2010 Buffalo Poverty Challenge

We invite you to join us for the 2010 Buffalo Poverty Challenge!

The Poverty Challenge is an exercise aimed at transforming how our community thinks about poverty and how to end it. Participants can attempt to live on the budget of a minimum wage worker or on the budget of someone at the federal poverty level.

Prominent local politcal, community, and business leaders like Mickey Kearns of Buffalo’s Common Council, Aaron Bartley of PUSH, and the Vukelic family of Try-it Distributing have taken the challenge. Visit www.povertychallenge.com to see their blog posts and videos about the diffculties they faced living at the poverty level.

This year we are partnering with www.WNYmedia.net who will be hosting the Poverty Challenge on their website.

To participate send an email to:

info@wnyhomeless.org

Write “I want to take the Poverty Challenge” in the subject.

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Smart Business Decisions: Ending Poverty

Over the past few decades and especially since the onset of  the “Great Recession,” city, county, and state governments around the country have had to cope with increasingly dire budget deficits. The go-to solution for many policy makers has been to make large funding cuts to programs that address poverty and inequality.

While this may help balance some budgets in the short term, recent reports find that not addressing poverty and inequality, especially child poverty, ends up costing billions more in the long term.

In 2007 the Center for American Progress released The Economic Costs of Poverty in the United States: Subsequent Effects of Children Growing Up Poor. In it they found:

Most arguments for reducing poverty in the U.S., especially among children, rest on a moral case for doing so—one that emphasizes the unfairness of child poverty, and how it runs counter to our national creed of equal opportunity for all.

But there is also an economic case for reducing child poverty. When children grow up in poverty, they are somewhat more likely than non-poor children to have low earnings as adults, which in turn reflects lower workforce productivity. They are also somewhat more likely to engage in crime (though that’s not the case for the vast majority) and to have poor health later in life. Their reduced productive activity generates a direct loss of goods and services to the U.S. economy.

What’s more, crime often imposes large monetary costs to the taxpayer, costs associated with administering our huge criminal justice system. And their poor health generates illness and early mortality which not only require large healthcare expenditures, but also will  impede productivity and ultimately reduce their quality and quantity of life.

How much does childhood poverty end up costing the country?

The Center for American Progress’ report results suggest that the costs associated with childhood poverty  to the U.S. total about $500B per year, or the equivalent of nearly 4 percent of GDP.

In 2008 the Human Services Policy Center at the University of Washington released The Cost of Child Poverty State by State which broke down those costs by state.

The annual cost of New York’s 888,000 children growing up in poverty?

$33.4 billion.

Thanks to the New York State Community Action Association’s recently released 2010 New York State Poverty Report we can break that down by county.

The annual cost of Erie County’s 39,528 children growing up in poverty?

$1.51 billion.

This begs the question:

When running government like a business, does it not make sense to invest in ending poverty?

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Buffalo Poverty Research Workshop: February 26, 2010

Buffalo Poverty Research Workshop

Friday, February 26, 2010
1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Networking Reception: 4:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Merriweather Library
1324 Jefferson Avenue (at E. Utica) | Buffalo, New York 14208

Buffalo Poverty Research Workshop – Flyer (pdf)

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Thanksgiving Dining Room Schedule

Friends,

A number of local organizations are hosting free Thanksgiving dinners this year.  Below is a link to a full listing of dinners in Erie County.  Please spread the word!

2009 Thanksgiving Dining Room Schedule

-HAWNY

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Hotels for the wealthy, expensive jails for the rest of us.

Developer Mark Croce will be receiving a $1.35 million hand-out from New York State tax payers to turn a vacant downtown building into an “upscale boutique hotel at Franklin and West Huron streets.” Croce is “convinced there’s a market for an upscale boutique hotel that offers larger rooms with some unique amenities.”

This handout is coming in the form of a Restore NY grant which is intended to “stabilize neighborhoods and revitalize urban areas.”

Which neighborhood is being stabilized here?

Who will benefit from this kind of urban revitalization? The “upscale” market Croce is convinced is out there–we’ll say those households making more than $150,000/year–accounts for about 3% of households in Buffalo.

In other words, $1.35 million of public money will be used to provide a tiny part of the community with presidential suites, pent-houses, and “unique amenities.”

This is money that could be used to stabilize or revitalize the neighborhoods of the 30.3% of people living in poverty in Buffalo, still the third poorest city in the country. This money could even be used to provide basic housing to the hundreds of individuals and families that are homeless on any given day in Buffalo.

Instead this public money will be used to help a wealthy developer provide upscale hotel suites for wealthy travelers and community members.

The County is also looking to tear down buildings in downtown Buffalo. In an effort to avoid being held responsible to Constitutional standards for jails and prisons, the county wants to build a new multimillion dollar county lockup downtown.

Hotels for the wealthy, expensive jails for the rest of us.

