Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Poverty-Stricken And Homeless

It is a growing phenomenon. In the United States there is now an estimated 42-million Americans living under the poverty line. Which is to say a family of four living with an income of $22,000 annually. The United States of America, the most powerful nation on Earth, the most influential and wealthy, has a 17% poverty rate. Too many Americans are unemployed, around 19%. The numbers would be higher if they accounted for young people losing their independence, moving back home.

This, in a country that, although wealthy, has inadequate social support systems, and a medical-hospitalization system that favours the wealthy, with millions of Americans unable to afford health insurance. Of course such social and economic situations have a way of eventually fixing themselves as a country begins to haul itself out of recession. But this has been a long recession, and there are signs that recovery, slow to begin with, is waning.

Europe has it no better. In Greece, the number of homeless people has increased about 20 to 25% in two years. In a country where young adults have traditionally remained at home until they become financially independent, and where parental pensions often shore up support for young families, finances have slumped to the point where there are no safety nets.

First came the international financial melt-down, then the recession, and the need for countries to institute austerity measures, with people seeing social assistance slipping away with benefit cuts pushing greater numbers of people into desperate straits with rising unemployment. "I never thought this could happen to me. I later realized how thin the line is. It can happen to anyone. We are all potentially homeless."

The homeless, if they are fortunate, now live in public shelters. They are fed their meals communally. They represent those workers hardest hit by the recession, at first construction workers. Some homeless people distance themselves from their families, unwilling to admit that their situation is so hopeless. "I don't want them to know. I would feel bad, and so would they."

Many more homeless people find comfort in sleeping bags set up in alleyways, rummaging through garbage cans to search for food or salvageable scraps of metal or glass that can be sold for a pittance for recycling purposes. Greek unemployment now stands at over 16%, and the unemployed now represent all manner of trades and occupations.

In Italy austerity measures have been introduced in an effort to postpone if not stave off entirely a looming fiscal crisis. Traditions of family solidarity have been strained to the limit. "There are more people in the 'grey zone' that are not living in extreme poverty but can't get to the end of the month with the income they have, such as one-parent families and the elderly," the Sant Egidio charity representative explains.

"More people are splitting up and the economic crisis has lowered real incomes, increased unemployment and worsened the housing situation", said a spokesperson for Italy's largest charity, Caritas. The highest European Union unemployment is in Spain at 21%, where belt-tightening measures have been instituted to attempt to avoid a Eurozone rescue and where homeless shelters are welcoming 15.7% more people than in previous years.

Britain too has seen homelessness rise by 10% to 44,000 households in the past year alone. High unemployment and a chronic shortage of housing has impacted France, which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development identifies as the most generous welfare state in the world. France's homeless population rose to 150,000 in early 2011.

In the words of a young Athenian, echoing the aspirations of all the homeless: "My plans for a home and a family may have collapsed, but this is still my dream."

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posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 13, 2011

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