Op-Ed: Alabama Poverty Project Offers New Hope to the Old Problem of Poverty in Alabama
Amidst the Christmas festivities as 2004 came to a close, the facts revealed in the widely-circulated mid-December newspaper article, “More Alabamians live in poverty than in 2000”, were nothing to celebrate and certainly do not honor the one whose birthday most of us were celebrating. Fifteen percent of our citizens, nearly 700,000, and 22 percent of our children, well over 200,000, live below the poverty line. When you add to that the many families struggling just above poverty who are one paycheck, layoff, divorce or health setback from sinking into poverty, the picture becomes more tragic.