LIFE-NET NEWS

by Ret Z.

Covering Poverty Widely in a Net of Many Voices

August 29, 2007	No Profit; No Proceeds
Volume 11 Number 9	All-Volunteer

"Give a family a fish, and they'll eat a meal;  give them a Net, and they'll have fish for Life."

A Statistical Portrait of American Poverty

For most Americans, the word "poverty" suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing, and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the 37 million persons classified as "poor" by the Census Bureau fit that description. While real material hardship certainly does occur, it is limited in scope and severity. Most of America's "poor" live in material conditions that would have been judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago. Today, the expenditures per person of the lowest-income quintile (one-fifth) of households equal those of the median American household in the early 1970s, after adjusting for inflation.       The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports: 43% of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio. 80% of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, in 1970, only 36% of the entire US population enjoyed air conditioning. Only 6% of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person. The average poor American has more living space than the average citizen of Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car. 31% own two or more cars. 97% of poor households have a color TV. Over half own two or more of them. 78% have a VCR or DVD player. 62% have cable or satellite. 89% own microwave ovens; more than half have a stereo; and more than a third have an automatic dishwasher.       As a group, America's poor are far from being chronically undernourished. The average consumption of protein, vitamins, and minerals is virtually the same for poor and middle-class children and, in most cases, is well above recommended norms. Most poor children today are, in fact, supernourished. Only 2% of poor families say they "often" do not have enough to eat.       The average American poor person does not live an opulent life. But the statistical portrait is far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.       Source: Heritage Foundation

Access to Toilets a Life-or-Death Matter

Almost a third of people in the world have no access to a toilet, a privation that has severe consequences and leads to millions of deaths each year, experts at a water conference said earlier this month. Children, highly susceptible to hygiene-related diseases, are the main victims.       "Diarrhea resulting from poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for the death of more than two million impoverished children each year," the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said during the World Water Week conference gathering some 2,500 international experts in the Swedish capital. According to SIWI spokesman David Trouba, 50% to 70% of the world's hospitals are full of patients suffering from easily preventable water-related diseases. And the World Health Organization estimates that 80% of all sickness in the world is attributable to unsafe water and sanitation.       Yet the problem has not attracted the attention it deserves and is described as the "orphan child" of the water sector, often underexplored and underfinanced. "One reason is the taboo part," lamented Johan Kuylenstierna, the director of World Water Week. "You don't talk about these issues so easily, it's a private thing."       But Sunita Narain, director of the Center for Science and Environment in India, noted with a hint of optimism that governments were beginning to make the issue a priority.       Sanitation and hygiene conditions have wide-ranging implications on society. According to the UN, they play a direct role on people's overall health, but also on infant mortality rates, poverty reduction, the role of women and girls in society, schooling, the environment, and social and economic development.       "Women are most affected by the problem of lacking sanitation systems," Kuylenstierna said. Gynecological illnesses and hygiene problems linked to menstruation make girls and women particularly vulnerable.       Many girls do not pursue an education because schools do not have proper toilets or they must share toilets with boys. Lack of clean water also affects education since many students who fall ill miss classes, the UN said.       The one-third of the population who have no access to toilets, or 2.6 billion people, generate more than 200 million tonnes (220 million US tons) of excrement annually that are neither collected nor treated, presenting a health risk.       Installing toilets would not be very costly, insisted Kuylenstierna. For each dollar spent on improving sanitation and hygiene conditions, says the UN, between $3 and $34 (25 euros) would be saved in the fields of health, education and socioeconomic development.       The UN has declared 2008 the International Year of Sanitation.       Source: Agence France-Presse

