For more than 30 years I’ve read about and reported on the relation of worldviews to questions of international relief and development. American newspapers, hard hit by their loss of advertising to the internet, almost never do what The Milwaukee Journal did in the 1980s. It sent two reporters to Asia and Latin America to investigate problems of poverty. Working independently, each reporter came up with evidence pointing to five similar conclusions—and since we don’t see that kind of enterprise these days, I’ll report their findings.

In our last issue, we profiled five Hope Awards finalists that help people leave poverty. Please go to wng.org/compassion and vote for whichever of those local ministries moves you the most. But I regularly get letters asking about the big, national picture: Do we need to reform the U.S. welfare system, and if so, how?

Many years ago, I watched a TV show episode in which the main character, a weed-dealing widow, is trying to cross the border from Tijuana, Mexico, back to her Southern California town. She’s stuck in her car behind hundreds of other cars waiting to pass the San Ysidro Port of Entry, the largest land border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana. It’s a sweltering hot afternoon, so she calls out to one of the street vendors and buys an iced latte. Bad idea.

When Paul Ryan gave his farewell address as speaker of the House on Dec. 19, he called on future lawmakers to make poverty issues a greater priority. Ryan’s mentor on poverty-fighting, Bob Woodson, age 81, sat in the front row. While politicians have come and gone, Woodson has toiled on the front lines since the 1970s as the godfather of neighborhood-based organizations that help people help themselves. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation in Washington, D.C.

A child’s access to—or failure to achieve—the American dream is closely related to his or her neighborhood’s predominant family structure, more so than parental race, income, or education level, according to a study published last month.

Bookstores now display literary efforts with titles like A History of the World in 6 Glasses—and I’m up to a challenge. Here, in honor of the splendid 2018 major league season, is a history of helping the poor in America in terms of three ballparks.

James Whitford, 48, founder and director of the Watered Gardens Gospel Rescue Mission in Joplin, tells stories of rescues from poverty. He tells of Jon, once a homeless addict, who via the help of a mentor gained and keeps a full-time job. Whitford and his volunteers help each lodger at the mission set goals: “He has to be working toward those goals. The end goal is to eliminate homelessness in that individual’s life.”