A progress report released last week by the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative includes some heavy lifts. For one, the efforts outlined in the report will undoubtedly require significant funding. And the report says that the Rochester region needs to mitigate societal factors, such as structural racism, that keep people in poverty — no simple task.
But the group’s biggest challenge may be to convince a community jaded by decades of dead-end reports and failed initiatives to believe one more time.
“The report in and of itself is another report,” says Leonard Brock, the Initiative’s director. “It’s what we do, how we respond as a community that’s going to make this report different.”
The Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative is led by State Assembly Majority Leader Joe Morelle, Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren, and Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, and is convened by the United Way.
The effort dovetails with Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Rochester Anti-Poverty Task Force, which is made up of members of 20 state agencies working with local public, private, and nonprofit leaders to address poverty in Rochester.
The initiative’s progress report is the group’s first step toward its goal of reducing poverty in the Rochester-Monroe County region by 50 percent over the next 15 years. The report will guide the group’s future work as well as investment by government, donors, and other sources.
Leading up to the report, 150 local people served on working groups, each tackling a different area as it relates to people in poverty, including health and nutrition; housing; jobs and workforce development; and the justice system. Feedback was also sought from people living in poverty or who have emerged from poverty and are receiving some form of assistance to see what works well and what doesn’t.
The group is initially focusing on the working poor — about 32,600 people in Monroe County, including the City of Rochester — because these are people who are “leaning in,” Brock says, and it shouldn’t require as much effort to get them over the hump to self-sufficiency as it would take to help someone who is not working, for example.
Focusing on the working poor should also give the initiative some momentum, he says, and it breaks down Rochester’s overwhelming poverty problem into more manageable bites. Past efforts tried to do too much at once, Brock says, which helped lead to their collapse.
The work groups identified the barriers that keep people in poverty, and it developed 33 recommendations to overcome them.
The barriers are:
• Lack of social and infrastructure development in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty;
• Inequality caused by structural and institutional racism, or from racial, ethnic, social, or gender bias;
• The impact of poverty-induced trauma;
• Lack of knowledge, skills, and credentials to get or maintain a job;
• Limited access to or eligibility for public and private supports, services, and programs;
• Insufficient community capacity for child care and transportation;
• Public and private policies, regulations, and practices.
The recommendations were synthesized to create three initial target areas: systems design, adult mentoring-navigating, and early childhood support.
The Initiative will work with IBM to develop a comprehensive, integrated social-support system for the working poor. Rochester’s current system is fragmented, Brock says. It responds to individual needs, he says, and does not treat people and families holistically. It’s also difficult to navigate, he says.
The latter observation is where the adult mentor comes in. The mentor will help the working poor navigate the system and obtain the knowledge and skills they need to land and retain a living-wage job. The creation of an adult mentor is the Number 1 recommendation of the initiative’s jobs and workforce development group, says Nicholas Weatherbee, vice president of strategic communications and special projects for the United Way.
Early childhood support means making sure the working poor have access to high-quality, affordable, flexible child care. The report also talks about in-home parent training “to give new parents the skills to succeed as their children’s first teachers.”
One of the big questions surrounding the initiative’s work is where the money will come from. This is a time of tight municipal budgets and service cuts; Monroe County has been cutting, not expanding, subsidies for child care.
That’s why it’s important, Brock says, to streamline and integrate the services that are available, which should save money and make the system as efficient as possible. Many of the programs and services already exist, he says, but the system is disjointed.
Brock says that funding could come from foundations, the state, the United Way, and from private donors. Streamlining services, he says, will help guide investment by the philanthropic community to finally move the needle on poverty in the region.
It’s important that the community manage its expectations for the initiative, Brock says. It will take a long term, all-hands effort to dig the region out of the hole it dug over the course of decades, he says.
“There’s no quick fix to poverty,” Brock says.
During the next phase of work, the Initiative will further refine the preliminary recommendations and offer solutions, with milestones and measurements attached. The group will also enumerate the policy changes needed to accomplish its goals.
This article appears in Sep 23-29, 2015.
I can’t believe it!! Still no mention of EDUCATION, which Is the key, the answer, the OUT, the path to a career/profession. When will the EXPERTS understand this rather basic concept. No education, no skill, no job. Oh, you can get a job, but not one that will have a supporting wage.
WHEN WILL ALL THOSE “EDUCATED” MEMBERS OF THE POVERTY COMMITTEE COME TO SEE THE LIGHT? ALL THOSE MEMBERS THAT HAVE (hanging on their office walls), AT THE VERY LEAST, A BACHELORS DEGREE. COULD IT BE THAT THEY WANT TO KEEP THAT A SECRET FROM OUR URBAN YOUTH?
It’s EDUCATION Joe Morelle!
It’s EDUCATION Mayor Warren!
It’s EDUCATION Monroe County Manager Brooks!
Look at your own careers/professions,…….would you be where you are today without a high school diploma! I think not. So apply the same encouragement to our urban youth that you received when you were starting off. ENCOURAGE EDUCATION.
Am I just persistent or mad as hell? I’m there,…I’m both.
.
Bono sees the light
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAjKyEGDlX…
Click on that Bono youtube,…….Any questions?
While I too noticed no mention of education, I thought that this report was trying to zero in on a path out of poverty; to take on the failure of the city school system would have relegated this report to being just another report.
What all these issues DO have in common is the need to #CreateACultureofDignity
Zeroing in on a path out of poverty,….think about that,….and then reason it out. While I have written plenty on a relevant education, while I have been on this crusade to introduce an enhancement for education, to keep kids in school, focused with a clear path to graduation and then additional education toward a career/profession,…….what happens when you reach THAT goal, that mission?
