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Problems Surrounding Poverty

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What is poverty. Poverty is defined in Webster's Dictionary as a lack of money or material possessions. Therefore, poverty is hunger, lack of shelter, being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.

Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place, and person to person. There are many problems that people living in poverty face such as, inadequate housing, poor nutrition and poor education.

Housing cost are for the most part, the single largest expenditure in a month. Unfortunately for families with low incomes, a disproportionate amount of income goes to paying for shelter, This makes securing adequate and safe accomadations often unaffordable.

According to the Bay County Chamber of Commerce, the average price for a home in Bay County is $ 94,000. In 1994, the average people living a households in Bay County was 2.54 (U.S. Census Bureau) members. If this family cannot afford to purchase a home, they will need to rent one, which will cost them on an average of $ 565 a month or $ 6780 a year. This does not take into account the extra costs of housing such as, utilities, gas, telephone or cable.

While $ 6780 may not appear to be a lot of money, to many families it represents a large amount of their income for families living at, or below poverty lines. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (1995), in Bay County, there was about 15% of people of all ages living in poverty