Is this how the people of Buffalo and Erie County want their money spent?

Does this benefit the whole or even very much of the community?

Or does it continue to subsidize wealthy developers and their clients while a third of the city lives in poverty?

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U.S. Census Bureau Releases Metropolitan Poverty Data (click to zoom in)

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The Green Jobs Movement: An Answer to Buffalo’s Poverty Crisis?

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News Not Fit to Print?

This article from a few weeks ago does a nice job demonstrating how mass media sources (conservative and liberal alike) neglect to cover structural inequalities, instead focusing on issues of individual responsibility.  Here at HAWNY we hope to provide an alternative understanding of poverty and policy/action related to poverty which focuses on the root economic/social inequalties that impoverish vast numbers of people here in Western New York and throughout the country.

News Not Fit to Print?

Structural Inequality

By DEDRICK MUHAMMAD

Last week President Obama spoke boldly about persistent racial discrimination and criticized the “structural inequality” that presents “the steepest barrier” to African American equality in the 21st century.

Speaking before a crowd at the centennial convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he highlighted the need for government action to help tear down these barriers.

So it was a surprise to see this headline on the New York Times story covering the event: “Obama Tells Fellow Blacks: ‘No Excuses’ for Failure.”

Somehow the Times saw fit to dismiss Obama’s meaningful acknowledgement of continued discrimination and, instead, portray his speech as a dose of “tough love” to black America.

The Times was not alone, though. The Huffington Post, a purportedly more liberal outlet, titled its article “Your destiny is in your hands … ‘No excuses.’”

It is true that President Obama borrowed a page from the book of black leaders as diverse as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Rev. Al Sharpton and Minister Louis Farrakhan in outlining the need for black self-empowerment. But it was a damaging oversight to ignore the president’s recognition of systemic inequality and the policy solutions he laid out to reform these systems.

By addressing the living legacy of white supremacy, African-American socio-economic disenfranchisement, President Obama advanced the discussion of racial inequality.

The president pointed out that the African American community still suffers from discrimination and is disproportionately hurt by a recession and the boom/bust economy that has broadened economic inequality throughout the country. He included policy proposals ranging from changes to tax policy, health care, education and housing to improve the condition of African Americans.

One of the most repeated themes in Obama’s address was that the nation’s racial inequality is not an African-American problem, but rather a problem of our entire nation. Yet if you read the New York Times, you’d think the president was simply scolding African Americans for failing to live up to their potential.

I had hoped for more from the leading newspaper in the country. Not only should the Times have reported on what Obama actually said, but as is done concerning other important policy matters, it should have also examined whether Obama’s prescriptions were adequate for the ongoing racial economic divide.

As someone who studies the racial economic divide, particularly between African-Americans and whites, my strongest criticism of the address is that Obama’s policy solutions are not strong enough to overcome the structural inequality suffered by African Americans. African Americans have only 10 percent of the wealth of white Americans and they are segregated into the most disenfranchised communities. On top of that, their job loss rate has been far higher than the rest of American’s during our current economic crisis.

When I first read President Obama’s address to the NAACP, I had a mixed reaction. I was glad to have a president who saw government responsibility for the structural inequality developed through decades of discrimination. At the same time, I found myself disappointed that he did not advocate for stronger measures, like an equity assessment of all future federal spending to ensure that government funds do not solidify the racial economic divide.

Yet after reading news coverage of President Obama’s address, I realized that his discussion of structural inequality is beyond what most Americans are prepared to deal with, or at least beyond what The New York Times sees as news that’s fit to print.

Dedrick Muhammad is the senior organizer and research associate for the Inequality and Common Good Project of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. – www.ips-dc.org

http://www.counterpunch.org/muhammad07222009.html

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Charity, the Impoverished, and the Wealthy

During the Poverty Challenge we received a ton of interesting thoughts and comments in the Poverty Challenge Blog as well as from people who have previously taken the Challenge.  In an interview for this years Poverty Challenge, Rev. Drew Ludwig talks about an experience he had last year while taking the Challenge:

For those of you who can’t watch the video, Rev. Ludwig talks about how he went to see a friend in the hospital.  His friend really wanted a coke, something that you couldn’t get in the hospital, and Rev. Ludwig was presented with a moral dilemma.  Buying a coke for his friend would probably put him over budget and mean that he couldn’t eat dinner but at the same time this was such a small request that it was hard to turn down.  Living on poverty level budget meant that Rev. Ludwig had to agonize over even very small acts of charity, something that you may never have to think about if you have a higher income.

