War on Poverty free essay sample

I believe poverty is a big social issue in America. Poverty can be the main cause of robberies, drugs, alcoholism, prostitution, and homelessness. These are some examples that concern me the most. Many people in this country don’t realize how serious this issue is, although we see it happening all the time. This issue is so overwhelming that it’s not brought up by many people nowadays. Poverty in this country has been since America was established. There has always been poverty in this country because of lack of skills and knowledge. People don’t get enough knowledge, and the ones that do have a more successful lifestyle. For an example, people in poverty will most likely stay in poverty for most of their lives or work hard to make ends meet. People not in poverty will have an easier life by not having to work as hard as people in poverty do. Robberies in America occur every 15. 4 seconds according to the FBI (crimedoctor. com). I believe many of those robberies are committed by people who feel the need to own something they can’t afford. The feeling of being in need can also provoke them to steal. Even the people, who commit the crime must feel like their adrenaline rushes and deep down feel the sense of guilt, but they still do it for necessity. Once they get away with it they might feel unstoppable, which means they might eventually end up committing another robbery. The money they get from pulling all these crimes might go to drugs, or it might go to their families who are in need of financial support. Living in poverty will increase robbery crimes. So, many of us won’t feel safe living homes or anything valuable alone. Urban cities are where poverty happens the most. Some victims who experience robbery can go through emotions’ like: fear, anger, shock, inability to sleep, nightmares, and sadness. People living in poverty are most likely to be under the influence of drugs. Drugs can be very distrustful to many people’s lives. Drugs can cause people to lose their families. It can also make people lose their morals and prospective about what achievements they want in life. People who have wealth and get hooked on drugs could eventually lose their home as well. For example, I have an uncle that was a hard construction worker before he got hooked on drugs. He would show of his money like it was nothing; he would go travel around the states. He had it all: the money, a nice home, fancy cars. Once he got introduced to drugs he was hooked. It first started with him selling his cars in order to get drugs and get high. Then he left his daughters and their mom because all he wanted was to get high. He ended up selling his home and losing everything because of drugs. Now, I see him struggling for to make money and basically living in poverty because of the mistakes he did when he was on drugs. Although he says he’s fine and we shouldn’t worry, sometimes I look at him, and I see him depressed because he doesn’t have the wealthy lifestyle he used to have. I could tell you now that he is living in serious poverty compared to his lifestyle before. My point is that no matter who you are wealthy or not, drugs will destroy people’s lives and somehow leave you living in poverty. Drugs are an expensive habit and will take up all the money in your pocket once you get hooked. I always see men outside stores, businesses, and streets asking for spare change just to go and spend it on drugs and alcohol. Alcohol, its use and abuse, will usually be found at the center of a poverty culture. Alcohol along with other addictive drugs will be found at the root of serious problems. Like health and spiritual problems, intolerance to any circumstances, or people being violent. Also can lead to rape and cause people to have AIDS, diseases, health problems and child abuse. Alcohol can also cause people to commit murder, and car crashes. For students it can cause low school grades and less work productivity. Parents using alcohol could lead them to lose their jobs and abuse their children. The problems associated with alcohol abuse rapidly ripple far beyond the consumer, costing society a large amount of millions of dollars and leaving innumerable scars. If people would be free of alcohol, society energies and resources could more appropriately focus on other issues. Prostitutes are most likely to sell their bodies due to poverty. People, most likely women would end up being a prostitute because they might not be educated enough. They might be pressured at home to put money on the table, so they have to go out and make that money. I also feel that it should be the parent’s fault because they couldn’t have raised their children better and not give them that chance to be out by themselves to have this lifestyle. Prostitutes might feel like that’s the only way for them to make money and provide for their families. Being in that lifestyle can cause them to be rape victims, be in dangerous crimes, and it can also lead to jail time if caught. Or prostitutes might like selling their bodies, because they might be addicted to sex. Prostitutes are looked down on because they don’t have any moral standard for themselves. Every year, more than 3 million people experience homelessness, including 1. 3 million children (National Law Center). Homelessness is a big issue in this country because of people not wanting to work or not having jobs. It can also be because of the economy not having enough jobs to provide for the people. Or it can be because of people having lack of incomes. It’s sad to see people to be in this situation but what we do to help them out if we barely have enough money to support ourselves? For example Santa Cruz, CA, from what I have seen has a lot of homeless people that live under bridges. It is so contaminated with homelessness that home shelters are so full of people. This makes tourists not want to come and discover the great cities we have to offer in the central coast. Poverty is to be noticed in this country, not to be forgotten. I, myself always think about these issues because it is a big aspect in America that isn’t brought up, like it should be. Our country needs to take into consideration all the crimes being caused because of poverty. Our country should help stop homelessness, prostitution and addictions also being caused by poverty. Instead of America helping other countries for the better, I think America should look at the problems we have with in our country and try to fix them.