Poverty in Oklahoma City

[JenX67]

I think it means higher -- so I don't know why this isn't a bigger story. It's very hopeful news, I think!

[JenX67]

From Krisiti Eaton and the Associated Press: Oklahoma businessman's program to improve student achievement in Oklahoma City's high-poverty public school system Here is the program's website: Fields and Futures.

From Mikah Young's song, Fields and Futures, written for this project.

FF to around 2:05 seconds and have a listen.

Out on this field
We're all a part
Of what could heal
This city's heart
Our time has come
And we're on fire
Our voice is one...
Let them be a part of something
Bigger than themselves...

[JenX67]

Oklahoma's Child Well-Being Rank Drops from 36 to 39

Oklahoma drops in a new report about how states care for children. The report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation says Oklahoma took one of the biggest dives in child well-being of any state in the country.

The Kids Count Data Book says Oklahoma dropped from 36th place to 39th in the latest research released by the foundation.

“We’re close to being in the bottom ten for outcomes for children,” said Terry Smith the president and CEO of the Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, “the numbers are not good, many areas are getting worse.”

The Oklahoma Institute for Child Advocacy, or OICA, receives some of its funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and works to promote policies and programs for children in the state. Smith says one of the issues that contributed to Oklahoma’s decline is poverty.

“Poverty is an incredible issue in Oklahoma right now the new data shows that one in four children in the state of Oklahoma lives in poverty,” Smith told Fox 25.

The report showed Oklahoma did make small improvements which included a reduction in births to teenagers, a slight increase in reading and math proficiency as well as a reduced child and teen death rate.

Those small gains were not enough to drop Oklahoma’s overall ranking. Smith says not focusing on the needs of at-risk children lead to higher costs later on in for the form of need of other social services and even higher incarceration rates.

“There’s a lot more kids that are being removed from their homes right now for child abuse and neglect, many of those kids then go into the juvenile justice system,” Smith said.

[JenX67]

A new initiative from the Obama administration offers new hope to high poverty areas

I'm posting this because it highlights Sara-Jane Smallwood who grew up in Southeastern Oklahoma (one of the hardest places to live) where "more than 60 percent of the population lived below poverty." Smallwood Smallwood is now the coordinator in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma for a new national anti-poverty initiative the Obama administration is calling Promise Zones.

There are five Promise Zones. They include L.A., San Antonio, Southeastern Kentucky, Philadelphia and the Choctaw Nation. More form NPR.

[josh]

The promise zone in San Antonio covers a portion of the near East Side of San Antonio. It's a very odd choice as it has been historically black and very poor but in the last five years has seen a slow gentrification starting with the Dignowity Hill neighborhood. This article from today actually talks about a new single family residential project that just opened up on the near east side and the developer talks about building another 40 homes in the same area.

Walter Kramer, left, the first resident at Cherry Street Modern, closes the gate to his patio area as Lorie Campos, right, leaves the complex in San Antonio on Wednesday, July 31, 2014. Campos handles marketing for Terramark Urban Homes.

The developer sold all 12 homes in the Cherry Street Modern development.

A better location for the promise zone would have been the near west side which is very poor and not going through any gentrification.

[JenX67]

This graphic doesn't exactly paint a rosy picture, but hey, the poverty rate has fallen for the first time since 2006. The source is the U.S. Census Bureau. REVIEW: Income and Poverty in The United States: 2013, a September 2014 report issued just yesterday. The New York Times story reports the number of children living in poverty dropping sharply.

