From silence to savagery, pain for the poor intensifies in NC

[Mira]

 
By Gene Nichol


December 28, 2013 
 

Stacy Sanders, 39, a specialist with the Fayettteville police, checks on people living in tents underneath the Person Street Bridge spanning the Cape Fear River. Fayetteville’s homeless population is one of the largest in North Carolina.
 
 
This is the last in a yearlong series
 
 by UNC Professor Gene Nichol examining the faces and issues behind the rising poverty numbers in North Carolina. Read the other installments at newsobserver.com/ncpoverty
 
 41 The percentage of children of color living in poverty in North Carolina
5,000 The number of children reported homeless by the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District
9,000 The number of homeless veterans in North Carolina
5 Where North Carolina ranks in the country in number of hungry residents
11 Where North Carolina ranks in the number of residents living in poverty
 
We face many challenges in North Carolina, but none approaches the scourge of wrenching poverty amid plenty. In one of the most vibrant and accomplished states, in the richest nation on earth, over 18 percent of us, some 1.7 million, are officially poor. And the standard is a daunting one. A family of four living in Charlotte, for example, on an annual income of $24,000 is not classified as impoverished – though one guesses that’s little consolation as they scratch to survive.
 
It’s worse still. Over 1 in 4 of our children is poor – 41 percent of our children of color. Think on that. Over 4 in 10 of our babies, our middle-schoolers, our teenagers of color are constrained by the intense challenges of poverty. And if you are born poor here rather than in another state, you’re more apt to stay that way.
 
North Carolina has one of the country’s fastest rising poverty rates. A decade ago, we were 26th – a little better than average. Now we’re 11th, speeding past the competition. We’ve also seen, over the same period, one of the steepest increases in the ranks of the uninsured.

Two million of us are classified by the federal government as hungry – over 20 percent, the nation’s fifth-highest rate. Nearly 622,000 of our kids don’t get enough to eat. Greensboro is the country’s second-hungriest city; Asheville is ninth. Feeding America reports that, for children under 5, we have the country’s second-highest food insecurity rate, just behind Louisiana. A 2011 study deemed Winston-Salem America’s worst city for childhood food hardship.

A national report last month named Roanoke Rapids and Lumberton two of the three poorest cities in the nation. Robeson County has America’s third-highest food stamp participation rate. The number of homeless K-12 students in North Carolina rose dramatically between 2010 and 2012. We have, statewide, over 9,000 homeless veterans.

As this series has documented, hundreds of those vets live under bridges and along wood lines in Fayetteville, often fresh from battlefields. Some 250 wounded souls occupy tents and cardboard dwellings in otherwise bucolic forests, outside Hickory, unable to find relief in over-pressed shelters. Hundreds line up, before 6 each morning, at Crisis Ministries in Charlotte, trying to avoid the ravages of homelessness.

Over a thousand Tar Heels recently stood on line outside the civic center in Fayetteville – many for over 30 hours – hoping to get generously proffered dental services. No small number had to be turned away. This year, due to inadequate support, sponsors were forced to cancel most of the previously scheduled clinics.

As economic engines rev across parts of Charlotte and Durham, isolated neighborhoods experience mushrooming, and terrifying, child poverty rates – sometimes exceeding 80 percent. And families scramble to exist, almost unseen even to their neighbors, without access to electricity, sewer and clean water.

That’s an earful. A fusillade. More than even a patient reader can be expected to endure. I understand that. What I don’t understand – and I have tried – is the reaction of our political leaders to it.

there is more but I have to abbreviate

read all of it at this link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/12/28/3488213/from-silence-to-savagery-pain.html#storylink=cpy

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley distinguished professor at the UNC School of Law and director of the school’s Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. He doesn’t speak for UNC.

[Triana]

1. Tweet the stats to: @NCLeg @NCHouseSpeaker @PatMcCroryNC

I know they don't see the tweets but their staffers probably do. If they're so proud of themselves, let's rub their noses in it.

[egold2604]

2. Remember, to the Christian Right, the poor are not loved by Jesus.

[nilesobek]

3. Start handing out land grants to homeless

a few acres at a time. The people are already living outside for God's sake. Are we running out of land or does a tiny percentage of the population own mostly all the land?

They could set up their motorhomes on the land and build outhouses etc.