Poverty Challenge
The Poverty Challenge is a three-day event designed to raise awareness about poverty in our community. Participants are challenged to live on either a poverty-level or minimum wage budget for three days, making choices about spending habits and reflecting on those choices. The event is by no means an attempt to “play poor”; rather, the goal is to provide participants with a more nuanced understanding of poverty. Specifically, the Challenge highlights the structural causes of poverty—lack of employment, lack of living wages, education disparities, lack of affordable housing, lack of adequate childcare, transportation complications, lack of adequate healthcare…the list could go on—and attempts to disrupt common stereotypes that blame poverty on individual laziness and vice.
More information regarding the Poverty Challenge can be found under Research.
Click here for informational brochure.
Please visit the Poverty Challenges official blog at: povertychallenge.com/index.php/blog
For information about past Challenges, please see the links below:
2008 Press
2010 Press
The Poverty Challenge is part of the Homeless Alliance’s larger Poverty Awareness Week.
To see how 2010 participants fared, visit our blog at http://wnymedia.net/?s=poverty+challenge
