Welcome to Lakeview Pantry's Education and Advocacy Winter 2012 Newsletter!
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Urban Poverty
Fighting Poverty from 1970 to 1990
 Part 2
This is the second in a series of articles on Urban Poverty Re-visited
A growing economy, expanding economic opportunities and more generous public benefits all contributed to a significant drop in the poverty rate from 19 percent to 11 percent between 1964 and 1973. Since 1973, however, the poverty rate has never fallen below 11 percent. Read more
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Advancing the Local Food Movement in Chicago to Create Stronger Communities
BrightFarms comes to Chicago
The local food movement- growing, selling, buying and eating fresh local produce- has gained support over the last few years in Chicago as in other major cities who seek to bolster local farmers and keep dollars in the community. The drawback for some is that the food generally costs more, prompting some to label the movement as "elitist."It's true that local foods are largely unaffordable for many lower income residents, seniors on fixed incomes and the poor.
Food prices are expected to decline as the local food movement becomes more popular, allowing "economies of scale" to kick in. To be successful, local food farming must be cost-effective and replicable, and have the right systems in place to support it.Read more
Interested in learning more about how local food movement can include the low-income successfully? Click here
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Out of the Box
Fresh approaches to poverty reduction
The Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, Ohio are pioneering innovative models of job creation, wealth building, and sustainability. Evergreen's employee-owned, for-profit companies are based locally and hire locally. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative has been designed to cause an economic breakthrough in Cleveland. Rather than a trickle down strategy, it focuses on economic inclusion and building a local economy from the ground up; rather than offering public subsidy to induce corporations to bring what are often low-wage jobs into the city, the Evergreen strategy is catalyzing new businesses that are owned by their employees; rather than concentrate on workforce training for employment opportunities that are largely unavailable to low-skill and low-income workers, the Evergreen Initiative first creates the jobs, and then recruits and trains local residents to take them. Read more |
