Nashville Takes A Grassroots Approach To Addressing Poverty

I saw the article below in one of the February weekly newspapers issued by the National League of Cities. What do you think about the approach being used in Nashville and would it be beneficial to utilize a similar approach in Buffalo?

Nashville Mayor Issues Poverty Challenge

by Phyllis Furdell
The City of Nashville, Tenn,. is taking a nontraditional approach to
addressing poverty. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean challenged business,
residents, government agencies and community groups to come up with a
plan to reduce poverty in Davidson County by 50 percent by 2018. In
response, more than 500 people attended the Nashville Poverty Symposium
hosted by the city’s Metropolitan Action Commission and the Nashville
Chamber Public Benefit Foundation.

The symposium, developed by a coalition of 13 local agencies and
organizations that acts as the planning committee for this effort, was
an opportunity to see what was being done in Nashville to address
poverty, as well as the service gaps that prevented families from being
able to sustain themselves.

“There isn’t one approach or
one organization that can solve the issues of poverty; it takes all of
us coming together,” said Howard Gentry, CEO of the Nashville Chamber
Public Benefit Foundation.

At the symposium, 200 people volunteered to be part of one of seven
action groups charged with developing a plan to submit to the planning
committee, which will present it to the mayor by May. The areas of
focus for the action groups include: health care; housing; child care;
food; economic opportunity; neighborhoods; and workforce development.
Each group meets monthly.

Prior to the fall symposium, a leadership team from Nashville
participated in an NLC Building Equitable Communities Technical
Assistance Roundtable in Charlotte, N.C. The roundtable focused on
collaborative team building and strategic planning for addressing
poverty and equity.

According to team participant Cynthia
Croom, executive director of the Metropolitan Action Commission,
Nashville’s leadership team found the NLC event to be essential to the
success of their symposium. It enabled them to develop the framework
for the planning process before and after the event. It put them in
touch with other cities dealing with similar challenges, and helped
them to appreciate and respond to the unique needs of Nashville.

After the symposium, the Nashville leadership team brought the NLC
facilitators of the roundtable to Nashville to spend a day training the
200 people who volunteered to be part of the seven Action Groups.

Nashville
Metropolitan Council Member Sandra Moore, who was part of the Nashville
team attending the Charlotte roundtable, serves on the work force
development action group that was formed at the symposium. As proud as
she is of how the Nashville community is taking ownership of this
issue, she cautions, “This work is a challenge and requires a
commitment. You need to stay focused and you have to be committed to
making progress. The problem of poverty is not going to go away.”

A complicating factor now, she notes, is that more and more people are seeking assistance.

A number of benefits are emerging from Nashville’s bringing all
stakeholders and sectors of the community together to address poverty.
The relationships necessary for true coordination to take place are
developing, there is promise that limited resources will be used more
efficiently and ownership of the solution is being distributed more
broadly. According to Croom, “People left the symposium feeling that
together something could be done.” 

Avi Poster, a retired school principal representing the Nashville
Jewish Federation on the Planning Committee, believes this process will
lead to more productive outcomes for low-income families, in spite of
shrinking resources. “Out of this effort to sensitize the entire
community and coordinate all the current programs that address poverty,
we are generating widespread support for many efforts — from food banks
to job training programs.”