Administration Officials Say Mayor Nutter Made A Start On Reducing Poverty In Philadelphia
By Pat Loeb
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A final report, issued Friday, on Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's signature anti-poverty effort shows some progress being made but a huge problem continuing.
The effort, "Shared Prosperity," is what's known as a collective impact program, where agencies work together to coordinate services. Mayor Nutter adopted the model rather late -- it's just two years old -- but Director Eva Gladstein says it was an important first step.
"What the administration did is to state, poverty is a real problem here, it underlies so many issues and we have to address it head on," said Gladstein.
She says centralizing and offering help to access benefits has helped more than 12,000 people enroll, financial counseling has helped 7,000 people reduce their debt and workforce training has increased the rate of employment. Still, Philadelphia remains the poorest large city in the country.
"When you're looking at true pathways out of poverty, those are longer term efforts but I think we're making good progress," said Gladstein.
Read the full report here.