US poverty spikes but help from Washington shrinks as government struggles with debt
© AP Photo/Patrick SemanskyIn this April 1, 2013 photo, Antonio Hammond stands outside of his apartment in Baltimore. Hammond arrived in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where “the rats were fierce,” and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures. Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the 49-year-old Philadelphia native is clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour and paying taxes. But such success stories are in danger as $85 billion in federal government spending cuts that began last month begin squeezing services for the poor nationwide.
Antonio Hammond is the $18,000 man.
He's a success story for Catholic Charities of Baltimore, one of a multitude of organizations trying to haul people out of poverty in this Maryland port city where one of four residents is considered poor by U.S. government standards.
Hammond says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where "the rats were fierce," and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures. Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the 49-year-old Philadelphia native is back in the work force, clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour cleaning laboratories for the Biotech Institute of Maryland and paying taxes.
Catholic Charities, which runs a number of federally funded programs, spent $18,000 from privately donated funds to turn around Hammond's life through the organization's Christopher's Place program which provides housing and support services to recovering addicts and former prisoners.
Such success stories are in danger as $85 billion in federal government spending cuts begin squeezing services for the poor nationwide. The cuts started kicking in automatically on March 1 after feuding Democrats and Republicans failed to agree on a better plan for addressing the national deficit. They are hitting at a time of spiking poverty as the U.S. slowly climbs out of the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
"All I wanted to do was get high," Hammond said. "I didn't even know any more how to eat or clean myself."
Comment: To put the above U.S. poverty statistics into perspective: Wealth inequality in America