In her welcome to attendees of the Harvest Food and Outreach Center’s 2015 Symposium on Poverty in Indian River County last Friday morning, Executive Director Annabel Robertson said poverty in America is the pervasive issue affecting our economy, justice system, education system and workforce.
“How we respond to this issue is an expression of our collective values and our view on the future. Action must be taken,” said Robertson to the gathering at the Indian River State College Richardson Center. “It’s only with collective impact and working together that we can make a change. It will take the efforts of the private and public sector, profit and nonprofit, government, individuals and faith communities to work together to be united against poverty.”
This year’s guest speakers were John Franklin, CEO of United Way of Northern New Jersey and the driving force behind the United Way ALICE Project; James Wright, director of the University of Central Florida Institute for Social and Behavioral Sciences; and Maria Kim, president and CEO of the Cara Program in Chicago.
The ALICE Project (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed), began in New Jersey and is becoming a national effort. Its goal is to shine a light on the plight of the working poor; low-wage individuals who earn more than the federal poverty level but not enough to afford basic housing, childcare, food, transportation and medical care.
“Wherever you live in the United States, the federal poverty level is inadequate. Twenty-three thousand bucks for a family of four just isn’t enough,” said Franklin.
In Indian River County (based on 2013 U.S. Census estimates), 44 percent of residents have a household income below the ALICE survival threshold of $48,323 for a family of four. That number includes 14 percent who live below the federal poverty level of $23,050.
Franklin touched on some of the systemic issues that must be addressed, such as the high costs of quality childcare and housing, an inability to budget with shift and seasonal jobs, and a lack of assets to draw on for even the smallest emergency.
“No one organization can do this alone. If we’re going to bring about the kind of change we really want for ALICE, it’s going to take a community effort,” said Franklin. “We need partnerships across the spectrum coming together to address this as a systemic problem. We need to engage business leaders and legislators; they can be our partners.”
James Wright spoke about recent studies on poverty and near-poverty in Florida, specifically the economic hardships of the working poor. He noted that while welfare rolls have been cut more than 50 percent since the 1996 Welfare Reform Act, poverty rates have actually risen.
Explaining the inadequacy of the federal poverty rate, he said the1965 standard was based on an “emergency, temporary, low-budget diet” defined as the “minimal nutrient intake to sustain human life over short periods.” Determining that one-third of income was spent on food, the federal poverty rate became the minimum average cost of food for that diet multiplied by three.
“It is adjusted annually for increases in the cost of living, but otherwise the entire methodology has never been changed,” said Wright, adding that low-income families often spend more than half their income on housing and a third on food, leaving virtually nothing for childcare, transportation, education and health care.
Maria Kim spoke about the Chicago-based Cara Program, a workforce development organization securing sustainable employment through social enterprise for men and women affected by poverty, including many who have passed through the justice system.
“The individuals that we serve are not just acquiring jobs, they’re sustaining them over the long-term,” said Kim, noting that enrollees initially go through an intensive boot camp to learn life and career skills. “We want folks to be in permanent employment; to stick and stay and learn skills they need for the long term.”