Hercules captures a runaway hind with golden horns that was sacred to Artemis.

Artemis is one of the early symbols of an Earth Mother Goddess. The golden horns can be interpreted as the wealth held in trust by the people of the Earth. The wealth represented by the lost hind is captured and returned to the kingdom.

On January 8, 1964, Lyndon Johnson announced, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”

The War on Poverty did not go so well, and four years later Nixon replaced it with the War on Drugs. In 1987, while walking across the White House lawn to a helicopter, Ronald Reagan tossed off a final epitaph: “In the Sixties we waged a war on poverty, and poverty won.”

It was an excuse to give up what perhaps should not have been seen as a war to begin with. However, it also represented an ideologically driven inability to adequately address some of these basic interconnected factors that create and maintain poverty:

1. SUBSTANCE ABUSE: Tremendous physical and psychological damage can be traced to the use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. The War on Drugs and drug prohibition has also created numerous problems that fall most heavily upon the poor. (see Labor IV).
2. FAMILY PLANNING: Even the poorest 20% of Americans spend an average of $175,000 per family to raise one child to age 18. When it cannot be paid by the parents, the taxpayers bear the cost. Having even one child is an onerous financial burden, yet the poor tend to have the most children, thus virtually ensuring that they will be locked into poverty and experience a wide range of related problems.
3. IMMIGRATION: Illegal and legal immigrants, mostly Hispanic, have a high birth rate, which contributes strongly to poverty. They also import all the characteristics of the poverty that they fled from. The benefits of immigration to companies that make use of cheap immigrant labor are not usually weighed against the cost to society.
4. PARENTING: The most fundamental element to starting out right in life rests upon ability of the parents to instruct and nurture their children. Yet this is usually the element that is weakest. It is not surprising that most of the poor, as well as those in prison, also come from unhappy families.
5. EDUCATION: If impoverished parents cannot teach their children properly, then their children are unlikely to prosper in the public school system, which cannot take on the main burden of education. Public schools are under-funded, but also overwhelmed by children who have not been prepared by their families or by society.
6. RESOURCES: Work skills, social networks, and assets to fall back on during low periods are missing. Often race, gender, or social status further limits access to resources.
7. MENTAL HEALTH: Many of the poor are unemployable or their skills are meager or impacted by psychological or mental problems. A sense of purposeless and powerlessness is common.
8. PHYSICAL HEALTH: Poor diet, lack of exercise, obesity, physical violence, lack of preventative health care, substance abuse, and depression all contribute to a downward spiral
9. FINANCIAL SKILLS: Poor financial decisions made on a daily basis and an inability to manage for the future helps insure that the poor stay poor.
10. ENVIRONMENT: Our automobile-dominated infrastructure is tough on people who cannot afford or are not allowed to a car. Living in ugly urban sprawl is dispiriting. Without beautiful natural surroundings, safe walkable streets, and livable communities with social networks, families feel less attached to each other and to the place where they live. They are more likely to be violent, apathetic, and angry. The poor also tend to be segregated into the same area, thus associating almost exclusively with each other and making it harder to improve their situation.
11. DISCRIMINATION: Being of a certain appearance, whether related to race or some other cause is a determinant in social standing and income. Aside from race, it has been demonstrated for example that being tall and/or good-looking vastly increases one’s chances of being successful in the world.
12. ATTITUDE: All of the above factors, coupled with anger and resentment, a lack of purpose, and a sense of powerlessness makes it almost impossible to have a positive attitude and make progress.

For almost three years I informally studied the lower-income people that I have encountered while rebuilding a slum neighborhood in my town. Before that, while living in California and working as a builder since 1986, I was also in close association with a large number of low-income and immigrant families.

More recently, many of my helpers were provided by a labor service that hired out day workers. Some workers were homeless, some lived at a public housing development within two blocks from my house, and others lived in group homes, or in shared living arrangements. I got to know their families, friends, and associates. I also spent a lot of time with subcontractors, public works employees, and other underprivileged people who lived in the area. As a result of many years of close interaction with hundreds of lower income people in California and Florida, I can draw three portraits of typical lower income families that includes most of the most common problems that I am personally familiar with:

THE POOREST OF THE POOR: Cory is a homeless white male. He is only 45 years old, but he is already a rail-thin, gray-bearded and toothless old man who walks with a limp. He sleeps outside most of the time, usually in doorways, under bridges, or in a makeshift tent in the woods. He is unwashed and his reeks of beer. His principle addictions in descending order of the effect on his life include alcohol, tobacco, crack cocaine, and coffee. He has a number of psychological problems, but it is impossible to sort them all out. He has been in and out of jail dozens of times for petty crimes, drug use, resisting arrest, assault, public intoxication, and attempted rape. He has four children with three women, none of whom he is in contact with. He begs for money, and occasionally gets day labor work for a half a day here and there. He spends what he gets immediately on alcohol, cigarettes, or crack cocaine.

