Last question for the panel:
Imagine that it's Nov. 10, 2007, and you're in the elevator with the city's new mayor. The elevator gets stuck. Now's your chance to tell him what needs to be done about poverty. What do you say?
Willie: We need to study Chicago's experience, and invite the people who are affected by this to be part of the conversation. We should also look at successful programs, such as HeadStart. We need to get the people who are involved in the issue, who feel the pain of the issue, to participate in discussions on how to address the problem. People are not poor because they're stupid. They're poor because of a certain set of circumstances that could happen to anyone.
Michael: We need a broadly based commission to make poverty a priority. We need to set up an office of immigration. We need to enact a living-wage ordinance. We need to fund community organizing; and we need to remember that social change has always been started by people outside the government. The mayor shouldn't be afraid of that.
Gloria: Two thoughts: Philly has no place where you can go an get information about poverty. We can't make informed decisions without information. We wouldn't know what to focus on if we had a commission, because we don't have that information. Also, replicate a program we're doing to get children who are failing in sixth grade to work on computers.
Sharmain: What happens to our poor is what happens to our entire city economy. And it's about the region as well. Many of the jobs are in the suburbs. School choice is a critical part of our education strategy, and we need to ensure people are graduating from high school and community college. We must end the isolation of the poor. Where are the incentives and disincentives in our system to help boys and men, esp. those of color, to bring them into the mainstream as a way to address violence?
Veronica: All politics is local. It's fine to look to another city, but for example, transportation is not an issue in New York.
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