The Challenges Of Poverty In Ocean Village In The Rockways

In the article “For Houston’s Homeless, a Terrifying Night Under Siege by Hurricane Harvey” by Julie Turkewitz, the main focus is the harsh reality of a hurricane this string for those who are homeless in Houston. First, Turkewitz sets the harsh reality by telling the readers about Roy Joe Cox- a homeless man in Houston- who is preparing to cope for the Hurricane with what little he has. She then builds her claim by writing about what the effects of Hurricane Harvey are, and what officials are expecting to happen. Next, Turkewitz suggests that any homeless person who is in Houston at this time should seek shelter at the available locations. Finally, she brings the harsh and sad reality for the homeless men and women in Houston by quoting Roy Joe Cox as he asks, “I’ve never experienced a hurricane. Is it going to rain out that bad? Is it going to flood me out? I mean, I don’t want to die over a hurricane . . . I’d rather not die.” (Turkewitz, 2017).

Question One: What populations are vulnerable and what resources are available for vulnerable citizens? The vulnerable populations in Houston are the low income communities (including homeless people), the elderly, people with disabilities, immigrants, and the "linguistically isolated communities…Chinese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese speaking groups" (Nepal, et al, 2009). The St. Luke's Episcopal Health Charities prepared a report on disaster preparedness for the Houston Department of Health and Human Services (Peranteau, et al, 2009). The report explains that vulnerable populations tend to be more impacted by hurricanes and other disasters than the middle class and upper middle class communities in Houston. The report state that "…Failure to address the needs of low income communities and individuals, who are disproportionately affected by natural disasters," hampers the recovery from a hurricane for all communities. "Low income communities" (i.e., vulnerable communities) are "disproportionately affected by natural disasters, and are disadvantaged again when the recovery process does not take their unique needs into account" (Peranteau, p. 3). The point of the research was to determine how best to serve this population during hurricanes and tropical storms, which are very common in Houston.

During tropical storms in 1976 and 1977 that destroyed many housing developments triggered a lasting economic decline. According to data usa, “68.3% of the population in Salton Sea Beach, CA (499 people) live below the poverty line, a number that is higher than the national average of 14%. The largest demographic living in poverty is Female 6-11, followed by Female 45-54 and then Male 18-24”(Datausa). This data is a shocking realization of the heavy impacts of the forgotten issue. Many jobs such as fishing and farming are becoming harder and harder to obtain because of the need for the water in the Salton sea. The only way to fix this already broken economy is to go through with the plans to rehabilitate the Salton sea, which would offer jobs leading to improvement of the daily lives of residents. Therefore, as evidence shows, the economy is already at its low and if nothing is done , the economy's problems will be quite

The aftermath left by the disaster has left the conditions on the island rather bleak. If something isn’t done quickly conditions will continue to deteriorate and the resulting

In, The Glass Castle, when The Walls family moves to Welch and gets one if not the cheapest house that they could buy, the house was filled with problems and was even more problematic when the roof collapsed “The ceiling in the bedroom had collapsed, and Brian had moved his bed onto the porch. He made walls by nailing boards along the railings, but it leaked pretty badly out there, too, so he still slept under the inflatable raft,”(249). This shows the danger of living in poverty in a first world because Wall’s brother is faced with leaks that could endanger his safety by keeping him up at night and during the winter they could have more of a chance to get hypothermia. In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Kamkwamba’s roof collapsed in his room because of termites and storms, “ My ceiling now sagged in the middle and my floor was covered in dirt and grass. The broken beam had also dumped hundreds of squirming termites onto the floor and across my bed,” (215).This shows that the danger of poverty in third world countries, Kamkwamba, and first world, Wall’s, both have problems with safety because of their houses being dangerous and them being too poor to fix or prevent the damage. This makes the housing while living poor in third world countries similar to the housing when living poor in a first world country because they are both dangerous and easily

Vulnerability factors considered in this paper will be broken down as follows, micro- individual and familial factors, generation level, meso- environmental factors , discrimination, neighborhood ethnic density, macro-culture, beliefs, socioeconomic status and chrono-

Despite the key points of the development paradigm, there are no recognized indicators that this disaster was the result of human exploitation or marginalization of poor people. The study did show a vast difference in household income levels. The median household income in the US affected area was $25,347, compared to a median household income of $10,570 in the affected area of Mexico. Regardless of these income level differences, the study concluded that local television appeared to be the primary source of information for 44% of the participants, with 43% using two sources of information for hurricane warnings and updates and 88% found that information they received was helpful (Ruin et al., 2008). There were no complainants from the interviewees that they failed to have enough time to prepare for the hurricane. Military forces of both countries were deployed to conduct rescue missions for their respective

