Poverty in the State of Metro Address

This morning Mayor Karl Dean gave his state of Metro address, which outlined his look back over the past year and his look ahead into the next budget cycle. It's a way of checking over priorities and giving a signal for Metropolitan government's direction in the coming year.

Toward the end, there was a considerable section on poverty. We've quoted it here with some commentary at the end:

Second, we need to invest in efforts to help those most in need in our city. Nashville is an affluent community. But in contrast, we also have a growing number of people living below the poverty threshold. The challenges these individuals face every day in their lives are real. It’s the basics that many of us take for granted – food, clothing, a roof over our heads.

This year, we completed a community-wide process to develop a Poverty Reduction Plan. Reducing poverty is a complicated task. And this plan is appropriately comprehensive in scope. It looks at everything from workforce development to daycare, from housing needs to health services. I’ve charged Metro Social Services with overseeing the implementation of this plan. But it’s going to take all of us – government, businesses, churches, nonprofits, individuals – to see it come to life. In our budget, we will ask the Council to approve funds to support this poverty initiative. Reducing poverty won’t be easy or simple, but it’s something we must do.

We all know that one of the best ways out of poverty is education. But for too many adults in our community, going back to school or acquiring a technical skill isn’t a viable option because they lack the most basic foundation for learning – the ability to read. Adult literacy is something I’ve learned a lot about in the last few weeks. Dollar General, a great corporate citizen in Nashville, partnered with the Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber’s Public Benefit Foundation to commission a Community Needs Assessment for Adult Literacy.

The assessment uncovered what, to me, was an astonishing fact: roughly 12 percent of adult Davidson County residents lack basic reading and comprehension skills. That’s not just a statistic, those are people – 52,000 people living here who are not able to read. If we’re going to continue to thrive and progress as a city, we have to reach out to those individuals and give them the opportunity to learn to read. To help us do this, Dollar General has generously offered to fund half the salary and benefits for a position in our Metro Government to work on adult literacy full time. I attach such importance to this effort that this position will be in my office so that I can focus on this everyday. This person will work with service providers and advocates to create a more coordinated approach in how we address adult literacy in our city and in the region.

The Mayor's remarks sound a number of positive notes. First, we learn that the Mayor will ask the Council to approve funds for the Poverty Reduction Plan that was discussed last year and earlier this year. Committing dollars is the strongest way to show that Metro government is serious about moving forward with poverty reduction. But it is also important to note that it is a starting point to attract others to the table. The language of partnership between Metro government, religious bodies, businesses, and nonprofits is strong in the speech. We all have a role to play.

One of the revelations in the speech concerns just such a partnership. After discussing the role of adult literacy in poverty, the Mayor discusses a new adult literacy position in Metro government, of which half the salary is to be funded by Dollar General, a national leader in adult literacy! Committing staff to one of the key facets of poverty is also a strong signal that Metro is serious about poverty reduction.

St. Luke's Community House welcomes these developments and we hope to have the opportunity to work with Metro government as part of the solution to the poverty in our community.