Today We Learn About: Inner City Poverty

In Kotlowitz’ There are No Children Here the reader is given an all-access account of the harsh life that comes to those who live in America’s inner-city ghettos and housing projects. The subjects of the book, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rogers began like every other child but were forced to deal with horrors from an early age. They are mired with violence, hopelessness, a strained family structure, poverty, and systemic indifference, all while striving to succeed enough to leave behind the housing projects of Henry Horner Homes in Chicago. Through personal accounts, interviews, and first-hand experience, There are No Children Here, talks openly about gangs, a distrust in authority, a lack of growth in the community, drug use, drug dealing, parental indifference, joblessness, poor leadership, and political corruption. Even with all this adversity, we are still given the impression that there is hope for the community and hope for the children. There are policies that can be enacted to fight these problems that, albeit expensive, would certainly be effective.