Empowering destitute people towards transforming communities

5.3Global society problems

This phrase refers to problems that operate on a worldwide scale to shape the world we live in, by impacting on our local context as well.

5.3.1Poverty

Poverty is perceived by many as the underlying problem giving rise to a variety of other difficulties leading to destitution. According to the National Coalition for the Destitute (1998:1) two trends are largely responsible for the rise in destitution in the world, namely a growing shortage of affordable housing and a simultaneous increase in poverty.
The Coalition (1998:2-5) adds that destitution and poverty are inextricably linked. Poor people are frequently unable to pay for housing, food, child care, health care, and education. Difficult choices must be made when limited resources cover only some of these necessities. Often it is housing, which absorbs a high proportion of income, that must be dropped. Being poor means being an illness, an accident, or a pay cheque away from living on the streets.
While I do not concur with the viewpoint that poverty underlies all problems leading to destitution, it cannot be denied that poverty most often does play a role in the impact of other problems contributing to destitution: for instance, a poor person will suffer more inconvenience and distress from medical problems than a person able to afford good medical care. It also cannot be denied that poverty often engenders other problems leading to destitution. Helpers will need to understand poverty and its many resulting problems if they really want to empower destitute people. Viv Grigg (1992:68) makes an excellent point: “The worker among the poor must be conversant with the range of causes and types of poverty. At the same time, he or she must somehow not be overly pre-occupied with analysis beyond that which facilitates effective, non destructive action.”
Poverty is a global issue that creates a backdrop for such problems in the local South African context. Anup Shah (2003) runs and updates a website concerned with the facts and figures surrounding global poverty. The statistics are shocking. He quotes numerous sources and studies that prove his findings. Also shocking are the emerging trends – poverty and inequality are on the increase⁸.
His findings are echoed by Narayan, Deepa, Petesch & Patti (2002:461-467) who declare that poverty remains an enormous problem worldwide, despite major reductions over the past 50 years. Within the developing countries, about one third of the population lives on less than US$1 a day. (The World Bank defines poverty as an income of less than US$1 per day, using purchasing power parity: in other words, exchange rates adjusted to the local currency.) By this measure, although the percentage of the world’s population living in poverty declined slightly between 1987 and 1993 (from 30.1 percent to 29.4 percent), the absolute number of people living in poverty increased from 1.2 billion to 1.3 billion. Although some Asian countries, such as Indonesia, have made considerable progress in reducing poverty, in South Asia, progress has been slow. In sub-Saharan Africa and in Latin America and the Caribbean, the percentage of the population living in poverty actually increased slightly between 1987 and 1993.
More recent poverty statistics state that 2.8 billion persons live on less than two dollars a day. Much has been learned over the last century about how to reduce poverty, yet it still persists, according to Narayan, Deepa, Petesch & Patti (2002:462), who also argue that the concept of poverty implies the incapacity to become inserted in the socioeconomic environment in a way that continually allows for the satisfaction of the basic necessities of life (2002:463).
The New York Times in one of its email updates, in its Quote of the Day section for July 18, 2001, recorded the following quote by President Bush: “A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day, is neither just, nor stable.”
A number of issues can be discerned regarding the endemic poverty worldwide that impacts on destitution, globally but also in South Africa. Among these are the escalating cost of living, growing social and economic inequality and economic decline.
Economic factors such as the rising oil price have an effect, because increased transport costs make it more and more difficult for the marginalized poor, who live on the peripheries, to reach their jobs, or to seek for work.

5.3.2Dysfunctional economic ethos

This term refers to a global tendency where the rich become richer, often through exploitation and suppression, or by means of corruption, while the poor become poorer.
Weisbrot, M. Baker, D. Kraev, E. & Chen, J. (2001) (in Shah 2006:7) point out that economic growth in poor countries for the last 20 years (from 1980 – 2000) has shown a very clear decline in progress compared to the previous two decades (1960 – 1980).
Add to this decline the factors of unemployment, and the exploitation of the poor as “cheap labour”, and the picture becomes darker. "Unemployment has been internationalized", capital migrates from one country to another in a perpetual search for cheaper supplies of labour (Chossudovsky, 1998: 23-25). According to the ILO (2005:3), the global corporation minimizes labour costs on a global level. Real wages in the Third World and Eastern Europe are as much as seventy times lower than in the US, Western Europe or Japan: the possibilities of production being shifted to the former areas are immense given the mass of cheap impoverished workers throughout the world.
While mainstream economics stresses the need to allocate society's "scarce resources", the harsh social realities are in marked contrast to the dominant economic dogma: industrial plants are closed down, small- and medium-sized enterprises are driven into bankruptcy, professional workers and civil servants are laid off, human and physical capital stands idle in the name of "efficiency". The drive is towards the "efficient" use of society's resources at the micro-economic level. At the macro-economic level, however, exactly the opposite situation obtains: resources are not used "efficiently": i.e. with large amounts of unused industrial capacity and millions of unemployed workers, modern capitalism is totally incapable of mobilizing these untapped human and material resources (ILO, 2005:3-4).
Corruption adds greatly to the ongoing problem of destitution. As Bartle (2005:3) asserts, when resources that are intended to be used for community services or facilities are diverted into the private pockets of someone in a position of power, there is more than morality at stake here. He explains:

The amount of money that is extorted or embezzled is not the amount of lowering of wealth to the community. Economists tell of the "multiplier effect." Where new wealth is invested, the positive effect on the economy is more than the amount created.  When investment money is taken out of circulation, the amount of wealth by which the community is deprived is greater than the amount gained by the embezzler.  When a Government official takes a 100 dollar bribe, social investment is decreased by as much as a 400 dollar decrease in the wealth of the society (2005:3).