Shelters Especially Dangerous for Queers

"I felt safer in the box than I did in the shelter," says community organizer Jay Toole, a stoic woman with steely eyes and a salt and pepper crew cut. Many homeless members of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) community would rather stay on the streets than subject themselves to the violence and abuse running rampant in the New York City shelter system. "I talked back to one of the shelter staff, and she just grabbed me and threw me down the stairs."       The abuse she sustained was not limited to single instances. It was an unspoken contractual obligation in exchange for the right to sleep under a roof. "The guards would be in the same room I was being beaten in. They just turned their backs until they were done." She could be attacked in the bathroom, in the stairwell, in the main room -- there was no safe space in the shelter. In addition to physical abuse, Jay sustained mental blow after blow as the shelter experience battered her will.       When asked what the most difficult part was, she immediately answers, "The loneliness. It was just lonely not being able to talk about who I am."       The shelters forced Jay to participate in group talk therapy. This was supposed to help her heal and recover, but it actually served to further alienate and isolate her. Jay wanted to talk about her relationship, about the experiences she had had as a butch lesbian, about the trauma she was forced to endure for being a queer woman. All of these things were at the root of her joblessness, her houselessness, and her addiction. The counselors said she needed to talk about her problems, but when she did, she was told that her problems were to be kept to herself. The consequences for speaking were violent.       Jay was also separated from her partner of 14 years, Shiela. They were not allowed to stay at the same shelter together, although they were each other's main source of support. Jay not only had to deny her own legitimacy, but also that of her partner.       It's even more difficult for queer people of color. The most vulnerable people are the transgenders. "They used to send the transgender women off to an island." Queers for Economic Justice won a long-fought battle and now transgender men and women are allowed to self-determine their placement in shelters.       Between 40% and 60% of homeless youth in NYC shelters are from the queer community. Jay says, "The kids I'm seeing on the streets today are the people I'll be seeing in the adult shelters tomorrow."       Identifying as queer in the USA often leads to forced conditions of violence and poverty.       Source: Poor Magazine

Genital Surgery Helps Burkina's Mutilated Women

Abi Sanon was seven days old when she went under the knife. Growing up in Burkina Faso, she thought all women had part of their clitoris cut out in an age-old custom practiced in much of Africa and parts of the Middle East. "But when I got older, I had friends who had not been excised, from Burkina Faso, but especially my Ivorian, Beninoise, and Cameroonian friends," said Sanon, 35. "I learned that for them sexuality was pleasurable, whereas for me it was mostly painful."       Now help is at hand, in the form of a surgical operation to reconstruct the clitoris and restore some sexual sensation. Sanon first heard of the procedure being performed far away in Paris, but she couldn't get a visa. Then she heard the surgery was available in her own country, cited by experts as one of the most progressive nations in trying to end excision, and the first in Africa to make the reconstructive surgery available. "I went to the doctor the next day."       The surgery costs around $150 at public hospitals. Sanon's husband helped pay to have the operation at a private clinic, which can cost as much as $400.       As many as three-quarters of women in the landlocked former French colony have undergone excision, variously referred to as female circumcision, genital cutting, or genital mutilation. Variations range from superficial incisions to removal of the exposed section of the clitoris and labia of the vagina, which is sometimes sewn up with only a small opening left. The procedure often takes place in unsanitary conditions with no anesthetic. Many girls die from infections before the wound heals; others suffer long-term health problems, including sometimes fatal complications during childbirth.       "Sexuality, sexual desire of women remains a taboo," said Alice Behrendt, who studies the custom in West Africa for children's advocacy organization Plan International. "Men are still very afraid of women being unfaithful, and most parents refuse to abstain from excision because they fear their daughters will express sexual desire and it will bring problems for the family such as early pregnancy."       Surgery to reopen the vagina to ease medical problems has existed for many years and is offered for free in Burkina Faso. But the new reconstructive surgery being performed here now is the first to attempt to reverse excision and allow women to regain some sexual sensation.       Source: Reuters

