Though this blog focuses on the effects of poverty in Chicago and the hardships of people who have been forced into homelessness because of poverty, in truth the problem of poverty and homelessness is far greater in other parts of the world. The poor in the poorest parts of the world have far fewer opportunities than the poor in Chicago.

A new documentary called The End of Poverty? looks at the policies of the U.S. government and U.S. business that have led to crushing poverty in places like sub-saharan Africa. The movie is narrated by Martin Sheen and is directed by Philippe Diaz, who has experience with making films about U.S. politics (Uncovered: The War in Iraq) and Africa (The Empire in Africa).

Watch the trailer below.

You can see more videos from the movie on their YouTube Channel. The film will be showing in NYC on November 13 and in LA on November 25.

DeNeen L. Brown of The Washington Post had a long article entitled “Poor? Pay Up.” in Monday’s edition explaining the huge costs that the poor have to pay just because they are poor.

Poverty 101: We’ll start with the basics.

Like food: You don’t have a car to get to a supermarket, much less to Costco or Trader Joe’s, where the middle class goes to save money. You don’t have three hours to take the bus. So you buy groceries at the corner store, where a gallon of milk costs an extra dollar.

A loaf of bread there costs you $2.99 for white. For wheat, it’s $3.79. The clerk behind the counter tells you the gallon of leaking milk in the bottom of the back cooler is $4.99. She holds up four fingers to clarify. The milk is beneath the shelf that holds beef bologna for $3.79. A pound of butter sells for $4.49. In the back of the store are fruits and vegetables. The green peppers are shriveled, the bananas are more brown than yellow, the oranges are picked over.

(At a Safeway on Bradley Boulevard in Bethesda, the wheat bread costs $1.19, and white bread is on sale for $1. A gallon of milk costs $3.49 — $2.99 if you buy two gallons. A pound of butter is $2.49. Beef bologna is on sale, two packages for $5.)

The problem of access to food is especially relevant to the poor on the South Side of Chicago where whole sections of the city are without a large supermarket or any store to buy fresh produce. Instead corner food and liquor stores dot most blocks. Expensive food from grocery stores also encourages eating at unhealthy fast food restaurants. The value menu really is a considerable value when put next to corner store prices. Outside of the immediate higher costs of fast food and corner store food is the long term health effects that come from a poor diet. Obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol are all problems that can stem from a poor diet and can later cause huge medical costs.

Brown goes on to give examples of how time consuming doing laundry is when it isn’t available in your home or apartment building and the exorbitant fees that the poor pay to use check cashing storefronts in place of banks. The neon signs and security cameras of these stores are a fixture in many poor Chicago neighborhoods.

I wrote about some of the practical difficulties of being both poor and homeless when I profiled Andrew Green, a homeless teen in Uptown. He made money by washing the windows of a check cashing storefront in a strip mall on the corner of Lawrence Ave. and Sheridan Rd. What wasn’t in the story was that he also faced some of the high fees for items at corner stores. He spent much of his day at the SL Pantry, a corner store like the ones Brown mentions in her story. Green is a constant smoker and when he gathered up enough money he would buy a single cigarette from the SL pantry for $.50, far more than he would pay per cigarette if he bought a pack.

Many corner stores break down packages of items to be sold individually for much higher prices, but it isn’t necessarily a scheme to make more money off their customers. Many poor customers can’t afford to buy a whole package of diapers so they buy just the one they need, even if it is much more expensive than if they bought in bulk.

Brown also makes a good point that these corner and convenience stores aren’t necessarily trying to rip off customers.

Many of these stores charge more because the cost of doing business in some neighborhoods is higher. “First, they are probably paying more on goods because they don’t get the low wholesale price that bigger stores get,” says Bradley R. Schiller, a professor emeritus at American University and the author of “The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination.”

“The real estate is higher. The fact that volume is low means fewer sales per worker. They make fewer dollars of revenue per square foot of space. They don’t end up making more money. Every corner grocery store wishes they had profits their customers think they have.”