[JenX67]

From KGOU: Beyond The Racist Chant: The Facts About Black Inequality (with poverty stats)

[okatty]

This was in the Opinion section of the NY Times and is obviously not specific to Okla but is related to the topic in this discussion. Thought I would share it:


The argument here is a summary of that made by the economist John Komlos; it’s straightforward, logical, nondoctrinaire, irrefutable, and goes like this: If you’re born in a bad neighborhood you will go to a bad school; if you go to a bad school you will get a bad education; if you get a bad education you will get a bad job, or none at all; thus you will have a low (or no) income; with low income you have no wealth (it’s more likely you will have debt). And so … your children, and theirs, are likely to live in bad neighborhoods. Without education or jobs.
And — since I’m the food guy, it’s worth pointing out — without access to good food or nutrition education. This is murder by a thousand cuts. The rate of hunger among black households: 10.1 percent. Among white households: 4.6 percent. The age-adjusted rate of obesity among black Americans: 47.8 percent. Among white Americans: 32.6 percent. The rate of diabetes among black adults aged 20 or older: 13.2 percent. Among white adults: 7.6 percent. Black Americans’ life expectancy, compared to white Americans: four years less. (The life expectancy of black men with some high school compared to white men with some college: minus 14 years.)
These numbers are not a result of a lack of food access but of an abundance of poverty. Lack of education is not a result of a culture of victimhood but of lack of funding for schools. And rather than continuing to allow these realities to divide us, we should do the American thing, which is to fix things. Which we can do, together.
Not long ago African-Americans were enslaved; until recently they were lynched. Isolated racist murders still occur, but they are no longer sanctioned or tolerated, and we’re seeing the vestiges of that as both national and local attention is paid to violence by the police against black people.
But oppression and inequality are violence in another form. When people are undereducated, impoverished, malnourished, un- or under-employed, or underpaid and working three jobs, their lives are diminished, as are their opportunities. As are the opportunities of their children.
This is unjust and intolerable. The bad news is that we should be ashamed of ourselves: As long as these things are true, this is not the country we say it is or the country we want it to be.
The good news is that it’s fixable, not by “market forces” but by policies that fund equal education, good-paying jobs, and a good food, health and well-being program for all Americans.

[Rover]

Now get that through to our legislators.

[Spartan]

The promise zone in San Antonio covers a portion of the near East Side of San Antonio. It's a very odd choice as it has been historically black and very poor but in the last five years has seen a slow gentrification starting with the Dignowity Hill neighborhood. This article from today actually talks about a new single family residential project that just opened up on the near east side and the developer talks about building another 40 homes in the same area.


The developer sold all 12 homes in the Cherry Street Modern development.

A better location for the promise zone would have been the near west side which is very poor and not going through any gentrification.

Sometimes you don't want to forsake the achievable for the aspirational.

Empowerment and Enterprise Zones always picked strategic territory that had potential for economic development. The goal is to pinpoint a geography where the specific resource can make the biggest difference.

Those East San Antonio developments - are they really market rate, and is there really "gentrification" happening? I can tell you that there is zero real "gentrification" happening in Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, or Oklahoma. I'd be willing to bet it probably isn't really happening in SA.

Gentrification is not whenever a neighborhood is improved and underutilized sites find higher and better uses. Gentrification is something very different, and usually relates to neighborhood composition experiencing dramatic demographic upheaval to the point that it manifests itself socially. Baltimore is a good example of gentrification.

The reason it matters is because it's a very politically-charged word, and it's an accusation that tends to bring a lot of people out of the woodwork who could instead be more constructively engaged toward working together on holistic neighborhood revitalization.

For instance:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantoni...phase-two.html

The above link is a beautiful Promise Zone development that probably used the Promise Zone designation to score higher and receive HUD funding to couple with Housing Authority sources on a beautiful mixed-income project. This is not "gentrification." This is "revitalizing-in-place" which means that there is room (and dignity) for people of all different income set-asides.

[Laramie]

You think that Kansas would have bigger fish to fry:

The provision, which takes effect July 1, will ban welfare recipients from taking out more than $25 in benefits a day from an ATM.



...But the ATM rule is simply a financial hardship and a logistical hassle that can't possibly help anyone other than banks collecting the fees.

Kansas's shocking new law will take poor people?s money and give it to big banks - Vox