Sandtown-Winchester: Community Analysis

In Sandtown-Winchester, a community also referred to as Harlem, day to day life is a struggle – and it is dangerous. African-American children are growing up in communities where gangs make the streets dangerous. Consequently, violent crimes are part of their waking hours and the sound of gunshots reverberates in their nightmares. Poverty and drugs along with inadequate schools are a constant reminder of the great disparity in the environment and skin color. Given that hunger gnaws at their stomachs in this community where unsafe housing and contaminated water are the rules, not the exception, if I grow up is a constant in the day to day fight to live. It is no surprise to learn that lead paint levels are three to one above the national average

Census Bureau in 2014 stated that 48 percent of black children in Sandtown live in poverty compared to 22 percent of all black children. They also report impoverished black children are much more likely to live in a household headed by a single mother. It is estimated this number is as high as 78 percent in Sandtown and when a father is present, it drops to 13 percent (Bureau). Locals compare their daily life to the horrors experienced by blacks in Hurricane Katrina, except there is no national outcry to help them (Glover). No one is coming to save them, they are left in this maze of desperation to make less money and die younger. As Doni Glover, of Radio One Baltimore's WOLB 1010 AM, stated, “Sandtown-Winchester is not so much a neighborhood as the ruins of one, a warren of boarded-up houses and drug markets that have turned Baltimore into a national symbol of urban

When the schools are closed, these children go hungry according to the Baltimore Lunch Movement. Am alarming eighty-five percent of residents receive food assistance through the SNAP program (Allam). Since children are especially susceptible to the effects of a bad diet, obesity from soda and “junk food” has increased the incidence of diabetes by roughly 50 percent. Neighborhood lots stand empty but no vegetable gardens are planted and no organic foods found on the shelf of the grocery over three miles away. Instead, corner markets sell candy bars, soda, cigarettes, beer and lottery tickets. As a result, diets high in fat have led to increased high blood pressure in high school students (Allam). Another consequence of living here are the payday loan lenders who prey upon those who have any type of income with interest rates as high as 300% (Allam). Concentrated poverty and a culture of violence are a reality for the folks in this third world neighborhood that lies a mere one hour away from the White