POOR: Joe and Alison are both African-Americans in their late twenties. They have three children. Joe is from a family of 12, but he only grew up with 7 siblings, Alison is from a family of eight, but she only grew up with three of her siblings. Joe also has two children from a previous marriage. He owes $20,000 in child support in another state and often has problems with the law related to that. The first time he lost his driver’s license was because of a DUI, the second time it was because he did not pay back child support. They both smoke and drink. Joe also uses various drugs, most notably crack cocaine and Oxycontin, and works sporadically at construction work. He spends all his income within hours of receiving it. Joe and Alison fight constantly. They accuse each other of extramarital affairs, and sometimes their fights are physically abusive. Joe has been arrested once for battery, once for failure to pay child support, twice for DUI, twice for driving without a license, and once for resisting arrest. He suffers from bi-polar disorder and dyslexia. She has a driver’s license, but he does not. He drives anyway, but often takes buses or gets rides from friends when his dilapidated vehicle is broken down. He once spent about six months in jail for possession of crack cocaine. When they have Medicare or go to the county hospital emergency room and wait for hours to receive care. They have abysmal credit and owe over $50,000 in emergency room charges and interest from when they did not have Medicare. Their children are also sick quite often, but at least they are qualified to receive Medicaid. She graduated from high school; he dropped out in his junior year. They live in a subsidized public housing project that is composed of featureless apartment blocks with nearly treeless spaces in between. Trash dumpsters and parking lots are the most dominant features in front of the buildings. They rent some of their furniture from a rent-to-buy store that capitalizes on the poor. They are renting a large screen TV from the same place that will cost them over $2,000 by the time it is paid off. They buy lottery tickets almost every time they go to the store and they spend as much on alcohol and tobacco as they do on food, which is subsidized with food stamps. Sometimes Joe sells the food stamps, or his carpentry tools for money to buy alcohol and tobacco. Sometimes the tools, or other items from their home are pawned for cash on which they pay exorbitant interest. It is remarkable that they function at all considering all of their problems, and to observe them even for one day is exhausting. It seems that they are going to kill each another at any minute.

POOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS: Jose and Maria, Miguel and Angela (all in their early thirties), and their seven children live in a Garden District home that was renovated a year and a half ago. Today five windows are broken, some of the screens are pulled off, there is trash in the yard, and a growing pile of beer bottles on the side under a tree where Jose and Miguel or their Hispanic neighbors party once or twice week. The absentee landlord does what he can when he comes to town, and wants to evict them, but the fun-loving neighbors in the adjoining house, with its own mountain of beer bottles in the front yard, would make it difficult to get good tenants. Even as I am writing this, at 6:30 AM on a Sunday morning, the revelers are howling like coyotes and playing loud Mexican music that reverberates all over the neighborhood. The police are on the way, but the only thing that is certain is that they will be at it again next weekend. During these loud, drunken binges, the wives cringe with the children in the house. They do not try to rein in their husbands’ behavior because they would get beaten. During the week, Jose and Miguel work at a local fernery as laborers. The Immigration and Naturalization Service pays no attention to the fact that they are in this country illegally because the fern growers, and other employers around the country, need cheap labor and they have enough influence to keep enforcement of the law at a token level. They go to the emergency room of the county hospital when they need medical care, and ignore the bills they get.

LOWER MIDDLE INCOME: Sandra, 37, and Randy, 38, both work at a fast food restaurant. Randy is a manager. They had a checking account for a while, until medical bills caused them to lose what little credit they had. Now they pay their bills with money orders. They barely make ends meet and they live in a rented house that used to be in the middle of Cracktown, but is now in the rapidly improving Garden District. They share a 12-year old vehicle that Randy is constantly patching together to keep it running. Randy downs a six-pack every day after work, and watches television until he falls asleep on the recliner. Sandra watches her own TV in the bedroom. Everyone in the family smokes, but Sandra doesn’t drink as much. Randy has a son from a girl who he impregnated in high school. He signed away his parental rights and the mother never filed for child support. He has not seen his son since he was 18. Sandra and Randy have two teenage boys, Cory, 16 and Justin, 17. Justin left last year after a fight over not contributing money for rent and they do not know where he is. Cory keeps to himself, listens to a Walkman, plays video games, and sells drugs for spending money. He sleeps on the couch in the living room after his father goes to bed.

