Ohio puts together an anti-poverty plan

Ohio is conducting a series of meetings to formulate an anti-poverty plan. A state government task force is conducting brainstorming sessions in each of the states 22 counties.

The results of the meetings will then be combined into a report to be presented to the states governor to begin to implement. The task force hopes to have detailed ideas on how to reduce the numbers in poverty to Governor Ted Strickland by April 30th.

The latest in the series of meetings took place in Hamilton County. The Cincinnati Enquirer sent reporter Mark Curnutte to cover the meeting.

More than 60 social service providers - public and faith-based - private citizens and representatives of charitable foundations met for two hours Wednesday morning at the Cincinnati-Hamilton County Community Action Agency in Bond Hill. They formulated the county's response to Strickland's request from 22 communities across Ohio for his anti-poverty task force.

Participants exchanged information about job-training programs, earned-income tax credits for the poor and services to the elderly.

"A lot of dots connected, but the themes of jobs and education kept coming up," said John Young, president and CEO of the Freestore Foodbank.

More than 3.4 million Ohioans live at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level for a family of six is $28,400. Ohio's task force will aim to provide practical and short- and long-term solutions to the state's poverty in the form of a five- to 10-year vision.

Poverty has deepened and spread across the state since the governor organized the task force in May by executive order. From the 22 discussions and sets of recommendations, the process will narrow to regional meetings. Then the anti-poverty task force will make recommendations to Strickland, said Amanda Wurst, his spokesperson.

This process through the state's community action agencies does not deal with federal economic stimulus money that might come into Ohio.
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All major economic indicators for children show more strain on the Hamilton County's youngest citizens, according to a survey of the latest data available from the Children's Defense Fund and the Annie E. Casey Foundation's "Kids Count 2008" report for Ohio. The numbers and percentages of children under 18 living in poverty and receiving public health care, food stamps and free or reduced school lunches are up dramatically since 2001.

New task force to tackle poverty

from the Lancaster Eagle Gazette

By TIERRA PALMER

LANCASTER - More than two-thirds of the 12,000 telephone calls Fairfield County Job & Family Services receives each month are from people who need financial assistance or access to health care.

"Many of these families have worked all their lives. They're not asking to own a house or even to send their children to college. All they're asking for is to be able to eat and to take their children to the doctor when they're sick and to be able to get to work," said Laura Holton, community services director for JFS.

Holton, like other local social service providers, hopes an initiative recently established by Gov. Ted Strickland will help identify solutions for the growing poverty problem.

Strickland signed an executive order May 28 establishing the Ohio Anti-Poverty Task Force, which will develop recommendations aimed at reducing the number of Ohioans living at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level - about $21,000 for a family of four.

The task force is part of an ongoing effort to "make Ohio a better place to work and to live," said Amanda Wurst, deputy communications director for Strickland.

"The governor is deeply concerned about the poverty issues that Ohioans live with and deal with each day. The purpose of the Anti-Poverty Task Force is to come with pragmatic solutions to poverty," she said.

The task force will consist of low- to moderate-income Ohioans, representatives from state and local social service agencies and advocacy groups and other stakeholders.

The governor's office plans to establish working groups throughout the state to discuss what can be done to help those in need.

Officials at local social service agencies already have started to weigh in about the issue, calling for increased funding for programs and services targeting that population such as Medicaid and the Home Energy Assistance Program.

"The governor needs to put money where he says his heart is," Holton said.

About 6 percent of Fairfield County's 140,729 residents live in poverty. Of those, nearly half - 47 percent - are female-headed households and one quarter are married couples. And there are about 17,000 Medicaid recipients, more than two-thirds of whom are low- to moderate-income children and families.

Community Action recently received a $30,000 technical assistance grant from the Ohio Department of Development aimed at helping individuals and families navigate the Ohio Benefit Bank - a web-based computer program designed to connect low- and moderate-income Ohioans with free tax preparation, tax credits and public benefits such as food stamps and childcare subsidies.

That money, along with a sizable grant from the United Way of Fairfield County, will be used to fund a new staff position to help residents access those benefits.