History > 2006 > USA > Poverty (III-VI)

Homelessness catches families

even amid affluence

Updated 12/22/2006
10:51 AM ET
USA Today
By Wendy Koch

FALLS CHURCH, Va. — Christine Fuller finds holiday kindness at unexpected moments, such as before sunrise at a bus stop 7 miles from the White House.

A bus driver sees her switching buses each weekday morning at 6:15 with four neatly dressed children, ages 6 to 10, as she escorts them to a before-school program. The driver lauds their behavior and says he wants to give each child a Christmas present.

Fuller doesn't know his name. He doesn't know hers. She says presents would be fine.

The bus driver also doesn't know that Fuller and her children are homeless. They've been living at a shelter since September. Fuller has a full-time job that pays her $23,000 a year but says she can't afford an apartment in this affluent suburb of Washington, D.C., where a typical two-bedroom apartment rents for $1,225 a month.

The problem of poverty and homelessness — and how difficult it is to escape — is poignantly illustrated in the hit movie The Pursuit of Happyness, which stars Will Smith and his son, Jaden.

At least 2 million Americans, many of whom have jobs and families, are homeless at some point over the course of a year, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the White House's Interagency Council on Homelessness.

"It's very traumatic for children," Mangano says.

It can be particularly so in a place like Falls Church and surrounding Fairfax County, one of the nation's wealthiest areas with a median household income of $94,600.

Fuller, 32, tries to ward off any trauma by focusing on routines and maintaining dignity in tough circumstances.

Her day starts at 3:45 a.m., in the two-bedroom, 300-square-foot unit her family occupies at Shelter House, a county facility that can house seven families.

Fuller gets ready for her job as a dispatch assistant at a courier service, then at 5 a.m. wakes her boys, William, 10, and Isaiah, 7. After she gets them going, she rouses the girls, Beatrice, 8, and Jhavona, 6.

"Mom, our life is so boring," she says the kids tell her. "You sound like a drill sergeant."

They're out the door by 5:45 a.m. with a snack in hand to catch the first public bus. They switch buses before arriving at a before-school program that opens at 6:30 a.m. The kids have subsidized breakfast and lunch at school.

"My 7-year-old knows every bus route," says Fuller, sitting on a vinyl couch in her unit's small living area.

After dropping off the kids, she boards another bus to get to her job, which she has held for three years, by 7:30 a.m. She works until 5 p.m. and then takes a bus to pick up her kids at an after-school program. She pays $177 monthly for the child care. The unsubsidized cost for four kids in similar programs in Fairfax County is $1,500.

Being homeless during the holidays can be particularly grim, but this month Fuller and her children have received several gifts from charitable residents, from dolls to firetrucks to a microwave oven. Such gifts reflect both the generosity of individuals and the same community wealth that has hindered Fuller's ability to find her own place to live.

"Apartments cost a lot here," says Fuller, a never-married high school dropout who has six children in all. The two oldest — a 16-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl — live with a family friend in a nearby town and are in their high school's marching band.

Fuller says she can't move to a more affordable city or distant suburb because her job is near downtown Washington and she has no car. Despite the difficulty of living in such an expensive area, she's also reluctant to go elsewhere because she grew up here, and her mother and grandparents live nearby.

Fuller receives child support from the father of one of her children. She doesn't know where one of the fathers is, and another helps out with child care on weekends. But when it comes to finances, she's largely on her own.

Families without homes

Families with children make up about 40% of the nation's homeless people, according to a USA TODAY analysis of government data. Those in homeless families represent about 55% of the roughly 2,000 homeless people in Fairfax, which has about 1 million residents.

More than half the single homeless adults in Fairfax are white, while 65% of those in homeless families are African-American, according to a county report released this month.

Two of every five homeless adults in Fairfax works, says Gerry Connolly, chairman of the county Board of Supervisors. "A lot of people benefit from our vibrant economy, but others are cut out," he says. He cites the loss of hundreds of affordable housing units during the recent real estate boom.

"When you meet the (homeless) children, your heart breaks," Connolly says, "because they haven't done anything to deserve it."

He says Fairfax, like many jurisdictions across the nation, has stepped up efforts to find more places for the homeless to stay, either through their friends and relatives or churches, motels and shelters. It doesn't always work. He says some people live in their cars.

"We've even had people living in the woods under tarps," he says.

For most of her life, Fuller lived with her grandparents in a three-bedroom house in nearby Arlington County. When the grandparents moved to a two-bedroom apartment in Arlington, officials said it was too small for Fuller and her children to also live there, so she spent six months in a shelter. She moved into a three-bedroom basement apartment in Fairfax County, but officials there deemed it a fire hazard.

