[Illinois] Jobs, housing among concerns in report on poverty

From the Pontiac Daily Leader, written by John Faddoul.

Livingston County needs better jobs and more affordable housing to help reduce poverty among some of its residents, according to a report generated by an April meeting in Pontiac.

The report also lists health care, budget counseling, services to families and children, and transportation as other priorities for Livingston County.

Jobs were the highest priority, noted Cathy Grafton, who assembled the report, based on a "Dialogue on Poverty" held April 12 at the Community Recreation Center. Grafton is manager of Livingston County programs for Mid Central Community Action.

Community Action agencies hold local community meetings every four years to discuss poverty issues. This time, the Illinois agencies will report the results of those meetings to provide a larger picture of poverty in this state, "not through statistical analysis, but through the eyes and ears of those citizens intimately familiar with the face of poverty," the Web site for the Illinois Community Action Association says.

The Illinois results also will be passed on to the national organization, with that national report passed on to Congress. U.S. Census Bureau figures indicate that the poverty rate in Livingston County in 2002 was 9.5 percent, slightly lower than the Illinois rate of 11.3 percent. In 2004, according to the bureau, the "federal poverty threshold" for a family of three was an annual income of $15,670.

At the Livingston County level, Grafton said, she hopes the information in the report will result in ideas from the local community, most of whose residents don't witness the day-to-day effects that low-income families can face, ranging from the percentage of family income that can be spent to heat a leaky mobile home to the diets of children.

Copies of the report have been given to various individuals and organizations, with more people and groups to be getting them in the near future. Grafton said her office already is getting feedback from some who have received the report.

Based on written comments and group discussions at the April 12 meeting, the number one priority for any "local action plan" that might be implemented is jobs.

"It was felt that our community is losing blue-collar jobs that used to support families," according to the report summarizing the comments and discussion from the meeting. "These jobs are now being replaced by part-time workers hired through agencies (and) at much lower pay and without benefits."