Cleys- Book Blog 3

Amanda Cleys 

1. On page 237 Abramsky discusses big, hairy and audacious goals. He discusses three different people and their problems when it comes to reducing poverty. JoAnne Page discusses breaking the cycle of poverty that has addictions, mental illness or people with diseases. JoAnne made a big impact on New York City by advocating people that were in need. She helped people by setting up housing centers for people that just got out of prison and helping get back to their normal life. JoAnne had big goals and accomplished them in New York City. If everyone had the same mindset as her our world would be a much better place to live. David Onek idea of reducing poverty would be to put people into specific kinds of courts that committed low-end crimes. For example, a person that has an addiction would go to drug court so that they can fix their problem. Ideally their caseworker would help do anything to keep them off the streets again. Onek says that it is basically a waste of money to send people to prison and jail because it does not change who they are and what they did. They need someone to help them through the rough patch in their life, not just neglect them and hope they turn out okay. The last person, Martha Sanchez is most concerned with children and schooling. She wants to make sure low income children are able to attend school. I think that all three people that Abramsky discussed are very important to reduce poverty. We need to realize that sending people to jail will not make a difference on its own, those people need a role model to show them the way. It is also a very good point to ensure that children that come from a low-income family will not have to worry about their child not being able to attend school. 

2. Something that I found very interesting was that Tennis stat Andre Agassi created a low-income academy in Las Vegas. On page 276 it describes that the students learn music, they travel to amazing place for field trips, they have special visitors such as Cirque du Soleil and they are expected to go to college. It took one person to create this success at a cost of 40 million dollars. Imagine if wealthy people would invest their money into future generations to help them succeed. One person was the reason for many of these low-income families of children having a chance. All of the children that attend that school will now have an opportunity to see things they never thought they would see and even have an opportunity to attend college. 

3. Abramsky talks about the "do right" mission. He stated a quote that inspired me, " What teaching methods worked best with people taught for years to think that their voices had no power"? (Abramsky, 306) He states that people who are living in poverty feel like they have no power. Why is that? Money runs this world and people are still stuck in poverty. It is a slippery slope and a hard one to get out of. Rhymes says that it is hard to get people to think they have a say after living in poverty for so long. There is an alliance ran program that young unemployed women can do for free to help build their own homes, start their own business and help them with their education. I think this is an amazing program and each county should have something similar to help out their community members. 

Abramsky, S. (2013). The American way of poverty: How the other half still lives. New York, NY: Nation Books