Fuller and her four youngest children then spent three months in a motel room paid for by Fairfax County before a unit became available at Shelter House.

"We're helping the working homeless," shelter director Joe Meyer says.

The children "know this isn't their own place," Fuller says. They can't invite kids over for play dates or birthday parties. She adds that like many youths who struggle to cope with the trauma of being homeless, her children have suffered from mood swings, depression and other problems.

"I know I have to better myself for my kids," she says. She tells her kids to "stay in school, … stay out of jail, stay out of trouble."

Fuller says when she sees her 14-year-old daughter, she warns her: "Don't make the mistakes I made" by, among other things, getting pregnant while in high school.

At Shelter House, government workers make sure homeless families get food stamps as well as benefits from Medicaid and mental health and social services agencies. Parents such as Fuller must attend evening workshops on parenting, alcohol and drug awareness, financial planning and job-seeking skills.

Families are expected to stay no more than three months, but they can stay longer if they have no other housing options and make progress toward self-sufficiency, Meyer says. He says Fuller's family will be able to stay until she can get a subsidized apartment.

"They've been a great help," Fuller says. She initially chafed at the shelter's 10 p.m. curfew and visitor restrictions, but says she's learning to manage money better and pay off $5,000 in credit card debt.

Fuller says she's not buying Christmas toys for her children, only necessities. Sometimes they tease her, calling her "the Grinch."

Fairfax board Chairman Connolly's concern about the impact of homelessness on families is reflected in the waiting list for the 32 units the county has available at Shelter House and two other facilities. The list is approaching 90 families.

A report released last week by the U.S. Conference of Mayors that analyzed homelessness in 23 cities said that in most of the cities, some homeless families have to split up in order to find shelter.

"This is just unacceptable," says Trenton, N.J., Mayor Douglas Palmer, the conference's president.

The Conference of Mayors report says requests for shelter rose 9% last year in the 23 cities surveyed.

Housing affordability is the top problem, says Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor of social welfare policy. He says the government needs to use tax credits to push more investors and developers to build affordable apartments. He says it's much cheaper to give a housing subsidy to a homeless family than to put the family in a shelter, which can cost $50,000 for a 14-month stay.

Mangano says federal spending on housing subsidies has risen in recent years, but the number of available units hasn't increased because of rising real estate prices.

Adding holiday cheer

While communities struggle to find solutions for homelessness, people such as Ginger Mahon are helping make the lives of homeless families a little better this time of the year by playing Santa.

Mahon, a PTA president in Great Falls, Va., a half-hour drive from Shelter House, asked her neighbors to "adopt" a homeless family for Christmas. She asked several shelters for wish lists of items that homeless people wanted and matched them with donors.

The Fullers are receiving not only a microwave but also an air hockey table, a $100 Target gift card, a blanket, pots, pans and dinnerware. Other families at the shelter are getting presents, including hundreds of dollars in gift cards.

"During the holidays, the community really reaches out," says Meyer, the shelter's director. He says people wanted to donate iPods last year, but he reminded them that shelter residents don't have computers to download songs.

On Thursday, Ted Smith, the bus driver who sees Fuller and her children each weekday, gave the kids huge bags of toys that he and his wife had bought. "You do good in school and thank the Lord for all you have," he told the youngsters.

Fuller says Beatrice and Jhavona had wanted dolls, and Isaiah asked for firetrucks. William wanted a Sony PlayStation 3, which costs at least $600, but he knew his mom couldn't afford it.

Fuller says William told her: "All I really want for Christmas is our own place."

    Homelessness catches families even amid affluence, UT, 22.12.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-12-21-homelessness-cover_x.htm

Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York’s Poor

December 19, 2006
The New York Times
By DIANE CARDWELL

The city is planning to spend an extra $150 million a year in public and private money on the core priority of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s second term: combating poverty that is hidden beneath New York’s vast wealth.

The effort would involve the creation of a new city office that would operate in part like a philanthropic foundation and in part like a venture capital company. The program, called the Center for Economic Opportunity, would administer a $100 million fund to support experimental programs, like giving cash rewards to encourage poor people to stay in school or receive preventive medical care, or matching their monthly bank deposits to foster greater savings.

The office would also oversee a program giving tax credits to impoverished families to offset child care costs. Programs are to be constantly evaluated, and those that cannot show success will be terminated. The administration has hired Veronica M. White, a business planning and management consultant who has worked in housing development.

