It’s being reported that poverty is the worst in decades.
The same article also shows an option for success – a church run charity.
Hammond says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin, living in abandoned buildings where “the rats were fierce,” and financing his addiction by breaking into cars and stealing copper pipes out of crumbing structures.
Eighteen months after finding his way to Catholic Charities via a rehabilitation center, the Philadelphia native is back in the work force, clean of drugs, earning $13 an hour cleaning laboratories for the Biotech Institute of Maryland and paying taxes.
Kicked his habit: Antonio Hammond (pictured) says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin
Kicked his habit: Antonio Hammond (pictured) says he ended up in Baltimore three years ago, addicted to crack cocaine and snorting heroin – while living in poverty
Catholic Charities, which runs a number of federally funded programs, spent $18,000 from privately donated funds to turn around Hammond’s life through the organization’s Christopher’s Place program which provides housing and support services to recovering addicts and former prisoners.
Such success stories are in danger as billions in federal government spending cuts begin squeezing services for the poor nationwide.
Yep, losing the federal funding would hurt these charities who are reaching out to help the poor recover and succeed. I wonder how much more private money they could receive if taxpayers weren’t having so much of their money confiscated by the government? I know I’d be able to give more, if I could actually pay myself each week. As a business owner, I make sure my employees get paid each week, but with the economy so poor and my taxes so robust, there are some weeks where our operating account is sucking fumes and I have to forego my paycheck. That happens more often than I’d like. Hubby and I have brought home half of what we used to make, and money’s tight. The story is the same all over the country.
I wish the government would stop inserting itself in the middle of charitable efforts. The churches and volunteer organizations are much more efficient with the money, and they have the goal of getting people out of their needy situations. The liberal powers in government prefer to keep the needy, to keep their reelections safe.
I wish the poor would realize that.