Dear Stephanie,
Here in the US, as in many other cities around the world, the urban core is devastated by blight, disinvestment, high crime, and poverty. However, in the US, the federal poverty guidelines state that a single person making below $9500 is living in poverty, for a two person family it's US$12,000 and so on, and anyone making 200% of that amount is low-income. While I realize this is a fortune for those in poverty in other countries, when you consider that the average rent for a two bedroom apartment in most American cities is $500-$700/mo (and much, much more in New York, San Francisco, etc), and the fact that low income inner city residents often end up paying much more for basic necessities like groceries than do other urban or suburban residents living in higher income areas --that $12000 doesn't go very far.
I'm working with an entrepreneur who is tackling these issues, building a grocery store in an inner city neighborhood and using the profits to rehab blighted houses, selling them to low income residents at truly affordable rates. He has started a total of five related social enterprises that all promote sustainable inner city neighborhoods with plans to replicate in other inner city communities. I think the project would be quite worthy of consideration for this award, but the low income residents he serves live at the US poverty level. Would that make him ineligible?
I welcome your comments.
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