This points out again that things are generally more complicated than they seem when it comes to poverty. Just because a store charges a lot doesn’t mean they are making a lot of money. Just because someone gets a job doesn’t mean they are on their way out of poverty and just because someone is homeless doesn’t mean they are choosing homelessness or are too lazy to get off the street. There are numerous practical hurdles to cover and they are difficult to understand unless you have experienced them.

I recommend you go read the whole article at The Washington Post site.

The economic downturn has spawned a number of films examining poverty in America. This week the trailers for two upcoming films on the same subject were released.

Life is Hot in Cracktown is a film about the many ways that crack-cocaine has harmed whole neighborhoods. The movie tells the story of a prostitute, a rookie cop and a drug dealer among many narratives. Each is based off a short story from director/writer Buddy Giovinazzo’s 1993 book of the same name.

You can also see an interview with director and writer Buddy Giovinazzo where he introduces the film. The video is grainy and the sound is pretty bad, but if you want to know more about the motivation for the film, you can watch him pace around what looks like a kitchen and talk about his movie.

The other movie, Children of Invention, is the story of a family who loses their home to foreclosure and is forced to squat in an unfinished apartment as the parents search desperately for any kind of job. After their mother doesn’t return home from work one night, the children are forced to fend for themselves.

CHILDREN OF INVENTION HD Trailer #1 from Children of Invention on Vimeo.

Are you excited for either of these movies?

Not public art in the traditional sense, but art in public spaces for sure.

The Piñata Factory was a project to make huge colorful piñatas and put them outside where the homeless had often slept. The city fenced in many highway underpasses where the homeless used to sleep. These underpasses were one of the primary places the Piñata Factory choose to put its creations.

The piñatas were filled with emergency blankets instead of candy and more blankets were placed nearby. Co-op Image Corner Art Center coordinated the project with local schools and social service organizations to make the piñatas, which were then distributed in a pickup disguised as an official city vehicle.The piñatas were created over two years by over 140 volunteers and community members.

For photos from the creation and distribution of the piñatas go to the Picasa album.

Check out this video to see the piñatas and learn more about the project. Video by MILC.

As the recession and the housing crisis threatens many people with homelessness, a radio marathon will highlight the issue from the site of another event that caused many people to loose their homes: Hurricane Katrina.

On Monday, the 12th annual Homelessness Marathon radio broadcast will begin at 6 p.m. central time and end at 8 a.m. the next day.

This year the marathon is centered in Pass Christian, Miss., which is next to the official designation of ground zero for Hurricane Katrina according to the Army Core of Engineers. Pass Christian lost all of its pubic buildings, all of its business, and 80 percent of its homes in Katrina.

The location of the marathon is meant to highlight what the marathon calls the “disaster” of reconstruction in the area.

“One gentleman told me that what happened after Katrina is a ‘premonition’ of what will happen to the rest of the country after the current economic tsunami rolls through,” said marathon director Jeremy Weir Alderson.

Some of the topics that will be covered in the marathon will be trends among homeless veterans, stories from soon to be homeless evictees in Miss., the challenge of food stamps, registering homeless voters, homeless youth and testimonies from homeless individuals.

The marathon will be broadcast on over 100 stations nationwide, but unfortunately no radio stations in Chicago will be carrying the broadcast. There will be three stations in Illinois carrying it:

WEFT 90.1 FM in Champaign
WDBX 90.7 FM in Carbondale
WQNA 88.9 FM in Springfield

To catch the broadcast in Chicago you can listen to a live stream online. For other online streams and stations around the country carrying the broadcast check out the full list.

To call in to the show dial 877-662-6398, and if you are homeless or in fear of becoming homeless call 866-533-8688.

The marathon was started by Jeremy Weir Alderson in 1998 as an offshoot of the weekly radio program called “The Nobody Show.”