I Have Lived One Year In My Cities Poorest Neighborhood; This is what I have seen

I'm no savior wrote:

First off, I would love to learn more about welfare. I'm not even sure completely how it works, let alone how it has impacted the African American community. Anyone have more insight?

What you are doing sounds really interesting. You should read Transforming Power by Linthicum. It is based on a Christian perspective, but even if you are not a Christian it has a lot of great principles for urban community planning. I've got a little less than a year until I get my masters in social work, and then I'm hoping to relocate to a depressed neighborhood in Chicago.

This next part might be a little long...

On welfare, the basic kinds of welfare are food stamps, TANF (temporary assistance to needy families), unemployment, section 8 housing, and disability. There are a couple other ways to get assistance for students, pregnant moms, or people with mental health issues.

Food stamps is based on income. I believe if you make 150% or less than the federal poverty line you will qualify. This is the most common form of welfare. Food stamps are credited with bringing most of the elderly population above the poverty line.

TANF is only for families, and I believe the time limit on that is five years for an entire lifetime. However, sometimes you can apply for extensions.

Unemployment benefits cannot be collected because of dismissal for lack of conduct. Typically people collecting this are just down on their luck. I believe the benefits run out after about two years.

Section 8 Housing vouchers are extremely hard to get in most states. While I was at a homeless shelter in Ohio, we had people waiting a couple months to get on the list to get vouchers. Once you were on the list it could be years until anything happened. These vouchers pay for designated apartments; or in some cities they will get you into the public housing projects. Sometimes the apartments will charge rent based on how much income is coming in. So a person would pay x% of their income regardless of how much or little it is.

Disability or SSDI is designed for those who have a physical or mental issue preventing them from working. Sometimes you see this abused by people with small physical ailments, but you also see many people with severe mental health issues denied because it is harder to prove that they will make the person unable to work.

It is extremely hard to adequately check the applicants. I've had one social worker say to me that about 70% of the people on welfare were just working the system. The problem is that it is a way of life for them. I could say a lot more about poverty and the inner city, but I've already almost written a book here; if you have any other questions about welfare just ask. I know I didn't really addresss how it specifically affects the african amercian population because to be honest I don't know.

Irun & Wine wrote:

To OP:

I'm curious - what, if anything, can us white, privileged suburbanites do to help people in this situation?

Having my wording read back to me makes it sound like an insult, so forgive me if anyone took it that way . . . In so many ways I am still a white, privileged suburbanite.

What can you do? Why not move to a place such as this, listen to the need and respond accordingly? I live a very, very simple life. I make less than $1000 a month, working 15-20 hours a week, but have enough left over to even save some!

Seriously, I am actually having the time of my life. I know enough people here that I'm more social than ever. My favorite part is that everyone hangs out outside! Always something going on here. Never a dull moment. I would take it over so many cookie-cutter neighborhoods I drive through every so often that feel like a ghost town after 7:00pm.

Of course, I have also had my car stolen . . . twice, which is why I now take public transportation. I did not take proper precautions the first time, but the second time it was locked behind a 10 foot fence with barbed wire at the top . . . so what can you do? :-)

Violence is is 95% drug related. Random acts of violence are just as often to occur in nice areas as they are in my neighborhood. Don't quote me on the last part, but thats what it seems like.

If you don't want to squat, you can buy a 3-5 bedroom house for $6,000 - $15,000, Put another $20,000 into it and have a home that would go for at least $200,000 in a neighborhood literally 3 miles away.

**For everyone trying to guess the city, no one has got it yet. But its interesting to hear how many places fit this description. :-( Sad.

I've been happy to read all the well-informed posts here that recognize some of the true realities in this country.

As an eight-year educator in one of the poorest, most dangerous cities in America, I can assure you all that, "just work hard and you'll make it" mentality doesn't always work in the inner-city.

When your teachers are unqualified, your parents aren't around, and your coaches are security guards, many children of color live in a world where there aren't many competent adults they can emulate or learn from. This, coupled with the lack of jobs, grocery stores, or banks within several square miles, simple errands like buying milk becomes a two-hour long venture on a city bus.

