LAKE CITY, Ga. (AP) — More than 1,800 people showed up to help ABC's "Extreme Makeover" team demolish a family's decrepit home and replace it with a sparkling, four-bedroom mini-mansion in 2005.
Three years later, the reality TV show's most ambitious project at the time has become the latest victim of the foreclosure crisis. (link)
Comment: This is sad, but not surprising. This extreme case represents part of what is wrong with give-away programs. Poverty is not just an issue of lack of money, but it concerns a total mindset. Many social programs fail in their mission of lifting people out of poverty because they fail to change the way people think. Many programs simply subsidize the recipients' poverty, without requiring the recipient to change their values and behavior. If people do not learn delayed gratification, improve their money management skills and change the way they think, then they are destined to remain poor. I suspect that if we redistributed all of the wealth in America starting tomorrow morning, by tomorrow night we would again have rich people and poor people.
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It's very sad that poverty is not being fought as it should be. What are we doing wrong? We put to much trust in Social Science, who are not living up to their claims of improving the human condition. Another interesting blog, humanrethink.net, covers this issue.
ReplyDeleteThat is absolutely crazy! They had a $450,000 home completely paid off..an additional $250,000 was raised for them to pay for their kids' future education..and they go and take a loan against the home? How the heck did they ever think they could ever repay such a loan?
ReplyDeleteGotta disagree with fejones up there. Most of these people remain in poverty through bad choices. This country offers a free education through 12th grade. Once you graduate, as long as you did not squander that free education, if you don't have the money available and have good grades, there are literally thousands of grants and scholarships available - especially to minorities. The way to fight poverty is through education and self-responsibility.
Apparently, these people learned nothing!