It is a new year; filled with new agendas, goals, outlooks and perhaps, new challenges. In light of the new year, there is something that seems to be eerily familiar. It has traveled in constant stride with little obstruction from year to year. Its walk is slow but persistent, somewhat like that of the monstrous villain, Jason Vorhees of “Friday the 13th.”
The national and our local antagonist is poverty!
Nationally, poverty is the fourth leading cause of death; more than 800 people a day die of poverty or poverty related impacts, totaling over 250,000 per year. Locally, homelessness has increased more than 44% in the last year, as approximately 480 individuals a night are without shelter. When we consider those sleeping on the sofas of friends and family members, bunkered down in abandoned cars, vacant homes and garages, that number is closer to 1,500. Poverty is the reality of two out of five children in the Quad Cities who do not have enough food to satisfy nutritional needs or the pangs of hunger. Poverty holds the many who have returned from incarceration with a felony conviction or arrest record, which becomes a scarlet letter – the sentence after the sentence. Poverty is more than inconvenient; it must become intolerable to people who care.
Frankly, what we have been doing has not worked but it has provided valuable lessons for new approaches. First, we must maintain a collective approach. This is neither the sole challenge of city planners, nor the chamber of commerce, nor is it the chief responsibility of our non-profits. This is our collective challenge, and it must be met with a collective mindset and commitment.
Second, we must overcome the common enemy of our collective humanity, indifference. Indifference sinks hope in a pool of despair and submerges possibilities under the floodwaters of ethnocentrism. We are at our best when we care enough to stand up, step up, and speak up for those less fortunate.
Finally, our goal must be to end the causes of poverty and eradicate its negative impact on the lives of the residents of the Quad Cities. This year we will face our challenges, we will have our losses, we will endure painful realities. But this year, together we will not only secure people but save lives, and I don’t know a higher goal in this life than to engage in work that saves and expands life for all.
The Rev. Dwight Ford is executive director of Project NOW, Inc., Rock Island. He can be reached at [email protected].
