Category Archives: Poverty

man handing bag of groceries to woman

Helping People in the Kansas City Metro Area: CAAGKC and COVID-19

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This post is part of a series highlighting Community Action’s response across Missouri to COVID-19.

As COVID-19 emerged in Missouri, unemployment spiked, and many people in the Kansas City metro area lost the means to pay their bills and feed their children. Seeing these needs, Community Action Agency of Greater Kansas City developed an online emergency services portal for its customers to apply for rent and utility assistance as in-person appointments came to a halt.

During the first full month of COVID-19, CAAGKC customers needed food and toiletries, mainly cleaning supplies and diapers. The agency partnered with several non-profits and organizations around Kansas City to meet these needs. CAAGKC continued to focus on community members’ basic needs—food, toiletries, utilities, and housing—during the second full month of the pandemic. The agency developed partnerships with area organizations to address the increasing needs beyond its food and toiletry pantries.

CAAGKC streamlined its processes so customers could apply for services without leaving their homes. All business was conducted online or by phone. Some events were held drive-through style, so the agency staff and customers could adhere to social distancing guidelines. At the same time, the agency put other programs and services on hold due to an inability to meet in person and enter customers’ homes.

Adapting these programs allowed the agency to focus resources on other initiatives. CAAGKC provided 32 of its University Academy families with $100 gift cards for food and groceries. The agency’s Youth Services Department addressed specific needs of PAVE The Way participants—an after-school and summer program that helps high school students develop leadership skills and explore career options. CAAGKC developed partnerships with several drive-through food distribution sites around the Kansas City metro.

CAAGKC creatively used existing financial resources and partnerships to address customer needs. The agency provided 60 furloughed airport employees and 44 furloughed Zona Rosa employees with up to $100 for their families. It also provided more than $50,000 in additional funding for pantries and established a new partnership with Platte Senior Center to deliver care packages to home-bound seniors.

In collaboration with Total Man Community Development Corporation, CAAGKC provided up to $100 cash assistance per family to 50 households. The agency delivered 180 boxes of food to seniors in their apartments in collaboration with Palestine Senior Center and worked with Truman Medical Center Mobile Market to provide families with fresh fruit and vegetables. CAAGKC helped residents with their rent and utility bills and assisted with evictions of up to three months, and worked with school districts to address families’ needs.

An innovative practice CAAGKC endeavored during the pandemic was the digitization of rental and utility assistance procedures. Customer applications and service delivery were handled by phone or online with a secure portal through which private, sensitive customer information could be sent.

Many people who previously didn’t meet eligibility requirements for CAAGKC’s services are affected by COVID-19’s economic impact in unexpected ways. CAAGKC is aware of the challenges these individuals and families face and continues to ensure individuals and families receive uninterrupted services during these unsure, untested, and certainly trying times.

Get Assistance

If you or someone you know needs help, 
find a Community Action Agency in your area. 

St. Louis Woman Finds Housing and Hope with Help from Community Action During Pandemic

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This post is part of a series highlighting Community Action’s response across Missouri to COVID-19.

When disaster strikes, people living in poverty are often disproportionately affected. A lack of resources limits a low-income family’s ability to prepare for emergencies and to recover. Families with low incomes have been significantly impacted as COVID-19 spread. 

The pandemic brought many challenges to people in the City of St. Louis—People’s Community Action Corporation’s service area—who were already struggling to make ends meet. The City of St. Louis is among the ten counties with the highest poverty rate in Missouri. The most significant challenge PCAC saw its community members face during the pandemic was how to maintain housing when income is gone. The story of a woman we’ll call Ms. Reynolds is one of many similar circumstances PCAC has addressed.

Ms. Reynolds lost her job and her housing almost overnight due to COVID-19. Her place of employment ceased operations, and she was now without a job. At the time, she was boarding a single room in a house. Yet when her college student daughter came to live with Ms. Reynolds after the college closed and sent students home, Ms. Reynolds was asked to vacate her boarding room. 

Before COVID-19, Ms. Reynolds was in the process of stabilizing her life. She worked to improve her rental history and save money, but this job and housing loss left few options and a feeling of hopelessness. Without any other support, Ms. Reynolds and her daughter checked into a hotel. The cost of food while living in a hotel, the weekly room rate, and transportation costs consumed her pandemic aid each week. She was unable to save for a deposit on an apartment of her own. 