The effort is classic Bloomberg in that it emphasizes nontraditional solutions and enlists the private sector to tackle problems that have historically vexed governments. Mr. Bloomberg has turned to fellow philanthropists to help improve the schools, to finance a Republican national convention in New York and now to build a ground zero memorial. But yesterday’s announcement represents the fruit of his efforts to fight poverty in his second and last term as mayor.

“When you do things with public money, you really are required to do things that have some proven track record and to focus on more conventional approaches,” Mr. Bloomberg said in making the announcement at a credit union on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. “But conventional approaches, as we know, have kept us in this vicious cycle of too many people not being able to work themselves out of poverty even though they’re doing everything that we’ve asked them to do.”

The administration’s efforts would place an emphasis on rewarding good behavior and promoting self-sufficiency. Officials plan to spend $42 million annually on the tax credit, $25 million to reward actions like attending schools or prenatal education classes, and $11 million to help poor adults save money and learn sound financial practices.

The new plan calls for the office to spend $5 million a year on measuring progress, and $71 million on about 30 programs that administration officials say they are developing but declined to announce.

In an approach that has become a hallmark of the Bloomberg administration, the new office is intended to work across all agencies. But the center could also serve as a way of continuing Mr. Bloomberg’s agenda after his term ends.

This year, he charged a high-profile panel drawn from business, nonprofit and philanthropic circles with devising solutions to fighting poverty that did not cost additional money. But after the panel released its recommendations in September, officials in the administration were able to make the case that creating the new office would help build both the internal institutions and external demand that would allow it to survive a new administration.

The child care tax credit proposal, which needs state approval, is working its way through the legislative process, said Linda I. Gibbs, the deputy mayor overseeing the antipoverty effort. And officials have begun raising money to pay for the incentive program, an approach called conditional cash transfers that have had success in other countries.

The effort to teach the poor about financial management would operate out of the Department of Consumer Affairs and be called the Office of Financial Empowerment. Jonathan Mintz, the consumer affairs commissioner, said that he was looking to help coordinate and promote a program of individual development accounts that would use public and private money to match accumulated savings.

Policy experts called the Bloomberg plan significant and unusual. “The amount of money allocated is not trivial, especially if the money is used to leverage other expenditures, say by private businesses or nonprofits,” said Harry J. Holzer, a public policy professor at Georgetown University. “The whole idea of a broad fund to fund innovation seems pretty novel, especially at the city level.”

Antipoverty advocates offered measured praise for the announcement, saying that while they were pleased that the city was making a financial commitment, more work remained to be done.

“It is good that the mayor is making a financial commitment to fighting poverty, but we are concerned that this process is not transparent,” said Gloria Walker, a member of Community Voices Heard, an antipoverty group that advised the panel. “Low-income people need to be involved in monitoring and overseeing these new programs.”

Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, said that although he was “extraordinarily pleased” that the $150 million would go to test innovative approaches, particularly the individual development accounts, he warned that it was not nearly enough.

“It equals only about $125 per person for the approximately 1.8 million New Yorkers living below the meager federal poverty line,” he said.

    Bloomberg Plans New Office to Help New York’s Poor, NYT, 19.12.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/nyregion/19poverty.html

War on poverty slips from election agenda

Wed Oct 25, 2006 8:35 AM ET
Reuters
By Matthew Bigg

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - On a boat stranded in a street in New Orleans, two words are scrawled: "No politicians."

It's not clear if the boat is a remnant of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated this city more than a year ago, but the message of the graffiti is unmistakable: politicians failed to deliver for those who lost their homes in the hurricane.

"They sent boys over there (to Iraq) to fight in a war that never ends. Why didn't they keep the money over here when Americans are suffering," said Gwen Brown, 51, whose home in New Orleans was flooded by Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina exposed an underclass of poor Americans to the rest of the world, but poverty has slipped off the agenda in the runup to midterm congressional elections next month.

"After the hurricane it was easier for a time (to interest people in poverty) but it is ... very hard to maintain national attention unless there is national leadership," former Democratic senator John Edwards said in an interview.

Edwards ran for president in 2004 arguing there were two Americas, one for the well-off and another for those who struggle. When that effort failed, he ran for vice president on John Kerry's ticket. He said he has not decided whether to run again in 2008.

Poverty has been a Democratic issue since President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty" in 1964, but Edwards said Democrats see risks in promoting the issue, fearing they would be painted as big-government spenders.

