According to the NYU Furman Center, Focus on Poverty, NYC’s poverty rate is usually between 19-21%. Even though this doesn’t seem too bad for such a big state, it is. Shockingly, this is ABOVE the national rate. 19-21% means 1.7 millions New Yorkers living in poverty. Poverty has many direct correlation to other problems such as: higher violent crime rates, poorer preforming schools, fewer educated and employed adults. Not only is poverty a problem in and of itself, it consequently leads to other problems in the community. Essentially, it is one of the core issues in our society and it must be solved.

http://furmancenter.org/thestoop/entry/focus-on-poverty

Poverty is an issue that all global citizens should be working to reduce, and ultimately resolve. Here is an example of what one person did in an effort to reduce poverty:

“Serving as the CEO of D & M Leasing, Micheal Albert Hernandez III grew up in Brownsville before founding a successful Dallas-Fort Worth area business. Aside from managing a vehicle leasing company, Mike Hernandez III works at alleviating poverty through financially supporting a workforce training program called the Cameron County Education Initiative. According to an analysis by the Brookings Institution, one of the most effective ways to reduce poverty is by increasing work rates among the poor. Households without a full-time worker have an exceptionally high poverty rate of more than 33 percent, according to 2014 Census Bureau data. In comparison, people who work full-time have a much lower poverty rate, around three percent. The Brookings Institution report concludes that making significant strides in the fight against poverty will require investment in programs that increase paid work among poor and low-income people. The benefits of full-time employment to the individual and the community as a whole are unmistakable. In addition to increased earnings, ensuring paid work for impoverished people enables their economic mobility, increases their Social Security benefits in retirement, and reduces the strain on public welfare programs”.

I support this blog because it works towards the goal that my online activism is trying to reach. By promoting businesses to increase the working rates of the poor by hiring them, poverty can be reduced! This blog also says that investments are necessary to increase paid work for low-income citizens. My peers and I here at P.O.P completely encourage this! We hope that others will follow in the footsteps of Hernandez and create local business to hire poor people to alleviate poverty.

As seen on our previous blog posts we mentioned a petition we formed on the website change.org. We titled the petition “People over Poverty! Advocate for your fellow New Yorkers” and we chose the New York City Department of Homeless Services as the organization who can and will take action if we get enough support. We satrted the petition a week ago and due to our task to promote the petition we have been able to get 12 supporters! It may not seem like a lot and quite frankly still far from our goal of 100 signatures but baby steps is still progress and one day we will acheive it. If you haven’t already sign the petition

http://chng.it/MD2Jq7zpPb

Thank you!

https://imgflip.com/i/2wcjah

But this time I have created this meme to inform you of the near-poverty rate in 2014 of NYC. In 2014 according to the NYCgov Poverty Measure for NYC the near-poverty rate had a decline from 45.1% to 44.2% (2014-2015). The actual povert also declined from 20.6% to 19.9% also from the years of 2014 and 2015. It is amazing to see declines in such greats but stil shocking that almost half of NYC population was living in poor conditions, to the extent that they were living in near-poverty.

check out this meme 🙂

https://imgflip.com/i/2w48gs

https://imgflip.com/i/2w46z7

If you see someone on the subway help them! See something say something.

My peers and I are proud to inform you that we have officially created a petition to increase our online activism! With this petition, we hope that the New York Department of Homeless services will create new policies to keep homeless people safe by providing them with homes.

One signature goes a long way, thank you 🙂

x https://www.change.org/p/new-york-city-department-of-homeless-services-people-over-poverty-advocate-for-your-fellow-new-yorkers?recruiter=940972178&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&utm_campaign=share_petition

Hello Everyone!!! We are proud to say we have made a petition to help convince the New York Department or Homeless Services help revaluate their policies for the thousands of homeless people living in New York. We want to be able to help those in need of food & water, a roof over their heads and health & well-being necessities. Make sure to sign this petition so all our voices can be heard!!!

Sign here to help!

Thank you to everyone who helps contribute 🙂

http://chng.it/MD2Jq7zpPb

It would be so appreciated if you consider signing our petition! Help us reach our goal of 100 signatures by spreading the word. Thank you so much!