The devastating effects of poverty in your region

'Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?' Isaiah 58:6

Poverty is not simply about not having enough money or going without luxuries. It is about struggling to get through each day; about constantly making sacrifices. About living in a state of worry, verging on perpetual fear.

Poverty is about your children being haunted by the prospect of being stigmatised, humiliated and bullied. It is about pensioners not knowing how they can carry on living, and dreading being a burden on their relatives. [1]

Sadly, for people living in poverty, poor health and reduced life expectancy are increasingly common

• Life expectancy at birth varies significantly according to social class, with the poorest (unskilled manual workers) expecting to die around seven years earlier than professional workers. [2]

The poor not only die sooner, they also spend more of their lives with a disability or life-limiting condition

• The average difference in 'disability-free life expectancy' between people at the top of the economic ladder and those at the bottom is now 17 years. [3]

Children caught up in these problems have little power to improve what is often a bleak future

• Infant mortality is 20% higher in the lowest social group. [4]
• Children living in disadvantaged families are over three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems as those in well-off families. [5]
• Three-year-olds in households with incomes below around £10,000 are 2.5 times more likely to suffer chronic illness than children in households with incomes above £52,000. [6]

Without intervention, these devastating effects of poverty continue to be passed from generation to generation. Government and mainstream responses to poverty have undoubtedly improved the lives of many people but alone, these top-down responses fail to adequately address often complex needs.

Authentic, local responses to poverty

Church Urban Fund supports solutions that come from within the communities they serve. These are more likely to engage people in dynamic, authentic and comprehensive ways.

Statistics

1. Reporting poverty in the UK: a practical guide for journalists.
2. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/le/1007.pdf
3. Fair Society, Healthy Lives.
4. Review of the health inequalities infant mortality PSA target - Department of Health 7 February 2007.
5. End Child Poverty, 2008.
6. Intergenerational links between child poverty and poor health in the UK - briefing by Donald Hirsch and Prof. Nick Spencer, pub. End Child Poverty.