A focus on the Oakland California area

from Inside Bay Area

58 different studies were combined into one for this report showing poverty levels in the Oakland, California region. The Bay Community Foundation focuses on social justice. - Kale

By Kamika Dunlap

OAKLAND — A new study shows the East Bay is leading the Bay Area in increasing poverty levels, low living-wage job opportunities, decline of housing affordability and sinking high school graduation rates.

The study highlights trends in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, including the emerging "hourglass economy," where new jobs are divided between low-wage, low-skill jobs and high-wage jobs, with little growth of living-wage jobs in the middle.

The wide disparities in achievement among schools and districts and the unmet need for quality child care for working families of all incomes levels were key findings. In addition, the more than 4,500 adults on parole represent a need for a range of services to reintegrate them into society, according to the report.

"It's very stressful out here, and I like having money in my pocket, even if it's a dollar so I won't be broke,'' said Dwight Hasklin, 33, of Oakland. Hasklin served time for selling drugs because he said he needed to make ends meet when his $8.25 hourly pay from driving tow trucks didn't stretch far enough to support his family. Hasklin only had o serve five of his nine month sentence because he earned his high school equivalency degree during that time. When he was released, he found a security job through America Works, a private employment company that helps to place ex-offenders in the work force.

Hasklin is one of many East Bay residents struggling to overcome socio-economic challenges. The study provides a bird's-eye view of the aggregated data and the issues impacting the area.

"This is a sobering wake-up call for community action," said Nicole Taylor, president and chief executive officer of the East Bay Community Foundation. "There's also tremendous resources that need to be marshaled to deal with the negative trends."

To do that, Taylor said the study helped the foundation identify success in early childhood and strong economic opportunity for adults as two critical ways to affect change. Also, creating more partnerships among business, government and philanthropic organizations can help to transform low income and underserved communities, she said.

A similar study was published in 2005. The updated report, however, shows that about 600,000 residents live in households earning less than the amount required to afford basic necessities. Unemployment fell from 2003 to 2006, but it rose from 4.5 percent in March 2006 to 5.5 percent in March 2008. Unemployment was 8.4 percent in Oakland, 9.2 percent in Richmond and 9 percent in Pittsburg in March 2008.

"We need to find a way to keep people out of the jobs keeping them in poverty," said Andy Nelson, director of Economic Opportunity Programs at the Urban Strategies Council. "In bad economic times and in boom times, poor people are not doing well."

Nelson said he agrees that education is a long-term strategy to improve overall quality- of-life issues. However, creating jobs that are accessible and housing that everyone can afford are equally important. The study cites the East Bay as one of the least- affordable regions in the country for homeownership and hit the hardest by the subprime lending crisis.

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