Building Prosperity in
Columbus-Muscogee County
Final Report March 5, 2009
Prepared for the Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee
County Steering Committee
Contents
Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................................................................1
Identifying the Root Causes of Poverty in Columbus-Muscogee County ............................................................6
Successful Programs and Best Practices ........................................................................................................................ 10
A. High School Drop Outs.................................................................................................................................... 11
B. Marriage and Family ......................................................................................................................................... 17
C. Teen Pregnancy .................................................................................................................................................. 21
D. Workforce Development................................................................................................................................. 25
E. Healthcare............................................................................................................................................................ 32
F. Early Childhood Development ..................................................................................................................... 36
G. Affordable Housing ......................................................................................................................................... 40
H. Regional and Alternative Transportation Systems ............................................................................... 45
Tables
Table 1.
Table 2.
Table 3.
Table 4.
Table 5.
Table 6.
Table 7.
Table 8.
The relative importance of factors in explaining poverty rates in Georgia counties ....9
Intensity of dropout prevention components by intervention type................................ 13
ALAS effectiveness.............................................................................................................................. 14
Career Academies effectiveness .................................................................................................... 15
Check & Connect effectiveness ...................................................................................................... 16
Accelerated Middle School effectiveness................................................................................... 16
The Building Strong Families program model .......................................................................... 19
Programs with strong evidence of positive impact on sexual behavior,
pregnancy or STD rates .................................................................................................................... 23
Table 9. Hourly wage by occupation in Muscogee County .................................................................. 31
Table 10. Strategies to increase access to immunization services ....................................................... 33
Table 11. Strategies to increase cancer screening behaviors ................................................................ 33
Table 12. Strategies to increase diabetes management and screening behaviors ....................... 34
Table 13. Strategies to increase cardiovascular disease prevention ................................................... 34
Table 14. Strategies to increase access to maternal health services ................................................... 35
Table 15. Ten demonstration sites and their characteristics .................................................................. 48
Figures
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
What dropouts believe would improve students’ chances of staying in school ........ 12
Graduation rates in Muscogee and contiguous counties .................................................. 14
Building Stronger Families conceptual framework................................................................ 20
Analytic framework for evaluating early childhood programs .......................................... 39
Executive summary
Executive Summary
The Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County Steering Committee (the “Committee”)
asked the University of Georgia to conduct two
pieces of research: an analysis of the root causes of
poverty in the county and a study of best practices
to address those causes. The research is not intended to direct the work of the Committee; rather, both
components are information tools the Committee
can use as it develops a strategic plan to address
poverty and build prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County.
Quantitative Analysis of
the Root Causes of Poverty
The first piece of research the Committee
requested was to explore the root causes of poverty
in Muscogee County. Poverty research typically focuses on a single issue such as the high school drop
out rate and its relationship to, or effect on, poverty.
The UGA study was different from most poverty research conducted in the past because it examined a
number of issues related to poverty simultaneously,
rather than just one. The methodology UGA used
was a statistical method called a regression analysis.
The study was modeled after a national prototype.
The Committee discussed the initial results
from the analysis at the December meeting. At that
time, UGA reported eight factors or issues that
were likely contributors to poverty based on the
best available statistics. Because the model was new
and relatively untested, UGA ran several variations
of the regression model in January and early February 2009. From these tests, the model was revised,
reducing error terms and altering the original findings, though not dramatically. The results from the
new model — highlighted below — reflect a refinement from the preliminary data results discussed in
December. The main difference between the initial
results presented in December and the final ones
below are: (1) the inclusion of crime as a factor, and
(2) the elimination of aging (percent of the population age 65 and over). This does not mean that the
presence of a high percentage of elderly residents
does not have an effect on poverty. It simply means
that, under the revised analysis, that factor did not
rise to at least a 90 percent confidence level.
Under the revised analysis, six factors rise to
the top (99 percent) in terms of confidence level,
two are at a 95 percent confidence level, and three
factors are at a 90 percent confidence level. For the
Committee’s purposes, UGA reported all factors
that had at least a 90 percent confidence level. It
is worth noting that the confidence level does not
reflect the strength of the variable’s influence on
poverty but rather the certainty that a given variable
does influence the county poverty rate.
