Hunger Is A Year Around Problem in the Southside

Hunger isn't a very popular subject during the holidays seasons, when people who can afford to eat are too busy planning Thanksgiving Day dinners, while adding to their list of items to purchase, with Christmas around the corner.

However, an increasing amount of people this year have come to know what hunger is from firsthand experience. For them, if they have a holiday meal at all it may well be whatever is donated to them through soup kitchens, food banks, churches and others that offer food assistance.

I am sure you know someone experiencing hunger in today's economy, federal authorities describe those who do not have enough eat to meet their family's food needs as suffering from "food insecurity" and  it is possible that you will also, if the economy doesn't get better soon.  And this possibility is double if you live in Highlands County, Florida.

Just in Highlands County, nearly 18,300 people receive food stamps, with a population of under 100,000 people, which is almost 1 in 5 people whereby the national average is 1 in 7.  And in the Southside Redevelopment Area of Avon Park, food insecurity is even worst.

Nationwide about 43 million people receive food stamps, which is up about 16 percent for all U.S. households, experiencing food insecurity.

Why is this in the world's richest nation? There's plenty of blame to go around.  But we are not about just pointing fingers, but we are about creating solutions to the problems associated with hunger, which is bad economics, the culprit criminal behaviorisms.

The wealth in Highlands County is disproportionate, you have those that are well off and many more that are shooting bad.  We at the National Community Network and Coalition of Highlands, INC, recognize the fact the Highlands County is under new development.  But the Southside Redevelopment Area of Avon Park, is not on the new development map.

With the average income in Highlands County at about the national poverty line, the median income or the middle of the scale is at about $35,000, which is well above poverty.  The result of this is food insecurity.  People cannot feed there families.  And the people who live in the Southside Redevelopment Area are well below the poverty line.  The word redevelopment associated with the Southside is an oxymoron, because we are in the process of being condemned, one business at a time.

The Southside Redevelopment Area of Avon Park, Florida, is to Highlands County, what Detroit is to Michigan.  A bankrupted town!  And the problem with this is that Highlands County sits on rich real estate, some of the best real estate in the whole world, located in South Central Florida.  And this is wrong, because we are Americans also and should have the right to the pursuit of happiness.  But instead we are experiencing food insecurity, while so many others here have too much fat on their plates. 

Everything seems to be higher concerning poverty in  the Southside Redevelopment Area, the high school dropout rate is higher, unemployment is higher and I am talking about real unemployment, which are people who are jobless, the AIDS populations is higher.  There is more AIDS in Highlands County in proportion to population than in Washington D.C., which is known for its heroin epidemic. While we do not have the heroin, we have the AIDS.  And I ask why?

The people of the Southside Redevelopment Area are like the Native Americans, during the European Renaissance.  We are in the way of new development and is being dealt with as so.  We are innocent, we are not guilty, we are not lazy, but we are uneducated and incompatible with the new economy developing in Highlands County.  Therefore we are in the way of growth, because we are no longer needed in the fruit groves and vegetable fields.  We are victims of progress, so we commit crimes to eat.  And these trend must end.

What is going on in the Southside Redevelopment Area, is a form of genocide.  And there are a lot of Southside's in America, but none as unique, because of the real estate we sit on.  Every citizen of Avon Park should inherently be wealthy, especially land owners, because the property is valuable, but it is marked down as a tactic to steal it for taxes.  People cannot pay their taxes, because we are under a red lining conspiracy, to run businesses out of business and people from their homes.

This is why it is so important that we build the first soup kitchen of Avon Park, Florida.  Because people here are in a depression and not a recession.  We are a subdued community, without political support from outsiders, because we are in a small town, population wise, but you can probably sit New York City in the boundaries of Highlands County, with has only about 90 residents per square mile.  So as development is coming, it is leaving the Southside Redevelopment Area behind by design.

We need the support of outsiders to accomplish our goal. Find it in your hearts to contribute to our causes.  We want to build the first soup kitchen of Avon Park, Florida in the midst's of the Southside Redevelopment Area.  Then we want to support our community owned businesses through  business grants and loans to create a new Southside Redevelopment Area and we want to open tutoring centers for young adults and kids, because the long term survival of our community depends on education.

 

Frank Paul Jones

President and Chairman of the NCNCHINC