Today on the news I heard that 67.8 percent of eligible people in 24 large urban areas studied participated in the program in 2006. While it would be interesting to know if more people are taking advantage now, the data isn’t there. I can’t think of an impetus for why the they’d suddenly change their habits in the past two years.

I’m very saddened by this news. I can never understand why people don’t take advantage of free things to better their lives. Perhaps it’s that people have too much pride to take hand-outs. In fact, I think that might be a lot of it. Still, if someone is offering you a chance at a better life, isn’t it worth taking it?

Sometimes I like to think the problem is simply making people aware of the problem. That seems like a much easier thing than getting to people to swallow their pride and take charity.

What are your thoughts? Are you as disheartened as I am that the assistance is there for the taking? Maybe I’m just having a pessimistic day, but it’s easy to take a step further and wonder about donating to charity in general. Perhaps I shouldn’t focus on that, and instead realize that 67.8% of the people are getting assistance. That’s a lot more people than if there were no assistance available.