TIER ONE – Six Factors Related to County Poverty
Rates (99 % confidence level)
▶
▶
▶
Percent of population without a high school
degree: As the percent of the population without a high school diploma increases, the county
poverty rate increases.
Race (African American and Hispanic): The
presence of a higher than average percentage
of African Americans and Hispanics affects
poverty.
Place (Metropolitan area): Counties which
are part of an MSA (other than Atlanta) have
higher levels of poverty. (MSAs are Metropolitan Statistical Areas.)
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
1
▶
▶
▶
Size of the population (larger counties): Larger counties (by population) have lower poverty
rates than do smaller counties, likely because as
opportunity increases, so will population.
Marriage: The poverty rate increases as the
proportion of households with married couples
decreases.
Home ownership: As the level of home ownership increases, the poverty rate decreases.
TIER TWO – Two Factors Related to County Poverty Rates (95 % confidence level)
▶
▶
Rate of women as part of the labor force: As
the percent of the population that are women in
the labor force increases, county poverty rates
tend to decrease.
Employment growth interaction with female
labor force participation rates: The creation
of jobs also has a positive effect on women’s
participation in the labor force.
TIER THREE – Three Factors Related to County
Poverty Rates (90 % confidence level)
▶
▶
▶
Crime: Poverty rises as crime rises, and this
factor works both ways.
Unemployment rate: Unemployment tracks
positively with poverty rates – as unemployment rises, so does the poverty rate.
Employment establishment interaction – increases in business establishments and in employment growth, combined, have a negative
effect on the poverty rate: More job creation
combined with a higher number of small businesses leads to lower poverty rates.
objective third party, distilling components of the
programs that were identified as crucial for the initiative to succeed, and (2) results and benchmarks
were discussed as part of the programs. The following summarizes results in the full report under each
major heading. The full report provides additional
information for the Committee to consider as it
studies programs in Muscogee County and assesses
how the Committee might identify and support
programs that are producing results.
HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUTS
A federal study of more than 100 programs
aimed at reducing dropout rates showed that most
programs have not been statistically effective. Pulling elements from those programs that have been
effective, one study funded by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation determined that understanding
the perspectives of students at risk of dropping out
was critical. Based on a survey of students at risk of
dropping out, 81percent said that both (1) opportunities for real-world learning to make classrooms
more relevant, and (2) better teachers who keep
classes interesting were critical to them staying in
school. The Institute of Education Sciences produced a dropout prevention guide in 2008, building on elements critical to strong programs. Key
recommendations from this guide include:
▶
▶
Qualitative Best Practice Research
The Committee asked UGA to conduct best
practice research on issues critical to poverty reduction, including the areas highlighted above. The
group particularly wanted to focus on programs
and initiatives that demonstrated measurable
outcomes and effects. Rather than independently
assessing programs around the country, UGA
looked for data showing (1) analysis of a number
of programs across the country in a single topic
area (e.g. high school dropout prevention) by an
2
▶
▶
▶
Understand what dropout numbers mean and
which category of students a prevention program seeks to influence, identifying those who
are at highest risk of dropping out.
Assign adult advocates - not ‘just’ mentors - to
students at risk of dropping out. This includes
academic support and also enrichment activities, increasing the exposure of students to
issues and ideas that are new.
Students’ classroom behavior and social skills
have a significant impact on drop out rates
– programs that influence these skills are critical.
At every opportunity, personalize the learning
environment and the instructional process.
Provide rigorous and relevant instruction to
better engage students in learning and provide
the skills needed to graduate and to serve them
after they leave school.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
Researchers have found many benefits for
children raised by parents in healthy marriages, including children who: (1) are more likely to attend
college, (2) are physically and emotionally healthier,
(3) are less likely to attempt or commit suicide, (4)
are less likely to be a victim of physical or sexual
abuse, (5) are less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol,
and (6) demonstrate fewer behavioral problems in
school, according to the Healthy Marriage Initiative
through the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Administration for Children and Families.