An illustration of that is Harold Ford, running for the U.S. Senate for Tennessee, who campaigns on reforming health care but also advocates issues attractive to conservative voters such as opposition to gay marriage and cutting taxes.

U.S. civil rights leader Jesse Jackson warned there were dangers for Democrats who abandoned social justice issues to win elections.

"There is a need to have politicians whose positions represent change for the better and not an accommodation with the worst of our status quo," he told Reuters.

DOES POVERTY EXIST?

The U.S. Census Bureau said in August one in eight Americans and one in four black people lived in poverty last year.

In all, some 37 million Americans lived below the poverty line, defined as having an annual income around $10,000 for a single person or $20,000 for a family of four, it said.

Robert Rector of the conservative Heritage Foundation think-tank argued there is little actual poverty in the United States and most poor people had a house, car, television, air conditioning, food and medical care.

Democrats only employed the word to stir emotions and "low income status" would be a better description in most cases, Rector said in an interview.

That case gains traction in the United States, a society with a fiercely competitive ethic and a belief that hard work and self-reliance are a sure route to success, making it risky to promote a national goal of helping the poor.

What makes it still harder is that the religious right has hijacked the agenda for Christian voters promoting opposition to abortion and gay marriage but pushing poverty off the agenda, said Jim Wallis, leader of Sojourners, a Christian ministry that promotes spiritual renewal and social justice.

Wallis cited recent research by the Center for American Values in Public Life which indicated that 85 percent of Americans say poverty and affordable health care are more important issues than abortion and same sex marriage.

"The conventional wisdom is that poverty isn't sexy and that nobody wants to talk about poverty ... You need political leaders with the courage to test the proposition," he said.

For many voters in New Orleans, talk of political courage may come too late to dent their cynicism.

Near the stranded boat, the owner of a newly-rebuilt house near the stranded boat has created a mock Hurricane Katrina cemetery, with colorful headstones bearing epitaphs for local politicians and President Bush. One reads: "Bush rebuilt the city -- Baghdad."

    War on poverty slips from election agenda, R, 25.10.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-10-25T123521Z_01_N18395544_RTRUKOC_0_US-POVERTY.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-3

Far From Big City, Hidden Toll of Homelessness

October 11, 2006
The New York Times
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

TRINIDAD, Colo. — As the Bush administration promotes a widely praised multibillion-dollar effort to end chronic homelessness in cities like Washington and San Francisco, a growing outcry is rising from rural areas that worsening problems far away from urban centers are being overlooked.

Rural homelessness has always taken a back seat to the more glaring problems in cities. Most studies estimate homeless people in small towns account for about 9 percent of the 600,000 or so homeless nationwide. But local officials and advocates for the homeless in small towns say that economic distress in recent years, including closing plants, failing farms, rising housing costs and other troubles, has left more people without homes and in greater need of help.

Real numbers are hard to come by because most rural areas, where homeless services often means ad-hoc help from church groups or volunteers, are far behind a parade of cities taking head counts.

“We are concerned that the focus on chronic homelessness may have the unintended consequence of shifting services away from families and rural communities,” said John Parvensky, executive director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, one of several groups pushing the federal government to turn more attention to rural areas.

Among the homeless here is John Lobato, who offered a tour of his surroundings — the abandoned shuttle bus where he sometimes sleeps, the makeshift assortment of pallets, mattresses and blankets where he and other men pass time, often drinking, and the Purgatoire River, where he bathes.

Sometimes he takes his medicine for schizophrenia, Mr. Lobato said, sometimes not. Sometimes he sobers up for a while, but then the bottle calls.

“I know I need help,” he said, before embarking on a search for a liquor fix at midday in this isolated town 180 miles south of Denver. “But I don’t know where to get it.”

Until recently, many small towns like Trinidad coped with those who panhandled or set up makeshift encampments in the woods with what Lance Cheslock, director of La Puente, a shelter in Alamosa, near here, calls “Greyhound therapy.” They handed out bus tickets.

“They just send them up to the cities and let them deal with the problem there,” said Mr. Cheslock, among the advocates pushing for a new way to finance rural homeless programs.

The growing visibility of the problem has made some towns reconsider that attitude and push for local solutions, although they can be expensive and difficult.

Rural homelessness “doesn’t get enough attention,” said Philip Mangano, the executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Bush administration’s chief coordinator of homeless services. But Mr. Mangano said the problem had been difficult to assess because rural communities by and large had not chronicled their problems with the data-heavy planning documents the Housing and Urban Development Department and other federal agencies increasingly demand.

