Region looking for poverty solutions

from The Southern

BY BECKY MALKOVICH, THE SOUTHERN

VIENNA - Recent job losses, especially those that paid a good living wage, could increase the number of area residents living in poverty, according to representatives from two agencies leading the charge against poverty in Illinois.

Closure of plants such as Herrin's Maytag, which pushed nearly 1,000 people into the unemployment lines, often cause losses to the tax bases of schools, create hardship for hospitals that may see an increase in uninsured patients and "bring fear and desperation to a community," said Nancy Tegtmeier, associate director of Illinois Coalition for Community Services.

Also, those lost jobs are replaced with service-based jobs, said Doug Schenkelberg of Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights.

"Typically, manufacturing jobs pay better and have benefits, while those that replace them usually come with lower pay and no benefits," Schenkelberg said. "So the ability of people to make ends meet is lessened."

Trying to overcome the factors that play into the region's and state's high poverty rates was the reason for a meeting of the minds Saturday in Vienna, the first in a series of meetings sponsored by the ICCS and alliance.

The forum, "Moving from Poverty to Opportunity," brought together community members, elected officials, labor representatives and others in the Southern seven counties of the state, to discuss causes of and solutions to poverty.

"Our goal in holding these meetings is to really listen to people to find out what is holding their community back and what can be done to find a solution," Schenkelberg said.

The meetings also aim to build regional coalitions, Tegtmeier said, because many of the problems confronting the communities are the same.

"There are many reasons for poverty in a community. It could be there are transportation or housing issues, lack of jobs that pay a living wage with benefits or a lack of leadership," she said.

The agencies plan to take the information gathered at the statewide forums and try to develop a poverty eradication policy, Schenkelberg said.

"We want to develop a policy with the General Assembly that offers real and substantive solutions and initiatives. Our goal is to cut extreme poverty in the state by half by 2015," he said.

Ivory Davis and Michael Vaughn, both of the No. 9 area in rural Williamson County, said they attended the meeting to gather information and resources to help them revitalize the No. 9 community.

The two belong to the No. 9 Community Development Committee and said while efforts to help the community have achieved some success, much more is needed.

"It's an impoverished area," Davis said. "I don't know if it's lack of jobs or lack of motivation, but we want to get something started to help the community."

Pedro Delgado, community development specialist at the ICCS' Herrin office, said he hopes those who came to the forum will continue to try and help those in their communities.

"If we can get people interested and involved, there are resources we can get for them," he said.