Poverty, Slum and Homelessness

 

 

 

Slum in Mumbai, India

 

Poverty, Slum and Homelessness

 

If you have watched the miniature earth video on this post, you would have learned that most human beings are living in poverty. We shall discuss topics related to poverty, which include politics, slum and homelessness. I hope that through discussion, we can achieve a better understanding on poverty.

 

Some of the wealthiest individuals in the world are richer than some poor nations, while millions of people are living with less than 1 USD a day. The gap between rich and poor is so huge. You can imagine the wealth of the world is like a pyramid, with only a few rich people at the tip, and millions of people are lurking at the base, living in poverty. Ideally, wealth should be relatively evenly distributed and people should enjoy high quality of life, just like in Scandinavia. Is it possible that one day, everyone in this world will live such an ideal life?

 

Why some countries are poor

 

Before we learn about individual poverty, let us question why poor countries are poor. According to economists, the economical wealth of a country comes from the combination of these three resources:

 

1) Man made resource (road, factories, machines, telephone system)

 

2) Human resource (education, hardwork)

 

3) Technological resource (high-tech machines, technological know-how)

 

These three resources are abundant in rich country but lacking in poor countries. Basically, a poor country can transform itself into a rich nation by investing money into the resources mentioned above, via education and technology transfer programmes. Some countries have taken this approach and they are growing richer in a fast pace. These rapidly growing countries are China, South Korea, India, Chile, Singapore and so on.

 

This sounds like good news. Poor nations have the opportunity to escape poorness and grow rich, so the problem of poverty can be solved, right? Then how come some countries (such as in Africa) are still poor?

 

These poor countries do not have properly functioning governments.

 

Politics plays a vital role in economic growth. If a nation is ruled by a rotten government with very bad policies, it will have little hope of growing wealthy. Let us take China for example. When China was under Chairman Mao, this dictator introduced terrible policies (The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution), which severely damaged China’s economic growth. Until Deng Xiaoping took power and introduced his “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “socialist market economy”, and opened China to the global market, China started to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world and vastly raising the standard of living.

 

From this example we can see that a change of ruler or policy can make a lot of difference. Changes need to come from the correct ruler. Many poor countries suffered under corrupted, non functioning governments, which explain why they remain poor.

 

Tim Harford, the author of The Undercover Economist, went to Cameroon to learn why this country is very poor. Cameroonians are 8 times poorer than average citizen of the world and they are living under one of the most corrupted governments in the world.

 

Corruption is rampant from top to bottom. The government (dictator) is stealing money from the people, and distribute it to his supporters. Police places roadblocks to stop buses so that they can take bribe from passengers. This is a huge waste of resource since the police are busy taking bribes rather than catching criminals. Sometimes the problems are caused by neglect, where damaged infrastructure is left unfix despite complain.

 

Business and development does not function because the laws do not encourage projects and businesses. Entrepreneurs do not start official business (too difficult) and don’t pay taxes. Education is not encouraged, since jobs are not handed out based on merit (so why study?).

 

It is really hard for people living in countries like Cameroon to escape their poverty fate. Changes have to be made by the ruling body. A lot of problems cannot be solved overnight with a snap of finger. Some reforms can be made to improve the situation, which are cutting red tape and allowing small business to be legally established.

 

In conclusion, poor countries need to have properly functioning governments to become wealthy, but it is very difficult for this to happen. The military juntas and dictators are not likely to let go their power for the benefit of their people and countries. So we won’t see them grow wealthy anytime soon.

 

Types of Poverty

 

According to sociologists, there are two kinds of poverty.

 

Situational poverty happens when a family suffers negative financial changes due to illness, job loss, and other temporary events. This kind of poverty is traumatic but it has minimal lasting effects. Most probably the family will be able to escape such fate one day.

 

Generational poverty causes persistent, long term struggle to the family, where two or more generations are affected. This type of poverty is difficult to fix. The struggling of the entire family to meet basic needs leads to a “culture of poverty”, which brings ingrained beliefs that will limit the chances to future success. For example they might think crime is acceptable and there is no motivation to get good grades in school. They are poor not just physically, but also in their world views.

 

Long term effects of poverty

 

Even in rich country like America, 17% of the children are living in families with income below the federal poverty level. The lack of money due to financial instability is physically and emotionally damaging to the children and they have to struggle simply to make it to adulthood.

 

Poverty is an obstacle to future success even before a child is born. Poor pregnant mothers lack proper prenatal care and may suffer from medical conditions that increase the risk of premature birth, which leads to physical and developmental delays that cause a child to lag behind others children.

 

Mental health is another concern for those growing up in poverty. The stressful situations that come with poverty, such as job loss, divorce, death and drug addiction, might cause long term psychological harm to the psyche. The parents who are struggling to earn a living might not be able to give their children sufficient quality time, which will lead to low self esteem. The child will end up having difficulty in socializing with other people.

 

Teenagers living in poverty are more likely to commit crime and experiment with illegal drug, alcohol and unsafe sex. They tend to make bad decisions that will make life further complicated.

