The woman calling herself “Istanbul” sat outside the Camas
Public Library Monday evening, her worldly possessions
spread around her.
“I’m trying to dry them,” she
said, pointing to the array of blankets she’d fanned on the
grassy hillside. “So they don’t get moldy.” Asked if
she was sleeping on the streets, the woman nodded. “I
try to find someplace dry, someplace covered,” she said.
She had recently been burned in a fire, the woman added,
pointing to her head, which was covered in a substance that
looked and smelled like mustard — something known to relieve
the pain of burns. “I lost my apartment,” she said.
“There was an electrical fire.” Did she feel safe
sleeping out in the open? “I guess,” she replied. “My
clothes are still here.” Did she need anything?
“I had ice cream today — from Dairy Queen. It was really
good,” she replied. “So, I feel full today.”
Across
the street, inside Camas City Hall, the city council’s Feb.
5 work session had just begun. The woman had no way of
knowing, but inside City Hall, a group of concerned business
owners had gathered before the Camas City Council to talk
about people just like her.
Nov
2016
Who Is My Neighbor? The Face of Poverty in
Washington State
A Pastoral letter from the Catholic Bishops of the State of
Washington
“I want a Church which is poor and for
the poor. They have much to teach us. … We need to let
ourselves be evangelized by them.” – Pope Francis,
Evangelii Gaudium, no. 198
The Face of Poverty Poverty has a
face. It is more than an issue to be discussed or a
problem to be solved. Poverty has a human face. It is
the face of Linda, who, while out of work and raising
her family, often did not know how she would provide the
next meal for her children. At times she put food
coloring in the children’s eggs, just to make mealtime
less monotonous. Linda has stage 4 cancer, and her
limited access to adequate health care adds a
disquieting uncertainty to her bleak prognosis. But
Linda is a fighter who has overcome drug addiction and
homelessness, and now she’s helping raise her
grandchildren.
... This year more than 100 Christian leaders from the
Circle have asked a question of the presidential
candidates — both Democrat and Republican — on the day
they announced their decision to run: “What would you do
as president to offer help and opportunity to hungry and
poor people in the United States and around the
world?” We asked each one to submit a brief video
explaining their answer.
Paris (AFP)
- Wealth accumulated by the richest one percent will
exceed that of the other 99 percent in 2016, the Oxfam
charity said Monday, ahead of the annual meeting of the
world's most powerful at Davos, Switzerland. "The scale
of global inequality is quite simply staggering and
despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the
gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast,"
Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said. The
richest one percent's share of global wealth increased
from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014, the
British charity said in a report, adding that it will be
more that 50 percent in 2016.
There have been claims of inaccuracy in
this video, one being that children who naturally do not
have wealth are not excluded from the numbers used.
Still, we present the video for your consideration with
links to rebuttals below. One question we have is how
much does sexual immorality and legalized abortion
contribute to the wealth gap. Does the sexual freedom
practiced by some with the corresponding freedom from
children cause differences in wealth?
During the 20th century,
the United States experienced two major trends in income
distribution. The first, termed the "Great Compression" by
economists Claudia Goldin of Harvard and Robert Margo of Boston
University, was egalitarian. From 1940 to 1973, incomes became more
equal. The share taken by the very richest Americans (i.e., the top
1 percent and the top 0.1 percent) shrank. The second trend, termed
the "Great Divergence" by economist Paul Krugman of Princeton (and
the New York Times op-ed
page), was inegalitarian. From 1979 to the present, incomes have
become less equal. The share taken by the very richest Americans
increased.