I’ll tell you what you have reached. You have kids, urban kids (who are by the way just as talented as the suburban kids), urban kids who have been educated, urban kids who can then go to college or a certificate program, urban kids who can then compete in the job market, who have skills and then,…..then,…..can live where they want, work where they want and are free of government restrictions on their lives.
HELLO, THEY ARE FREE OF POVERTY!
That concept of education is what’s missing in this mega effort to eradicate poverty and it is, IN FACT, the very solution.
I could solve poverty right now,…. today,….. with what the poverty committee appears to be proposing. Give me $200,000,000.00 and I will distribute it starting today. Next year there will be more poverty and I’ll need a little more, but I can resolve this poverty thing every year. But take the money away and you will have a poverty crisis the moment you do. Because,….because throwing money at it is, at best, a temporary solution.
There are many components needed to address poverty and I would add racism as well. We first of all must openly own the fact that our politics and economic directions have since the Reagan years have moved away from the progressive agenda. We are paying a price for that. The problem is that those paying the biggest price are the poorest and communities of color
With that said, we actually do know what kind of foundation and basics are needed to systematically support the poor. To begin with the poor face a vast list of factors that add to the stress and struggles. Specific assistance with these aspects is important and need to be individualized. At the same time a basic foundation of support and services/advocacy remain constant. . To illustrate this I would describe a systematic model. The is a model that existed in the ny state service system to provide supports for persons with developmental disabilities beginning in the 1970’s The model included an interdisciplinary team, parent/family advocacy training. systematic advocacy and organizing, on-going staff development education, public accountability, the right to speak out and engage in critical thinking when the system falters, and long-term follow-up. The core was a relationship with the focus on the individual/family relationship and the relationship with the core staff contact (social worker) which assured the family being in control of decision-making related to their needs. In order to help assure this being honored the worker was not supervised by those in higher positions in the larger system who might refuse or avoid providing a needed service so as to meet economic limitations. Normally someone such as a doctor or psychiatrist would have greater say than the parent or social worker but this model rejected that power relationship. Since this was part of the public system that also carried greater weight as it was more directly connected to the original funding source. This was important in attempting to provide services for persons with disabilities at a time when there was significant resistance. The other factor worth repeating is that it is only the public sector worker that is protected when speaking out about system problems they encounter. Workers in non-public settings including no
not for profits are Not protected. (see Professor Sullivan’s writings John Jay College).
The interdisciplinary teams include inner city outreach. They existed in the various quadrants making up the County. The attitude of the agency was one of activism as well.
This model could be amended to apply to others not just the disabled.
If you wonder what happened to this….well herit goes. After over 30 years of being viewed by those served as highly valued the Governor during his first term seeking to severely cutting the budget proposed sever cuts to public services. This effort shook-up the system and resulted in the ELIMINATION of this entire community based program. I would add that this model was also applicable for persons residing in certified residential options. The part eliminated was the one applying to persons living in the community and interfacing with a complex community system. Today we look at problems faced by students in poor neighborhoods regarding education. This approach could be used for the many students and their families education struggles. It would support the families and advocate with parents to assure the system does what it is supposed to do as compared to what is happening now. Bonnie Cannan
…..And what is happening now?
The fact remains that poverty and education go hand in hand. In order to break the poverty cycle you have to “intervene” with education. Are there other contributing factors that will help pave the way, yup. Do they need to be applied simultaneously, yup again. At the foundation of that quest though, is education. All “roads” should lead to acquiring an opportunity to be on your own. To be rid of government control over your life. Be free to do what you want to do, where you want to live and how you want to live.
Urban Rochester has an education attendance problem, that attendance problem results in the eventual dropping out of the RCSD. That lack of education dramatically reduces the opportunity to gain a meaningful and self supporting profession/career.
They don’t drop out because the curriculum is so dam exciting. They drop out because it is boring. We need an exciting approach to education, an “oh wow, this education stuff is cool” approach. Showing them a stack of books and telling them they will have to read them, be tested on them and then upon passing will get a high school diploma aint getting the job done. You can address all of the other concerns, but boring is still boring.
I am absolutely convinced that the urban child, kid, student is just as talented, has just as much to offer, can do,…….everything a suburban child, kid, student can do. We just need to apply some ingenuity within the RCSD education process that gets and keeps their attention. .
“They don’t drop out because the curriculum is so dam exciting. They drop out because it is boring”
Same boring curriculum that is taught in the burbs. No massive drop out issue there. But I’ll still say you’re half right. For the urban population, something like job prep and life skills would be more their speed.
“Urban Rochester has an education attendance problem, that attendance problem results in the eventual dropping out of the RCSD”
I agree. But why? I say it’s attitude. Without the proper attitude they won’t show up to school and if they do, it’s because they’re forced, and still won’t learn anything.
A good attitude is the most important thing in life and comes before ANYTHING else. But I wonder how they can get a good attitude when you listen to the message from the left?
I agree EDUCATION is the key.
How important is EDUCATION when you’re retaliated against and ostracized which leads to false charges because you wrote a required report for your Human Services class that exposed inadequacy AND racism.
To some, your EDUCATION is worth ruining.
Such is the case with Susan K. Porter-Conklin of the Judicial Process Commission and her co-conspirator Yolanda Assamoah-Wade in conjunction with Monroe Community College.
Ask Jada Williams how she was handled after giving her personal assessment.
Rochester NY is hypocritical and racist as they smile welcoming you with one hand and a knife behind their back in the other.
Many doors have been locked by various gatekeepers.