What do poor people need

Helping low-income families and individuals is reason enough to expand funding for these programs, but providing for these basic needs also helps the entire nation by advancing economic recovery and employment goals. Recovery package proposals have included additional funding for the following federal food programs:.

Including these programs—which directly provide food and cash benefits for food purchases—in the recovery package is imperative. Just prior to the beginning of the current recession in December , This means that a lack of money or other resources either prevented them from having enough food to eat or created some doubt in that regard. The years and were marked by a combined food price increase of 9.

A combination of price increases and a significant number of Americans experiencing food insecurity has increased nationwide participation in food aid programs. In September , participation reached an all-time high of Emergency food programs are also seeing increased need as a result of the recession. According to the U. Conference of Mayors , 20 of the 21 cities it surveyed indicated growth in the requests for emergency food assistance during On average, demand increased by 18 percent, reflecting a higher number of first-time requests for assistance.

Even before the recession began, Feeding America a network of emergency food services programs reported that 65 percent of food pantries, 61 percent of food kitchens, and 52 percent of shelters reported increases in their number of clients between and The current downturn has put even greater strains on those who use these services.

Serving basic needs : Providing food to needy households will help reduce food insecurity and hunger. This is especially important as more people become unemployed , have fewer financial resources, and are forced to choose between food and other basic necessities such as utilities, rent or mortgage, or medicine.

The consequences for both children and adults are dire, since hunger and food insecurity are associated with poor health , low birth weight babies, developmental and academic delays, stunted growth, and the aggravation of pre-existing medical conditions.

Other benefits related to recovery: Investments in food programs increase the spending power of low-income households. The Congressional Budget Office has noted that the vast majority of food stamp benefits are spent extremely rapidly, so the effect is immediate. Recovery package proposals have included additional funding for the following energy assistance programs:. These programs are vital in ensuring that households are able to maintain healthy temperatures during the winter and summer months.

The Weatherization Assistance Program, or WAP, reduces those bills by providing services that make low-income homes more energy efficient. Low-income families have a history of spending a higher share of their income on utility bills—on average, they spend 16 percent of their income on home energy compared to 3. These programs have been chronically underfunded despite existing need—in recent years, LIHEAP served only 16 percent of its eligible population while WAP annually serves approximately 0.

Although the end of last year was marked by increased funding for LIHEAP and a decline in the prices of home energy sources, both programs still require greater investments due to: 1 cumulative recent price increases that have yet to be fully reversed; and 2 the growing number of households demanding services.

Serving basic needs: Recovery package proposals increasing low-income home energy assistance will allow more homes to be weatherized, an increased number of households to receive LIHEAP supplements, and some to receive increased supplements.

WAP saves families 21 percent on their home energy bills. Making home energy affordable saves families from being forced to cutback on other necessary items such as food and medicine, minimizes the health risks posed by extreme temperatures, and minimizes fire hazards caused by a reliance on portable heaters. Other benefits related to recovery: Families that spend less money on home energy have more money available to contribute to the economy by buying other goods and services.

Recovery package proposals have included additional funding for the following homeless assistance programs:. Individuals and families relying on homeless assistance programs are in emergency situations and require help with shelter and related issues. Housing and Urban Development data indicates that 1.

However, these numbers only reflect one slice of the problem—a number of people live on the streets, in cars, in abandoned buildings, or they temporarily share the housing of others. An ongoing national movement has resulted in communities developing year plans to end homelessness. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, or NAEH, these efforts coincide with a percent reduction in homelessness between and Although data is limited due to such factors as changes in data collection methods and the lack of inclusion of all subpopulations that fit within definitions of homelessness, there is reason to believe that thoughtfully created community plans can decrease homeless numbers.

Unfortunately, funding for the programs will likely suffer due to the growing negative effect of the recession on state and local budgets.

In addition to concerns about program budgets, there is reason to be alarmed about potential growth in the homeless population. Influencing factors include increases in unemployment and associated drops in resources for rent and mortgage payments and the dramatic rise in foreclosure rates. Homeless individuals and families lack the stability and security associated with a permanent home. For children , the consequences can be dire, with homelessness being associated with an increased risk for illness, emotional and behavioral problems, developmental delays, and educational disruptions and setbacks.

Serving basic needs : Investments in homeless services will achieve several beneficial results. First, funds will be directed toward preventing homelessness for individuals and families who experience a sudden reduction in income and who only require temporary assistance in order to maintain permanent housing. This is a benefit to the growing number of Americans who are joining the ranks of the unemployed and experiencing temporary losses in income.

Finally, children who become homeless could be supported by measures that help them receive additional academic supports and maintain school stability even as they face residential mobility. Contribution to national employment goals: As the nation endeavors to reduce unemployment and put people back to work, it is important to ensure that homeless people are not left behind.

But if "value for money", and "results" are the new watchwords for aid, this should be a chance to think again, and to get better at finding out what poor people actually value and what results they might want to see. How to do this? There are already a plethora of qualitative methods for asking people what they want. But the lack of numbers has limited how seriously they are taken by policy-makers, who prefer to deal in data. And moving beyond a long list of asks to something that can be useful for policy-makers deciding where to put their money and energy has proved difficult.

To solve this problem, it might be useful to look beyond development. The National Health Service in England and Wales uses the results of research that asks what patients value, and how much they value it. These values are calculated from surveys, in which many thousands of people have been asked questions designed to find out how people rank different health outcomes — such as freedom from pain, ability to move about normally and so on.

Their answers have allowed researchers to assign "weights" to each combination of different outcomes — numbers that can guide policy. These are now being used to measure outcomes and to inform the deliberations of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence Nice when deciding if a particular treatment is good value for money. This methodology could help with finding out what poor people want and communicating the information in a way that is useful and persuasive to people who make the decisions.

First, we could find out what outcomes people want. Then we could use "stated preference methods" to find out what priority different groups of people might put on the different outcomes, to provide a guide to policy-makers about the level of effort or resources to assign to each outcome or combination of outcomes.

Then we could use these in calculating the value for money of different interventions, and the effectiveness of different projects. We hope it will provide away to integrate poor people's own priorities and values into development decision-making. And if it doesn't, it will at least make it more obvious when policy-makers aren't giving people what they want.

Which would be a start. To get 'value for money' on aid, we need to find out what poor people value and what results they might want to see.