The Most Air-Polluted Town in America

At the end of their 10- to 12-hour work days exposed to heat, abuse, pesticides, too many San Joaquin Valley, California, farm workers go home and live in some of the most heavily polluted areas in the country. The small farm worker town of Arvin lies in a rich agricultural area filled with vineyards and orange groves. It also has the most polluted air in America.       Arvin doesn't have factories or congested freeways like cities such as Los Angeles. It produces little pollution. The pollutants blow in from as far away as San Francisco, and residents -- most of them farm workers -- are paying the price. They complain the air smells toxic. Everyone is put at risk -- especially children. Some parents are afraid to let their children play outside.       Doctors and public officials say asthma and other respiratory problems are common. Residents also complain of watery eyes, dry throats, and inexplicable coughs, particularly in the summer, when temperatures can climb over 100 degrees and stay there for days.       According to an Associated Press story, Arvin's level of ozone, the primary component in smog, exceeded the amount considered acceptable by the EPA on an average of 73 days per year between 2004 and 2006. The San Francisco Bay Area averaged just 4 days over the same period.       Despite numerous health hazards, in April, the valley's air-quality board voted to extend the region's deadline to meet federal ozone standards by 11 years. They said cleaning up the air by the previous target date of 2013 was not possible.       This is just not true. The UFW has been working with The Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment to ensure an earlier compliance deadline, citing an independent report "Clearing the Air" by the International Sustainable Systems Research Center. The report found that with stricter regulations 95% of the Valley can reach compliance for ozone standards by 2013 and the remaining parts of the valley can be in compliance much sooner than 2024.       Source: United Farm Workers

Flawed Land Scheme Gives Amazon Forest to Loggers

The Brazilian government stands accused of selling off huge swaths of the Amazon rainforest -- including its oldest protected national park -- to unscrupulous logging companies, under the cover of a flawed sustainable development project. The Brazilian President, Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, won power in 2003 with a promise to settle 400,000 homeless families during his four-year term, an unrealistic target he is accused of reaching in last-minute deals prior to last year's election. An eight-month investigation by Greenpeace into the land scam revealed that the Brazilian land reform agency, INCRA, had set up large settlements in rainforest areas instead of placing them in already deforested areas. Newly resettled urban families promptly sold logging rights to major timber companies.       "Instead of helping, the official efforts are putting in place mechanisms to ensure the supply of timber to loggers," says Greenpeace's André Muggiati. "This opens the door to further forest destruction and climate change."       In 2006, INCRA created 97 "sustainable development settlements" (PDS) in Santarém in the west of the Amazonian state of Pará, in areas of primary forest of huge value to loggers. These settlements cover 2.2 million hectares and have been assigned to 33,700 families.       "All these settlements were created in the last three months of last year," says an INCRA employee. "It was the end of Lula's first term so he had to accomplish the targets. It is politicians who will benefit from the PDS system." In October Mr Da Silva won a second term in office. As well as politicians, the scheme benefits the settlers, who receive land and sell their logging rights to large timber firms; the loggers, who gain access to valuable timber; and INCRA, which is close to reaching the government targets.       INCRA is creating settlements so quickly it cannot afford to provide necessary infrastructure. It is cutting corners by encouraging residents' associations to make deals with logging companies, who provide roads and sanitation.       Source: The Independent

New Camden School Includes Community Center

With prayers, songs, and soaring hopes, last Wednesday city officials and residents celebrated the completion of a new school in East Camden that incorporates a much-needed community center. Gov Jon Corzine and a host of Camden officials cut the ribbon for the Octavius V Catto Community School and Boys and Girls Club of Camden County, a $78 million project designed to revitalize its neighborhood.       The first school to rise in Camden in 20 years, the 122,000-square-foot facility will accommodate 540 children in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. But the building's gym, media center, auditorium, and swimming pool were designed to serve the community at large and provide a link between the school and the working class neighborhood. After-school programs will be offered through the club. Parents will be able to visit the media center to watch videos that will train them to help children with their homework, Principal Robin Wyche said.       Corzine said the school will serve as a model for the rest of the state and the nation.       City Councilman Frank Moran said the building will be a boon to a neighborhood where new housing displaced drug dealing and prostitution but offered children scant resources for fun.       Corzine praised the partnerships that smoothed the way for the project, which received funding from the Boys and Girls Clubs of Camden County, the state Green Acres program, and the New Jersey Schools Development Authority, formerly called the Schools Construction Corp.       Mikal Hamilton, 12, a student at Veterans Middle School, gushed as he toured the facility: "That gym is bangin'."       Source: Courier-Post

