So you think you know what poverty is?

By Mike LaFontaine

Care to test your knowledge of what it’s like to be really poor? I dare you.

The Coalition on Human Needs and two other national organizations have created a test to measure just how much (or little) ordinary people really understand about poverty in America. Even after years in the business of financing affordable housing, taking the test was a real eye-opener for me.

It’s one thing to understand in a general way that there are a lot of poor people out there. and that life is hard if you don’t earn a living wage. It’s another to know how pervasive hunger is in America, or what the extent of child poverty is, or who The Poor really are. (SPOILER ALERT… Did you know that the number of poor people in the United States is greater than the population of Canada?)

The 15-question quiz, "How much do you really know about poverty?" is on the Half in Ten Web site. I challenge you to take it, then to act on what you’ve learned by doing something, however small, to change the way things are out there.

Mike LaFontaine is Director of the Community Loan Fund's Community Housing program.