As a child, I always thought I had everything I needed, especially since I was happy and grateful for the things my parents provided me with. Looking back at my childhood, I realized that there was a time period when my parents went through financial struggles. Since I went through this struggle, people around the nation are going through it or have been there. We need to find a way to make a difference in someone's life. How can we address the issue of poverty? As individuals? As a community? As a society?
Over time, I've noticed my parents' financial situation has steadily improved. In Houston, household incomes jumped during 2010, but not significantly like in other metropolitan cities. In the article “Here's how much Houston's household income grew over the past decade," John Egan highlights how Houston was growing financially. The article further explains how “Houston ranks No. 40 for the rise in household income among the country’s 50 largest cities.” This shows that Houston wasn’t really among the top cities that were growing financially. We need to provide people with more awareness that we need to financially help people who are in desperate need.
When talking about the subject of poverty in Houston, people don’t really talk about it; they talk about other subject matters. People still in Houston are still living in poverty and struggling to afford basic necessities. To illustrate, in the article “Poverty and Social Mobility in Houston,” provided by Understanding Houston, it talks about the social and economic state of Houston. For example, in the information guide, it says, “About 900,000 Houston-area residents lived below the poverty line in 2021.” In Houston, there are a huge number of people who are living under these conditions. I remember when some of my old friends couldn’t afford something because they didn’t have enough money. This made me realize that we, as a society, should make a change, help people, and donate to a charity or foundation because you will never know what someone is going through in their life.
When I hear people’s situations, it makes me think about how this issue of poverty impacts youth. In the county I live in, research shows that 10% of youth aged 16 to 19 in Harris County are neither working nor pursuing education. The article “Poverty and Social Mobility in Houston,” provided by Understanding Houston, addresses the issue of how youth are being impacted. The article states, "young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are not enrolled in school or not working are classified as “opportunity youth.” Once a young person becomes disengaged from school or work, it becomes increasingly difficult to reconnect with them. This makes being disconnected really bad because if you don’t have any education or a job, this automatically sets you up to financially struggle in your life and causes poverty. Our youth are really important because they represent the future, and we need to support them in any way because we want them to succeed because education is the key to having a successful future.
My first impression of poverty is the different adverse impacts it may have on a family. People can’t sometimes afford basic necessities like food, housing, healthcare, and transportation. Understanding Houston's article, "Poverty and Social Mobility in Houston," is about how many people live in ALICE, meaning Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. The article explains, "The proportion of households classified as ALICE was 31% in Fort Bend, 32% in Harris, and 24% in Montgomery counties. This is on top of the percentage of households that live below the Federal Poverty Line.” This indicates that people are really struggling to afford basic necessities, and we need to bring awards. Helping those in need and raising awareness of this issue are the two things that we as individuals can do to stop poverty from continuing.
I frequently question whether racial characteristics have an impact on a person's life when discussing poverty. For instance, are individuals not receiving enough support because they are being singled out and stereotyped based only on their race? Understanding Houston's page titled "Poverty and Social Mobility in Houston ' discusses how the poverty rate is much higher in black people than white. The text of the article informs us that “People of color, especially black and Hispanic/Latino people, are more likely to live in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty due to our nation’s long history of racial segregation.” Moreover, we need to stop racially profiling and take this into account because it can affect people’s living conditions.
In the end, poverty will always be a problem, and we need to help and support people who are going through this struggle. If we work together as a community, we can help people get out of this problem. Growing up, my parents always told me that no matter what situation you are in, you should always help someone and just pass it on. You’ll never know if they can return a favor in the future. Helping people in need is not just good; it is fantastic because we lend a helping hand to those who need it. We make a positive impact on their lives and society as a whole by providing support, resources, and opportunities for them to expand and grow. We can help break the cycle and give them a chance to thrive and succeed in life. It is mostly about creating a more equitable and compassionate world. That's why we should bring awareness to this issue and resolve each problem; plus, helping others brings us joy and a sense of fulfillment. So we should work as a community together and help each other, spread love and kindness, and make a difference in the lives of those who need it the most. I believe that the world should be more caring and fair. In these ways, we can empower these individuals to reach their full potential and achieve success.
What inspired me to write about this piece is that poverty is a big issue in our society and I want to talk about my experiences with it and also how much poverty is affecting Houston household incomes. My writing process in this piece was actually interesting for me, especially because Houston is my hometown and I was interested to see the Houston statistics for poverty. The literal demands and the techniques I see in my writing are that I use my personal experience to talk about this topic. The themes that I am exploring in my piece are the issues of poverty in Houston. My literal influences were the articles that I was reading for my research paper. After all, I'm satisfied with my writing because I managed to connect my personal experiences with the articles.