Poverty & Starvation
· There is a recorded estimate of 3 billion people(almost ½ of the world’s population) living in poverty, earning less than $2.50 a day.[1] One billion of those are children,[2] 22,000of whom die each day.[3] In the United States alone, there were 38.1 million individuals in poverty[4](0.5% of the world’s population), which equaled the population of Iraq, the State of California, or even the city of Tokyo, Japan. In 2017, 40 million people struggled with hunger in the United States. The USDA defines "food insecurity" as the lack of access, at times, to enough food for all household members. In 2017, an estimated 15 million households were food insecure.[5]
[1] https://www.compassion.com/poverty/poverty-around-the-world.htm
[2] https://www.unicef.org/social-policy/child-poverty
[3] https://www.fh.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Poverty_Fact_Sheet.pdf
[4] https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts#:~:text=Recent%20estimates%20for%20global%20poverty,according%20to%20the%20World%20Bank.
[5] https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-hunger-us
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Homelessness & Continual Pattern of Constitutional Violations
· Currently, there are no less than 150 million homeless people reported worldwide, including children.[1] The United States’ latest annual count yielded 567,715 recorded individuals were unhoused. In 2017-18 more than 1.5 million public school students experienced homelessness[2] [3], though 2.5 million (one in 30)[4] American children are homeless overall, 29.44% of the total youth population of the U.S. Evidence, however, reveals that numerous collected homeless counts throughout the U.S. have been undercounted by 50%. Appallingly, a 2016 report shows the estimated yearly homeless deaths in America tallies up to around 13,000 per year.[5]
· Countless other families and individuals are not accounted for throughout the world as different countries have greatly varying definitions of homelessness. Due to these inconsistencies, the counts given may be vastly under what the true value is. For instance, if United States homeless counts are truly off by at least 50%,[6] one could conjecture that worldwide counts of homeless individuals may also be off by at least 50% (yielding 225 million individuals). A more accurate estimate of the current US homeless population status totals an appalling 851,572 individuals (3.85% of the US population). The homeless population of the U.S. is slightly under the population of South Dakota[7] or the city of Charlotte, North Carolina.[8]
· Since 1984, the United Nations (U.N.) has held that deprivation of shelter meets the criteria of torture.[9] Furthermore, Welfare of County Services provided to individuals by most States under Federal and State Codes have a financial and ethical duty to provide these basic needs (e.g., housing, food, and medical assistance) to restore individuals to self-care and support. (that means the ability to possess and acquire their own housing, food, and medical treatment-not to keep an individual in servitude and enslaved to participating or relying on the Welfare System),[10] and are liable under law in failing to provide such restoration. Currently, hundreds of thousands of homeless individuals have and continue to be deprived shelter, subject to cruel and unusual punishments within those businesses due to inhumane conditions (most of which have and continue to go unreported), and/or effectively criminalized by law enforcement
THE CRIMINALIZATION OF THE UNSHELTERED-WHEN INADEQUATE SHELTER SPACE EXIST.
· In 2014, a U.N. Human Rights Committee member criticized the U.S. for the criminalization of homelessness, noting that such "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" is in violation of international human rights treaty obligations. A 2018 report by Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, found that homeless persons have effectively been criminalized in many cities around the United States, and noted that "punishing and imprisoning the poor is the distinctively American response to poverty in the twenty-first century."[11] Even in our present time of pandemic where millions have lost their life’s the most vulnerable, the homeless are still criminalized for seeking shelter on the streets when no true reasonable alternatives have been made available for them.