#  LNN  #  Small  #  Hauls  #

Screen icon Julie Christie and Survival International launched a campaign today to save uncontacted tribes from extinction, with a new film featuring previously unseen footage of some of the world's most remote and endangered peoples. Christie said yesterday, "They are among the most vulnerable peoples on earth and could be wiped out within the next twenty years unless their land rights are recognized and upheld." The unique film, narrated by Christie, is the centerpiece of a new Survival campaign aimed at highlighting the most serious threats to the tribes. Survival's director Stephen Corry said, "Uncontacted tribes, whether in South America, India, or West Papua, remain in isolation because they choose to, and because encounters with the outside world have brought them only violence, disease, and murder." (Survival International) The US Census Bureau released data yesterday showing that the number of uninsured Americans jumped by 2.2 million in 2006 to 47.0 million people, with 93% of the increase concentrated among middle-class Americans earning over $50,000 per year, according to an analysis by Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). Strikingly, 1.4 million of the newly uninsured were in families making over $75,000 per year. PNHP also noted that the 2.18 million rise in the number of uninsured is the biggest jump reported by the Census Bureau since 1992, and that there are now more uninsured in the US than at any time since passage of Medicare/Medicaid in the mid-1960s. It used to be that as poverty went down, uninsurance fell -- not any more. (PNHP) In a rare public demonstration in Myanmar, hundreds of people marched last Wednesday in the country's largest city to protest steep increases in fuel costs, according to witnesses and news reports. It was the latest in a series of small demonstrations against inflation, price increases, and deteriorating living conditions in a country where public protest has been all but choked off by intimidation and arrests. Prices of gasoline, diesel fuel, and cooking gas more than doubled the previous week, delivering a punishing blow to Myanmar's population, much of which lives from hand to mouth. Critics say the ruling junta's economic mismanagement has turned a nation rich in natural resources into one of the poorest in Asia. (New York Times) Camden NJ is no longer the poorest city in the country, according to the US Census Bureau American Community Survey, released yesterday. But Camden remains among the poorest, with only Brownsville and College Station, both in Texas, reporting lower incomes among cities with more than 65,000 residents. Camden's 2006 income, $25,961, is far higher than the $18,007 reported a year ago. New Jersey had the second highest median income in the country, $64,470. The study found 35.6% of the city's residents are living in poverty. (Courier-Post)

Life-Net News Extras

Acid Attacks on Women in India Prompt Protests

Haseena Hussain was an attractive, upwardly mobile woman in Bangalore, India, with everything going for her. But it all changed in 1999, when she turned down her former boss' marriage proposal and he sought revenge by pouring two liters of concentrated hydrochloric acid over her body.       Hussain now works with the Campaign and Struggle Against Acid Attacks on Women (CSAAAW) to fight the surge of acid violence against women. Since 1999, the group has documented 61 such attacks. In the most recent case, a 22-year-old mother of four children was doused with acid and forced to drink a deadly concoction of a corrosive chemical and alcohol by her abusive husband in the city of Mysore.       CSAAAW has had some success in persuading the courts and police to take acid attacks more seriously. In a recent ruling, the sentence of Hussain's attacker was increased from five years to 14. But even that measure of justice rings hollow to Hussain, who had burns over most of her body and lost her nose and eyesight.       In that ruling, the judge also demanded that the government set up a fund of about $250,000 to cover the costs of reconstructive surgery that many of these women need. Survivors of the attacks say that the fund is only enough to care for two women -- far short of the needs of the more than 60 survivors.       Even with excellent medical care, the best that most of these women can hope for is survival. If not treated immediately, they can lose their eyesight and spiral into depression. Many commit suicide.       Acid violence seems to be almost unique to South Asia, with most incidents occurring in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. Part of the reason is that acid is cheap and widely available. Many Indians use concentrated acid to sterilize their kitchens and bathrooms, as Americans would use bleach.       But the problem affects more than just the women represented by the campaign. A number of politicians, including the wife of the former prime minister of India, have had acid thrown at them. It is also commonplace in mob violence. Popular televised serials and films reinforce the idea by repeatedly portraying acid attacks. Many of the victims live in poorer communities, where they have very little voice in mainstream society.       Perhaps the most dangerous thing about acid attacks is the fear that they create. With just a few rupees, anyone can buy a weapon that can ruin another person's life in just a few seconds. For this reason, activists from CSAAAW will raise their voices until the government does something to regulate acid.       Source: National Public Radio