5.3.3Famine and hunger

Can we link destitution and hunger? It would seem so. While living on the streets, most destitute people go hungry. This physical state consequently undermines the functioning and health of the person, putting them at even greater risk of staying destitute. A person who is hungry, cannot stay healthy, cannot function, and is therefore at greater risk of becoming destitute.
We often hear about the world running out of enough food to feed our growing population. For various reasons, however, that is not likely. The overwhelming evidence indicates that people are not hungry because of a lack of food; they are hungry because they do not have the money to pay for it.
According to the World Hunger Program (2002:1-2), starvation clearly implies social, political, or economic failures on the part of local, state, or national governments to provide for their citizens. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO, 2001:2-4) comments that aid programmes or governments may take up some of the slack by purchasing food from producers and distributing it; but this might even encourage destitution, as people become dependent upon handouts.
This means that ending hunger requires doing away with poverty, or, at the very least, ensuring that people have enough money or the means to acquire it, in order to buy, and hence create a market demand for, food.

5.3.4Disasters

Natural hazards represent a main source of risk for the poor, and disasters are a downward trigger for poverty. Natural catastrophes are generally defined in three main categories: windstorm, flood and hurricane (Freeman 1999:3).
The World Bank (2007:2) terms these “natural shocks”. The World Development Report (2000/2001:11) [WDR] establishes the effects of natural disasters as an important dimension of poverty. Low-income families typically live on marginal land, in the informal sector and possess few, if any, resources with which to protect themselves.
Freeman (1999:1-8) also stresses the impact of natural disasters on poverty, as well as the cost of repairs and recovery after disasters. Natural disasters can contribute largely to people becoming destitute, either in the short term or in the longer term, especially in developing countries.

5.3.5Urbanization

Who made us Poor?

Slum children

Longing for a piece of bread,

abandoned

no one reaching them, touching them.

Broken homes,

Lack of love,

Slum millions needing a Saviour.

Go, live down, among,

Proclaim Calvary’s love song:

Salvation of the suffering lies in Him.

For in Him the structures

of the mega cities integrate

(Viv Grigg, 1992: 67).

The destitute can be considered migrants of the city. They travel from city to city, forever seeking, seldom finding. What is needed is mechanisms of adaptation to their society. Meister (in Grigg, 1992: 70), in describing squatters, identifies a typical path followed by migrants:

1. 
   The individual brings from the country the sum total of standards and values that prevail in her or his own environment and clings to the same traditions in town. With the destitute, the standards are usually very low, working hand in hand with poor values, mostly because of broken homes. Most often the person that eventually becomes destitute received a poor upbringing, resulting in a weak character and low standards.
   
2. 
   The new mode of life and rural values clash. The migrant fails to find steady work. The children fall under the influence of other displaced urban children. The father loses control, and former values are repudiated. On heavy drinking and desertion, the family unit disintegrates. Who becomes destitute in this picture? The father, because of drinking, the guilt of a broken family, and the loss of values, has the potential to become destitute, especially if there is a lack of support systems. The children potentially grow up to become destitute. And the mother struggles till she can struggle no more, and gives up, ending in a shelter for the destitute.
   
3. 
   The migrant comes to accept urban life. He or she experiences some job successes and begins to develop urban goals in terms of desirable places to live, and preferences for consumer goods, and starts participating in formal groups. Although some migrants adapt by delinquency and others through participation and leadership in migrant development programs, it is important to emphasize that, in most cases, there is successful urban adaptation.
   

Most of the destitute people who arrive in shelters came as migrants into the city, searching for jobs, looking for the better life, but, unable to adapt, ending up on the street.

J.R. McCreary (In Grigg 1992:70-71) discusses these experiences along the same lines. He writes:

1. 
   First, there is a loss of direct contact with indigenous social controls and missions influence, and a non-acceptance of responsibility for collateral kin.
   
2. 
   The extended family loses its supportive function, although kinship networks continue to function, placing additional strain on traditional values.
   
3. 
   A new urban social structure develops, with the mother moving into the centre of the family, and the father becoming a declining figure.
   
4. 
   Youth form marginal groups and tend to lose direction. Disorientation at the personal level is expressed in delinquency, violence, prostitution and excessive drinking (or substance abuse). This “dysfunctionality” becomes an internal problem, with the potential to lead to destitution.
   

In this way urbanization contributes to destitution: it literally “uproots” people, leaving them anchorless, for they have lost their communities.