The Healthy Marriage Initiative also found that
children with parents in a healthy marriage are less
likely to be raised in poverty, and that communities
enjoy many additional benefits from higher rates of
married couples.
Building Strong Families is an initiative funded
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services to develop and evaluate programs designed
to help unwed parents achieve their aspirations for
healthy marriage and a stable family life. Studies
conducted under this initiative found four critical
components that must be present for a program to
be successful in increasing the rates of healthy marriages:
1. Instruction in skills associated with a healthy
marriage;
2. Family support services;
3. Family coordinators; and
4. Strategies for reducing marriage disincentives.
The presence of a family coordinator who helps
couples understand the elements of a healthy marriage and works with their unique challenges has
been demonstrated to be a key difference in this
approach and the success it brings.
TEEN PREGNANCY
Based on a 2002 Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) Division of Reproductive Health initiative to promote science-based approaches to teen
pregnancy prevention, programs that were found to
be the most effective in preventing teen pregnancy
fall into three broad categories: (1) curriculumbased sex education that discusses abstinence and
contraceptive use; (2) youth development programs
where the primary focus is keeping young people
constructively engaged in their communities and
schools (often in partnership with after school programs); and (3) programs with a broad approach
that combine healthcare, academic assistance, sex
education, participation in performing arts and individual sports, and employment assistance. Based
on these three broad areas, researchers identified 17
characteristics of effective, science-based pregnancy
and HIV prevention programs, including communicating community values and addressed peer
pressure (see page x). The program “Making Proud
Choices! A Safer Sex Approach to HIV/STD and
Teen Pregnancy Prevention” was cited by several
studies as a model program with strong outcomes.
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
The not-for-profit organization Public Private
Ventures (PPV) studies and evaluates existing
programs that combat poverty and recommends
changes for strengthening the programs. A November 2008 PPV report discussed the benefits of workforce development initiatives involving a sector
strategy versus those that were more traditional in
focus. Sector strategies target a specific industry or
cluster of occupations, intervene through a credible
existing organization, support workers in improving their range of employment-related skills, meet
the needs of employers, and create lasting change in
the labor market system.
The sectoral approach to workforce development was developed because traditional workforce
development programs fail to focus on the needs of
the local industries, instead trying to make broad
training programs fit a variety of sectors. In cooperation with the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation’s
Sectoral Employment Initiative, PPV selected
nine workforce development programs around
the country and began studying (1) whether low
income participants in sectoral programs experience positive changes, and (2) whether any of the
nine participating organizations were able to foster
systemic change in the working conditions within
sectors that traditionally pay low wages and offer
unfavorable working conditions. While many of the
programs had positive outcomes, the study cited the
WIRE-Net program, which serves manufacturing
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
3
employers on the west side of Cleveland, most often
as a model for implementing a sectoral approach
to workforce development. The strategy involved
engaging local educational institutions and employers to build entry-level and advanced metalworking
training programs that met industry needs, recruiting the target population and offered the supportive
services necessary for the participants to complete
training and obtain jobs. It succeeded where similar
programs failed because it focused on a particular
sector and went beyond the creation of a business
working group to address issues.
Finally, a related report issued by PPV entitled
“Good Stories Aren’t Enough: Becoming Outcomes-Driven in Workforce Development” examined six workforce investment programs for success
in becoming more outcomes driven. The organizations that exceeded their goals had several common
program elements or core strategies that addressed
the challenge of becoming more outcomes driven:
1. Focus on the data that matter to the organization.
2. Nurture the ‘inquisitive mind’.
3. Help staff experience the benefits of using data.
4. Build systems to enhance data quality.
5. Invest continually in technology.
HEALTHCARE
The 2008 Health Disparities Report for Muscogee County, commissioned by the Georgia Department of Community Health through its Georgia
Health Equity Initiative, estimated that 16.6 percent of the adult population and 14.3 percent of
the child population in Muscogee County had no
health insurance. The report also cited a particularly wide racial disparity in the number of emergency department visits for three health conditions:
uncontrolled diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension,
and uncontrolled asthma. The widest disparities
were found for pregnancy and birth outcomes
among black and white women with respect to the
percentage of very low birth weight babies, the percentage of births with fewer than five prenatal visits,
and the percentage of mothers who smoked during
pregnancy.
