STATEMENT OF NEEDS

IN DEPTH STATEMENT OF NEEDS

What does this mean?

Concentrated poverty has detrimental consequences for individual households and neighborhoods; it can also “push” away businesses and middle-class families, further undermining those neighborhoods and fueling sprawl. Poverty also affects the “geography of opportunity” for those people who remain in inner-city neighborhoods. Neighborhoods of extreme poverty are isolated from economic and educational opportunities elsewhere in the city or region. Poor residents often lack the means—such as information about suburban jobs and reliable and affordable transportation to work—to access those distant opportunities. As a result of this isolation from opportunity, people who live in very poor neighbor- hoods are more likely than residents of moderately poor or non-poor neighborhoods to drop out of school, become a single or teenage parent, and receive welfare payments. Living in a very poor neighborhood exacerbates the difficulties of being poor.
Being home to large numbers of poor people also places serious financial burdens on entire jurisdictions that serve as a huge disincentive for middle-class taxpayers and firms to locate or remain there.
A series of studies from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that, despite receiving federal anti-poverty aid, cities with high levels of poverty have to spend more of their own revenues on direct poverty expenditures (e.g., welfare, public health, and hospitals) than do jurisdictions with low poverty. Poverty also drives up the cost of providing other services like police, schools, courts, and fire protection. As two Wharton scholars concluded, “This reduces the resources cities have to serve non-poor residents and increases the tax rates they have to charge all their residents.”12 That means that all the residents and businesses in the City of Atlanta and in the near southern suburbs that have high concentrations of poverty are paying for poverty’s costs, at the expense of better services and infrastructure.

Though black Americans represent only 13.4% of the population; more than 30 million out of 40 million of black population represent a diverse array of backgrounds that is considered poor, needy and underprivileged. Overwhelming majority has no employment and/or underemployed. AAAIMS.ORG intends to recruit many young adults from this group of individuals, and use film, music and STEM education to improve their lives.

Attitudes

According to a study conducted by Ward, Wiltshire, Detry, and Brown in 2013 [5]:
Black/African Americans hold beliefs related to stigma, psychological openness, and help-seeking, which in turn affects their coping behaviors. Generally speaking, the participants in this study were not very open to acknowledging psychological problems, but they were somewhat open to seek mental health services.

Thirty percent of participants reported having a mental illness or receiving treatment for a mental illness.

Black/African American men are particularly concerned about stigma.
Cohort effects, exposure to mental illness, and increased knowledge of mental illness are factors which could potentially change beliefs about symptoms of mental illness.

Participants appeared apprehensive about seeking professional help for mental health issues, which is consistent with previous research. However, participants were willing to seek out some form of help.

Treatment Issues

Black/African Americans today are over-represented in our jails and prisons. People of color account for 60 percent of the prison population. Black/African Americans also account for 37 percent of drug arrests, but only14 percent of regular drug users (illicit drug use is frequently associated with self-medication among people with mental illnesses). [6]

Because less than 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are Black/African American, some may worry that mental health care practitioners are not culturally competent enough to treat their specific issues. [7] This is compounded by the fact that some Black/African American patients have reported experiencing racism and micro-aggression from therapists. [8]

Stigma and judgment prevents Black/African Americans from seeking treatment for their mental illnesses. Research indicates that Black/African Americans believe that mild depression or anxiety would be considered “crazy” in their social circles. Furthermore, many believe that discussions about mental illness would not be appropriate even among family. [9]

Access/Insurance
Disparities in access to care and treatment for mental illnesses have also persisted over time.

While implementation of the Affordable Care Act has helped to close the gap in uninsured individuals, 15.9 percent of Black/African Americans, versus 11.1 percent of whites Americans were still uninsured in 2014. [10]
In 2012, the percentage of people who were unable to get or delayed in getting needed medical care, or prescription medicines was significantly higher for people with no health insurance (18.7%) than for people with private insurance (8.4%). [10]
In 2011, 54.3 percent of adult Black/African Americans with a major depressive episode received treatment, compared with 73.1 percent of adult white Americans. [11]
Compared to 45.3 percent of white Americans, 40.6 percent of Black/African Americans age 12 and over were treated for substance abuse and completed their treatment course in 2010.

AAAIMS. ORG intends to enroll 10-20 young adults, ages between 18 and 25, to learn film production. These individuals will then get opportunities to be placed into film production work.
Abudu realizes to be successful, he needs individual donations, government funding, as well as corporate funding.