All this week, we’ve talked about the startling implications behind new Census data showing that the poverty rate in America is now at its highest level since 1983. One in six Americans now live below the poverty line. Yesterday, a listener named Megan Flood tweeted at us to tell us about her senior thesis project on poverty and homelessness she completed while at the University of Michigan. Flood spent six months conducting weekly interviews with Jospeh Gill, a newly homeless man living in a tent city in Ann Arbor. Gill owned his own marketing business before losing it during the recession, and talking with him gave her a new understanding of what it means to be homeless. She started Living Without Doorknobs, a documentation of Gill’s experience aimed at creating greater awareness of homelessness in America.
The World is an independent newsroom. We’re not funded by billionaires; instead, we rely on readers and listeners like you. As a listener, you’re a crucial part of our team and our global community. Your support is vital to running our nonprofit newsroom, and we can’t do this work without you. Will you support The World with a gift today? Donations made between now and Dec. 31 will be matched 1:1. Thanks for investing in our work!