Milwaukee ranks eighth on the list of large American cities with the highest poverty rates in 2006. The data estimated 26.2 percent of city residents, or about 143,000 people, live below the federal threshold.,”About one in four Milwaukeeans live in poverty, according to statistics released last week by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Milwaukee ranks eighth on the list of large American cities with the highest poverty rates in 2006. The data estimated 26.2 percent of city residents, or about 143,000 people, live below the federal threshold.

"Previously we were (ranked) seventh," said MacCanon Brown, executive director of Repairers of the Breach, 1335 W. Vliet St., the city's only daytime homeless shelter located just north of campus. "Eighth is still an atrocity, of course."

Brown said about 150 homeless people visit the shelter each day, many of whom are "like people you see in ads for missions in Africa."

The federal poverty line for a single person is $10,294 in income. For a family of four, it is $20,444.

Marquette philosophy professor John Jones, who teaches a class on poverty and the human condition, said the official Census Bureau measure of poverty developed by social science research analyst Mollie Orshanky in 1963, adjusted for inflation, may not be the most accurate picture of poverty in America today.

"There has been a lot of criticism of this approach both in how it measures poverty and in the kinds of income and other resources it includes and does not include," Jones said in an e-mail. "I'm inclined to think the poverty line is too low – it is effectively a minimal subsistence budget that does not reflect the costs that people have today."

The national poverty rate dropped to 12.3 percent in 2006 from 12.6 percent in 2005. National median household income rose to $48,201.

Students who participate in service opportunities like Midnight Run "put a face to the statistics" of poverty, said Gerry Fischer, assistant director of University Ministry.

The volunteer service program, which has included more than 130 student volunteers per semester, encompasses 10 sites in Milwaukee, including Repairers of the Breach, Fischer said. Volunteers serve meals and work in shelters every Saturday during the program.

Particularly, Fischer said the 20 or so student coordinators of Midnight Run are all "extremely committed to the issues of hunger and homelessness."

Brown said students who work at Repairers of the Breach, "really get it." Other students unfortunately only see panhandlers on campus, she said.

"It's a distorted picture of what needy people are," Brown said.

Jones said Milwaukee needs better economic and social support for the impoverished, but it's not an easy problem to solve without money to do it.

"The basic reality is that the U.S. simply does not provide enough jobs in the private sector so that all of those who are expected to work can do so and escape poverty," Jones said.

Brown said she blamed political leadership for not providing more opportunities for people and called for a "reprioritization of where money goes and the refashioning of the social service system in order to create railroads out of all of this poverty."

"This needs to be considered urgent like the sinking of the Titanic," Brown said. "It cannot be where people are playing the string quartet while the ship goes down."

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