Are people starving to death in The United States? ( Archived) (26)

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?

People without a doubt go without food/shelter within our countries of the US and Canada ...... but I don't think its to the extreme of other countries. Does it make it less shameful that we don't look after our own citizens? No ......... we should be helping those at home who need it as well as those in other countries. We waste so much that could be give to another in need ................ we simply need to open our eyes, ask questions and we'll find more than our fair share of people who we could help. We each can make a difference by simply helping one person/family.

Exactly and it's not just the people who don't work....There was a report released the other day that showed the majority of those who use food-banks acrossed Canada are those who are already working yet can't make ends meet....so the idea of people collecting welfare etc being the only starving people in this country is a fable!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been trying to help people all my life. People here will moan about not having enough money. I offer them ways to make money and help them to start......they always piss and moan some reason why they can't do it. Hundreds of times I have tried. I gave one guy boxes and boxes of stuff to have a rummage sale, he had no job, sleeping in his truck. I told him how to sell ,set up, wheel and deal. I told him how to buy out other sales and keep it going until he got a job then he could keep making money having sales. What does he do......it was to hot to be outside all day (he was outside anyway... except he would walk around in Wal mart. I was mowing my grass in the same weather) he takes the stuff and sells the whole bunch for ten dollars and goes to KFC. About seven dollars to eat. Three dollars for gas. Why not eight for gas and two to eat......find someone that needs some work done....rake yards...haul trash.....cleans out sheds....too much trouble...give me something! Here this seems to be the rule in my area.

I was told a person and tkids were starving to death. I told the person who told me this to send them to me and I would help them make some money. I asked if this person and kids had internet that I knew a way to make money that was real good. The reply was I think she does. WHAT and her kids are starving while they play with the internet. What about the people that couldn't feed themselves because things were so bad......but did not part with his like new bass boat and motor. A young woman comes to my father with tears in here eyes needing to borrow some money very badly. We thought her child had died or something. She had to have forty dollars to keep her cell phone on. She didn't need the damn thing to start with it was a toy she could not afford.

But kids digging in garbage to eat rotting food and the maggots (protein) is different than some guy waiting until a customer leaves and sitting where they were and finishing their left food. I know someone who has been do that for years. One is gross and the other is death!

Cell phones should be like national health insurance, a God given right.

You don't look underprivileged to me...

That's because I dumpster dive every evening. I save big bucks on groceries.

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.