One thing that has struck me covering poverty in the U.S. is the number of people I've met who are poor and disadvantaged themselves, who have decided to do something to make life better for those around them.
That's the genesis for this series, Doing More With Less.
We profile individuals who are trying to address problems they've experienced firsthand — whether it's poverty or homelessness or discrimination. More often than not, they've hit rock bottom, then decided to turn their lives around. Starting from scratch, they've built programs to help people find housing, or jobs, or a place to turn when they have nowhere else to go. Some have even been credited with saving lives. They often succeed where government or other programs have failed. Yet these efforts get little attention in the national debate over how to reduce poverty and inequality.
We asked NPR listeners for suggestions about people to profile. Those included in this series are a tiny sample of the many suggestions we received.
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