With Chicago becoming the most dangerous city in America, Cory Brooks, the pastor of New Beginnings Church, started a 100 day and night vigil on a rooftop in Woodlawn in an effort to raise money for a new community center to help fight the rising violence in the city.
Each night, Brooks releases an episode related to the violence affecting his community.
In his most recent (40th) episode, Brooks discusses the problem of fatherless children with Florida businessman, George O’Neil.
Fox News reports:
CHICAGO – One of the toughest challenges Pastor Corey Brooks deals with on the South Side of Chicago is fatherlessness. For better or worse, the pastor has become a father figure to many youths in the neighborhood where approximately 80% of the homes do not have a father. He teaches them how to look someone in the eye and give a firm handshake. He makes them sweep the floors and wash the windows before he hands them a dollar to teach them the value of earning. He meets with wayward kids and often spends hours counseling them back onto the straight path. The work exhausts him and sometimes comes at the expense of his own family, yet he never stops fathering.
Fox News noted that recent statistics show that 39% of school-aged children live in homes without their biological father.
Is this a problem?
Fox News then provided the following statistics released by the US Department of Justice in 1998 on the problems associated with fatherlessness.
At that time, those who came from fatherless homes made up:
- 71% of high school dropouts;
- 63% of youth suicides;
- 75% of those in substance abuse programs;
- 90% of the homeless/runaways;
- 85% of children with behavoural problems; and
- 70% of those in state institutions.
READ: Rooftop Revelations: Breaking the cycle of fatherlessness AND What Can the Federal Government Do To Decrease Crime and Revitalize Communities? [US Department of Justice]
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