Have you ever thought of living in a plastic storage box? Or a steel cargo crate? Millions of unfortunate people around the world suffer the indignity of living not only below the poverty line, but lack a decent standard of housing as well. Poverty [also known as penury] has existed since the beginning of time and has forced countless billions into impossible situations, existing without clean drinking water, food, clothing and shelter. These worldly possessions which we take for granted are the building blocks of any society and a boon for the downtrodden. Armed with a full understanding of the situation and a detailed account of the current state of affairs, anyone can affect a positive change.



Poverty is not only confined to third-world nations. Those who live out their lives in plastic storage or tin roofed shacks can be found in even the richest of suburbs, quietly nestled away between the mansions. Home is supposed to be a safe refuge for us. Yet for those who are forced to live in makeshift homes, a house can be a disaster area. When a squatter camp [informal settlement] is formed, it is usually created with very little thought with regards to plumbing, electricity and stable grounding. In South Africa, Jamaica and Brazil, where the largest squatter camps in the world exist, the citizens of these faceless, shapeless homes must share a single toilet amongst hundreds, even thousands on occasion. Electricity is unlawfully routed from highway street lamps or dug up from the ground itself. Access to water, the most precious of all commodities, can consist of a single tap, where the wait can be up to an hour for a bucket of this important liquid.

Space is also a massive concern. When people are crammed together, diseases like tuberculosis, HIV, pneumonia and other fearsome threats are easily shared in a large informal settlement. When your kitchen storage cabinets are rife with mites and cockroaches, your neighbours share the same pests that you do. The poorest of communities are huddled together, where heavy rains can in effect devastate a settlement the size of a small town. The list of issues is never-ending for both its citizens and the government trying to keep the situation under control.

There are no quick or easy solutions. It is said that in order to improve the issue of informal settlements, the entire infrastructure of job development, skills creation and general growth in all sectors must be affected over the generations. Change of this magnitude will take decades of work. Most countries? governments, if you can believe this, will persistently maintain a two-to-ten percent unemployment rate which acts as a ?replacement threat? to unskilled private workers. A buffer, if you will, for cheap labour.

Poverty is a cycle, it exists on multiple levels and affects individuals both nationally and globally. This cycle perpetuates a high level of crime, as the poorer you are, the more likely it is that you will turn to a life of crime in order to finance even the simplest of needs. This cycle causes violence, death and rape. When you have nothing there is nothing to lose. The poor are the oppressed, the terrorised and sometimes, the terrorists. A study has shown that over seventy percent of all radical middle-eastern terrorists develop from a background of great poverty. We must not stuff our communities into these little plastic storage homes. We must raise them above it.