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The True Face of Poverty

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From nearly every front, many Americans report that the economy was good during the nineties. Statistics indicate that unemployment was down, salaries went up and the stock market was booming. However, now studies are beginning to trickle in showing that for those already living at the extreme end of the economic income range, their situation actually worsened, leaving many Americans dangerously exposed when the economy stalled in the past couple years.

In late September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 1.7 million people slid into poverty in the last decade. The report also showed that the Midwest was hit the hardest of any region due mostly to loss of manufacturing companies in the area.
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National Housing Crisis

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Residents of the Chicago Housing Authority are not alone in their efforts to find housing. Recent reports by housing advocacy groups and news outlets across the United States show there is a severe shortage of housing for working and non-working, low-to-moderate-income people, including those with disabilities and HIV/AIDS. The reports find bad news for all of those who are affected by the nation’s housing crisis. But many of the groups also offer strategies that can help house Chicagoans and others who need a place to live.
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Squatters Worry About Homelessness

by  Assistant Editor

Many residents of public housing are asking the public, what would you do if you had no money, no job and no place to call home? How low would you go? Would you become a squatter?

I’m running into many squatters as I continue to do my research with professor Sudhir Venkatesh from Columbia University, author of American Project.

Take, for instance, a young man who’s squatting in one of the vacant units in a Chicago Housing Authority development, a young man known to the other building residents as “Larry.” I asked him how he got to be a squatter? Read more »

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