 

I would like to recommend you to read Freakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, and also The Logic of Life by Tim Hardford. These books give very useful insight (with a lot of data) into the effects of poverty on the life of children and teenagers. The long term effect of poverty is very damaging to a person’s life. The society as a whole is affected as well since crime is correlated to poverty. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to solve this kind of problem.

 

Slum

 

A slum is a densely populated urban area with generally low standard of living. It consists substandard housing and lacks security. In the 20^th century, slum exploded worldwide where a high number of people live in it. For example, 60% of the population in Mumbai, India is living in slum.

 

Slum forms when houses are subdivided into cramped apartments when the population becomes highly concentrated. Slum can form even in housing area that was once respectable. In slum, the access to services like healthcare, fresh food and basic sanitation is restricted. This kind of living area is filthy and densely packed with poorly constructed houses. People living in slum are extremely poor and are treated as second class citizens. They face a lot of health problems such as malnutrition and the crime rate is high.

 

The government might provide low cost housing to ease this problem but it is not that simple. It is an uphill battle as the world population is rising rapidly, which put pressure on available resources. Also, the gap between rich and poor has to be narrowed, otherwise such inequality might cause more people to live in slum. In my opinion, population control might help to reduce the severity of this problem.

 

Homelessness

 

Unlike people living in slum, homeless people have no roof over their heads. Homeless people tend to concentrate in big cities where housing cost is quite high.

 

Many homeless people start out with jobs and stable residences, but social and economic factors intervene and cause rapid changes in their living situation. Two main factors contributing to homelessness are poverty and a lack of affordable housing. A loss of job, illness and other catastrophic event might lead to missed rent or mortgage payments and ultimately, to eviction or foreclosure. This kind of poverty is situational poverty. Although some homeless people have jobs, they don’t earn enough to afford housing. Either the cost of housing is too expensive, or their income is too low, or both.

 

Other causes of homelessness are substance abuse, mental illness and domestic violence. Those who suffer alcohol or drug abuse have difficulty in finding housing. People with mental illness such as schizophrenia experience difficulty to keep job (stable income) and they have trouble finding housing and treatment. Many homeless women are fleeing abusive relationship after suffering physical abuse. Children run away from home because of sexual and physical abuse. Their misfortune does not end there as they are exposed to risk of violent attacks. Some of them are forced into having sex to pay for food, shelter and clothing.

 

Homeless people living on streets are vulnerable to abuse, attack and even rape. Some families are torn apart because some shelters won’t take boys or children. Children are taken away from their mothers and placed with relatives or in foster care. Homelessness also damages the health of children, physically and mentally.

 

Governments and private organizations are offering help to homeless people by providing food (food bank), job assistance and low cost housing. Such aids have helped homeless people to get back to normal life. I think many homeless people become homeless not because they choose to be so, but because of uncontrollable circumstances (unless they are druggie or criminals) so I think society should do their best to help them. To the very least, we should give them basic respect as they are human beings just like us. Treating them like second class citizen only make their life experience worse.

 

Conclusion

 

Poverty is a complex problem. There is no perfect solution to it and we can only do our best to improve the situation.

 

As for poor countries, the only hope for them is a change in government or policies. We cannot simply invade a country and change the government (America is silly for doing so) so this is really something out of our control. Other nations can offer to help poor countries to progress with education or technology transfer programme.

 

Rising population is a problem. When the population is too big, wealth and resources are insufficient to satisfy everyone. Each person only receives very little resource. To make things worse, poor people lack family planning and they have many children. Children cost the family a lot of money (food, clothes etc.) and the average level of education received by each child is very low (education costs money) and without sufficient education, the next generation is very likely to get stuck in poverty. Poor people should be educated in family planning and if possible, population control (depends on individual case of course, not universally) should be enforced for the good of society.

 

Philanthropy (charity, donation) can ease the problem by channelling some wealth and resources from the rich to the poor. This is a complex issue and if it is not done properly, it will do more harm than good. I will blog about it some other day. If we send money to poor people, maybe the money will get pocketed by someone else. Even if the poor people receive the money, they might misuse it. It is better to teach them how to catch a fish, then to give them a fish; one of the best charities to help them escape from poverty is giving the children access to education. At least with education, they might be able to find jobs and live a better life and hopefully they will one day help other poor people. Here’s a good example of what I mean: video

 

 

Yes, please watch that video. It shows the true meaning of sharing what you have with the very poor people. That is the essence of the 12 year old girl’s speech. It might not solve all the problems, but it will make the world a better place. We do what we can to make things better.

 

Hmmm…. Living in this world where the gap of rich and poor is so huge, is really scary. With this kind of inequality, we might have the probability of getting born as hard core poor children, which is very surreal if we think about it, as if we might be a fly getting stuck on Angelica’s pie. Listen to this song to get the surreal and eerie feel of life and reality:

 

 

 

The Fly

 

I know a colorful room
Where we can fly
And take a spin to the moon

On Aunt Angelica’s Pie

 

‘Coz I am a fly

Pie in the sky

 

Across a harvest of stars

And constellations

We’ll drink a starjuice on Mars

Miss our connection and cry

 

‘Coz I don’t know why

I am a fly

 

The major is dead

It went to his head

we gonna fly

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