Mental Health

Stress caused by poverty and financial insecurity can affect our mental health, which in turn can cause serious health problems including, immune dysfunction, heart attacks and strokes.

Even children of parents struggling with poverty can suffer from increased anxiety and depression from the increased stress experienced by their family unit, and this stress can cause serious health issues far into adulthood.

Homelessness

Homelessness can be caused by poverty, as well as other factors such as family abuse (often children or teens either escaping or being kicked out), fires, natural disasters, and housing shortages paired with rising costs. Lack of housing can also be linked with systematic racism and other inequities linked with sexism and queer-phobia.

Environmental Damage

Poverty is heavily intertwined with the destruction of our planet. For example

• Needing to use more single-use packaging because you can't find a place or resources to cook, or don't have access to refrigeration)

• Burning wood or other found things for warmth instead of being able to afford an energy-efficient electric heater or mini split

• People struggling with poverty may be forced to cut down trees to farm, or for shelter or energy, instead of investing in solar ovens or being able to build or buy more sustainable shelter. 

When we alleviate poverty hand in hand with enriching and giving back space to nature, we can help people prosper from the richness of nature, without heavily extractive or pollution practices, and without a tiny group of people hoarding all of the gifts that Earth has historically given us.

Air Pollution & Poverty

When people are forced to burn wood, trash, or other non-renewables including fossil fuels, they unfortunately create air pollution. In winter time this can be particularly dangerous as people sometimes enclose themselves with these dangerous fumes. Homeless adults and children are sometimes found dead from using propane or other dangerous heating solutions in tiny, unventilated spaces. 

In addition to lunch damage and other health risks, these greenhouse gases further power catastrophic climate change, which disproportionately affects the poorest people in society.

The Car Ownership Trap

Access to Preventative Care & Family Planning

"For more than 60 years (in the USA), access to birth control has given many women greater reproductive and bodily autonomy.6 Contraception also gave women the ability to meet their family planning goals by deciding whether, when, and how to have children.7 This advancement in contraception and family planning services helped reduce unwanted pregnancies and improve the health outcomes of women8 and children.9 These factors, in turn, contributed to improved women’s labor force participation,10 increased college attainment and educational outcomes,11 helped narrow the gender pay gap,12 and improved professional career growth among women.13" - Center for American Progress: Ensuring Contraception Options are Accessible and Affordable

"Access to contraception can unlock higher wages. Birth control played a critical role in reducing the gender pay gap because it allowed women to focus on their education and careers.61 Bailey and her co-authors in a more recent study found that by having access to the pill at younger ages, young women saw crucial wage gains later in life.62 In fact, the authors estimate an “8-percent hourly wage premium by age fifty,” suggesting that the pill has direct implications for narrowing the gender gap.63 Furthermore, access to the pill reduces the probability that a woman lives in poverty later on, even when controlling for related factors such as education and employment status.64" - Center for American Progress: Ensuring Contraception Options are Accessible and Affordable

Right to Basic Housing

This ideal focuses on helping people via providing free or affordable homes, free of mold or other dangers, so that these people can feel safe and secure, maintain their physical and mental health, as well as access local necessities such as healthcare, transit points, as well as find opportunities for healthy socializing within the community.

Not all homeless people use drugs or commit crimes, but for those who have, data shows that providing these people with basics such as a safe form of shelter is often a primary steppingstone to recovery. In other words "housing first" can be the key to a person's success in returning to a normal, healthy life.

Right to Repair

Being legally able to repair things as a small businesses or people for themselves and others can be an important way to save and make money. Some corporations and industries have been working to strip away our right to repair our own things using copywrite as a tool to increase their own wealth at the expense of every day people and our environment.

When we ensure the "right to repair", we are taking a stand against poverty, pollution, and over-extraction.

Air Pollution Prevention Programs

Such programs can help reduce the immediate effects of dangerous sources of air pollution, protecting people's lungs and saving lives, while also tackling poverty through cost reduction. For example new, cleaner cooking technologies can help protect people's lungs, but they are also less costly to use.

Furthermore, the reduction in health impacts such as additional doctor visits, asthma inhalers, and lung cancer treatments can be reduced over the long-term by the entire household.

Circular Economy & Fixit Culture

These are important parts of reduce, reuse, and recycle, but are also important for helping people save money and various other resources over time. 

Sharing

Sharing can be done through organizations such as charities or libraries, neighbor to neighbor, through other options such as "buy nothing" groups.

Organizations

Disproportionately Affected Groups

Ethnic Organizations

Since poverty often has a larger impact in these communities, a growing number of indigenous communities are working on creating new, more fair systems of support for people in their area.

Queer Organizations

Some of the organizations listed here also focus on topics that can help marginalize members of the LGBTQIA+ community thrive.