By Antonio D. French
Filed Tuesday, December 04, 2007 at 11:37 AM
PUB DEF SPECIAL REPORT
There are a lot of people hurting in the City of St. Louis. Not just struggling to make ends meet, but really struggling — to find shelter, to food for their children.
This is a developing story, which seems to be getting more desperate everyday. But you won't see this story on the front page on the Post-Dispatch. This will not be the top news story on Channels 5, 4 or 2.
There is a horrible disconnect between our community and those that report on it, and those who are supposed to report to it.
Labels: Media_Watch, Poverty
33 Comments:
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12/04/2007 12:53 PM
So, if you are poor it's okay to steal? Maybe she shouldn't have gotten pregnant if she couldn't afford food--especially since it doesn't look like it's her first child. Plus, Pepsi isn't a staple, so don't try to argue that she is buying necessities...
12/04/2007 3:28 PM
John Q Public says-
It's as wrong to steal when friends of George Bush and the Vice-President of America and the White Good-Ole Boys in the Military Industrial Complex steal and HOARD MILLIONS OF $$$$$ WITHOUT COMMENT and go un-prosecuted-
Don't you agree cweguy ??
12/04/2007 7:11 PM
John Q. Public Says-
The $7.00 @ month that I pay is well worth it-
Keep bringing us NEWS we get No Where-Else
Good Job PubDef
Good Job...............
12/04/2007 7:15 PM
We have people working slave wages, because the jobs are gone and the schools are not equipping the population for work. Thus they can't afford market rate housing, meanwhile we have 10,000 City Owned LRA properties, some of which could all be used to house the low income. But it is more important to attract upper middle class whites because they are an economic asset to the city whereas the establishment considers the poor a liability. That is the mentality which the system operates under and that is the challenge we face. The city currently defines economic development differently from social development. When in fact uplifting the poor is economic development because investing in human capital creates true growth as opposed to simply attracting back suburban yuppies. But you won't hear that story in the media.
12/04/2007 7:30 PM
John,
Of course, if you break the law, you should go to jail.
Sadly, there are a lot of people, both white and black, that use their connections to avoid the penalty due for their crimes when they are caught. I have to believe that hubris always is rewarded eventually.
Doug, uplifting the poor is not the government's job. It's the individual's responsibility.
12/04/2007 7:54 PM
John Q. Public-
To cweguy - Just what is the Governments Job ?
And who is the Government ?
12/04/2007 9:38 PM
The government's job is to provide public services to everyone.
This issue involves both individual and societal responsibility. In the past, the government supported lifestyles that led only to generational poverty, i.e., supporting women regardless of how many children out of wedlock (also regardless of how many different fathers) they produced. That was performing the job of being a co-enabler. The women, in turn, sealed their own fate and sadly the fate of their many children.
There is a large enough African American middle class to prove the above was not the choice of all.
This is a sticky wicket due to the fact that personal responsibility has become a lost virtue in our society, and on the other end, cororate greed and lower wages threaten a middle class way of life.
12/05/2007 6:31 AM
Mr French's provocative point is one that will be missed by most St. Louisans. St. Louis is a failed community where class and race warfare are in flower. The haves and have nots are further and further apart. The "fertile felon" is not a person to the haves nor to the media reporting on her. Poor and black St Louisans are increasingly disenfranchised and have less and less reason to see themselves as citizens with responsibilities. Expect more crime, more failure, and more death in this dying city.
12/05/2007 7:59 AM
The race warfare spoken of originates with militant racists who are not white for the most part.
Once again, the common sense, responsible, middle class African Americans have also fled the city.
They live and work with others of other races in a peaceful and respectful co-existence.
One such African American recently sent out a communication saying that if he and the rest of us as working taxpayers must take urine tests for our jobs, then the welfare recipients should also have to take urine tests to prove they are as drug-free to receive assistance.
Many African Americans are not buying into the rest of society and government are to blame for choices individuals make.
This does not relate to the truly poor, regardless of race, gender, age, who are affected by circumstances out of their control.
12/05/2007 8:50 AM
Bill Monroe to Doug Duckworth @12-4-07 at 7:30 p.m.
I want to tell you just how on target you are in your comments regarding our St. Louis Public Schools failing our population as they graduate without preparing our children for the world of work.
I hope that a Vocational/Technical School Proposal that we are currently presenting to the SAB Board is eventually accepted; there are many in our popoulation that will not go on to college and with the proper skills that can be taught in High School-Students can graduate and become employable with an above average salary ABOVE THE POVERTY LEVEL. That is why I continueto aTTEND ALL bOARD mEETINGS of the St. Louis Public Schools-Fighting to make this happen.
Join Me If You Can
Bill Monroe
(The Harriet Tubman High School and Career Academy Proposal) and it's not a Charter School !!!