Based on the conditions prevalent in Muscogee
County, the intervention strategies recommended
4
by the CDC’s Guide to Community Preventative
Services, and consideration of those services that
provided the highest health benefits (according to
a cost benefit analysis by a CDC commission), the
following preventative measures rose to the top for
Muscogee County:
1. Increased access to immunization services;
2. Increased cancer screenings, particularly
colorectal cancer;
3. Intervention strategies to increase cardiovascular disease prevention; and
4. Increased access to maternal health services.
Diabetes management and prevention would
also be a preventative target due to its prevalence in
Muscogee County, but the prevention measures do
not rate as highly on the cost benefit analysis as the
four listed above.
A healthcare needs assessment of existing usage of care, service capacity, gaps in specialty care,
and costs for delivery would be the next step to
assess access and promote change in the healthcare
delivery system in Muscogee County. To help guide
the assessment, the Institute of Medicine released a
2009 report recommending the following six health
system indicators for measuring a community’s system status: 1) healthcare expenditures; 2) insurance
coverage; 3) unmet medical, dental, and prescription drug needs; 4) preventive services; 5) preventable hospitalizations; and 6) childhood immunizations.
EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND EDUCATION
Countless studies reveal that babies’ experiences from birth to three have significant impact on
brain development and success in life. For example,
babies spoken to directly on a regular basis learn almost 300 more words by age 2 than babies who are
not spoken to as frequently. This deficit is extremely
difficult to overcome and makes intervention at
this early age critical for poverty reduction. A 2008
study by the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University emphasizes that positive early childhood development programs must
be holistic and require focus on (1) good health, (2)
positive early learning experiences, and (3) nurturing families that are economically secure.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
A 2003 article in the American Journal of
Preventative Medicine evaluated the effectiveness
of early childhood development programs and
identified four elements of a child’s development
that were addressed in successful intervention
programs: cognitive, social, health and family. By
forming a Zero to Three Task Force in 2008, Cooperative Extension in Columbus and its partners
are taking positive strides towards developing an
effective framework of early childhood intervention
programs.
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
5
Identifying the Root Causes of Poverty
in Columbus-Muscogee County:
A Quantitative Model
What are the some of the factors that affect
poverty and how can the poverty rates in Columbus-Muscogee County best be explained? Those
were the questions the Committee asked the UGA
team to investigate. This first piece of research was
innovative in that it was different from most poverty research conducted in the past. Poverty research
typically focuses on a single issue and its relationship to, or affect on, poverty. For example, lack of a
high school diploma typically means that a person
is more likely to be living in poverty. The Committee asked UGA to explore the root causes of poverty
in Muscogee County. To do so effectively, UGA
looked at a number of issues simultaneously in relation to poverty, rather than just one. The methodology UGA used to do this is called a regression
analysis, a statistical tool that is central to the field
of economic statistics and one that is used by policy
makers to study a wide range of issues.
The team determined that the annual average
poverty rate is influenced by factors that fall into
five categories: economic, education, family, demographic and social. For example, the economic
factors included: number of businesses per capita,
unemployment rate, employment growth rate, and
more. The following steps were taken to determine
which factors had the most influence on county
poverty rates:
STEP 1: Factors that influence poverty based
on data for all counties in Georgia (1998-2008)
were identified using a statistical tool called
regression analysis.
STEP 2: After determining the statistically
important factors that explain the poverty rate,
6
Columbus-Muscogee’s performance was compared to the state average.
This method for examining the factors that
affect poverty in Columbus-Muscogee depends
largely on the reliability of the available data, and
therefore, only data from the Georgia County
Guide System was used. These data are the most
consistent and reliable secondary data source on
all the counties in Georgia over an extended time
period.
