RillyNiceGuy wrote:I told someone a few days ago that I felt it was more important to feed children that are staving to death in others countries than to donate to send ones here to a camp for a few days. I was informed that it was more important to feed families that were starving to death in our own country than to feed some foreign kids. I have heard this remark many times. I am must say that is all my life I have never heard or read of anyone dying from lack of food in this country. If someone died from lack of food, I would have expected it to be a hugh news event. Either I have been napping or these people are full of prunes. Are they just bigots? or do they live in different circles than I?
Ok...a serious answer. I think people are going hungry in the States. I am surprised too...but there are people who are suffering despite all the social services and despite it being a rich country. Granted, poverty there is not poverty in 3rd world countries, but true suffering does exist.
One is the situation of the elderly. It comes down to mental capacity, I think. Some elderly people slip through the cracks. They want to be independent and live on their own. They may refuse help because of pride. They are unaware of meals on wheels, for example, or refuse it because of pride. Their SS check is small and their rent and utilties are high, plus the cost of medicines, even with Medicare. They have little left over for food and some eat barely at all....for some reason, somehow, they slip through all the services in the States and go hungry, or are hungry. They may not die of starvation, but they are suffering.
A documentary I once watched showed the situation of a young single mother and her children living in conditions you wouldn't imagine for the States. The mother was ignorant, uneducated, and possibly mentally handicapped to some level, i.e., not very bright. They lived in the country, away from any city, in a very rural area in an old, falling apart trailer. They did not have a car. There was no man/husband/father to help out. She had no job and several children. They were just barely surviving. They did not have running water or electricity. She received welfare, but did not manage it well. There was not enough food stamps to feed the whole family well for the whole month. Bottom line, she did not know how to work the system because of her mental/emotional limitations and she and her kids were really suffering. Were they starving? No, but part of the months they were really, really hungry. The social services of the state she lived in were limited....not much was provided because it was a poor state, and living in the country instead of the city seemed to be a limitation because of lack of access to services. There are people living like this...stark poverty...not getting adequate social services, etc.