New York Times profiles Mayor Jones and the fight against poverty in RVA

Sounds like a step in the right direction. Addressing poverty is surely more important that baseball stadiums and concert arenas. I think it would be great if City Hall made anti-poverty their number one mission and goal. Some nice progress on this front has been made in other large cities with similar issues; hope Richmond leaders can learn from what has been achieved elsewhere and make real improvements in this regard.

Addressing poverty is part-and-parcel with economic development. You can’t put them in separate boxes. The Mayor DOES know how important public transportations is. It’s the Counties that don’t… and their businesses like Amazon have staffing trouble because of the Counties’ anti-public-transportaion approach.

Matt @10 and others, if you take the position that the City should spend its money solely on public housing, school lunches, and public transportation (with no corresponding investment in economic development and amenities to help pay for all that) then you are taking the same position as the old men who put all the poor people in the projects in the 50s and 60s and saddled the City with costs it could never afford.

Every time you say the City doesn’t deserve X training camp, Y new hospital, Z ballpark, for the reason that it should throw money at the poverty (poverty intentionally concentrated there by long-gone leaders of the region), then you are part of the system designed in the 1960s to make the City fail.

@12 – spot on!

A few additional points:

I was pretty skeptical before reading the article and expected the usual mish mash of reheated crap that doesn’t work with fluffy ideas and no plan. I’m cautiously optimistic after seeing at least a few new ideas in there.

The mentoring idea is a good one (as proven by CHAT) but I wonder if a.) it’s phasing in too late to make a difference at 11-15 years old and b.) getting the city involved is the right answer or if this should remain a volunteer sector activity.

The manufacturing training program is the highlight in my opinion. Rather than chasing jobs with mass transit and continuing to spend money to house, feed and generally care for the problems of a largely unemployable population it’s much more effective to make them employable. I’d prioritize this well ahead of housing changes as if this succeeds it solves a lot of the other woes.

I’d love to see the same approach also taken in the schools. For students who clearly aren’t on a college track, (and maybe even for those who are on a lower college track) let’s switch to teaching real world employable skills. That way they are leaving school with something worthwhile instead of an incomplete version of the college curriculum.

The housing stuff is cart before horse and looks like a risky bet to me unless they have a solid plan for what will attract the upper half of the mixed income puzzle. I haven’t seen it yet and I hope we don’t dump more money into nicer houses for the same problems. Right now it smells like only the developers who are sure to get sweetheart deals will benefit.

The nutrition stuff and wastewater assistance are fine but likely to be icing on the cake at best. They sounds like the type of things that get added to make this a “5 point plan!” versus a much less impressive “3 point plan.”

@15 – the light touch is appropriate given what a small drop in the bucket this issue is when it comes to the overall problem.

The water issue is what, maybe ten or twenty bucks a month back at best unless we want to seriously underfund our utilities? Job training, better education are a swing of thousands a month for these folks. You really want to tell me they’re on the same scale? How many people are going to be lifted out of poverty by your pet project?

Go beat your tiny little drum somewhere else. The city’s looking at real solutions for once.

@ Chris Harnish – there are some major changes happening at Chimborazo and Bellevue Elementary Schools that are helping to reverse this trend. A major step towards change is siphoning white school flight and economic and racial integration of neighborhood schools.

Next Friend,

Start with the Dillon Rule. As long as the cities and counties are distinct and separate entities, you are not going to make much progress.

I think giving families an extra $20 a month with a reduced utility bill is REAL poverty fighting.

I will take my ‘little drum’ over your condescending attitude, Alex, any day of the week.

As for regionalism, now that the center is growing again, I am in no hurry for the counties to pass off the eroding inner ring of their suburbs over to the City. Regional cooperation and congregation has to be done in an equitable manner.