· As of 2020, there were 11,974 Community Housing & Homeless Shelters businesses in the US, with the Southeast region of the United States accounting for the largest share. The homeless industry has grown 2.9% per year on average over the five years between 2015 - 2020.[12]Despite the many shelter and housing businesses and at least 851,572 homeless individuals, the U.S. has only “signed,” but oppressively withheld ratifying the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR; a binding document recognizing human right to adequate housing as a government obligation), signed international treaties on racism, civil and political rights, and refugee status, Habitat Agenda (a global call to action at all levels, by governments and non-governmental organizations, to improve housing for everyone) all of which mention the right to housing or ideal of such.[13]Only one President in history, over seventy-six (76) years ago, has made efforts to make adequate housing a right and not just a need (Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), who stated in his Inaugural Address, “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich,”)[14], and only one state (New York) has recognized the right to shelter forty-one years ago, in 1979.[15]
· On December 10th, 1948, (during Truman’s administration), the UN General Assembly drafted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.[16] This Declaration set out fundamental human rights THAT SHOULD BE UNIVERSALLY PROTECTED! Among them are the rights:
· to be free and equal in dignity and rights (Art.1), to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. (Art. 2), security of person(Art. 3), freedom of slavery or servitude (Art. 4), to be free of cruel and inhumane treatment (Article 5) recognition everywhere as a person before the law, (Art.6) that all are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination. (Art. 7), to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.(Art. 22), Providence of standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themselves and their family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical and social services (Art. 25), full development of their personality (Article 29)
· Since the 1987 enactment of the McKinney-Vento Act (originally McKinney Act; created to provide federal money for homeless shelter programs and later, to ensure homeless children could have equal access to education as their housed counterparts)[17]and President Obama’s 2010 Opening Doors Program (created to prevent and end homelessness in the US), we can estimate $30.3 billion[18]is spent annually toward efforts of ending chronic homelessness, though not all come from federal sources. For example, New York City spends over $1. 8 billion on homeless services per year, only one-third of which come from federal money.[19]
· Utilizing 3D Printing, Building, and Design technology (e.g., WinSun Decoration Design Engineering, who built a five-story apartment block and an 11,840 square-foot (1,100 square-meter), residence, which cost $161,000 to construct.), who can print out 10 single-room houses in under 24 hours—all for about $4,800 each)[20], owns 151 international patents[21], signed a $1.45 billion agreement with a Saudi Arabian contractor that could see 1.5 million affordable homes printed[22], “We the People,” one race and one family, could provide housing to every homeless individual in the world would be estimated at $600 billion[23]and approximately $3.4 billion to provide housing to all 851,572 homeless individuals in the U.S. and provided the necessary and undue standard of security and living adequate for proper health and well-being of all its residents and their loved ones, including food, clothing, housing, and medical and social services in America and Worldwide,
· If we could conjecture based on existing figure reflecting that U.S. taxpayers dish out ON AVERAGE $211.44 per year towards chronic homelessness[24](WHICH is reduced by 49.5% when homeless individuals are placed in supportive housing).
· It is estimated that the U.S. Black Budget (Special Access Program (SAP) is over $50 billion a year[25] The U.S. budget deficit so far this fiscal year has surged to $2.7 trillion, $2 trillion more than at the same point last year.[26]Net interest payments on the debt are estimated to total $393.5 billion this fiscal year, or 8.7% of all federal outlays (The government projects it will pay out a total of $593.1 billion in interest in fiscal 2019, which ends Sept.[27]) For 0.57%[28]of the FY2019 interest, combining 3D Printing with Smart Technology we can create “smart-cities,” cooperatively operating with each other in common interest and benefit for each other, share-working side by side to enrich our planet and one another.
Although the number of Christians in U.S. has declined by 13 million since 2009, says Pew Research Center data,[29]in 2019, Christians in the world edged past 2.5 billion. Almost one-third (31.2%) of the world's population are considered Christian. This is 1666.67% more than the number of homeless globally. In the US, 246.78 million[30]people are of the Christian religion, 24073% more than the national population of homeless individuals.
[1] https://mahb.stanford.edu/library-item/yet-another-emerging-global-crisis-homelessness/
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/03/us/Homeless-students-public-schools.html#:~:text=The%20report%20found%20that%20more,more%20than%20a%20dozen%20years.
[3] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homelessness-on-campus-the-toughest-test-faced-by-tens-of-thousands-of-college-students-in-america/
[4] https://www.air.org/center/national-center-family-homelessness/
[5] https://nationalhomeless.org/category/mortality/#:~:text=Consulting%20reports%20about%20deaths%20of,each%20year%20while%20without%20housing.https://nationalhomeless.org/category/mortality/#:~:text=Consulting%20reports%20about%20deaths%20of,expression%20of%20structural%20housing%20poverty.
[6] https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/homelessness/sd-me-homeless-count-20170809-story.html
[7] https://beef2live.com/story-population-state-0-114254/
[8] https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by_population/
[9] https://generocity.org/philly/2020/02/12/does-discharging-a-homeless-person-from-emergency-shelter-as-punishment-for-wrongdoing-constitute-torture/
[10] https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/dam/sdc/cob/docs/policy/M-60.pdf
[11] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States
[12] https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/number-of-businesses/community-housing-homeless-shelters-united-states/#:~:text=How%20many%20businesses%20are%20there,the%20US%20as%20of%202020.
[13] http://www.theadvocatesforhumanrights.org/human_rights_and_the_united_states
[14] Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The Economic Bill of Rights.” http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/econrights/fdreconbill.html
[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callahan_v._Carey
[16] https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/
[17] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinney%E2%80%93Vento_Homeless_Assistance_Act
[18] Cost per year per homeless person average ($35,578) multiplied by adjusted homeless population (851,572).