These data do not account for changes in the
economic climate due to the recent downturn in
the housing market, and the consequent financial crisis that was triggered with the collapse of
financial institutions such as Lehman Brothers
and American International Group. There is no
evidence to show that the change in the economic
climate will change the relationships found among
those factors. Nevertheless, the model searches for
relationships among factors that may contribute to
poverty.
There are several limitations to this approach.
First, since it is impractical to collect data on all
the factors that one could hypothesize may affect
poverty, the analysis was restricted to secondary
data that are available and have been used in other
county level studies in Georgia. Second, poverty
rates across all counties in Georgia were examined
because the number of years of available data for
Columbus-Muscogee County was limited. By using
this two-step approach, data from all 159 counties in Georgia over the period 1998-2008 could be
used to determine which factors contribute most
to the poverty, and then, the factors that influence
poverty in Columbus-Muscogee County during the
same time period could be identified. Moreover,
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
this empirical approach is actually superior to estimating a regression using only the Columbus data.
What factors affect poverty in Columbus-Muscogee County?
The Committee discussed the initial results
from the analysis at the December 2008 meeting.
At that time, UGA reported eight factors or issues
that were likely contributors to poverty based on
the best available statistics.1 Because the model was
new and relatively untested, UGA ran several variations on the regression model in January and early
February 2009. From these tests, the UGA team revised the model, reducing error terms, and altering
the original findings, though not dramatically.
Results from the new model reflect a refinement from the preliminary data results discussed in
December. The main difference between the initial
results presented in December and the final ones
below are (1) the inclusion of crime as a factor in
the final results, and (2) the elimination of age 65
and over. This does not mean that the presence of a
high percentage of elderly residents does not have
an effect on poverty. It simply means that, under
the revised analysis, that factor did not rise to at
least a 90 percent confidence level.
Under the revised analysis, six factors rise to
the top (99 percent) in terms of confidence level,
two are at a 95 percent confidence level, and three
factors are at a 90 percent confidence level. For the
Committee’s purposes, UGA reported all factors
that had at least a 90 percent confidence level. It
is worth noting that the confidence level does not
reflect the strength of the variable’s influence on
poverty but rather the certainty that a given variable does influence the county poverty rate.
TIER ONE – Six Factors Related to County Poverty
Rates (99 % confidence level)
▶
▶
▶
Percent of population without a high school
degree
Race (African American and Hispanic)
Place (Metropolitan area)
1 All statistics referenced in this section are from the
American Community Survey 2005-2007 estimates, U.S.
Census Bureau, unless otherwise noted.
▶
▶
▶
Size of the population (larger counties)
Marriage
Home ownership
Education. The percent of the population without a high school degree has a strong relationship
with a community’s poverty level. As the percent of
the population without a high school diploma increases, the county poverty rate increases. Muscogee County does not differ in any meaningful way
from the state generally with respect to the percentage of its population over 25 years of age without
a high school diploma, but this is still a leading
contributor.
Race. The presence of a higher than average
percentage of African Americans and Hispanics – is
closely associated with poverty. While Muscogee
County has a lower percentage of Hispanics than
the state generally, it has a much higher percentage
of African Americans (47 percent compared with
30 percent average statewide). It is important to
note that many underlying factors contribute to the
larger factor we call ‘race.’ While UGA controlled
for many of the factors that influence differences in
race, the data available limit the control variables.
The history of oppression and historic and current
institutionalized racism is likely the underlying current that cannot be measured with existing secondary data available to us.
Place and Population. Two additional factors
involve descriptions of Muscogee County itself
– both as a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)
and as a county with a large population in proportion to its land mass. Counties that are part of an
MSA (other than Atlanta) have higher levels of
poverty. Larger counties (by population) have lower
poverty rates than do smaller counties, likely because as opportunity increases, so will population.
The inverse is also true – as opportunity decreases,
so will the population. Muscogee County is larger
than average in terms of population, but its growth
rate since 2000 (1.3 percent) has lagged far behind the state’s (14.4 percent). While these factors
contribute towards an explanation of poverty in the
county, they are not important because they cannot
be influenced through actions of the committee.
