Going for Broke-How big-city mayors are resurrecting the national anti-poverty agenda

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast with such ferocity in late August 2005, Americans were shocked by the broadcast images of desperately poor people left to fend for themselves. The depth and consequences of poverty in America, normally hidden from public view, had once again become the subject of debate and national soul-searching. And yet, a year and a half later, the subject of poverty has fallen so far off the public's radar screen that President Bush did not give it a mention in his recent State of the Union Address. How can our prosperous nation continue to tolerate such deep pockets of despair as were seen in New Orleans?

It's easy to blame the public's infamously short attention span, limited budget resources, or our preoccupation with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for this state of affairs. But there is another explanation: poverty has been off the public agenda for so long that there is no consensus among policymakers about what to do. The cupboard of innovative, effective anti-poverty proposals looks bare.

The nation's mayors have now stepped into the breach. Aiming to fill the leadership void, the U.S. Conference of Mayors called upon Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to lead an effort to develop a coherent, integrated plan to address the problem of poverty in America. In late January, Villaraigosa and a team of mayors from across the country -- including Newark's Cory Booker, Detroit's Kwame Kilpatrick, and Miami's Manny Diaz -- released a forward-thinking blueprint for action. Their plan reflects not only a sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of poverty, but represents a bold and serious attempt to update the social contract, revising the division of rights and responsibilities between government and its citizens.

While the mayors did not shy away from recommending the allocation of addition federal dollars, they made clear that they were not interested in simply throwing money around. They acknowledged that reductions in the poverty rate are unlikely to come from expanding traditional entitlements and subsidies. Eschewing the traditional laundry list of requests, the mayors put forward three primary proposals, which, if implemented together, have the potential to serve as a truly transformative investment strategy. They propose we use public resources to create a lifelong ladder of opportunity.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12532

Poverty is so ignored. What is ignored cannot be addressed.

who had problems at night being able to park their homes to sleep... One city was designating parking lots for them, and I thought that was a good thing...