Junot Diaz once said “Disasters don’t just happen. They are always made possible by a series of often-invisible societal choices that implicate more than just those being drowned or buried in rubble” (Junot Diaz, 1). This quote introduces the idea of what is referred to as a social disaster. A social disaster can be a natural disaster such as earthquakes, tsunamis, or hurricanes etc. that are associated with some environmental, cultural, or political problem (Hovenac, 1). These societal problems can be a result of the natural disaster but more often issues that have always been there that are uncovered by the event of the natural disaster. When we look back at natural disasters that have occurred in United States, we notice that societal issues also arise with these events. A known example of this is when Hurricane Katrina hit the United States in 2005. As a result of the storm, researchers claimed that the socioeconomic status of those affected by the storm played a vital role in the damages that they face. This natural disaster brought attention to the pressing issue of the socioeconomic imbalance in our country and how it affects those in a natural disaster.

The disasters cause poverty because these countries are often weak financially and cannot afford to restore their country after extensive damage. Therefore due to lack of resources the situation gets worse. It affects their inhabitant's lives causing a lack of production leading to being unable to provide for citizens. In turn leading to poverty, as they cannot even provide substances to trade and lose money. Other factors that affect the lives of citizens are lack of clean water and standard education.

Poverty was an economic factor that greatly influenced how the earthquake affected the population. In Haiti, 80% of the population was under the poverty line. ⅔ of Labor force employees relied on agriculture and due to high unemployment levels, many did not have a job and the population owned an average of under $2 a day. During the earthquake, Haiti’s agricultural industries were destroyed, leaving most of the county unemployed and unable to produce its main exports. This further exacerbated the problem of poverty and left the population without resources, food and water.

As the Marxist approach puts it, “underlying states of human marginalisation are conceived as the principle cause of disaster.” (Pelling, 2001, p. 179). This resource exclusion to particular categories of people within society creates their vulnerability to risk, and in turn disaster. McLaughlin and Dietz (2007) suggest there are three dimensions that make up vulnerability including exposure, sensitivity and resilience. An example displaying the vulnerability of lower classed social categories is in North Bihar, India, where floods have been managed through engineering works to create embankments. While the Government appears to be reducing the hazard, this has increased the vulnerability of the local people. Soil fertility has decreased reducing agricultural success, dangerous flash floods are occurring due to embankment walls collapsing and communities have settled on apparently safe embankments and are now highly exposed (Pelling, 2001). The natural flood hazard was dangerous, but these works by society have created a natural disaster (Pelling, 2001). Power inequalities have created this disastrous situation where lower classes are at high exposure to floods due to profit hungry management bodies. This technological approach is clearly failing but the Government and other managing groups make large profits off flood engineering works and have the power to decide how to control the issue (Pelling, 2001). This has resulted in creating

In the wake of natural disasters, the minorities of America are down the pecking order in the government’s list of priorities. Specifically seen in the African-American people, the government fails to provide speedy response time, supplies and other aid, as well as providing substantial compensation for the families devastated by disasters, which could have been preventable or deterred from causing more havoc. In many cases, the African-American people were exposed to poor living conditions, living in undesirable areas, and a lack of wealth, education, and preventative warnings of oncoming disasters. This can be seen in the cases of the 1900 great hurricane of Galveston, Texas and the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave, but the greatest example of

After reading Booth’s work on The Life and Labour of the People of London led me to construct my own investigation on poverty but in a provincial town so I can then find an applicable general conclusion for a smaller populated area.

Poverty is “the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor” (Dictionary.com, 2017). Based off this definition poverty is a condition that can cause a cascade of cause and effect actions that is detrimental to families and individuals both physically and mentally. Haan, Kaplan, & Camacho (2017) completed a study on the correlation between social and economic status and health in adults in Oakland, CA. They found that the lower the socioeconomic class the higher incidents of diseases and deaths related to chronic diseases (p.1161-1162). Just being without money or little money was not the only indication of health indication, a person living in an area with higher poverty issues

Poverty reduction and environmental conservation represent two of the main global challenges. The two targets constitute part of the eight Global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Arising from the thinking that Environmental degradation and poverty reinforce each other since the poor are both agents and victims of environmental destruction; the poverty-environment hypothesis has become a major concern of international development agencies and policy makers. It is often argued that the poor are often the biggest victims of environmental destruction since they depend