The Undocumented Body of Christ

Adapted from a piece by Tim Kumfer:       I recently sat in on a Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform strategy session. Krista Zimmerman, who works for the Mennonite Central Committee, often travels to churches to discuss immigration. She lamented how many white churches fail to see the crisis as their problem, and how the discussion often breaks down into "us" and "them," even when talking about members of the same church body. She said we have failed to help the church realize it is an "us."       Theologically, she is exactly right. The church is to be our first family and primary allegiance, and we are to find our identity together in Christ above everything else. Being part of the church is to be a more determinative identity than any of the other ones we carry with us: nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc. It is "more real" than anything else about us. When we hold something about us to be more important than our Christian identity, we are practicing idolatry and deceiving ourselves. It seems the church in the US has largely forgotten this.       Sociologically, Zimmerman was spot-on as well. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, 78% of undocumented immigrants (around 9.4 million people) currently in the US came from Mexico or Central America. In another survey, Pew found that 87% of Latinos self-identify as Catholic or Protestant. This means that there are over 8.1 million Christians in the US who are undocumented immigrants. The body of Christ, it seems, does not have all its papers.       Later in the meeting, Bill Medford of the United Methodist Church said what most churches need isn't political organizers as much as we need party planners -- people who will bring white and immigrant churches together for fellowship. Out of this sharing, eating, and singing will grow a sense of unity and shared calling. Then when the homes of our brothers and sisters are raided, or they are threatened with deportation, we won't hesitate to act on their behalf ... because it's really our behalf.       Ultimately, how the church in the US responds to the immigration crisis is less a matter of legislation and more a question of Christian identity and a test of our discipleship. Will our actions legitimize false differences? Or will we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of faith, together as the undocumented body of Christ?       Source: God's Politics

Medicare Drugs Still Too Costly for Many

Most seniors who lacked prescription coverage in past years now have it, thanks to the Medicare drug benefit, but in a survey released August 21, one in five enrollees said they had put off or even skipped getting some medications because of the program's high costs. The poll of more than 16,000 seniors, published online by the journal Health Affairs, is the closest thing to a "report card" on one of President Bush's few major domestic policy accomplishments.       The program, which began last year, was created by a Republican-led Congress and delivers prescription coverage through private insurance plans, charging an average monthly premium of about $27. "It has helped in expanding coverage to people who didn't have it, and that is a great thing," said Tricia Neuman of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, one of three organizations that collaborated in the study, "but there is still work to be done in making medications more affordable for seniors."       Medicare officials had no initial comment.       The survey found that about 8% of seniors still had no coverage after the prescription plan went into effect in January 2006. But that figure was a dramatic improvement from the previous year, when one-third reported having to pay for their own medications.       Overall, about half of 44 million elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in the prescription program. The rest of those with drug coverage got their benefits from a former employer or through the Department of Veterans Affairs.       The survey found that seniors were becoming more savvy consumers, with one in four enrolled in the Medicare benefit saying they had switched to lower-cost generic drugs. Similarly, more seniors were mail-ordering 90-day supplies of their prescriptions at lower cost. The average Medicare recipient takes five medications.       But for a significant minority of seniors, being in the prescription plan was no guarantee that they could get medications. Nearly 20% of those in the Medicare plan said they did not fill or delayed filling a prescription because of cost, compared with 8% of those with employer coverage and about 12% of those with VA coverage. About 8% of those with Medicare coverage reported spending more than $300 a month on medications, compared with about 5% each for those with employer and veterans coverage.       The survey estimated that as many as 4.7 million low-income seniors are eligible for additional government subsidies that would help with the coverage gap, but are not getting them. Some do not know such help is available, and others may find the application too cumbersome.       Source: >Los Angeles Times

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