“Like any profile of the homeless, there is a lot of anecdote and hearsay, but you need data and research to create policy,” Mr. Mangano said.

To confront the problem, he cited the examples of Washington and Michigan, where every county, many of them rural, has committed to writing a plan to end homelessness.

Here in Trinidad, a former old West coal town of 9,000 near the eastern slopes of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, people have long struggled through hard times. The downtown is pockmarked with shuttered storefronts, but new cafes and galleries have opened as the town tries to refashion itself as an artists’ colony.

Interstate 25, dotted with motels of various quality and shopping centers, slices through Trinidad, leaving tidy Victorian homes rising on a hill on one side and modest ranches, several in disrepair, on the other.

Sandi Espinoza, who directs the Open Door Soup Kitchen, in space borrowed from a church, said the organization was serving more meals than ever — families, veterans, men just released from prison and a wide assortment of people smelling of liquor before noon. Some 85 people come daily for lunch, double the number from a few years ago, Ms. Espinoza said.

“We need shelter here,” said one wobbly man, who when asked where he sleeps, replied, “down under the bridges.”

There is no homeless shelter, only a few drug, alcohol or mental illness treatment programs for the indigent, and a loose group of church pastors, volunteers and other concerned citizens striving to look after people who have no home.

“Pastor helps me out,” Mr. Lobato said. “The soup kitchen helps me out and these guys” — he motioned to his disheveled companions — “help me, too.”

A couple of weeks ago, officials here cheered the establishment of a “transitional housing unit,” a single-family home leased from the government for $1 a year where a displaced family can live for a year or so until they get back on their feet, the first such project started here. The organizers say several families, doubled up with relatives or friends, need a place like that.

There is nothing for the men living in the tents and shacks that have popped up behind the Wal-Mart, near the river.

To seek more stable solutions, a small group was recently formed. With guidance from Becky Vanderslice, an organizer with Housing Justice, a group based in Denver, they gathered around a church conference table and discussed problems that included the need for rehabilitation programs and families unable to make ends meet.

Finally, said Cary T. Nelson, pastor at First Christian Church, the group decided to start with the single-family home. Churches and volunteers will subsidize the costs of running the house, a foreclosed property held by the local office of the federal Agriculture Department.

They called the house Haven of Hope and have begun searching for a family to occupy it. One applicant, Brenda Holguin, said she hoped to move in with at least two of her four children, who are living with her estranged husband. A domestic dispute has left her homeless, living in a nearby domestic violence shelter, and such a house would help set her on a steady path, Ms. Holguin said. “Having a house, my family in one place, would give me more self-esteem,” she said.

Ms. Espinoza, who runs the soup kitchen, said she was hoping that local businesses or churches would step forward with donated space for an emergency shelter.

The National Coalition on Homelessness, an advocacy group, is considering mounting an effort to make the Agriculture Department, with its many field offices and staff members in rural areas, the lead agency for financing homeless programs outside urban areas. The task currently falls to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“It should be the department of housing and urban-only development,” said Michael Stoops, the executive director of the coalition. “We should not give up on HUD, but we need to get other federal agencies involved.”

Last year, he said, HUD provided $120 million for 700 projects in rural areas, an amount that has remained constant for several years, federal officials said.

This year, the federal government has increased direct spending on homeless programs to about $4 billion, up from $2.9 billion and double the spending of five years ago. About 10 percent of that has gone toward a new focus on ending chronic homelessness, Mr. Mangano said.

The approach has fired up hope in Denver, San Francisco, Washington and other cities that headway is being made, but it has dismayed advocates in rural areas, where grant-writing expertise and the Talmudic knowledge of federal regulations are lacking.

Small towns also lack the network of nonprofit organizations and corporations that often underwrite efforts.

“The government wants matching funds and the big city funders only fund the big cities,” said Donna Haddow, a member of the Trinidad-Las Animas County Economic Development Board. “There’s nothing left by the time we come knocking.”

Ms. Vanderslice of Housing Justice said a prominent foundation would not finance the new housing program in Trinidad because it had decided to focus most of its resources on Denver.

“There is a lot of money to end homelessness in the state,” she said. “But a lot is going to the Denver metro area because the mayor there has a 10-year plan.”

Here, she added, “they are going on open faith.”

    Far From Big City, Hidden Toll of Homelessness, NYT, 11.10.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/us/11homeless.html?hp&ex=1160625600&en=d55e8b1a2e6fb620&ei=5094&partner=homepage

To Fight Poverty, Bloomberg Plans Tax Credits and Rewards

September 19, 2006
The New York Times
By DIANE CARDWELL

In an effort to reduce the city’s high poverty rate, the Bloomberg administration plans to offer tax credits to impoverished families to offset child care costs and cash rewards to encourage poor people to stay in school and receive preventive medical care.