12/05/2007 9:09 AM
I don't know a lot about charter schools. But I do know that in general they perform better than public schools (and that's not hard with the bar so low in St. Louis). My understanding is they offer some of the specialized learning that private schools do, without the cost because they have a higher ed. sponsor. I know some people don't like them, but I don't know why. It seems like something that's going to be on the agenda in St. Louis soon, but I don't think most people understand exactly what we're talking about and what the pros and cons are.
12/05/2007 9:27 AM
Government's job is to create an environment where the individual has the opportunity to flourish.
Too many criminals on the street and not enough education, among other reasons, are preventing people from having the opportunity.
The accidents of birth count for too much in this society, but as long as we have an aversion to dedicate resources to alleviate it (through taxes or the private sector)bad parents out there will visit their sins on the child.
12/05/2007 9:28 AM
I don't know a lot about charter schools.--9:27 anon
By the rest of your statement, you really demonstrate the above.
How did you come to the knowledge that they 'in general they perform better than public schools (and that's not hard with the bar so low in St. Louis).' I support charter schools, but the above is not supported by the data.
12/05/2007 9:38 AM
Folks, Jefferson had it right--The Government that does least, does best.
When people look to the government to provide them with housing and food, they lose the sense of self-worth and drive that enables Americans to succeed and achieve livestyles that surpass every other country in the world.
Educate yourself, work hard, and you have an excellent chance to be a success, however you choose do define it. When you choose not to become educated and work hard, you get what you deserve. As my mother said: "Beggars can't be choosers".
12/05/2007 10:09 AM
"poor is not the government's job. It's the individual's responsibility."
CWEGuy, I thought you were a conservative, but it looks like you are an anarchist!
Most conservatives I meet claim to believe in the constitution and the bill of rights. I thought one of the founding principles was that government was for the people, for the people and by the people. In the Federalist Papers is there a passage that says, “You get yours I get mine” or “Let poor get fucked over and out”?
I remember that a certain French aristocrat said, “let them eat cake,” in response to poor people not being able to afford the price of bread. She ended up getting her head cut off, because he wasn’t using it anyway.
How about a quick government lesson. Government is the pooling of power by people that agree to be governed.
That usually means that a government has to help both rich people and poor people.
If you use the logic that people follow government’s rules because they believe the government is working for them than you can understand why people behave in different ways.
Poor people steal because they don’t believe government is providing security for them so they will take from others.
Corporations build toys with lead in them or ship hamburger with ecoli in it because they want to maximize profit and care little for the common good.
If you want to believe that government, the people, has no responsibility to help poor people then look at all the dead rulers that lived buy that credo.
12/05/2007 10:24 AM
For those who knock welfare per Ronald Regan's "Welfare Queen" attack on AFDC, it was never proven that AFDC provided an incentive to have more children. That argument was an example of class warfare: the elites causing a divide between the middle class and the poor. But because Reagan said that lie with a smile you all believed him. He was an actor and fooled you all, and now given his cutting of virtually all aid to cities per end of Revenue Sharing, we have a federal government which cares nothing about the poor. And the middle class writes off the plight of the poor "because its their fault." Conservative America certainly fooled everyone.
12/05/2007 11:31 AM
Doug Duckworth, who said or even intimated they got such an idea from Reagan? They got it from their own personal exposure to what was going on. You probalby would be surprised at the African Americans who detested what was happening to so many of their women and young men feeling no responsibility for the children they sired.
Doug, give up a personal agenda and pay attention to what is being written.
12/05/2007 11:57 AM
Welcome to the party everybody. The St. Louis Housing Authority waiting list has had thousands of people on it for years.
Same could be said for the city's low income programs for home repair assistance.
Too many people go to bed hungry and cold on St. Louis winter nights.
These are such old stories that they are no longer news.
Want to make them news? Get a talking head to comment on the problem.
12/05/2007 12:08 PM
Charter schools do not have track record of performing better than public schools do, which is why most cities that tried that are now reversing course. Unfortunately our mayor-king thinks if he is in charge of something it will work even though it hasn't worked elsewhere (check out Ohio, or closer to home check out the Ethel Hedgeman Lyle school and see if you would send your kids there).
The bar is so low in St. Louis that we have the highest performing high school in the entire state with Metro. So how low is the bar in all those County schools if they are below that?!?
And a woman on welfare with a child get $292 a month and it ends after 5 years whether she has a job or not. I've never met a woman for whom $292 a month was a huge enticement to have a baby. And it does take two to make a baby, you know. Perhaps the male mindset that babies are women's responsibility only (she should have aborted it if she couldn't take care of it, don't ask me for child support!) has something to do with the intergenerational poverty cycle.
12/05/2007 12:08 PM
Above anon:
I agree. Charter schools are, the vast majority of the time, a scheme to milk the public schools of their money. AND, I don't know where the idea came from that charters outperform public schools, when there are NO standardized tests for charters, almost NO regulations, and almost complete unaccountability. The idea of basically giving out taxpayers money to anyone who says that they will run a charter, is disgusting.
"Most cities are reversing course"
Are they really? Thanks for brightening my day a bit.
