Tampa's Poverty Issue

Tampa's Poverty Issue

Tampa is a great place to live in. It has fun beaches, fine women and pumping clubs. I used to believe that this place couldn't have any flaws until I heard this disturbing fact. that one in five people younger than 18 live in poverty (as cited in the Hillsborough Community Atlas. Web. 06 Oct. 2010). I came across this through a email I got from one of my friends from back at home. This really shocked me while I was reading it and I felt though that I should help these underprivileged children because fix this poverty problem now because it will be harder to be fixed in the future.

According to Dictionary.com poverty is defined as the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing. Our economy is doing so bad right now that more and more people lose their jobs everyday and they are being kicked out on to the streets because they can't afford to live in their home. Dave Denslow, an economist with the University of Florida further more explains my point in an article wrote about him. The article was about todays poverty issue and what can be done about it. It stated that "According to recent censuses more and more children fall into poverty as their parents lose jobs - such as the 65,000 the Tampa Bay area shed between 2008 and 2009. In many cases, families' health insurance went with those jobs, leaving more than a half-million residents across the region without health insurance. Persistent joblessness has sapped many people's economic health, pushing them into poverty, Denslow said. Unlike the recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s, when the economy sprang back with enough vigor to avoid long-term unemployment, today's unemployed workers may spend 6 months to a year finding new work". It is utterly irresponsible that our nation is doing this to our youth and future of our society.

To see if this issue has affected other people, I took it upon myself to find someone who has personally been troubled by this poverty issue as well, and then I heard this story about my two suitemates One night they were walking home from a club, and they were approached by a homeless person who asked for money and then the homeless person shouted and chased them when they didn't give him any money. After hearing about this, I asked myself whose fault is it that they are out there and my two suitemates and I came up with many reasons they are out there. The reason that we came up that I believe is most prevalent that we came up with was that it's not always their fault that they are homeless. Maybe they have a mental disorder and the society we live kicked them out of our community because of their disorders. In the end it doesn't matter how they got there because they are there now and we have to find it in our hearts to help them get back into our community because this problem has no end.

To furthermore prove my point I decided that I should look up articles to see if this poverty issue has affected other communities like ours and I found two articles. The first article I gathered was a article from a newspaper from Rochester New York by Tim Macaluso. I decided to choose this article because I wanted to see if other places in the United States are plagued by poverty like we are here in Tampa. I was surprised to find out that poverty doesn't only strike the adults in New York, but it also strikes the children. In the article they had a statistic that said there is 50,000 homeless kids in New York. Upon hearing this I was really shocked. Did the economy turn that bad that we have kids living on the streets? It makes me really thankful about what I have. In my home town there was definitely poverty. There was some homeless adults but not kids and I come to her that there is 50000 children in New York right now that is homeless. What is the world coming to that we live in?

The other article I found was about poverty here in Tampa. It was about how many organizations were combating poverty here by making donations. Usually throwing money at something doesn't work i.e. recession but here it might actually work because when someone has no money in the first place I guess any money helps. With every donation we can help homeless people find homes and rebuild their lives. After coming up with this idea I clued in on that maybe I can make a difference. If these volunteers can make a difference to these homeless people like they did maybe I can make a difference.

Before I read these articles, I would take life for granted. I felt as though all of my possessions were never good enough and I would always wanted better when really I should have been humble in what I had. When I was younger my grandfather always said to me to be thankful for what I have because there is always somebody who has it worse out then you. I used to take this statement for granted because I thought it wasn't true until I wrote this essay. Now I am not taking anything for granted anymore and this has made me a better man.

What will it take to end poverty you may ask? I have developed several steps to end poverty. Step one is education. Education is vital to get while you are young and even more vital to have when you are older. The job field is growing rapidly. More and More jobs are requiring a higher education or at least a high school education to work there. So it is important for us here to create affordable educational opportunities for everyone on this earth. Another important thing is to have cheap and affordable special educational programs. According to a article written by Science Daily "Most of the homeless are actually people with special needs." I know in the past that you wouldn't have the opportunity to go to school if you had special needs unless you were rich. People didn't see that as a problem back then because they didn't see that we would be where we are right now with all the people with special needs being on the street. So I believe it is a key factor to create affordable educational opportunities for people with special needs because ending poverty means jobs for everyone who can and wants to work.

Affordable healthcare is another essential step to ending poverty. I recently read a article about this on the site Results.com that this is a key to the process to end poverty. People are afraid to go to hospitals more than ever now because they know they will get rejected because they can't pay or afford it. Now is it pretty messed up that in today's society a boy can't get the proper diabetes medication because wealthy doctors want to get more rich. This is why I support the Obama administration proposal of universal healthcare. The idea that even the poorest of poor can get any type of healthcare is a great thing. This