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SHOCK! Presidential Candidates Discuss Poverty, Homelessness
We can’t let them off the hook.
Maybe we’ve hit bottom and are bouncing back to functional. Wealthy people, the movers and shakers of politics for way too long, might not be happy to know that groups like the Poor People’s Campaign are on a roll.
On Monday, June 17, PPC held a candidates’ forum, and the brave candidates that agreed to participate found themselves on a hot seat. I managed to watch/listen to a good deal of it (kudos to MSNBC for airing this).
My ears struggled to get used to topics never mentioned in campaigns: poverty, homelessness, environmental issues that impact people in poverty, child care, health issues, policy racism…oh my! Interviewers, including Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, deftly questioned. Candidates couldn’t wiggle out with blah-blah answers. Audience members from across the country drilled down with follow-up questions.
What makes the Poor People’s Campaign so relevant is how the ranks are swelling. I just finished reading Alissa Quart’s Squeezed. For those who haven’t caught on, you are being squeezed like toothpaste out of your imagined security and plopped into the growing ranks of people who need to make tough decisions about money: food, rent, medicine, child care, education.
