Enlist as a foot soldier in the ongoing war on poverty

Published:Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Enlist as a foot soldier in the ongoing war on poverty

Forty-four years ago last month, President Lyndon Baines Johnson declared war on poverty in the United States.

Forty-four years later, in the United States and in Youngstown, victory remains elusive.

According to a Census report released last week, poverty in the U.S. remained stable but unacceptably high at 12.5 percent in 2007.

In Youngstown, however, the rate rose to 32.6 percent, the highest of any city in the Buckeye State.

Clearly, the numbers indicate that initiatives and programs over the past four decades have failed to fully meet the demands for both emergency help and long-term structural change needed to reduce levels of poverty.

Evidence abounds

Of course, we don’t really need cold government statistics to accent the scope and crises of our region’s underclass. Poverty stares us in the face daily.

It is on display in the national media. For example, earlier this year Republican presidential nominee John McCain chose Youngstown as a major stop on a tour of the most poverty-stricken cities in the United States. It is on display in the growth of organizations in the Mahoning Valley specifically designed to deal with hunger and helplessness in our population.

Rebecca Martinez, of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Mahoning Valley, coordinates food assistance with some 155 hunger relief organizations in the tri-county region. Demand for help in Youngstown and throughout the Valley has increased 38 percent this year.

Poverty is also on display at places like the West Front Street soup kitchen operated by the St. Vincent de Paul Society. Lines out the door and snaking down the street testify to the growing need. On Tuesday, the agency served 351 meals; in August, it served a record 6,961 meals. These ever-growing numbers need not, however, engender hopelessness. They should spark action.

For the long term expansion of decent standards of living in our community, public- and private-sector entities must work as solid partners to seek out causes of poverty and then craft viable solutions. As the reasons for poverty are many, so are the many tasks required to battle it. Activists must explore economic development, job training, educational assistance and social intervention. Groups such as Youngstown-based ACTION (Alliance for Congregational Transformation In Our Neighborhoods) ought to make it an overriding priority in the coming year.

A fitting response

For the short term, those of us fortunate enough not to be trapped in deprivation should do our parts as well. Seek out any of the myriad leaders in fighting hunger in the Valley — Second Harvest Foodbank, St. Vincent de Paul Society, United Way agencies — and volunteer time, skills or cash.

For example, as Jonathan Moffett reports in today’s Vindicator, St. Vincent de Paul is launching a community sponsorship program to fortify its arsenal of assistance. Companies, organizations, churches and other groups are asked to sponsor meals for the 300 people the society feeds each day.

Clearly, immediate help is needed, and no imminent signs suggest the scope of poverty will significantly lessen in coming weeks and months. Reaching out in some tangible means – however small – will mean at least one less person in the Youngstown area will suffer hunger pangs tomorrow night. It will also prove that we have not yet given up on Johnson’s 44-year-old fight to eradicate poverty in every nook and cranny of our nation.