This post is a response to the question ["Is a world without poverty possible? If so how does society take action to move in that direction?"] (https://peakd.com/week-09/@dbruce/week-09-questions-addressing-extreme) posed by @dbruce.
I don’t believe a world without poverty is possible. Honestly after experiencing some of the homelessness this past year, I do not know if all of them want help. We would offer them granola bars or whatever we had on hand as they were standing there with signs about being hungry and some of them still refused the food. I do believe that we can help those who want to be helped. I think the first big step towards no poverty is helping our own citizens first. The United States sends lot of relief to other counties. What are we truly doing to help our own?
Poverty In The United States
The United States should focus on its own population before we start to help others. I do not want that to come off harsh, but we are sending money or supplies to people overseas when people here are not even being feed. How is that fair? I think one way we could help the extremely poor in our country is trying to reduce our food waste. Americans through away billions of pounds of food per year, and that could be helping our poor citizens. I am not completely sure on how we turn this around. Possible ideas are food donation once certain foods get close to their expiration date, but the poor would still have time to eat it before it expired. I have worked in a grocery store before and watched as gallons upon gallons of expired milk were dumped down the drain. It happens with all other foods as well. By donating these foods before they expire, the food is not going to waste, and the grocery store is not out any money that they would not be before. Once we have our poverty under control, I believe that we could then turn back to other countries. Giving our poor food would also allow them to do other productive things instead of how and where they will get their next meal. When we have figured out our own poverty issues, I believe that we might come up with better ways to help them.