Such a life is quite different from mine and yours, whereas our families, friends, and neighbors supported us in more ways than we even realize now growing up. We are of the privileged class in this world, and we need to recognize how lucky we are before anything else.

Trust me, no one wants to be unemployed, a single-parent, hungry, or unsafe. Generational poverty, however, makes it very hard for a poor child to develop the academic and social skills necessary to get into college, graduate, and get a good paying job.

My suggestion is to experience this life, much like the original poster did, before commenting on it. I, too, was blind to the uphill lives of people in these communities until I started teaching in one.

Anyone can take out loans for college, and if they are poor like you say they are, they would probably get enough grants to pay for it all. Not to mention all the Minority scholarships.

parents who sleep till 2 pm do not care about their cildren.

when you decide to have children mr. crusader, prepare to sleep a solid 3 hours a night, then be there for them.

education is not the malady.

laziness is.

you are blogging on a website where people DECIDE WILLINGLY to go out and run, to better themselves explore their optimism, are essentially maximizers.

hooray for you and your actions - but what a martyr you.

when you have a child only one thing is important.

the child.

everything else is sacrifice.

stow the attitude - in this life, you are what you choose to be.

period.

oh, and yes i HAVE lived on less than minimum wage - and run 110 miles a week AT THE SAME TIMe- and now 25 YEARS LATER i have one child in law school, one child in a masters program, one child in an MFA program and one child a top ranked HS 800m runner.

spare me your BS.

joiwef wrote:

Anyone can take out loans for college, and if they are poor like you say they are, they would probably get enough grants to pay for it all. Not to mention all the Minority scholarships.

none of this is accurate

lol

life isn't as black and white as it appears to you. you seem to be a very fortunate person. i dont know what you running 110 miles a week has to do with anything...some people don't understand how lucky they have it in life. when you work 2-3 jobs that pay crap, unfortunately there isn't much time to sit down and ave family discussions with your children every day. there must be time for sleep somewhere. some of you are very unrealistic in your demands of others, not realizing that just because it worked for you, in a small bubble of middle class america that it would work for all.

How noble of you, writing your story - "My Year Amongst Savages".

"Whilst living amongst them I developed a certain kinship and gained valuable insight into their savage and brutish nature."

To the OP: Cleveland

Hey I know where you at. Not really.

For 2 days a month I still live in the worst ghetto where the police has had the highest casualty rate in the nation several times. TV networks do stories and movies have been made 1 block away on the main st. I took over a relatives house who passed and rent it out. 3 blocks away I keep track of my elderly folks and visit them in the house was brought home from the hospital to and grew up in.

For the rest of the month I live 500 miles away with my wife of decades and decades. We are both retired. My kids are grown. Two live overseas. I live in a wealthy neighborhood in the hills and have foo foo liberal neighbors. Our street is full of Honda Fit and Toyota Prius cars.

So I won't debate what you have written because you are right and wrong at the same time. I'm just glad someone has experienced the inner city and realize that there are good people and bad people everywhere. I still get scared everytime I go visit the old neigborhood.

Over a year ago, I moved to the poorest neighborhood in my city. It is also one of the most Violent in the nation. I did this because my convictions led me to quit reading about the cycle of poverty and actually experience it.

I am a young, Middle Class, white male, living in a neighborhood of 90% African American, 7% Latino and 3% other. (quote)

Aren’t you all treading on egg-shells here?

Note the make-up of the poverty, crime-ridden area of his city.

Would it still be such an area if the population was, for instance, 90% South Korean? 90% Polish?

I offer this as an example - and the facts speak for themselves:

Southern Rhodesia was under white rule, until the combination of UN sanctions and a a guerrilla uprising finally led to ‘free’ elections in 1979 and independence (as Zimbabwe) under a black leadership - Mugabe, in 1980.

Now, despite years of sanctions - the following is from a booklet produced in 1982 by the former British Overseas Trade Board as an aid to British companies intending to do business in the new Zimbabwe:

"Despite the severe strains imposed on Southern Rhodesia during the last few years of civil war, and to a lesser degree by UN sanctions, the economy inherited by the first government of Zimbabwe in April 1980 was sound in infrastructure and resources. External trade was in a favourable balance; foreign debt, including pre-UDI commitments, was of manageable proportions; and the inflation rate, which rose steeply in 1979, was back to a single figure."

