Chicago's Stepping Up Focus Groups: A Report on the Career Advancement Opportunities and Needs of Supportive Housing Residents

In an effort to obtain resident input on issues around employment advancement, the Corporation for Supportive Housing contracted with the Mid-America Institute on Poverty to conduct focus groups. The groups focused on what employment services are needed in the supportive housing programs to help the residents with employment advancement. Thoughts were elicited from the residents about which fields/industries they most want to work their opportunities for jobs that pay higher wages, provide benefits and have career advancement potential. ways to structure a training program so that the most people will benefit and utilize the resources developed

Student Family Support Services Initiative: Final Evaluation Report

The Student Family Support Services Initiative (SFSI) provided intensive case management and housing assistance to families with children who were identified as residing in "doubled-up" living situations (e.g. living with relatives or friends because they had lost stable housing but were not yet in homeless shelters or cycled out of shelters) and considered at risk of becoming homeless by the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in 2009 and 2010. The program offered case management, housing assistance, and a menu of services that families might need to stabilize in housing including therapeutic services, employment services, and asset building. The theory of change was that addressing a family's primary housing and employment needs would positively impact the educational stability and achievement of students, while at the same time benefiting the family overall. This report, prepared by the Social IMPACT Research Center, presents a final evaluation of the initiative

Causes of Poverty: Findings from Recent Research

Over the past 25 years significant structural changes have occurred in the United States that have influenced poverty, making current-day poverty different in some ways from poverty just a few decades ago. These structural changes include transformations in our economic structure such as the shift from manufacturing employment to service-sector employment; the deinstitutionalization of people with mental illnesses into community settings; welfare reform, which resulted in a an emphasis on work over welfare; changes in immigration patterns; and skyrocketing rates of incarceration. Given these considerable changes, the vast majority of theliterature referenced in this summary is from the mid-1990s through 2007 to capture what has been learned about poverty within this new context. Studies prior to this time period are referenced when they are the most recent available and/or are landmark studies that are still applicable to the issue being addressed.The majority of the literature referenced here on each specific poverty-related issue is primary research that used rigorous econometric or statistical methods and robust nationally representative data sets. Included are studies and findings that surface throughout high quality literature reviews on the specified issues. Most have been published in journals or at poverty institutes affiliated with universities. The assessment of the methods of analysis used in the referenced research was rooted in peer reviews, frequency of citations, and perceived quality; for the purposes of this summary the methods were not re-analyzed or tested. Though there is a large body of international research on issues related to poverty, the research addressed here is almost exclusively focused on findings within the context of the United States.What follows is an analysis of these characteristic causes of poverty as well as research on issues that impact income, earnings, and poverty, some of which can be considered proximate determinants of poverty. These issues include characteristics and life experiences that put people at risk of not working or not working enough to prevent entry into poverty, such as race and gender of head of household, strength of the economy, quality of wages, human capital (education) of working age adults, health or disability status of household members, having acriminal record, being an immigrant, having experienced domestic violence, and neighborhood conditions. Certain events are more influential for various subgroups within the at-risk-of poverty population than they are for others

2009 Report on Illinois Poverty

In 2009, a family of four that is poor by the federal government's definition has an annual income below $22,050. A family that is extremely poor has an income less than half the poverty line for their family size -- under$11,025 for a family of four. As discussions continue on the best way to help the nation weather and emerge from the recession, the focus must be on meaningful policy changes that truly lift all boats and make us collectively a much stronger nation. If solutions do not specifically address the needs of those whose lives and hardships are reflected in this report, millions will be left behind, and we will all be left weaker and more vulnerable

Measuring Poverty in America

Written Statement Submitted to the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support Committee on Ways and Means U.S. House of Representatives Hearing on Measuring Poverty in America

Human Rights in the Heartland: An Assessment of Social, Economic, Civil, and Political Rights in the Midwest

This report measures human rights progress in the heart of the United States. In this compilation, eight Midwestern states are evaluated on a freedom index, providing a comparative snapshot of local commitments to civil, political, social, and economic rights

2009 Report on Chicago Region Poverty

In 2009, a family of four that is poor by the federal government's definition has an annual income below $22,050. A family that is extremely poor has an income less than half the poverty line for their family size -- under$11,025 for a family of four. As discussions continue on the best way to help the nation weather and emerge from the recession, the focus must be on meaningful policy changes that truly lift all boats and make us collectively a much stronger nation. If solutions do not specifically address the needs of those whose lives and hardships are reflected in this report, millions will be left behind, and we will all be left weaker and more vulnerable

2010 Report on Illinois Poverty

This 2010 report caps a decade of Heartland Alliance's annual reports on poverty. The project was initiated at a time when economic prosperity seemed widespread and the future outlook was infused with optimism. The goal with these reports at that time was simple: to serve as a caution that the rising tide of prosperity in the late 1990s had not lifted all boats and that many in our communities were being left behind.Today the situation is very different. The Great Recession has crumbled economic stability for millions of families in the form of massive job loss, cut backs in hours, the elimination of work benefits, skyrocketing foreclosures and bankruptcies, and the eroding value of retirement investments.The implications of massive service cuts to those experiencing poverty -- many of whom rely on state-funded services in their communities literally for survival, particularly those in extreme poverty -- will be nothing short of devastating. Without leadership to enact a responsible budget, Illinois can expect to see deepening hardship and further entrenchment of social problems

Finding the Fit: A Review of Three Intervention Models for Working with HIV/AIDS Impacted Substance Users who are Homeless

This report reflects research on three different models of services for people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) who are also low-income, substance users and are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. This review of intervention modalities is intended to document what is being done in Chicago to serve this population, illuminate what is known about outcomes for those receiving services and suggest areas for further investigation

DuPage County, Illinois, Plan to End Homelessness: Progress at the Five-Year Mark and a Blueprint for Moving Forward

The DuPage County Homeless Continuum of Care (CoC) was an early leader nationally and locally in the development and implementation of its 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in 2003. In October 2007, the Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty was hired to conduct the evaluation and to facilitate a planning process to inform the update of the Plan.This report documents the tremendous successes of the past five years, outlines the process by which stakeholders were re-energized and re-engaged, and establishes a new blueprint for success for the coming five years. The DuPage County CoC is proceeding from this point even more committed to collaboration and success in ending homelessness in DuPage County