12/05/2007 1:47 PM
Can we PLEASE stop holding metro up as if it is the key to the SLPS?
It is a great school with great students proving that just because you live within city limits doesn't make you stupid. Hooray for that.
Remember, it is a school that gets to administer an entrance exam and then pick the students based on performance on the exam. On that front, it behaves a lot like a private school. If a charter school did that, there would be hell to pay on this blog.
It would be elitist, skimming the best students, classist and, if more white students than black students passed the test, racist, possibly drawing the ire of quota and set aside activists.
Metro is something to be proud of, most definitely, but its enrollment is about 300 for the entire school. Let's not let this small school blind us from the rest of the district.
12/05/2007 3:21 PM
to CWEGuy
I don't argue that it is the responsibility of an individual to uplift himself, however, LRA housing blocks access for that to happen. I am a working class individual. I attempted to buy LRA property, had proof of financial responsibility, but was not approved because it was told to me, that they would rather a developer purchase the property. That was 6 years ago. The house I wanted is still vacant. The government, in this case, is denying access!
12/05/2007 5:00 PM
Anonymous said...
The race warfare spoken of originates with militant racists who are not white for the most part.
deNILE is not just a river in Egypt!
Many African Americans are not buying into the rest of society and government are to blame for choices individuals make.
Buy into? DON'T GET ME STARTED!
12/05/2007 5:06 PM
to bill monroe,
this whole issue about students graduating and being "work ready" is a load of crap
the only time African Americans had full employment was during slavery
financial literacy is the key principle that is a hinderence to the poor
you can't will a job, no matter how good it is, to your family
if you have no assets to leave them, they start at ground zero and there is no generational growth
12/05/2007 5:15 PM
Anon, my response regarding Ronald Reagan was to this comment:
"In the past, the government supported lifestyles that led only to generational poverty, i.e., supporting women regardless of how many children out of wedlock (also regardless of how many different fathers) they produced. That was performing the job of being a co-enabler."
People were never dependent on AFDC. Many cycled off, as they wanted to work, and back on the program because single mothers had children while the program provided benefits and in fact most of the jobs in the private sector did not. The problem was not with welfare, the problem is that corporate America created a disincentive to work because of the horrible wages and benefits. If the wages were higher, and benefits provided, then you wouldn't see people getting back on AFDC after they initially left the program.
12/05/2007 8:39 PM
Doug,
Another fact. It was Democrat, Senator Patrick Moynihan who communicated an alarm as to what the welfare system was doing to the African American community--not Reagan. He noted that when the same lifestyle hit the white community, the same destructive forces would be at work--all based on the exponential growth of out-of-wedlock children.
12/05/2007 8:40 PM
Po,
Another problem with the government trying to do too much!
Thank you for your example.
12/06/2007 10:06 AM
CWE,
The reason the LRA has a property is because the property owner either abandoned the property or didn’t pay their taxes. What should city government do? Let property owners not pay taxes or do like any company would do and take away privileges?
A creditor will re-po your car or house if you don’t pay.
A bank won’t let loan you money to fix your house if you can’t pay.
A bank won’t sell you a re-poed house if you can’t prove that you can pay for it.
I’m not saying Po righteous teacher doesn’t have the ability to fix up the property, but a test to see if some one has the ability to properly rehab a property is reasonable.
It looks to me that government is acting just like a private business in this case.
Do you have a theory how this would be handled by a non-governmental actor?
12/06/2007 12:17 PM
I’m not saying Po righteous teacher doesn’t have the ability to fix up the property, but a test to see if some one has the ability to properly rehab a property is reasonable.
The test that a person would fix it up is met when that person is willing to pay money for the property. Mr./Ms. Po doesn't want the albatross of a house that is bringing in no income/not being used by M. Po. The buyer is demonstrating interest by paying cash money for the property.
Of course the new buyer may not pay taxes etc., but if someone is willing to spend more capital than anyone else, they should be able to acquire the property.
A business would sell to the highest bidder, getting the non-performing asset off its books. Businesses and govs are different in that a business may get the most money out of the property (renting to a check cashing place) when a gov may look at things like 'community value' (day care center) in evaluating who to sell the property to.
12/06/2007 5:15 PM
Moynihan's Report "The Negro Family:
The Case For National Action" did not recommend the cutting of welfare and aid to cities. He pointed out problems in Black America but he did not recommend divestment. Conservative America took the report did their own "research" and recommended cutting of welfare and aid to cities and Reagan did just that.
12/07/2007 12:43 AM
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12/07/2007 12:56 AM
"What should city government do?"
The first thing the LRA can do is market their properties. They do not do this.
The second they can do is actually make an effort to acquire more funds. They are very much underfunded.
What they city could do is actually have some legislative attempt at reform which would need the efforts of state rep's too since the LRA isn't a city agency.
Yet the Mayor has great control since he appoints the head of SLDC, currently Rodney Crim, which oversees the operations of the LRA.
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12/07/2007 12:57 AM
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