Poverty Program Challenges

A significant Milwaukee agency unexpectedly closed last week. The Social Development Commission was vital to the needs of countless vulnerable, helping them with everything from employment to emergency rent to taxes. The SDC mission was to improve the quality of life for low-income citizens and to find ways to destigmatize poverty. While Congress, which is supposed to represent citizens, is busy grandstanding, promised funds have been suddenly dropped and programs made more difficult to access. SDC has had problems before, but for an agency of its importance to suddenly shut down is incomprehensible. This is more than a local problem, and the reason cannot be pinned on one or two individual "scapegoats." In a country where wealth is exalted, the needs of the vast number of poor are underestimated and, at best, underfunded.