SOLUTIONS

The United States has the largest disparity between rich and poor of any industrialized country. One factor is the technological divide that separates those who are participating in the technological revolution from those who are left behind. High birth rates, social policy, family history, genetics, health, and other factors determine the rest. This divide is growing, and it is hard to imagine how anything could change for the better in the dynamics of these poor families as long as the status quo remains. The problems that beset the poor are so deep and convoluted that on the surface it might seem that any attempts to help are futile. Nevertheless, there are steps that the government could take that would eventually improve their lives.

END DRUG PROHIBITION: The simplest and most obvious solution is end the Drug War. Aside from all the reasons listed under Labor IV, prohibition helps create an alternative class system based on defiance and lawlessness. The illusion is created for young people that they can succeed in an underworld that has been glamorized by pop culture.

LEGALIZE PROSTITUTION: Many of the same problems caused by moralistic prohibitions against sex for hire by consenting adults parallel the ill effects caused by drug prohibition. Ending the war on sex, would allow the world’s oldest profession to be taxed and regulated to the benefit of society and all concerned.

FAMILY PLANNING AND PARENTING: Limiting family size is by far the biggest factor in reducing poverty in the U.S. One of my poor neighbors has 15 siblings; another one has 23 brothers and sisters. Each of these neighbors has four of their own children, spread over various mothers, and they will probably have more children. Even though this is an improvement over their fathers, they are still overwhelmed by the effort and expense of supporting their families, which to a large extent falls upon the state.

Studies have shown that there is a strong correlation between a family’s size and its net worth. Having no children should be considered as a noble option and encouraged. Limiting family size to one or two children, or opting to not have children, leaves time to make and keep more money, learn skills, get an education, develop parenting and relationship skills, and live under less stressful conditions. The benefits are then passed onto the next generation, thus helping to break the cycle of poverty that dooms most of the poor who have large families.

EDUCATION AND RESOURCES: Head Start, founded in 1965 during the War on Poverty, helps poor preschool children prepare for elementary school to partially offset insufficient training by their parents. Increased efforts like this to educate the children of the poor will pay big dividends to society later. Unfortunately, meager funding for education has been national policy for decades despite campaign promises. In February 2004, President Bush's Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, called America's largest teachers' union a "terrorist organization” because the union had the temerity to ask that President Bush fund education as promised.

Negative social attitudes, including real life consequences related to having too many children, brands certain ethnic or racial groups thus fostering prejudice and resentment. It is difficult to legislate social acceptance, so education must bear much of burden of instilling tolerance for people’s differences.

Not everyone is suited for higher learning, so providing basic work skills and a trade is much more useful for many people. Schools should place more emphasize on the entire range of skills needed in life, from relationships to managing a budget.

NATIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE: Having a comprehensive national health insurance program would be far more efficient and judicious than our current system, which is a mix of private and public insurance funding that costs more than any other industrialized country. The poor and lower middle classes would be the primary beneficiaries, but all of society would benefit if preventative health practices were freely available. It is far less costly to promote wellness then to wait for wait for people to get sick. (See Labor X: Health)

URBAN RENEWAL: In the Fifties and Sixties, urban renewal was jokingly referred to as “Negro Removal.” Huge numbers of predominately black, low-income people were relocated from decaying inner city neighborhoods into multi-story government housing projects that immediately turned into vertical crime ridden slums surrounded with trash and graffiti. Pruitt-Igoe, the infamous 2,870-unit housing development in St. Louis, consisting of 33 eleven-story buildings, was simply blown up by officials in 1972. (The equally uninspiring World Trade Center was designed by the same modernist architect, Minoru Yamasaki, and blown up by terrorists).

The New Urbanism movement emphasizes livable, walkable, mixed-use developments that are reminiscent of neighborhoods and urban areas that were common before the 1940s. I propose a “New Pedestrianism,” a branch of New Urbanism, with Pedestrian Villages that replaces the neo-traditional alley at the rear with an automobile street. The houses, with big porches, are then moved close to a tree-lined pedestrian lane in front. These multi-use lanes, closed to motor vehicles, connect all the houses with each other and a village center where public transportation would be available. This would work for all housing developments, including public housing, and would vastly improve the safety, health, quality of life, and community involvement for their inhabitants. (See Labor IX: Urbanism for details).