Poverty-stricken means extremely poor — not “a bit short of money this month,” but living with real, grinding want. Stricken here means hit hard by something bad, so the picture is of people, families, villages, or even a whole area struck by poverty. Newspapers, charities, and stories use it; in everyday talk many people just say very poor or dirt poor, so this compound feels a little more formal and a little like written English. It always takes a hyphen. You can put it before a noun (a poverty-stricken neighbourhood) or after a verb (The region was poverty-stricken after the mines closed). It is about money and means, not about being sad or unlucky in some other way — though actually those often travel together.