Jane Addams and the women of Hull House pioneered a model of social work practice which calls for living and working in a poor neighborhood. Many others, in and out of social work, have tried the same idea.
One of those, Dorothy Day, founded the Catholic Worker. She wrote hundreds of columns about her work. Here's a excerpt from one. Though originally written in 1952, it seems very contemporary: "We need always to be thinking and writing about poverty, for if we are not among its victims its reality fades from us. We must talk about poverty, because people insulated by their own comfort lose sight of it.
"So many decent people come in to visit and tell us how their families were brought up in poverty...They contend that healthful habits and a stable family situation enable people to escape from the poverty class, no matter how mean the slum they may once have been forced to live in. So why can't everybody do it?
"No, these people don't know about the poor. Their conception of poverty is of something neat and well ordered....Maybe no one can be told; maybe they will have to experience it.
"Or maybe it is a grace which they must pray for...I am convinced that it is the grace we most need in this age of crisis, this time when expenditures reach into the billions to defend "our American way of life."
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11 comments:
Jane Addams imagined one of social work's roles as bringing together the rich and poor to learn from each other. She called that the "mutual exchange" which all in social work should be encouraging.
The news, which seems to be a key informant, I feel needs to report more on the crisis of poverty in our world today. It's seems as if the media captures the public more with what pop culture is saying and doing which keeps the public watching and talking.
Maybe people would be more involved if the media put poverty in their headlines everyday. I feel it would make everyone more aware that poverty is all around us.
I feel the quote which was put "...Maybe no one can be told; maybe they will have to experience it." would be an option and I pray it don't have to come to that point.
tlw
I feel that we do need to talk about poverty, to make everyone aware of it. We also need to talk about to inform the population that it really is a bigger problem then one might think.
linsey
I agree with the people in the article, i think we need to talk about poverty and continue to make people aware of the issue. We can not work towards helping others and making changes if people are not aware of the problem.
Molly Lapp
I think that we need to talk about poverty, or else no one will do anything about it. Poverty is a much bigger problem then people realize. If we don't talk about it, it will just become a bigger problem.
Rachael
I agree that poverty needs to be talked about. Not everyone knows what it is really like to live in poverty, so we need it to be talked about so we can learn to understand it better.
Kayla Nelson
I think Poverty should be talked about. Its a big problem, and I completly understand when a Welthy person says my family was brought up in poverty, I know how you feel. Well nothing has really been done about and its getting worse so i'm pretty sure you dont know what its like.
Amanda Nelson
Poverty is a problem in the world today, and i think it should be talked about. Than people who arn't in poverty can hopefully understand it better.
Again I feel that having the money and the things that come along with it isolate you and create amnesia. We should let them trade places and see if they can susrvive in the shoes of the impoverished, needy, and minimum wage workers. Education and communication are also a key. The more you make it an issue the more one has to face it. It is too hidden in our society.
George
Poverty is a way of life just like someone who lives in the suburbs or rides a train to work everyday---it is a way of life. So if we continue to talk about our way of life, why don't we talk about poverty.
Recently, my grandma shared with me that my great uncle spent his Thanksgivings working in a shelter in Dallas, TX. I have seen my great uncle every year for the past 30 years and never did he share his experiences of working in a shelter. I know many other things about him. I know he is financially stable. I know he like to collect things. I know he like Native American Art, but I never knew about his volunteer work. He now lives in South Carolina. I wonder if he does volunteer work there?
By reading this blog, and thinking about poverty, I realize that my family never talks about poverty unless they are talking about my sister who lives in a trailer park. To most of them, poverty is living in a trailer park. Otherwise they talk about the news, the sale downtown, their jobs, their church, and some of them share their personal experiences but usually no conversation about poverty, except that my sister should get a different job.
My grandmother who is 83 years old does talk about her way of life as a child and shared memories of walking 4 miles to school in the snow and only getting socks for Christmas, but yet it never really sounded like her family lived in poverty--it sounded more like it was simply their way of life. Although today, it would be considered that my grandmother lived in poverty because she lived during the depression but to her it never really was "poverty" it was just a way of life.
If we do not speak out and talk about the homeless, the needy, the sick, the hungry, the poor or however you want to put it, how can we all be aware. If we are not aware how can we know to help or where to help. It is true someo us do live in a shell and until we take a peak out in the real world we stay in our protected shell. My action is going to be to speak out, get out, and shout out!
I think we need to talk more about poverty so that people are aware of what's going on and how bad it is. People need to know whats going on besides being concerned about themselves.
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