Press release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tracy Munford
(212) 614-5538 (office)
(646) 483-6804 (cell)

NY’s Primary Anti-Poverty Organization Responds to the Mayor’s Anti-Poverty Initiatives

David R. Jones, President & CEO, Community Service Society

New York, NY, December 27, 2007 -- "We congratulate Mayor Bloomberg on his ambitious effort to address poverty in New York City. The mayor has certainly raised the bar for his peers across the country and set the stage for the inclusion of poverty as a priority issue in the 2008 presidential and 2009 municipal elections. The work of the Center for Economic Opportunity provides an important laboratory to explore the most effective and efficient ways to alleviate conditions affecting the working poor and create opportunities for economic mobility.

Mayor Bloomberg has demonstrated a willingness to think outside the box and doing so has generated some concern and controversy. There is no doubt we too reserve judgment on some of the CEO’s initiatives but are heartened by the willingness of this mayor to invest his political capital on an issue that political leaders callously ignore all too frequently. The Community Service Society is not so much invested in the status quo, as we are in change and the investment in human capital for the benefit of our city.

The mayor’s focus on the Earned Income Tax Credit, the creation of the City Child Care Tax Credit and enforcement of living and prevailing wage requirements for city contractors is an excellent start. We also applaud the work that is being done on Rikers Island with young adults and the formerly incarcerated. There also appears to be tremendous potential in some of the CEO’s career pathways initiatives and work supports. We also have a keen interest in work underway to redefine the manner in which poverty is measured as any effort that will provide a truer reflection of need will allow us to be more strategic in the interventions we pursue.

As we move forward our concern remains the large numbers of young adults, mostly Black and Latino- age 16 to 24 years old, the formerly incarcerated and Black and Latino men who appear to be permanently consigned to a second class existence in the greatest city in the world. We are hopeful that as the programs pursued by the Center for Economic Opportunity are launched, implemented and evaluated, the city will see fit to provide financial support to bring those programs to scale that show the most promise.

Given the tremendous amount of work the Bloomberg administration has committed to this effort, and the investment by numerous stakeholders, it would be a tragedy if the most promising of these initiatives, whatever they might be, does not receive the support of the city’s leadership moving forward.

The Community Service Society remains steadfast in its commitment to improve the quality of life for our city’s working poor and stands ready to support this, and any, mayoral administration that understands the connection between poverty and New York City’s economic future."

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