Food Stamp Usage, Crisis Assistance Stretch Providers; Families Try to Cope
Boise State Radio, the NPR station covering much of southern Idaho, has produced a remarkable series of stories this week focused on how the nation's economic trials have impacted Idahoans.
It is the kind of journalism we sadly see too little of these days - no shrill political debate, none of the simple slogans that often tend to simplify an issue to the point of distortion. The station's news staff has touched a raw nerve with this material - a young woman talking about not wanting to use food stamps, but having no choice and homeless families out of work and nearly out of hope.
The series - That Could Be Me - is available on line, at a website that lists a number of resources for those folks who often get attention only when unemployment numbers or food stamps usage is reported.
[Full disclosure: the station asked me to moderate a roundtable discussion with various providers and others who are trying to offer services and make sense of the enormous increase in poverty over the last year. The roundtable discussion airs several times over the next few days. It was a sobering experience to begin to understand the impact of what is happening.]
The 149,000 Idahoans using food stamps right now - that's a 40% increase - aren't welfare queens or shirkers, they are parents who have lost a job and in many cases have had to seek assistance for the first time in their lives. At the same time, public sector assistance has been stretched to the point of breaking and great organizations like the Salvation Army and Genesis World Mission lack the resources to fill the growing gap, much as they try.
For those of us who have it pretty good in this awful economy - a job with benefits, a comfortable safe place to live, never a wonder about where the next meal will come from - BSU Radio's series is an uncomfortable wake up call. Thousands and thousands of our neighbors are really hurting. They need to be brought into the sunlight of public attention, not left in the often forgotten shadows of grinding poverty. This reporting does just that.
BSU Radio News Director Elizabeth Duncan and her team have given us all the evidence we need to realize that we all have a responsibility in this time of national trial.
All of the panelists who participated in the roundtable agreed, all of us need to know more about what living with poverty means, how it can impact an entire generation of children, how government budgets are woefully inadequate, how the very fabric of a community is frayed. This series is a good start. It will sober you up to the reality of a life of poverty in Idaho.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Poverty in Idaho
Food Stamp Usage, Crisis Assistance Stretch Providers; Families Try to Cope
Boise State Radio, the NPR station covering much of southern Idaho, has produced a remarkable series of stories this week focused on how the nation's economic trials have impacted Idahoans.
It is the kind of journalism we sadly see too little of these days - no shrill political debate, none of the simple slogans that often tend to simplify an issue to the point of distortion. The station's news staff has touched a raw nerve with this material - a young woman talking about not wanting to use food stamps, but having no choice and homeless families out of work and nearly out of hope.
The series - That Could Be Me - is available on line, at a website that lists a number of resources for those folks who often get attention only when unemployment numbers or food stamps usage is reported.
[Full disclosure: the station asked me to moderate a roundtable discussion with various providers and others who are trying to offer services and make sense of the enormous increase in poverty over the last year. The roundtable discussion airs several times over the next few days. It was a sobering experience to begin to understand the impact of what is happening.]
The 149,000 Idahoans using food stamps right now - that's a 40% increase - aren't welfare queens or shirkers, they are parents who have lost a job and in many cases have had to seek assistance for the first time in their lives. At the same time, public sector assistance has been stretched to the point of breaking and great organizations like the Salvation Army and Genesis World Mission lack the resources to fill the growing gap, much as they try.
For those of us who have it pretty good in this awful economy - a job with benefits, a comfortable safe place to live, never a wonder about where the next meal will come from - BSU Radio's series is an uncomfortable wake up call. Thousands and thousands of our neighbors are really hurting. They need to be brought into the sunlight of public attention, not left in the often forgotten shadows of grinding poverty. This reporting does just that.
BSU Radio News Director Elizabeth Duncan and her team have given us all the evidence we need to realize that we all have a responsibility in this time of national trial.
All of the panelists who participated in the roundtable agreed, all of us need to know more about what living with poverty means, how it can impact an entire generation of children, how government budgets are woefully inadequate, how the very fabric of a community is frayed. This series is a good start. It will sober you up to the reality of a life of poverty in Idaho.
Posts
