Another non-profit triumph in the fight against poverty

Following up on yesterday's post, I received another announcement this morning of good news in our anti-poverty efforts.  It may seem like an indirect victory, but it demonstrates well how important data and measurement are in our fight to reduce the number of people living in poverty in the U.S.

The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center is celebrating revised Census population estimates that resulted from GNOCDC's own data analysis, that the city used to contest the Census bureau's earlier population counts.

New Orleans stands to receive an additional $45.6 million through some 64 federal programs that fund law enforcement, education, child care, food assistance, homeless assistance, mental health services, and more.

Yet Dr. Allison Plyer of the Center estimates the Census figure is still conservative, based on how housing occupancy was determined:

the Census accepted only houses with electricity output greater than 200kWh, based on the assumption that 200 kWh indicates occupancy rather than rehabilitation/construction in progress. However, reports from Mike Miller, director of supportive housing for Unity of Greater New Orleans, show that thousands of homeless citizens - perhaps up to 10,000 - are dwelling in blighted houses with no utilities.

I wrote this post about disappearing the poor population from New Orleans back in 2006; I've linked to it before, but it remains one of my favorites in showing how we all lose in our efforts to pretend poverty does not exist in our communities.  A Kaiser Family Foundation report released at the third anniversary of Katrina (August 2008) revealed that the approximately 40% of city residents were still living in poverty, just like before the flood, but that the city felt more divided by poverty than ever.  On the anniversary, grassroots activists held protests in cities around the country decrying the persistent of poverty and lack of government redress in New Orleans and in their own communities.

In such an environment, it's nice to celebrate the wins as they come in.  Congrats to GNOCDC for bringing tens of millions of dollars to New Orleans's non-profits.  Here's hoping they and non-profits in Louisiana and nationwide continue to enjoy renewed assistance and partnership with the incoming administration.  As the National Council of Nonprofits recently reported:

“The nonprofit sector serves as America’s social safety net to provide for people needing basic human services like food, shelter, and health care. Yet that community safety net is unraveling rapidly, straining to endure the additional weight dropping on it from the economy. With more people losing their jobs due to layoffs, losing their homes due to foreclosures, and losing all or a portion of their health insurance due to employers cutting jobs and benefits, the demand for nonprofit services is skyrocketing.”

Ain't that the truth.