The tax credits, which would be worth up to $1,000 per child and would need approval from the City Council and the State Legislature, and cash payments would be unique among cities in the United States, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday in announcing the programs.

In a novel effort, the city plans to raise at least $24 million from the private sector to underwrite those rewards, said Linda I. Gibbs, deputy mayor for health and human services.

The mayor announced the plans as part of his response to the recommendations of his Commission on Economic Opportunity, which he convened this year to examine ways to help the roughly 1.5 million New Yorkers who live below the federal poverty level. For a parent with two children, that threshold was $15,735 last year.

The commission’s members were drawn from the upper echelons of the city’s business, nonprofit, academic and social services sectors — with Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Time Warner, and Geoffrey Canada, who runs one of the most acclaimed antipoverty programs in the country, at its helm. In putting together the recommendations, its leaders traveled to the city’s poorest areas and even overseas to determine what strategies might be most successful.

In keeping with the administration’s emphasis on practical, measurable solutions to civic problems, the commission focused on the working poor, children younger than 6 and young adults, and it recommended creating a system to track progress. In all, those three groups amount to about 700,000 New Yorkers, officials said, slightly less than half of the number of city residents who live in poverty.

Working under the notion that the best antipoverty strategy is a job, the commission also recommended expanding programs aimed at preparing students for college and giving high school students and adults work experience and job training. It also suggested better coordination among agencies to help people get benefits and services, thereby enabling them to seek and hold on to jobs.

As if anticipating criticism that after an enormous investigation and analysis process that engaged hundreds of experts and poor New Yorkers, the commission’s final report was neither bold nor far-reaching enough, Mr. Bloomberg defended the narrowed focus.

“What we’re trying to do is to identify groups here that we believe we know how to help, focus our resources, demand accountability, try things,” Mr. Bloomberg said. “How many people we can help, how much we can improve society, we don’t know. All we know is if we don’t start we will never make any progress.”

Saying that he endorsed the commission’s recommendations enthusiastically, Mr. Bloomberg charged his agencies with developing plans within 60 days.

Administration officials offered few specifics about their new programs, which they said they were still designing.

The payments could range anywhere from $50 to $1,500, officials said, and could be used to reward a range of actions, from scoring well on standardized tests to enrollment in service learning programs, which would funnel high school students into community service work. Officials are also weighing using the approach to spur enrollment in the Nurse-Family Partnership, a home visitation program that focuses on low-income first-time parents.

City officials said that they did not know of another such cash incentive program in the United States, but that the approach has had success in Mexico and has been used in several other countries. Still, it is in keeping with Mr. Bloomberg’s approach of engaging the private sector to encourage certain behavior with financial rewards, as he did with a program that offered shopping and dining discounts to protesters who remained peaceful during the Republican National Convention.

The child care tax credit, which would be available to families earning $30,000 or less who use accredited child care services for children younger than 3, would cost about $42 million, city officials said. The plan is most likely to get a sympathetic hearing in the City Council, which has called for such a credit in the past.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the city would create and expand college preparation programs like the collaboration with the City University of New York that allows high school students to take college courses. He also said that the city would create a program at its public hospitals to recruit home health care aides and subsidize their training to become nurses.

Reaction to the report was tempered, with advocates and officials praising the mayor’s focus on the issue but raising concerns about the lack of specific proposals.

Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, said he was disappointed that the report did not offer “particular strategies to address city policies that continue to increase hunger.”

Members of Community Voices Heard, an antipoverty group that advised the commission, worried that the focus on specific populations would ignore the problems of others, like the unemployed.

“When we actually see the action plans from the agencies,” said Sandra Killett, co-chairwoman of the board of directors, “then we will better be able to assess what the real benefits to people in poverty will be.”

And City Councilman Bill de Blasio, chairman of the General Welfare Committee, said that Mr. Bloomberg was not vigorous enough in pressuring the private sector to raise wages or the state and federal governments to subsidize programs.

“I don’t feel that he’s holding the federal government and state government and private sector to the same standard that he’s holding himself,” Mr. de Blasio said.

The City Council has scheduled a hearing on the report for Thursday.

    To Fight Poverty, Bloomberg Plans Tax Credits and Rewards, NYT, 19.9.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/19/nyregion/19poverty.html