Marriage. At the Committee’s first meeting,
members discussed a study finding that the presence of three elements, in order, can eliminate up to
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
7
90 percent of poverty in a community: obtaining a
high school diploma, getting married, and waiting until at least the age of 20 to have a child. The
research UGA conducted confirms parts of this
study, with marriage strongly affecting poverty – as
the proportion of households with married couples
decreases the poverty rate increases. Muscogee
County has a lower average of married couple
family households than does the state (40 percent
versus 49 percent statewide).
Home ownership. Finally, as the level of home
ownership increases, the poverty rate decreases.
Muscogee is behind the state in general in home
ownership rates (56 percent to 68 percent, respectively), and home ownership remains low even as
the median home value of owner-occupied residences remains well below the state median ($84K
compared to $111,200 statewide average). Additionally, foreclosures have emerged as a problem
facing Muscogee County residents, so this may be
an area on which the Committee wants to focus.
TIER TWO – Two Factors Related to County Poverty Rates (95 % confidence level)
▶
▶
Rate of women as part of the labor force
Employment growth interaction with female
labor force participation rates
Women in the workforce. As the percent of
the population that are women in the labor force
increases, county poverty rates tend to decrease. To
the extent possible, increasing women’s participation in the workforce will impact county poverty
rates negatively, meaning that poverty rates will go
down.
Interaction with job creation. The creation of
jobs also has a positive effect on women’s participation in the labor force. While the rate of female participation in the workforce in Columbus is slightly
higher than in the state, the rate in the Columbus
MSA overall is much lower.
TIER THREE – Three Factors Related to County
Poverty Rates (90 % confidence level)
▶
▶
▶
Crime
Unemployment rate
Employment establishment interaction
Crime. Poverty rises as crime rises, and this
factor works both ways, as one might expect
— crime also rises as poverty rises. While violent
crime rates in Muscogee County are on par with
state averages, the property crime rate is a little over
4 percent higher in Muscogee in 2007 for men and
almost 10 percentage points higher for women.2
Unemployment. Unemployment tracks
positively with poverty rates — as unemployment
rises, so does the poverty rate. It is important to
note, however, that the unemployment rate only
measures certain types of jobs and people looking
actively for those jobs. It does not include people
not actively looking for work (the perennially or
persistently unemployed) or those who have lost
jobs with small businesses. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics puts Columbus’ unemployment rate in
December 2008 at 7.7 percent, while the national
average was 7.1 percent. Macon and Augusta,
Georgia were both at 7.8 percent for December
2008.
Job and business creation. Finally, the measure
of employment growth (numbers of jobs) combined with the number of business establishments
per capita (i.e. small businesses) as a measure of
economic activity has a negative effect on county
poverty rates, meaning that more job creation combined with a higher number of small businesses
leads to lower poverty rates.
2 Index Crimes Reported, Crime Statistics Database,
data accessed 7/08/08; and other unpublished data. GA
Crime Information Center, Decatur, Ga. <http://www.
ganet.org/gbi/gcic.html>
8
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
TABLE 1. The relative importance of factors in explaining poverty rates in Georgia counties (1998-2008).
CONFIDENCE LEVEL FACTOR
EFFECT ON POVERTY RATE
99 %
Place
Counties within MSAs other than Atlanta have higher levels of
poverty; the Columbus MSA has a high level of poverty but not as
high as in rural counties
Population size
Counties with higher populations have lower poverty rates
High school education
K % of population not completing high school
K county poverty rate
Home ownership
K home ownership
L county poverty rate
Race
African Americans and Hispanics have a higher rate of poverty
than other races
Marriage
K percent of households with married couples
L county poverty rate
95 %
Employment growth
K job creation
L county poverty rate
Female labor force participation
K employment for women
L county poverty rate
90 %
Crime
K crime
K county poverty rate
(the causal factor likely works both ways)
Employment establishment interaction K number of establishments
K employment growth
L county poverty rate
Unemployment rate
K unemployment rate
K county poverty rate
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
9
Successful Programs
& Best Practices
A family of four with a sole provider in Muscogee County is considered poor (i.e. living in poverty) if the provider earns $9.83 an hour or below.