When Ms. Reynolds came to PCAC, she had found a landlord considering taking a chance on her despite the lack of rental history, but he was still reluctant. PCAC staff reassured the landlord when he learned of the agency’s involvement in securing housing for Ms. Reynolds. With this reassurance, the property owner was open to renting. PCAC secured the apartment for Ms. Reynolds by paying the deposit and two months’ rent. Ms. Reynolds paid for an additional month using the pandemic funds as she was no longer paying the weekly hotel rate. The two women are now in their new apartment and say it is starting to feel like home. If her current place of employment does not reopen soon, Ms. Reynolds plans to work with PCAC to secure a new job. 

Get Assistance

If you or someone you know needs help, 
find a Community Action Agency in your area. 

Matthew Desmond Evicted

What We’re Reading: Evicted

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Evicted by Matthew Desmond
Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ethnography pulls no punches when it comes to the rampant lack of affordable housing throughout the United States. For more than a year before writing his book, Desmond lived in some of Milwaukee’s most impoverished communities, following eight families struggling to scrape by from one housing eviction to another.

As part of his research, Desmond uncovered alarming facts such as this one—between 2009 and 2011, more than 1 in 8 Milwaukee renters experienced a forced move. What’s more, we learn that Milwaukee is not unusual; cities across the country abound with renters in similar situations, from Kansas City to Cleveland and Chicago to Los Angeles.

“A problem as big as the affordable-housing crisis calls for a big solution. It should be at the top of America’s domestic-policy agenda—because it is driving poor families to financial ruin and even starting to engulf families with moderate incomes. Today, over 1 in 5 of all renting families in the country spends half of its income on housing. America can and should work to make its cities livable again.”

Because Evicted is an ethnography, we also come face to face with the human side of Desmond’s research—his late nights and early mornings with the everyday people living in one of Milwaukee’s trailer parks and in its urban core. And through the pages, we experience what it might be like to live on nearly nothing, day in and day out. That’s the true beauty of this work—while it’s a work of non-fiction, the book reads like a novel, and one you can’t put down.

If you haven’t yet read Evicted and care about ending poverty in the U.S., get a copy and prepare yourself for the avalanche of emotions that are sure to follow. And then, pick yourself up and figure out what you can do to help end this scourge on our towns and cities. As Desmond says in the book’s epilogue: “Whatever our way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering—by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.” It’s up to all of us to make sure that what we’ve allowed our country to become can be changed.—Jessica Hoey, Missouri CAN Director of External Affairs

Author Matthew DesmondMatthew Desmond is a social scientist and ethnographer revealing the impact of eviction on the lives of the urban poor and its role in perpetuating racial and economic inequality. In his investigations of the low-income rental market and eviction in privately owned housing in Milwaukee, Desmond argues persuasively that eviction is a cause, rather than merely a symptom, of poverty.

Sign the Petition! Stand up for the needs of low-income Americans

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from the Coalition on Human Needs

Congress is ramping up to make cuts

Your organization/you as an individual can still sign a letter to hold the line against harm to low-income people. Here’s why it matters so much that you do:

We can’t remember a time when the future of human needs programs and policies was in such critical danger. But if we organize, if we stand united, and if we support each other – we can win!

Sign the letter: new deadline, January 19.  When many organizations nationwide sign a statement in defense of low-income people and the services they need, it shows Congress that there are numerous, well-organized constituents who care and will take action. Perhaps most important, it sends a message to the Senators whose votes are essential if we are to block an unprecedented effort to weaken services low-income people need.  It tells them we’re united and we will support their efforts. Please don’t underestimate the need to encourage Senators to hold firm in defense of vulnerable people and needed programs.  And please don’t fail to see how much more likely harsh cuts are if service providers, faith groups, and other advocates remain silent or think they’re better off going it alone.- so read our letter and, if you represent an organization, please sign it. If you want to stand up and be counted as an individual, please sign the petition.

Standing together and speaking out matters!

The House of Representatives just abandoned a plan to weaken oversight of Congressional ethics because of an outpouring of opposition from constituents. Congress needs to know that key constituents oppose cuts to key safety net programs:  health care law, Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and much more.  The letter says that.  Note:  the letter uses the theme SAVE for All (Strengthening America’s Economy and Values for All), which has been the heading for several letters and statements in the past signed by thousands of groups.  SAVE for All is not an organization, but a statement of principles – protecting low-income and vulnerable people and responsible, equitable investments and budgeting are key ongoing principles.  Standing for these has never been more important.

Missouri poverty drops in 2015, household income and health coverage rises

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Poverty disproportionately affects Missourians of color and children

2015povertygraphic_poverty2015The number of Missourians living in poverty declined last year, while median household income and those with health coverage rose.

