All Poor Left Behind

Reuters reports that the ranks of hungry and homeless in the U.S. is increasing and government funding for programs to help them is declining.

"The National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness surveyed 900 providers of emergency food and shelter in 32 states and found that government cuts to social programs caused nearly one-fourth of the emergency food agencies to turn people away. More than three-quarters of shelters had no place for people to stay.

The Bush Administration proposes in its new budget to cut millions of dollars in funding to the three largest federal food programs: food stamps, school lunches and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in an October 2004 report, said that 36.3 million people lived in households without enough food in 2003. The Urban Institute, based in Washington, D.C., found in a 2000 survey that 3.5 million people in the United States were homeless.

...Minimum wages in the United States do not go far toward eliminating homelessness.
The U.S. minimum wage is $5.15 an hour, but a separate survey by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that in 2004 there was no place in the United States where a person earning as much as $9.17 an hour could afford a modest two-bedroom apartment.
A quarter of U.S. workers earn $9.17 an hour or less --about $19,000 annually or a little more than the $18,850 that is the official federal poverty level for a family of four."

The same survey also found that "Many homeless shelters and soup kitchens faced with more requests for emergency services are turning people away because they lack the beds, food and money to meet the demand, says a survey from an advocacy group for low-income Americans.


The report being released Tuesday by the National Student Campaign Against Hunger & Homelessness found a 28 percent rise last year in emergency food assistance requests, and a 27 percent increase in requests for emergency shelter.

The organization surveyed 900 agencies in 32 states and gathered information from urban and rural areas. About one-quarter of the emergency food providers said they had to turn away requests for food because of a lack of resources.

And three-quarters of emergency shelter providers reported turning people away for the same reason. "

This really speaks for itself, and Bush and the Republicans are simply making it worse. For now, it is up to states and cities to take the iniative and increased the minimum wage to a living one and keep up programs to help the poor and homeless. God hears the cries of the poor, do we?