NYT: Mayor Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York City's Poor

Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York’s Poor
By DIANE CARDWELL
Published: December 19, 2006

The city is planning to spend an extra $150 million a year in public and private money on the core priority of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s second term: combating poverty that is hidden beneath New York’s vast wealth.

The effort would involve the creation of a new city office that would operate in part like a philanthropic foundation and in part like a venture capital company. The program, called the Center for Economic Opportunity, would administer a $100 million fund to support experimental programs, like giving cash rewards to encourage poor people to stay in school or receive preventive medical care, or matching their monthly bank deposits to foster greater savings.

The office would also oversee a program giving tax credits to impoverished families to offset child care costs. Programs are to be constantly evaluated, and those that cannot show success will be terminated. The administration has hired Veronica M. White, a business planning and management consultant who has worked in housing development.

The effort is classic Bloomberg in that it emphasizes nontraditional solutions and enlists the private sector to tackle problems that have historically vexed governments. Mr. Bloomberg has turned to fellow philanthropists to help improve the schools, to finance a Republican national convention in New York and now to build a ground zero memorial. But yesterday’s announcement represents the fruit of his efforts to fight poverty in his second and last term as mayor.

“When you do things with public money, you really are required to do things that have some proven track record and to focus on more conventional approaches,” Mr. Bloomberg said in making the announcement at a credit union on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. “But conventional approaches, as we know, have kept us in this vicious cycle of too many people not being able to work themselves out of poverty even though they’re doing everything that we’ve asked them to do.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/nyregion/19poverty.html

NAH!:sarcasm:

Heh. Right. I have been working my way out of poverty all my life and it hasn't worked a whit. Perhaps a removal of the economic thumb from the American People would be a help.

Of course, that will happen right after pigs file flight plans, in this New Gilded Age.