are bad because those who live there (only some, not necessarily all) live badly.
I am reminded of the case of the woman found dead from exposure sitting on a bus stop bench in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the last administration. The Secretary of HUD (Henry Cisneros) considered it – at first – an indictment of his department.
But on investigation, they found the woman had a plastic wallet on a string around her neck. In that wallet, they found several hundred dollars in cash and a ticket for a bed at a shelter for that night. They also found that she had a family that was out looking for her.
Now, how do you help a person like that? She didn’t die because she lacked money, shelter or family – she chose not to take advantage of them.
Some would say, “She’s mentally disturbed – put her in an institution.” But she’s committed no crime, and doesn’t want to go to an institution. And if you start locking people up “for their own good,” where will you stop?
As far as I’m concerned, anti poverty efforts need to start with stabilizing the family, and encouraging marriage where reasonable. Even addiction and work ethic issues ultimately flow from there, because if a person doesn’t feel that they have someone to care for them it’s terribly hard to strive to overcome other problems. I would dare say that’s why religiously based anti poverty efforts can be so successful- they give a person some reason to live better.
The problem is our anti-poverty programs
caused the destabilization. The man-in-the-house rule broke up families. Urban renewal broke up working neighborhoods and condemned people to live in depersonalized “projects” where anomie, crime and drugs ran rampant.
Paying more welfare for more out-of-wedlock children produced more such children. Allowing schools to operate without accountability for their product resulted in uneducated chidren.
The system fed – and feeds – on itself. In the words of Pogo Possum, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” With hearts full of charity and a determination to help the poor, we created a disaster.
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