Pierre Richardson
LDRS 3800
July 23, 2019
Article Review #2
A Review of Poverty and Public Housing in America
The article states the situation of poverty has been attempted to be helped with is through housing projects. The government offers housing to families and individuals with low incomes.
All you need to do is apply and meet the requirements such as lower income limits at 80% and very low income limits at 50% of the median income for the county or metropolitan area in which you choose to live (Byrne 2003). This would seem like a good deed done by our government right, but in reality these projects built by the Home and Urban Development program of our government to build housing for the people who can’t afford to have one has failed miserably. Many of these houses have been put up and are in terrible shape, and even sometimes have gone incomplete. After intensive research across the country The Washington
Post concluded, “In Newark, two partially completed duplexes sit empty in a neighborhood blighted by boarded-up homes lost to foreclosure. The government paid nearly $400,000 to build the houses, but after a decade of delays, the developer folded and never finished. The money has not been repaid.”. People living in these areas essentially labeled these places as wastelands
(Byrne 2003).

Along with media evidence that this is real in this country. These descriptions are actually doing the reality of these impoverished areas injustice. These ‘homes’ are not real homes though, but they are essentially shacks that have no doors or windows. This is no place for anyone to live, and in lieu of this these homes have turned into crack houses. This has given people no sense of pride. They work very hard at their humble blue collar jobs, and come back home to garbage. This gives many people the feeling of frustration, and for many this will create a mental block that leads to the ‘ghetto’ behavior, and violent acts that occur in the impoverished areas of America.
The people living in the ghettos of America have been under mental bondage for years.
Finding a stable source of income, a place to live, and wondering whether or not food will be on the table has been passed on through a long lineage of these people. This is why the things that go on in the projects happen. Drugs are sold because their daily job isn’t paying the bills or they can’t get one. Drugs are done because people feel like their life is worthless. Violence occurs because these people are angry, and tired of being stuck in the same hood their family has been stuck in for a century. Kids are exposed to violence and drugs at young ages. They grow up thinking it is a way of life. Childrens’ minds are already infected by these awful things right out of the womb. Their mom may as well tell them that when you get older you’re going to be a highschool dropout by 18, and you’re going to be in jail by 21. Making them a statistic.
This a reality of many people in America.

Conclusion
The best solution to get out of this is education. This is truly where all the money from the government needs to go if they really want to help anybody. Schools look rundown, there is not much new school supplies for students, and half of the time the lunch served at school is the only meal these kids will get to eat the whole day because there mom or dad can’t afford to put food on the table. Schools in these impoverished areas more times than none have teachers that could care less about how you do in class. This is what leads to the huge high school dropout rate. In these areas only 66% of its students graduate (Byrne 2003). That means almost half of these schools’ student bodies are dropping out. Where does that leave them? Their back on the streets, and the life of the hood gets to them. Then unfortunately they are back to just being a statistic.
They’re out of highschool with no diploma by 17, and they are in jail by 21.
According to the article, Dropout rates are rising at an alarming rate. The largest cities in
America have graduation rates in the 60th percentile, and are estimated to go below 50 percent
(Byrne 2003).
We need to get to these kids before it is too late. If we find ourselves dealing with half of the country’s children not graduating from high school then we are then left with no only a social issue, but an economic issue as well. With more people operating in America without high school degrees it will place more and more people in poverty.
References

Byrne, Gregory A. “TAKING STOCK OF PUBLIC HOUSING .”
HUD.gov
, 16 Sept. 2003, www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_25737.DOC.