ROCKFORD -

About 25 human service providers and other residents met with activists from state groups Thursday night to help map out a statewide plan to eliminate poverty.

The aim of the project, Doug Schenkelberg of the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights said, is to get a law passed in 2008 creating an Illinois commission charged with forming a plan to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

Schenkelberg, moderator of the session held at Trinity Learning Center, said the Rock River Valley has its share of poverty. Thirty-one percent of Rockford children live in poverty, as do 20 percent in Winnebago County. The state average is 17 percent.

Ogle County has been put on a poverty watch list and Winnebago on a warning list because of signs they are worse off than the state as a whole. In three key indicators of poverty — teen birth rate, unemployment and high school graduation rate for low-income students — Winnebago County doesn’t even meet the state average.

People in extreme poverty — with incomes at half the poverty level — make up nearly 5 percent of the population in Winnebago County, and 3 percent in Boone and Ogle, Schenkelberg said.

“The systems in place to help families are not adequate,” he said. “A family of three that receives Temporary Aid for Needy Families (formerly called welfare checks) only receives $3,036 a year, well below the poverty line,” he said.

Other examples: Illinois has the lowest earned income tax credit of all 50 states, and the second largest gap in the nation in per student funding between high- and low-poverty districts.

“We need to look at this as an obligation, not an act of charity,” said Schenkelberg. “That doesn’t mean the government gives you everything but it does mean the doors are open to get a job with a living wage, an education, a roof over your head and food.”

Audience members said they see people suffering from poverty everyday. Dorla Bonner of the Rockford Housing Authority said two main factors are lack of education and public transportation. Without them, it’s almost impossible to get a good job, she said.

Heather Larson, director of social services for Zion Development Corp., seconded Bonner’s point on transportation. Buses don’t run to some local firms that offer decent-paying jobs with benefits, and service is limited, Larson said.

“You can’t get home if you use the bus and work second shift,” she said.

Staff writer Geri Nikolai can be reached at 815-987-1337 or gnikolai@rrstar.com.

How to get involved

For more information on the “From Poverty to Opportunity” campaign, contact the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights, call 773-336-6084, or the co-sponsoring Illinois Coalition for Community Services, 800-728-1523.

The coalition also has a Rockford office, 815-229-5824. A Web site about the campaign can be found at heartlandalliance.org/maip; click on the “Campaigns, Coalitions & Networks” link.

 

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