- Poverty strikes a smaller percentage in southeast Louisiana in wake of Hurricane Katrina, By Katy Reckdahl, June 28, 2012, New Orleans Times-Picayune: “Southeast Louisiana bucked national trends and became less poor than it was a decade ago, largely because of new investment due to rebuilding efforts and because of the post-Hurricane Katrina diaspora, which forced many of the city’s poor families to find housing outside the region, according to an analysis of U.S. census data released Thursday by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center. Calling the post-Katrina exodus ‘the largest population displacement since the Dust Bowl,’ the study noted that it ‘changed the map of poverty’ in the 13-parish region considered southeast Louisiana. Between 1999 and 2010, parishes that flooded after Katrina lost thousands of their poor residents: Orleans Parish lost 50,000, St. Bernard lost 4,000 and Plaquemines lost nearly 2,400. But the rest of the region showed little increase in poverty, suggesting that most poor people relocated outside the region…”
- Poverty strikes health, education across region, By Andrew Nash, June 28, 2012, Pittsburg Morning Sun: “The freezers at the Wesley House are running out of meat. One freezer contains just five packages of hot dogs, while another freezer holds three small packages of edamame beans and one package of deer hamburger. All told, freezers that should be full are empty and becoming more empty. These freezers are supposed to be full of proteins for those who need it – a surprisingly large number in this region. These pantries tend to get low from time to time during the year, but the cupboards are bare a little earlier this year. Bare cupboards and freezers at the Wesley House are just one symptom of an ongoing problem in the Four States region. Declining health statistics and poor economic conditions are two more symptoms. The pervasive problem in this region is poverty, and it’s not going to go away. Pick any figure that details the impoverished, and those in Southeast Kansas and Southwest Missouri will be among the worst of the bunch…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty