A Definition of Poverty

Poverty is the extent to which one does without resources. I've recently come across this definition of poverty in the book A Framework for Understanding Poverty. I'm not sure I'd ever looked at a dictionary definition of poverty before, but this one makes sense to me. Resources can be anything physical, financial, emotional, spiritual. It can be support, health, role models and other relationships, and access to "hidden knowledge"--this last one referring to cultural norms that vary between working class people and upper class society.
Poverty is further broken down into two subcategories: generational and situational. In the past week, I have discussed with many at my organization if they think there is a noticeable difference in these two types of poverty.
It seems, that much like the upper class divide of "old family money" and "making your own million" type money, there is in fact a difference.
The people I discussed with seemed to find that people who suffer from generational poverty have become part of a certain counter culture of poverty. They know which churches and organizations are giving out food on what days, they have power structures in the streets and shelters, and they aren't too concerned with getting a job.
With situational poverty, it is less ingrained in people to live in a certain way and these people are perhaps more motivated to get on their feet again. They are unfamiliar with the culture of poverty and are less likely to thrive in this situation or even to get by.
Either way, poverty is systemic. It roots back to fundamental problems in our class system. It is something that snowballs and is intricately entwined into the fabrics of society.
I'd love to hear thoughts of people reading this blog--but many I've discussed with seem to think that the DC neighborhoods fall more into the category of generational poverty. These are people whose learned behaviors come from few educational opportunities, few community resources, and missing parents, young parents, and high crime. This has become the norm, and therefore has become a culture. Even if it is one big "situation" for example, the felony that landed someone in prison for several years that knocked them into their current situation, this situation was spurred from the fact that generational poverty already existed for this person. Looking at it this way, it makes sense why so many of the people filling our prisons are minorities. It's systemic. Our country's very foundations have created this culture, in particular for minorities who were once imprisoned and whom resources were once witheld. It's not enough to suddenly say, "here, come take it, you can," because it's a lot more complicated than that. Yes, there are equal opportunities for all now, but that doesn't reverse what has been done. Some people are playing the catch up game in order to even be able to reach these new opportunities now open to them.

According to A Framework for Understanding Poverty, there are four main reasons that people leave poverty:
1) they have a specific goal or wish that motivates them
2) they are experiencing something so painful that anything would be better
3) someone "sponsors" them (such as an educator, mentor, role model, etc) out or convinces them that they could live a different way.
4) a specific ability or talent provides an opportunity


With this in mind, how can we alter the culture of poverty? What sort of efforts can we put in place to halt the systemic, cancerous growth that is poverty, violence, lack of education...?


--Megan