(They were in fact, a lot off economically, than the USA is today.)

Exchange rate was Z$ 10 to the pound sterling.

The were producing so much food from the white owned farms, that not only was there plenty of food to feed the native population, they were able to export quantities to earn foreign exchange.

So now - what do we find after decades of black rule?

Well, the inflation rate was 11.2 million percent in 2009 and Z$100 trillion dollar banknotes were introduced!

Poverty, barbarism, violence and cruelty is everyday life for the natives now and with the loss of white-owned farms to produce food, millions of people are starving, their homes burned down or bulldozed by a malignant government, 3,000 die weekly of Aids and life expectancy has fallen to 34 years.

Could examples like Zimbabwe explain why the state of affairs in those American cities featured are, well - unsolvable?

The White Racist Afrikanners abandoned SA. Prior the Africans had to kill the White Afrikanners to prevent genocide. The UN never helped fill the gap. The US abandoned SA because the Cubans had systematically dismantled the CIA and Mossad spy network killing thousands of US and Israeli civilian agents in the process. Thus SA is an abandoned country with no educated class to run the country.

Edu wrote:

The White Racist Afrikanners abandoned SA. Prior the Africans had to kill the White Afrikanners to prevent genocide. The UN never helped fill the gap. The US abandoned SA because the Cubans had systematically dismantled the CIA and Mossad spy network killing thousands of US and Israeli civilian agents in the process. Thus SA is an abandoned country with no educated class to run the country.

Wh... what? I'm struggling to even start to understand what they hell you are talking about.

I'm going to go sentence by sentence:

There are still many White Afrikaaners in South Africa, ~10% of the population.

Prior to what? Your sentence structure is terrible.

What gap is the UN not filling?

I wasn't aware that the US was heavily involved with SA. In fact, I believe we were boycotting them.

Why would Cubans try to dismantle the Mossad and the CIA in South Africa? Where does Cuba come into play?

No offense intended, but you come off like a frothing lunatic when you write things like that. Clarification, please?

I Have Lived One Year In My Cities Poorest Neighborhood; This is what I have seen

I have worked for 20+ years in my city's poorest neighborhood, w/ parents and w/ children, this is what I've seen: There is little to NO interest in education. Very little interest in leaving the status-quo, and a total dependency on the entitlement way of life. It's a "sales" job day-in-and-day-out: Convincing children that there is a better way - generally speaking, they're not interested. I pursue it because of the one or two who do rise above it.

Hell.

Too bad you can't sit in on the top levels at Goldman Sachs for 12 months and see the crap they pull.

I’m afraid old chap, that the situation in South Africa is ominously starting to resemble what happened in Zimbabwe.

In 1994 there were still 85,000 white farmers in that country.

Now their numbers have more than halved and many are still leaving the sector each month due to the ethnic-cleansing campaign of the ANC, embarking on a violence-driven ethnic-cleansing drive to replace the entire sub-continent's few remaining productive agriculturalists with unproductive, agriculturally-untrained black subsistence families who are being dumped on carved-up land sites which cannot sustain their families - let alone allow any excess-food production for the rest of the 46-million-strong SA population.

In fact, white farmers now occupy only 6% of SA’s 'agriculturally viable' land - which in turn only covers twelve percent of the entire SA land surface...

The result?

South Africa's food prices have tripled year by year - caused mainly by growing shortages of staple foods such as maize, wheat, potatoes and dairy products which are no longer produced locally due to the dramatic drop in the number of white farmers.

Until five years ago, South Africa could still produce enough food to sustain its own 47-million population. However over the past few years it has also had to import massive quantities of staplefoods from off-continent for the first time in that embattled country's entire 350-year agricultural history.

joiwef wrote:

Anyone can take out loans for college, and if they are poor like you say they are, they would probably get enough grants to pay for it all. Not to mention all the Minority scholarships.

.

Wow. With your level of intelligence, you would not have live to 12 years old had you had the misfortune to be born into the poorest neighborhoods.

What a perfectly ignorant thing to say.