[19] https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/research-paper/reducing-preventing-homelessness-review-research-agenda.pdf
[20] https://www.architectmagazine.com/technology/chinas-winsun-unveils-two-new-3d-printed-buildings
[21] https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-rctom/submission/winsun-revolutionizing-the-construction-industry-with-3d-printing/#:~:text=It%20has%20continued%20to%20develop,owns%20151%20patents%20%5B6%5D.&text=Using%20its%203D%20printing%20technology,in%20one%20day%20%5B7%5D.
[22] https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/deal-signed-print-15-million-homes-saudi-arabia/
[23] Calculated by multiplying estimated world homelessness (after adjusting for undercount) by cost to provide 3D construction
[24] To calculate annual cost to taxpayers, took total cost annually to attempt to end homelessness ($30.3 billion) divided by total US taxpayers (143.3 million) https://endhomelessness.org/resource/ending-chronic-homelessness-saves-taxpayers-money-2/#:~:text=A%20chronically%20homeless%20person%20costs,are%20placed%20in%20supportive%20housing.
[25] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_budget#cite_note-WaPo-1
[26] https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/deficit-tracker/#:~:text=Tracking%20the%20Federal%20Deficit%3A%20June,month%20of%20fiscal%20year%202020.&text=The%20budget%20deficit%20so%20far,the%20same%20point%20last%20year.
[27] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/24/facts-about-the-national-debt/
[28] Total interest ($593.1 billion) divided by estimated cost to end homelessness via 3D Construction ($30.4 billion)
[29] https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/17/number-of-christians-in-us-has-declined-by-13-mill/
[30] https://www.learnreligions.com/christianity-statistics-700533
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Stolen Innocence & Dignity-Violence, Child Abuse & Exploitation
· Globally in 2014, 1 billion children aged 2–17 years experienced all types of abuses (physical, sexual, emotional, or multiple types of violence). A quarter of all adult’s report having been physically abused as children. One in five women and one in 13 men report having been sexually abused as a child. In America, nearly 700,000 children are abused each year[1] and in 2018, an estimated 678,000 children, or almost 9.2 in every 1,000 children in the United States, were abused in 2018, according to the Children’s Bureau.[2] 1,770 children died from abuse and neglect. Four children die due to abuse each day in the US- of these, 70% are under 3 years old.[3]
· 150 million girls and 73 million boys under 18 are estimated to have experienced forced sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual violence and exploitation involving physical contact. In 2000, it was estimated that 1.8 million children were being sexually exploited in prostitution and pornography. Around 1 million children are thought to enter prostitution every year.[4]
· Each year, over 1.6 million people worldwide lose their lives to violence. [5]Violence is among the leading causes of death for people aged 15–44 years worldwide, accounting for 14% of deaths among males and 7% of deaths among females. Globally, an estimated 815 000 people killed themselves in 2000.[6] Between 500 million and 1.5 billion children are estimated to experience violence annually.[7] In each year as many as 275 million children worldwide are estimated to witness domestic violence.[8] Moreover, violence places a massive burden on national economies, costing countries billions of US dollars each year in health care, law enforcement and lost productivity.
[1] https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/#:~:text=Nearly%20700%2C000%20children%20are%20abused,which%20there%20is%20national%20data
[2] U.S. Department of Health & Human Services Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth and Families Children’s Bureau. Child maltreatment 2018. January 2020.
[3] https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment; https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-child-abuse/
[4] https://www.unicef.org/media/media_45451.html#:~:text=There%20is%20a%20lack%20of,estimated%20to%20witness%20domestic%20violence.
[5] https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/67403/a77019.pdf;jsessionid=5ECEF312B5CE0ED1AD1EE37D3973A627?sequence=1
[6] https://ourworldindata.org/suicide#:~:text=Globally%20800%2C000%20people%20die%20from,in%202017%20were%20from%20suicide.
[7] https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/vacs/onebillion-children.html#:~:text=Over%20half%20of%20all%20children,years%20%E2%80%93%20experience%20violence%20every%20year.
