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New Poverty Funding to Continue Efforts to Improve Lives, Housing, Work Opportunties for Poor

Chris Bolt/WAER News
/
WAER FM

Onondaga and surrounding counties are ready to take the next step in trying to reduce the area’s high poverty rate.  A call is out this week for proposals that can address some of the barriers and challenges that make it hard for people to get out of poverty. 

County Executive Ryan McMahon says efforts under the Alliance for Economic Inclusion are important for the entire region.

“We can’t be known as a community that doesn’t take care of its neighbors.  And the last thing you want to be known for is high rates of poverty anywhere in our county.  So, that has a negative impact on any person and every person who lives here.”

There’s about $16-million to fund a second round of A-E-I projects.  McMahon says ideas can address transportation, day-care, housing, or job-training and creation.  The moeny comes from the CNY Rising Upstate Revitalizaiton initiative, including Onondaga, Oswego, Madison, Cortland and Cayuga Counties.  

AREAS OF PRIORTY FOR AEI FUNDING:

  • Post-secondary Education
  • Neighborhood Revitalization
  • Access to Start-up Funding
  • Early-childhood Education
  • Transportation to Work
  • Workforce Development

He notes the $13-million first round of projects is making a positive impact on Syracuse’s concentrated poverty and overall poverty rate. 

“We know the numbers of concentrated poverty were trending in the right direction, they’re trending down.  And we know that our caseloads this year of folks who are on assistance, over the last nine months, are down 10%.  So, they’re down 10% because people are getting to work.”

 An analysis of round one is underway to find out which services best helped people rise out of poverty.   

“Overall we think what we’re doing is working to address some of these long-standing barriers to jobs and to careers for our working-poor families.  We have an analytics team that’s making sure that the money went where it said it was going to go.  If you said you were going to create jobs, where are you on the job creation?  So that we can really show the board and the public how effective round one was, and we can use that as model moving forward with round two.”

 Organizations interested in getting A-E-I funding for a program can learn more at ongov.net

INFORMATION SESSIONS ON AEI FUNDING FOR ANTI-POVERTY PROGRAMS:

Cayuga County:
Monday, August 12, 2019 at 1pm
Cayuga County Office Building
160 Genesee St., Auburn, NY 13021

Onondaga County:
Tuesday, August 13, 2019 at 5pm
The Atrium at City Hall Commons
201 E. Washington St., Syracuse, NY 13202

Madison County:
Wednesday, August 14, 2019 at 3pm
Madison County Office Building
138 N. Court St., Wampsville, NY 13163

Cortland County:
Thursday, August 15, 2019 at 11am
Cortland County Planning Department
37 Church St., Cortland, NY 13045

Oswego County:
Wednesday, August 21, 2019 at 3pm
Oswego City Hall, 2ndFloor
13 West Oneida Street, Oswego, NY 13126

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.