Posted by:
Steve Dubb
Shelterforce highlights Portland, Oregon initiative
As Howard Cutler explains in the Fall 2007 issue of Shelterforce, when Portland, Oregon’s community development staff evaluated its programs a few years ago, they found that most successful projects involved a few key traits, which included, “focusing on a small group of disadvantaged people who share a common bond, developing a project design around the strengths of that particular group, and maximizing peer support within it; offering a comprehensive set of support services to each participant; emphasizing the development of strong, long-term mentor/coaching relationships; and workforce projects, involving employers early in the design of the program and curriculum.” In response, Portland’s community development staff developed a Request for Proposals (RFP) to community-based nonprofits as the method to implement a new citywide effort called its “Economic Opportunity Initiative.”
Portland has a strong group of community wealth building organizations, but as in many cities, Portland’s community development department found, in Cutler’s words, that different efforts “had succeeded with one population or another, but these were all isolated efforts.” Portland’s Economic Opportunity Initiative aimed to bring coherence to these efforts.
In operation since September 2004 and after two RFP rounds, the initiative now annually contracts a total of $3.8 million to 31 community-based projects - 23 in the workforce development field, eight in micro-enterprise - for three years’ worth of assistance to the current total of 1,400 active participants. Seventy-five percent of these participants had incomes at or below 30 percent MFI at enrollment, which translates to their living below the federal poverty line.
As Cutler explains, “Interim results are encouraging. Of the workforce participants who’ve received two years of assistance, more than two-thirds have increased their incomes by 25 percent or more, with the average annual income increase being $15,000. Additionally, 268 participants now have employer-provided health insurance for the first time. Meanwhile, the average increase in gross revenue is $68,000 for microenterprise participants who operated existing businesses at enrollment and received two years’ worth of assistance; this is an average increase of almost 200 percent. For start-ups, the average new revenue after two years is $39,200.”
Nevertheless, Cutler notes, the effort is “limited financially and structurally. Even if each year 450-500 low-income residents successfully increase their incomes after three years of assistance, as they are now on track to do, over the next 10 years the initiative at current funding levels will directly benefit just 12-13 percent of the city’s working-age poor population.”
“To make significant progress against poverty in Portland, “ Cutler contends “theveral things must happen. First, the initiative must increase its scale. Second, the other local systems that influence poverty must agree to sharpen their focus on poverty reduction and integrate their work more collaboratively with one another. Finally, the federal government must step up to the plate and implement many of the education, employment, health-care, housing, and income-enhancement proposals being advocated by progressive think tanks and others.”