Connect with our Community
Let’s learn from each other. Read and watch stories from our community. Become inspired to act and share your experiences with us.
Lived Experience
My experience with poverty
In many impoverished communities across our nation, more than 90% of the people born into poverty there die in poverty there. Watch stories of families with lived experience and share your own.
Innovative Action
We started a program
There is a deep history of engagement in the movement to end poverty. Innovative ideas come from all different sectors of our economy. Explore enacted solutions and share your stories.
did it, share it, teach it
Successes and challenges
Implementing programs and adopting new strategies can be challenging. Read how others have put some of the Plan’s actions into practice and share your experiences, as well.
The State of Poverty
“Poverty is not normal; it is absurd. Think of all we have accomplished as a people and yet we still allow so many to live in such scarcity, surrounded by such abundance. We have allowed so much suffering; now it is our time, together, to change this.”
Mark Bergel, Co-founder of The shared humanity project
The large majority of people who live each day in poverty have been in poverty their whole lives. In other words, they were born into it. If we can predict the future of one’s life based on where they are born in this country, we are not doing it right. In many impoverished communities across our nation, more than 90% of the people born into poverty there die in poverty there.
To blame people for their poverty is like telling a young child who lives in a beautiful home that it is due to the child’s efforts that their parents are wealthy.
In fact, if there is any blame to go around for why poverty exists, that blame is on those of us who know of the atrocities of poverty and do not do more to solve it, to end it.
If each of us makes it a priority to end poverty, we will end poverty. It may not be easy but it can happen quicker than you think. And it is the best way to show our compassion for one another. At The Shared Humanity Project, we believe in the swiftness of social change, even dramatic social change such as ending poverty.
Read more about Mark’s thoughts on poverty, economic justice, and social change on The Shared Humanity Project’s blog.