The Need for Mentoring in the Bay Area
Reasons of Poverty

 

In many cases, the poor are forced to stick together.

Concentrated poverty is typically defined as an area in which at least 40% of the population lives below the federal poverty threshold (in 2007, $10,210 for a single person, $20,650 for a family of four). 

The effects are devastating.

 

“(W)hen the proportion of "affluent leadership class" families in a neighborhood drops below 6 percent, there is a rapid increase in such social pathologies among teens as delinquency, out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and dropping out of high school,” psychologist James Garbarino wrote in his book Lost Boys.“Once this tipping point is reached, the neighborhood is ripe for becoming an "inner-city war zone." This is clearly what happened in many neighborhoods in cities like Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s, setting the stage for the dramatic upsurge of youth violence that occurred during the 1980s.”

 

What will be successful?

A 2006 study spelled it out: “Because high rates of neighborhood poverty are linked to negative social, economic, and health outcomes for children, these negative outcomes tend to be geographically concentrated in poor communities.”⁴

 

 

 

 

1. Introduction
2. The Epidemic
3. Reasons of Poverty
4. Reasons of Poverty continued
5. Social Disconnect
6. Social Disconnect continued
7. Social Disconnect continued
8. Mentoring is the Answer
9. Mentoring is the Answer continued
10. BBBSBA Works on the Bottom Line
11. Final Thoughts