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Breaking the Cycle of Poverty
In 2008, the board of the Vanderburgh Community Foundation took a serious look at how the foundation can best fulfill its mission to improve the quality of life in Vanderburgh County during these difficult economic times. They came to the realization that the community foundation is uniquely positioned to make a significant impact on the economic and social well-being of our community. After a thorough study of the needs of our community and with the help of the United Way's Comprehensive Community Assessment, the VCF board reviewed the priority needs of the community and areas where immediate attention is required. In Vanderburgh County — as well as in the five-county area that includes Gibson, Posey, Spencer, Vanderburgh, and Warrick counties — the number-one issue identified was Breaking the Cycle of Generational Poverty. According to the assessment, in 2002 the poverty rate of Vanderburgh County children under the age of 18 was 14.2 percent. Between 1990 and 2004, the poverty rate for Vanderburgh County increased 4.9 percent. The VCF board formed a Community Coalition Committee, chaired by Tim Hayden, director of operations for the Evansville Courier and Press, and through the committee the VCF committed to leveraging its professional and financial resources to help address this issue. The committee commissioned USI to conduct a study on the root causes of poverty in Vanderburgh County. Conducted during the spring of 2009 by the Center for Applied Research of USI, the research focused on four key areas: economic perspective, impact of generational poverty on academic achievement, individual and service provider perspectives, and social services agency perspective. The results of the study found that there were four recurring themes that primarily impact the cycle of generational poverty (Understanding the Cycle of Poverty that Occurs in Successive Generations, 2010, University of Southern Indiana Center for Applied Research). The Four Recurring Themes Theme 1: Housing At least 50 percent of those who are currently homeless in Evansville are in generational poverty. Housing stability is critical to successful education, employment and parenting. If basic security needs, such as housing, cannot be met, it is unlikely, if not impossible that other achievements needed to break the cycle of poverty can be made. Housing quality can affect the cycle of poverty in several ways; substandard housing can contribute to negative health outcomes and concentrated substandard housing leads to "concentrated disadvantages," such as less business investment. If basic housing needs are not met, a positive environment for learning cannot be established, for example, it is difficult to encourage completion of homework, to have family reading places, or peer interactions. Theme 2: Education Education attainment is critical to breaking the cycle of poverty and economic well being. The research repeatedly shows that growing up in a lower income family negatively impacts educational obtainment needed to break the cycle of poverty. Learned behavior within peer groups, families and neighborhoods contribute to the cycle of poverty. Those with minimal education tend to be employed at low paying jobs with little or no benefits. Financial literacy and training is an important educational component that is needed to break the cycle of poverty. Theme 3: Employment There has been a significance decline in manufacturing jobs, which are typically high paying with good benefits. There is a growing mismatch with the skills of these displaced workers and available jobs. The loss of manufacturing jobs has returned many back to generational poverty. The growth of new jobs tends to be in areas of low pay, without benefits, which further prevents breaking out of the cycle poverty. The study also showed that older individuals who had broken the cycle are not returning to generational poverty. Lastly, multiple income based antipoverty programs can have a negative impact of work incentives. Theme 4: Single Parenting All four focus areas of the research confirm that regionally single parent households are a recurring factor in the continuation of generational poverty.
At the same time as the Vanderburgh Community Foundation had become aware of the importance of addressing generational poverty within our community, another group had already been working on the issue for several years.
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 Vanderburgh Community FoundationWalker Building • 401 S.E. 6th Street, Suite 203 Evansville, IN 47713 • Phone 812.422.1245 |