Overall, 875,495 Missourians, or 14.8 percent, experienced poverty in 2015. This data is compared to the Missouri 908,628 households or 15.5 percent in 2014 according to the recently released American Community Survey by the U.S. Census Bureau. Missouri’s median household income was $50,238 up from the $48,363 median in 2014. Continue reading →

Good News & Work To Do: Poverty, Income, Health Insurance Data

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The United State Census Bureau released data on poverty, income, and health insurance today. The numbers find that overall, poverty is declining, though it is still above the pre-recessionary rates. Check back with Missouri CAN on Thursday when the statewide poverty data is released. Read on for a recap provided by the Coalition on Human Needs. 

Poverty, Income, Health Insurance Key Points:

+ 3.5 million fewer people were poor in 2015 than in 2014 (1 million fewer poor children among them).  That’s a reduction from 14.8 percent poor in 2014 to 13.5 percent in 2015.  Good news.
+ There is evidence that long-awaited economic growth was starting to reach more people, with median household income rising 5.2 percent – to $56,500 (up from $53,700).  
+ And the number of uninsured declined by 1.3 percentage points, down to 9.1 percent, the lowest level ever.  Much of that is attributable to the Affordable Care Act.  The number of uninsured fell by 4 million from 2014 to 2015, and by 12.8 million from 2013 to 2015.
+ There are still 43 million poor people in America, and that is too many.  But the findings of the Supplemental Poverty Measure point to the importance of key programs like Social Security, tax credits, SNAP, and housing assistance, among others, in reducing poverty.

For example:  

+26.6 million people were lifted out of poverty by Social Security.
+ More than 9 million people were lifted out of poverty by low-income (refundable) tax credits – more than 4.8 million children among them. 
+ SNAP raised nearly 4.6 million out of poverty (including 2 million children).
+ Housing subsidies took more than 2.5 million out of poverty (including 860,000 children).  
+ Racial/ethnic disparities remain, and are troubling.  But it is worth noting that the percentage point reductions in poverty were greater for African Americans and Hispanics/Latinos than for whites. (The percentage growth in median income was greatest for Hispanics and less for African Americans and Asians.) See this table from the Council of Economic Advisers:

povertychart

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resources: 

Full Census Bureau Income and Poverty report for 2015:  http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-256.pdf

Full Census Bureau Supplemental Poverty Measure report for 2015:  http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2015/demo/p60-254.pdf 

Full Census Bureau Health Insurance report for 2015:  http://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p60-257.pdf 

 

 

 

5 Numbers about Missouri Hunger

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Hunger affects hundreds of thousands of Missourians every day. Missouri families in poverty, and even those above the poverty level, struggle to put enough food on the table. Hunger matters because it impacts health, education, and the family and economic security of current and future generations in our state. Check out the infographic below to Missouri hunger by the numbers:

Continue reading →

Four reasons you should attend the 2016 Missouri Poverty Summit

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MACA is a member of Missourians to End Poverty, a nonpartisan coalition of nonprofits, organizations, businesses and community members dedicated to ending poverty. Missourians to End Poverty is hosting the 2016 Missouri Poverty Summit this year on Wednesday, April 27 at the Capitol Plaza Hotel. To register for the all-day event, click here.

Four reasons you should attend the 2016 Missouri Poverty Summit:

  • + You care about poverty. More than 900,000 Missourians live in poverty. This includes more than 280,000 children. The 2016 Missouri Poverty Summit will highlight the current scope of poverty in our state. This will include the most recent data around five elements of poverty: food, education, health, housing & energy, and family & economic security. Sharing is caring, and sharing this information with your community will help raise poverty awareness and understanding in Missouri.
  • + You believe in community approaches to poverty. Missouri is a diverse state. Approaches to poverty for an urban community will look vastly different than a rural community. In the afternoon, the Poverty Summit will have a panel of speakers who will discuss their community approaches to fighting poverty. They will share best practices and lessons learned from their community initiatives.
  • + You want to learn about inter-generational poverty solutions. The Poverty Summit’s keynote speaker will be Dr. Tiffany Anderson, superintendent of the Jennings School District. Dr. Anderson recently received national media attention for her holistic approach to poverty. She focuses on removing the barriers that poverty creates for children in her school district.
  • + You want to meet other Missourians who want to end poverty. The all-day conference begins at 9:30 a.m. and will conclude at 4 p.m. It is hosted by Missourians to End Poverty, which is a nonpartisan coalition of nonprofits, businesses, organizations and individuals from around the state. You will have the opportunity to meet others passionate about addressing poverty in our state and share best practices. We hope to see you there!

Register for the Summit