A Walk for Awareness
Join us as we take a walk along the trail at the Caine Halter YMCA, listening to powerful stories to expand our empathy, and broaden our understanding of the complicated issues of: Youth Development, Housing Instability, Mass Incarceration, and Mental Health and Wellness.
Youth Development
HERE'S WHY THIS MATTERS:
40% of youth in the U.S. live in low-income families with incomes at or 200% below the federal poverty line.
Students who don’t complete High school are more than 8x as likely to commit crimes and enter the adult prison system.
One in five youth from low-income families (20 percent) are charged with an adult crime by the age of 24.
Only 1 in 10 youth from low-income families go on to graduate from a four-year college, compared with 28% of youth from middle-income families and 50% of youth from high-income families.
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Housing Instability
THE PROBLEM:
21% of Greenville County Renters are severely cost burdened. This means they spend more than half of their gross income on rent, or they have no income at all.
The average renter in Greenville county cannot afford a basic two bedroom apartment at HUD fair market rent without over extending their budget (spending more than 30% of their income on rent).
There are only enough subsidized housing units in South Carolina to serve 20% of low-income renters statewide. In other words, only 1 in 5 families who need subsidized housing actually receive it.
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Mass Incarceration
"There are 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety."
- The Sentencing Project
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"Renewed behavior springs from renewed identities. And renewed identities come through grace. Period. If we want to see cycles broken and people restored, it’s time we take a closer look at grace." - Reach (A Ministry of Lead Collective)
Mental Health & Wellness
"TEEN MENTAL HEALTH IS COLLAPSING"
42% of students aged 13 - 17 experience persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness. This increased from 28% in 2011). And this has a disproportionate impact on adolescent girls (58% v. 29% of boys experiencing PFSH).
22% of students aged 13 - 17 have seriously considered suicide (this has increased from 16% in 2011). Again, this has a disproportionate impact on youth girls. (30% of adolescent girls have seriously considered suicide, v. 14% of adolescent boys).
Time spent with friends has drastically decreased since 2012: The amount of time kids spend with friends has been cut by more than half. Kids used to spend 2 hours per day with their friends. They now spend 40 minutes per day with their friends. So what are they doing with this extra time? Spending it with family? No it is being replaced with time spent in isolation.