Kozol

I have learned something new about New York City. I never knew some parts of the Bronx were in such horrible conditions. People of all ages men, woman and children witnessing horrible things or doing these things everyday. Such things include suicide, murder, drugs, and prostitution. They do things like this to either end their lives because its hard to survive or they do these things to live because there poor health can not let them live a good life and have a good job to support them and there family. People can barley get assistance from the state or not at all. As I read Kozol's article I found myself in tears. This made me upset because of the conditions these people have to live in. I was heart broken because of the children that had to live either on the streets going from home to home or church to church. Children asking for food from many of the food banks, parents not being able to afford a home or a good place to stay, no heat in the winter and no break from the heat in the summer. Bugs over run places in which they live and eat, they walk on the bodies while they sleep and land in the food supplies. Some children can not even get free or reduced lunch "because they are classified as only poor not destitute." This is not right in my opinion, the state should do more to help these poor people and help reduce the drug and crime rates. A lot of people in the Bronx area go around with AIDS. AIDS is passed around by rape and by people who do not even know they have it. They are scarred to even get tested. The hospitals are in really bad shape and you sometimes have to care for yourself. The hospitals are under staffed and there is lack of help. When you go you could be waiting 2-3 days before you get a room  and you could get even more ill waiting for one, because you have to wait with other sick and dying people. If you get a room it could not be cleaned, you would have to clean it yourself which is horrible. If you go to a hospital it is for help not to be the hospitals lackey. These are conditions New York needs to work on and manage. A girl committed suicide do to an overdose and her father didn't have the money to bury her. He tired really hard to get donations but in the end could not get enough money. The city ended up burying her body because of lack of founds for the funeral. Although when the city buries a body you get no stone over your grave, you just get a number. A saying in this reading stood out to me " City don't have the money for the living. I guess they think: Why waste it on the dead?" This is truly sad it hurts me to think of these things happening in the world and there is barely anything I can do about it. I have my own life to run which is hard enough I try to help out the community the ways I know how too. Though I know if more people helped out and governments cared more about their people these things that are happening could be a thing of the past. Kozol seemed to blame this on the city but also it was the peoples way of thinking and living and not doing anything to help themselves as well, even though the city made it hard on them to live.
Kozol