Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness

We know we can live in a world where everyone has a roof over their head, enough food to eat and access to clean drinking water. Unfortunately, despite some advances we’re far from this vision.

Hunger and homelessness are reaching crisis levels throughout the world and the problems are getting worse with the world-wide recession. Natural disasters, extreme weather, political conflicts, rising food and transportation costs and declining incomes have left millions at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness or starvation. It's so bad that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 1.02 billion people were undernourished in 2009, a 15% increase from 2006.

In the US, the situation is also striking. At the end of 2009, 15.3 million people were unemployed (10% unemployment). Among those that were unemployed, 4 in 10 were experiencing long-term unemployment (27 weeks or more throughout the year), the highest proportion of long-term unemployment on record.

Despite the problems we’re facing here and abroad, we’ve found little support for either short or long term solutions to poverty. According to the Washington Post, neither the United States nor other nations have actually dispersed the money pledged to rebuild Haiti. Likewise, Congress has been repeatedly unwilling to extend unemployment benefits as we rebuild the US economy. 

Unfortunately, the lack of political support is not new. Americans have grown to accept hunger and homelessness as the status quo. While people want the economy rebuilt and want their personal situations to become better, we lack broadbased support for systemic solutions to poverty.