Category: Poverty

.
James Hogan’s problems started in 1989 when he borrowed and then paid $6,200 to a home-repair contractor in Atlanta to fix his roof and do other work. His attorney says an independent appraiser later asses the value of the work at $3,474. Fleet Finance tried to evict Hogan from his home. Photo by APF Fellow Michael Hudson

Loan Scams

Some days it seems like the phone at Annie Ruth Bennett’s house in southwest Atlanta won’t ever stop ringing. The callers want to sell her storm windows, debt–consolidation loans, burial plots. Her attorney says it’s all a scheme: They want to steal a piece of

A villager holds three liquor bottles for use in the fiesta celebrations of the Guatemalan village of Todos Santos. He is a member of Cofradia, a religious brotherhood.

Happiness and Despair in Guatemala

A young boy participates in the holy week procession in Santiago, Atitlan. A boy enjoys the festive day as crowds gather in front of the church in Todos Santos. The village of Todos Santos celebrates its name-sake holiday, All Saints Day, with an action-packed fiesta.

Connie Taylor and three of her eight children. They live in a housing project owned by the city of New Orleans, Louisiana.

Understanding America’s Poverties and Drowning Mothers

Michael Harrington once wrote that one ought not to talk about “poverty” but about poverties. He meant there are so many ways of being poor that no single description or analysis can apply to them all. The same thing is true of homelessness. There are

An evangelical priest gives a eulogy behind black trash bags containing the skeletal remains of eight people murdered in the early 1980’s during the Guatemalan army’s counter-insurgency campaign. They were among the 23 bodies unearthed by anthropologists in August in Chontala, a village in the western highlands of Guatemala.

The Suffering of Guatemala’s Indigenious People

A noticeable hush fell over the small crowd of Guatemalan indigenious people. They watched in horror as forensic anthropologist Luis Miguel Alonso painstakingly unearthed the body of a young Indian boy killed in a massacre in 1983. An evangelical priest gives a eulogy behind black

The Pavements of Los Angeles turn into a dormitory at night. Photo by Ulli Steltzer.

Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare–Jack Becomes Homeless

For the past several years, advocates for the homeless have sought public support by drawing attention to the number of homeless families on the streets. That is an understandable tactic, for Americans respond to social issues on the basis of sympathy for the “innocent” or