7 Poverty in St. Louis Monster

Saint Louis and Poverty

Poverty in St. Louis, like dementors in Harry Potter, consume people’s happiness and ruin lives. Poverty in St. Louis is a serious problem and hurts the St. Louis community by disrupting people’s basic needs. Although dementors are from the fictional world of Harry Potter, they relate to poverty in St. Louis by taking people’s survival needs away.  Being from St. Louis myself it is painful to see the less fortunate struggle with basic needs of living right Infront of my eyes.  There have been new attempts at addressing the problem, but the issue that has always been haunting the city of St. Louis remains unsolved. Dementors target vulnerable people and strip them from their basic functions to live, just like poverty. In this article, we will discuss the dementor and its soul-sucking capabilities and how it compares to the poverty struggle in St. Louis. The dementor doesn’t fit into just one category as it is both a prison guard and a soul-sucking monster, while poverty isn’t just about not having money, but also about not having basic needs.

The struggle with poverty in St. Louis has always been an issue our community. Many people deal with poverty in many different ways, this includes education, struggling families, or just dealing with poverty. The U.S. census states that over 20.4% of the Saint Louis population falls into the category of poverty (U.S. Census). This is a very high percentage and demonstrates that poverty is affecting many people in the city of St. Louis.

The St. Louis school system is amongst the highest in the nation with poverty. Many schools are run down and struggle to get basic school supplies. The local news author Michelle Li, from the Channel 5 local news network, describes that many students have missed class due to the lack of school supplies provided by the school such as basic hygiene products. (Li).  She then goes on to mention the low funds the schools in Saint Louis are working with to help students.

The city of Saint Louis has poverty all across, but more specifically East St. Louis is suffering the most. This part of Saint Louis not only struggles with poverty but is also known for its high crime rate and drug rate. Being in East St. Louis is a saddening sight, often many stores are permanently closed or about to be. The poverty rate of people from the ages of 18 through 59 in East St. Louis is double the average poverty rate in St. Louis altogether. The article “Poverty in East St. Louis, Illinois,” looks at the poverty rates in East St. Louis and many of these rates are quite surprising, over 11,000 out of 25,500 people are struggling with poverty live in the community (WelfareInfo). This means that every 1 out of 2.3 households struggle with poverty.

Families in Saint Louis struggle to feed their children and even themselves, Shala Farzan, from the Saint Louis Public Radio, mentions that nearly 1 and 4 Saint Louis families struggle to put food on the table. Meredith Knopp, president, and CEO of the St. Louis Area Foodbank says “We have too many children, too many seniors, too many veterans, too many families going to bed hungry all across our region.” (Hemphill). Food should be a basic need for families, not an amenity. The food banks in Saint Louis are overrun with people and families, and some families are left out of getting their basic needs each night.

Poverty can come in many different forms, but it all has the same outcome. People struggling with poverty are often also dealing with depression and sadness. People on average struggling with poverty deal with depression and anxiety 1.5 to 3 times the amount than the average person according to Matthew Ridley, from the department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ridley). Just like the average person dealing with poverty, dementors from “Harry Potter” by J. K. Rowling also steal the lives of people. Dementors use their soul sucking capability to attack people and drown them from their happiness. One could say that poverty does the same and attacks victims for their happiness in life. In Harry Potter some people are not equipped to survive a dementor, poverty can hit someone the same way.

Poverty is a monster that can impact people in many different ways, especially in St. Louis. The community of St. Louis struggles to face the monster of poverty and deals with the consequences every day. Whether it be schools, families, or even normal people in St. Louis. Poverty can suck the life out from under them as if poverty was a dementor. In conclusion, poverty is a very real problem in St. Louis and needs to be addressed. The school system, families, food, and communities suffer from poverty everyday. Hopefully St. Louis will see a major improvement before more innocent victims fall to poverty.

Recourses

Hemphill, Evie. “’Too Many Families Going to Bed Hungry’: A Look at Food Insecurity in the St. Louis Region.” STL Public Radio, 2019, https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2019-03-05/too-many-families-going-to-bed-hungry-a-look-at-food-insecurity-in-the-st-louis-region.

Li, Michelle. “’I Shouldn’t Be Penalized Because I’m Having a Period’: Period Poverty Continues in St. Louis.” Ksdk.com, 7 Sept. 2022, https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/period-poverty-st-louis/63-9d3dcb01-cae4-45e8-b254-c285dd89421c.

“Poverty Rate in East St. Louis, Illinois.” WelfareInfo, 2021, https://www.welfareinfo.org/poverty-rate/illinois/east-st-louis/.

Ridley, Matthew, et al. “Poverty, Depression, and Anxiety: Causal Evidence and Mechanisms.” Science , vol. 370, no. 6522, 2020, https://doi.org/10.3386/w27157.

“U.S. Census Bureau Quickfacts: St. Louis City, Missouri.” U.S Census Bureau , 2021, https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/stlouiscitymissouri.

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