Child Poverty

President Johnson initiated the war on poverty 50 years ago, but we have fallen into a war on the poor. We do not see that low-income working families and individuals are not paid enough to afford adequate food and market housing. Voters do not understand that subsidized food and housing, and full day preschool and grade school are essential for low-salaried families and individuals, who face homelessness and abject poverty without them.

Perhaps many of us are concerned about hunger and homelessness, and can remember times in our lives when we have cast a cold eye, or walked by a person, a parent or a child asking for help.

Homelessness is a result of extreme poverty and lack of housing. No full-time minimum wage job is sufficient to pay for market rate housing. Because of this, many millions of families are on the edge of homelessness. 6 million more units of subsidized housing are needed to meet the present need.

1. Typically, a mother in her late twenties with two children, and
2. single mothers make up 84% of families experiencing homelessness.
3. Children in 42% homeless families are less than 6 years old, and
4. families experience higher rates of separation of family members to fin housing than those living at home.
5. More than half of homeless mothers dropped out of high school.
6. 29% of adults in homeless families are working.

Eboo Patel speaks about the importance of respecting people’s diverse religious and non-religious identities. He suggests that we find ways to develop mutually inspiring relationships between people of many faiths and backgrounds, perhaps by working together on one or more common actions for the common good.

In New Orleans and Boston, as well as other cities and rural areas in the country, there are 1.6 million young people, most aged 16 to 24, and some as young as 14, who are living on their own without the supervision of an adult. These young people are referred to as “Unaccompanied Youth,” and they may live in parks, cars, hallways or hidden on the street, or undeveloped areas. In addition, there are perhaps as many or more than 10,000 unaccompanied and undocumented youth in US detention centers that are not necessarily oriented to children. Some have families here in the U.S. whom they wish to join. Many come to escape the violence they experienced in their communities in Central and South America. These children are caught while crossing our borders.

The dream for our country envisioned by republican and democratic presidents in the 1940s, 50s and 60s has given way to the unending greed of corporations and certain wealthy individuals. Now, corporations and wealthy individuals consider themselves exempt from paying their fair share, and feel entitled to the use of our taxes, to giant subsidies in the form of tax exemptions and to proportionately low tax rates.

This is not the time to cut SNAP, the food stamp program. 46 million people live in poverty as defined by the Federal government, and 21% of our children live in poverty.

There’s no basic living wage in the United States for unskilled workers who mow our lawns, fix our roads, provide care for elders and children, clean our buildings and hotel rooms and provide fast food and wash the dishes, and take care of many everyday tasks. Instead individuals, businesses and corporations rely on paying low wages and using the income from tax payments to provide subsidies with food stamps, rental vouchers, heath care, childcare and the earned income tax credit etc., etc.

We are so ready to punish others for causing misery to children, but we let those in our country suffer and die. For instance, what have we done to curb the sale of guns that are used to shoot 20,000 of our children every year, killing 5,000 and maiming many others? We don’t even know how many children are shot accidentally.

A Reminder – Promise the Children is a Unitarian Universalist – related organization that works to mobilize individuals and churches and to raise awareness of the need to advocate for children’s programs, particularly those that serve the most vulnerable. This reminder is written by Joshua Leach, a second year Master of Divinity student at Harvard Divinity School who is currently serving as a ministerial intern with Promise the Children UU.

In Massachusetts, our Governor Patrick may sign a 3 strikes bill, without considering amendments made in several other states, because mandatory life sentencing is expensive and does not increase public safety. Call the Governor today (617-725-4005) and tell him “don’t sign this bill”. A disproportionate number of prisoners in our U.S.A. jails are people of color who have committed minor crimes and sometimes no crime at all. Perhaps they are of Hispanic or African American decent. The cost of their read more…