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YEF Council Tackles Poverty, Childhood Obesity
by Clifford M. Johnson
Under the leadership of 2007 Chair Melvin “Kip” Holden, mayor of Baton Rouge, La., NLC’s Council on Youth, Education, and Families (YEF Council) convened last month to discuss two problems of growing concern to municipal leaders: persistent poverty and childhood obesity.
Confronting Poverty
The council opened its two-day meeting in Baton Rouge with a discussion on what poverty looks like in each council member’s community.
Charleston, S.C.., Mayor and Council Vice-Chair Joseph Riley opened the exchange with a description of full homeless shelters and shortages of affordable housing in his city despite a relatively low unemployment rate.
Demographic shifts also emerged as a major factor driving changes in the face of poverty locally and nationally.
Lou Ogden, the council’s other vice-chair and mayor of Tualatin, Ore., reported a six-fold increase in the number of Hispanic residents in his community. While most of these Latino residents are working, they typically earn too little in service jobs to lift their families above the poverty line.
Savannah, Ga., Mayor Otis Johnson described poverty in his city as heavily concentrated in communities of color, dominated by single parents with little education and young male dropouts who often end up with criminal records. Mayor Holden underscored the key role that education plays as an anti-poverty measure, lamenting the loss of high-quality vocational education programs for students who are not heading off to college.
Other council members noted the reluctance of local officials in some communities to acknowledge their poverty problems and discussed the limited options available to young people who lack at least some postsecondary education, particularly in regions that have lost better-paying manufacturing jobs to foreign competition.
National Trends, Opportunities
Matt Fellowes of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program followed with a broad overview of how cities are seeking to repair the economic ladder for their residents.
For example, municipal leaders in a number of cities — from Boston and New York to Louisville, Seattle and San Francisco — are striving to broaden access to better-paying jobs, increase benefits for working families, and lower the costs that low-income families pay for financial services and other essential items.
At the same time, city-level task forces on poverty and economic opportunity are enabling municipal leaders to examine problems of financial hardship among families in new and creative ways.
James Weill, president of the D.C.-based Food Research and Action Center, challenged the council to consider a broad range of action steps that can reduce poverty or alleviate its effects on children and families.
These steps include:
• Minimum wage and living wage ordinances;
• Outreach to help families claim the federal Earned Income Tax Credit or enroll in Food Stamp and Medicaid/SCHIP programs;
• Expanded school lunch and breakfast programs in schools;
• Workforce and transitional jobs programs, particularly for returning ex-offenders;
• Asset-building initiatives that encourage savings and financial education;
• Special efforts to engage immigrant families who might otherwise avoid contact with public agencies; and
• Use of the “bully pulpit,” as illustrated by recent commitments to live for a week on a food stamp budget by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and several governors and members of Congress in a much-publicized Food Stamp Challenge.
The day closed with a dinner hosted by Mayor Holden at the Old Governor’s Mansion in Baton Rouge, built by Governor Huey Long in 1930 and modeled after the White House. African-American actor and youth advocate Lou Gossett Jr., made a surprise appearance at the dinner, addressing council members about the urgent need to engage disconnected youth and sharing insights from his work with young people in New Orleans.
Combating Childhood Obesity
The council visited Louisiana State University (LSU) to meet with a star-studded line-up of academic experts and state officials working to halt the obesity epidemic among children and youth.
Dr. Tim Church of the Laboratory for Preventative Medicine, Dr. Bill Cassidy, administrator of the Hurricane Katrina K-Mart Clinic Hospital, Dr. Jimmy Guidry of the Louisiana Obesity Council and Pamela Romero, nutritionist coordinator for the Louisiana Council on Obesity Prevention, gave a series of hard-hitting presentations that underscored the severity of the obesity problem.
The council discussed a wide array of options for responding to the childhood obesity problem, ranging from the development of school or community wellness plans to expansion of food stamp and child nutrition programs and efforts to attract supermarkets and farmer’s markets back in poor neighborhoods.
In addition, the council visited the LSU Agricultural Center’s Smart Bodies/Smart Choices Program and learned about broader perspectives on children’s health from a panel composed of Rebecca Pousson of the LSU Health Sciences Center’s School of Dentistry, Sharman Charles, of the East Baton Rouge Parish Agent of the LSU Agricultural Center for Research and Extension and Tracy Parker of Health Care Centers in School.
Mayor Holden wrapped up the council’s meeting by noting that poverty and childhood obesity will not go away without strong municipal leadership and strategic interventions. “All of us need to be agents of change,” Holden concluded.
Details: To learn more about the YEF Council, visit here or contact Sharie Wood at (202) 626-3087 or wood@nlc.org.
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