Another story comes from Sr. Sharon Goodremote.  While thinking about how she will have to change things in order to stick to a poverty level budget she was confronted with a dilemma much like the one Rev. Ludwig had to face.  A Sister she lived with needed a ride somewhere but this would mean getting more gas for her car, which would put her way over her poverty level budget.  She thought:

“Normally, there would be not thought – of course I can do that.  But because tomorrow I am living in poverty, my answer would need to be, I can’t help you, because I need to get to work and don’t have the extra money to take you to work.  Or my answer could be, yes, I’ll take you to work – knowing that I wouldn’t be able to have lunch tomorrow in order to have enough for gas after helping her.”

Like Rev. Ludwig she had to make the choice to either help a friend out and blow the poverty level budget or not help a friend, even if it was just giving someone a ride.  For those living at the poverty level this is a daily dilemma as many people living in poverty, especially those living in the ghettos, have friends or family living in poverty who could use some help.  Financially the person must decline requests for charity or risk getting farther behind but many times impoverished people go ahead and help people out even if it sets them farther back.  Sr. Goodremote noted this tendency of low-income people to give even when they have very little:

It is interesting to me that I immediately thought that I would just say no, yet knowing people who live in poverty are often more generous than people who “have”, I decided not to have lunch tomorrow so I could be of help to someone else.  I am grateful for the example of the people I know who live in poverty who are willing to go that extra mile for others.

Sr. Goodremote is not alone in noticing this trend.  Reading change.org’s Poverty in America blog I saw this post by Leigh Graham who found an article in the Miami Herald about how according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the poor donate more to charities percentage wise than the extremely wealthy.  Read the full article here.

The article titled “They are more generous — even in hard times” describes how the poorest fifth of Americans gave more than twice as much to charity (4.3% of income) as the wealthiest fifth gave (2.1% of income).  Statistics like these conflict with the dominant stereotypes about poor people being morally bankrupt and “leaching off the system”.  These statistics about charitable giving show that income has nothing to do with a person’s moral character.  It shows the poor actually being statistically more charitable than the wealthy.  This is not to say that the wealthy have less concern for the plight of others but it does help refute claims that the poor are as irresponsible and selfish as many people in society feel that they are.

Stories like the ones from Rev. Ludwig, Sr. Goodremote, and the article from the Miami Herald help challenge the myths and stereotypes surround those in poverty and those who are homeless.  They ask us to review and rethink the ideas we have about impoverished people and open our minds to the idea that income does not dictate moral character.

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GM Bankruptcy and Poverty in Buffalo

One of the main purposes of the Poverty Challenge is to dispel myths and stereotypes about homeless and low-income people and shift our attention to the economic and social inequalities that create and perpetuate the grinding poverty in Buffalo.  A dominant message in our society is that poor people are to blame for their poverty.  That they make bad choices and do not try hard enough to get out of poverty.  Hopefully by taking the Challenge, people will be able to see how difficult it is to live in poverty, let alone move out of poverty with out any outside assistance.

Where do we focus if we shift our attention away from poor people being the cause of their own poverty?  One place that we can focus on is the very intimidating and complex issue of economic inequality.  Obviously there are a number of different sources of economic inequality and it is impossible to separate complex social inequalities from these already complex economic inequalities.

But in his second Poverty Challenge blog Aaron Bartley, of PUSH, touches on one source of economic inequality that has been a major part of Buffalo’s long term economic bottoming out:

Today’s General Motors bankruptcy is symbolic to me of the millions of industrial jobs lost in this country over the last forty years, and all the pain and suffering that continues to cause Buffalonians and others.

A recent Buffalo News article also reported the bankruptcy and what this means for GM workers in WNY.  In “Layoffs slated at GM’s Tonawanda plant”, Matt Glynn reports that the General Motors Corp. engine plant in the Town of Tonawanda will likely face layoffs of up to 261 workers.  Layoffs at this plant are not new; in 1989 the plant employed 4,350 people, in 2003 the plant employed 2,003 people, and after this latest round of layoffs the number could go down to 610 workers.

These were jobs that, through the efforts of local unions, had good wages and benefits.  The kind of jobs that helped build the modern American middle class and kept thousands of local families living comfortably with relatively secure futures.

The loss of these jobs has forced thousands of workers into unemployment and as other industries left the area, local workers were left with few options for employment.  Many of the jobs left in the Buffalo area for high school graduates (which is the highest level of education many people can complete because of financial restrictions among other reasons) are low paying, benefit-less, service sector jobs that are often times part-time.

As Bartley pointed out, the GM’s bankruptcy is symbolic.  It means the loss of even more of what’s left of the well-paying jobs that employed thousands during Buffalo’s heyday.  As made clear through the Challenge, losing income (through both unemployment and the replacement of good paying jobs with very low paying jobs) means not being able to eat and pay the bills; it means that one will be forced into poverty.

Economic changes and inequalities like the layoffs at GM plants are a large part of what has made Buffalo the third poorest city in America.  Policy and action in the area must take into considertaion the loss of  well-paying jobs like the ones that GM offered and strive to create more well-paying jobs.

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