[8] https://www.unicef.org/media/files/BehindClosedDoors.pdf
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ENSLAVED TO DRUGS & ITS AFTERMATH
- Worldwide, it is reported that 35 million people suffer from drug use disorders, while only 1 in 7 people receive treatment.[1] In the United States which has 2020 $34.6 billion-dollar Federal Budget for drug control (Drug abuse and addiction cost American society more than $740 billion annually in lost workplace productivity, healthcare expenses, and crime-related costs. [2].) has had 700,000 overdoses since 2000[3]and death by overdose has tripled since 1990 revealing about 130 Americans die every day.[4]
· In the U.S., 18.57% of adults are experiencing a mental health illness, equivalent to 45 million Americans and 4.38% are experiencing a severe mental health illness, [5]
· Worldwide there are 264 million people are affected by depression, about 45 million people affected with bipolar depression, 20 million people affected by schizophrenia, and approximately 50 million people have dementia.[6]
[1] https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2019/June/world-drug-report-2019_-35-million-people-worldwide-suffer-from-drug-use-disorders-while-only-1-in-7-people-receive-treatment.html
[2] National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2017). Trends & Statistics
[3] https://drugabusestatistics.org/
[4] https://www.addictioncenter.com/addiction/addiction-statistics/
[5] https://www.mhanational.org/issues/mental-health-america-prevalence-data#:~:text=Adult%20Prevalence%20of%20Mental%20Illness,Any%20Mental%20Illness%20(AMI)%202020&text=18.57%25%20of%20adults%20are%20experiencing,a%20severe%20mental%20health%20illness.
[6] https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(18)32279-7 19.7 million American adults (aged 12 and older) battled a substance use disorder in 2017.
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THE UNEMPLOYED & PERSECUTED
· Worldwide there are an estimated 172 million people unemployed[1], 16.3 million in America alone.[2] Between 5 and 10 percent of the homeless have full-time employment, and between 10 and 20 percent have part-time or seasonal work- some studies estimate the rate of employment at about 45%in America.[3]
· America ranks 27th in the world for healthcare and education[4] as of July 2017, 41.4 million people in the United States were black alone, which represents 12.7 percent of the total population. African Americans are the second largest minority population, following the Hispanic/Latino population. The infant mortality rate for blacks is more than twice that of white Americans[5]and the percentage of black children living below the poverty line is three times that of whites. Furthermore, Blacks are killed by the police at more than twice the rate of whites.[6]
· As of 2018 globally there were 10.74 million people incarcerated, More than 10.35 million people (1.36% of the world’s population)[7] Each year 10.6 million people are admitted to jails and 600,000 people enter prisons in the American criminal justice system. In the U.S. Overall, 7 million people find themselves ensnared in the American penal system, 2.3 million people are behind bars (more than the total population of each of 15 U.S. states) in 1,833 state prisons[8], 110 federal prisons, 1,772 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,134 local jails, 218 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories[9] with an annual cost to incarcerate a single individual estimates to around $31,000[10] ($79,130for the penal system in its whole[11]); The correctional system in America costs the government and families of those involved in the justice system is at least $182 billion[12]every year, with $80.7 billion[13] taxpayers’ dollars utilized on prisons, jails, probation, and parole.
· “We the People,” as one united human race, ever evolving in our growth and love for one another, should open our hearts and leave not one life, not one beautiful soul from our Source of Creation, without shelter and love. For the cost of incarceration, “We the People” could and still can provide millions with homes and food.
[1] https://ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/ ---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_670554.pdf/
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unempoloyment-rate/
[3] https://medium.com/@baxleyjames/the-working-homeless-the-what-2550ca6be346#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20study%2C%20between%20,rate%20of%20employment%20around%2045%25.
[4] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-ranks-27th-for-healthcare-and-education-2018-9
[5] https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/maternalinfanthealth/infantmortality.htm#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20the%20infant%20mortality,deaths%20per%201%2C000%20live%20births.
[6] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/22/what-numbers-say-whites-blacks-live-two-different-americas/?arc404=true
[7] https://www.prisonstudies.org/news/more-1035-million-people-are-prison-around-world-new-report-shows#:~:text=More%20than%2010.35%20million%20people%20are%20held%20in%20penal%20institutions,at%20Birkbeck%2C%20University%20of%20London.
[8] Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming
[9] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html
[10] https://www.marketplace.org/2017/05/19/how-much-does-it-cost-send-someone-prison/
[11] Deduced by dividing total annual cost ($182 billion) by number of incarcerated individuals (2.3 million)
[12] https://eji.org/news/mass-incarceration-costs-182-billion-annually/
[13] https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/the-hidden-cost-of-incarceration
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Pollution and Its Effects
Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.
· The current warming trend is of particular significance because most of it is extremely likely (greater than 95 percent probability) to be the result of human activity since the mid-20th century and proceeding at a rate that is unprecedented over decades to millennia. The Earth’s surface has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19thcentury ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. Greenland lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade. Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. Spring snow cover in the Northern Hemisphere has decreased over the past five decades and that the snow is melting earlier. Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year.[1] The extreme marine heatwave known as The Blob lasted more than 350 days and expanded across much of the North Pacific Ocean. It was the biggest, longest marine heatwave in decades.[2]
[1] https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
[2] https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2020/09/24/With-global-warming-marine-heatwaves-like-The-Blob-could-be-commonplace/8141600971855/
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