A Different Approach to Breaking the Cycle of Poverty [The Atlantic]

Elizabeth Prewitt PACEsConnection writer 12/27/146:23 AM

Two-generation programs focus on improving education for children and job opportunities for parents at the same time.

DEC 24 2014

ATLANTA—This neighborhood south of downtown is bleak, with empty parking lots fenced in by barbed wire, and skeletons of buildings covered in graffiti.

Many of the people walking the long blocks of Mechanicsville grew up poor, and their children are likely to be poor, too. It’s part of the vicious cycle of poverty—without access to high-quality education, kids born into poverty are likely to remain there for their whole lives, despite the promise of the American Dream. According to the Kids Count Data Center, a project sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 39 percent of African American children lived in poverty in 2013, the highest rate of any racial group. And one study found that 42 percent of African Americans born into the lowest-income category remained there as adults.

Attachments

Hide

Images (1)

Add Comment

Comments (1)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Robert OlcottMember

I hope my post on the Trauma-Informed D.C. Metropolitan area post will serve as a "Resilience Building" resource, for those addressing the "toxic Stress" of Poverty. I first heard about it when Floyd D'Agostino of Alternative Economics told an audience at (what's now the University of N.H. Law School) Franklin Pierce Law School, about two Community Development Credit Unions: the first, in the Anacostia section of Washington, D.C., and the second at the Navajo Nation. Most of the Anacostia neighborhood had high unemployment, but the CD Credit Union members persevered. The Building Trades Unions brought apprenticeship jobs to rehab the buildings...a street level Day Care Center was the first completed-providing jobs for women in the neighborhood and safe social day care for pre-school children. Banks that had "red- lined" the neighborhood were no longer needed as a source of investment capital, and neighborhood residents could take pride in their own investment in community.....

12/31/1412:55 PM

<ul id="{%=id%}ButtonGroup" class="button-group h-popup-buttons even-button-group even-1">
    <li id="{%=id%}Okay_buttonContainer"><a id="{%=id%}Okay" href="javascript:void(0);" class="button success no-margin-bottom h-alert-modal-ok-button" role="button">OK</a><script type="text/javascript">
        (function() {
            function {%=id%}Okay_click(event, data) {
            {%=id%}Popup.hide();
        }
        
                $('#{%=id%}Okay').on('click', {%=id%}Okay_click);
        })();
    </script></li></ul><a href="javascript:void(0);" class="close-reveal-modal" aria-label="Close Modal">&#215;</a><div class="last-modal-focus focus-utility-element" tabindex="0"></div>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
        (function() {
            {%=id%}Popup = new SS.Popup.ModalPopup('{%=id%}');
        })();
    </script>

Skip to main content

Attachments

Add Comment

Membership Required

Remove From Your Block List

Manage Follow Preferences

Block

Please wait...