However, a wage higher than that rate does not
mean the family is not poor. The ‘working poor’ are
a hidden population in many communities, particularly in communities such as Columbus, where 57
percent of those living in poverty have at least one
member of the household working full-time. The
living wage for a family of four in Muscogee County
is $27.19 per hour, nearly three times that considered ‘poor’ according to the Living Wage Calculator
at Pennsylvania State University.1 Based on a review
of the costs of childcare, food, medical, housing and
transportation in Muscogee County, this translates
into an annual before tax income of $56,550 for a
family of two adults and two children.
The median household income in Muscogee
County is $7,622 less than Georgia’s average, which
means that Columbus residents make less money
than do Georgians on average. Further, the median
home value in Muscogee is considerably lower than
the state’s median, and even with this, residents of
Muscogee are less likely to own their home and
more likely to live in multi-family housing structures (i.e. apartments and duplexes).
It is against this backdrop of demographics and
trends particular to Columbus that this section
1
10
of the report is presented. It will focus on several
broad topic areas key to an overall prosperity strategy, given Columbus’ demographics and trends, and
also on issues that have been identified as critical by
the steering committee. These include:
▶
▶
▶
▶
▶
▶
▶
▶
High School Drop Out Reduction
Marriage and Family
Teen Pregnancy
Workforce Development
Healthcare
Early Childhood Development
Affordable Housing
Transportation
The UGA faculty team focused on programs
and initiatives that had been independently evaluated for success and outcomes, and targeted those
studies that discussed lessons learned from such
programs. While more detailed information is
available for all programs discussed below, researchers targeted the features or elements of the
programs that either made them successful or
which made them fail, and how future programs
could be built or restructured to apply these observations.
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
High School Drop Outs:
REDUCTION INITIATIVES
After reviewing dozens of studies, reports and
articles highlighting promising practices, programs,
and policies attempting to increase the number
of students graduating from high school who are
ready for college, a federal evaluation of more than
100 dropout prevention programs showed that most
programs did not reduce dropout rates by statistically significant amounts.1
Given this context, a study funded by the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation noted the importance of understanding the perspectives of students
who are at risk of dropping out or who have already
dropped out of school. Figure 1 (p. 12) represents
the opinions of a sampling of students from that
study, and issues they believe might have influenced
their decision to stay in school.2
1 Dynarski, Mark (2004). Interpreting the Evidence
from Recent Federal Evaluations of Dropout–Prevention
Programs. In: The State of Scientific Research in Dropouts in America. Gary Orfield (editor). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard Education Press.
2 The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School
Other studies have noted the importance of
providing opportunities for real-world learning,
such as internships and service learning projects.
These same studies have observed that clarifying
the links between schools and getting a job may
convince more students to stay in school.3
Despite the conclusion that many dropout prevention programs were not effective (at least statistically), there are some programs that demonstrated
improved outcomes. Researchers have attempted
to identify the essential components of high school
reforms that relate to keeping more students in
school so those components can be replicated in
other communities. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) prepared recommendations on dropout
Dropouts. A report by Civic Enterprises in association
with Peter D. Hart Research Associates for the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation. By: John M. Bridgeland
John J. DiIulio, Jr., Karen Burke Morison. March 2006.
3 Barton, Paul E. (2005). One Third of a Nation: Rising
Dropout Rates and Declining Opportunities. Princeton,
NJ: Educational Testing Service, 3.
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
11
High School Drop Outs
FIGURE 1. What dropouts believe would improve students’ chances of staying in school.
Opportunities for real-world learning
to make classroom more relevant
(e.g. internships, service-learing)
81%
Better teachers who
keep classes interesting
81%
Smaller classes with
more individual instruction
75%
Better communication between parents
and school; get parents more involved
71%
Parents who make sure their
kids go to school every day
71%
Increase supervision at school;
ensure students attend classes
70%
0
20
40
prevention that were derived from collecting and
examining a number of programs and studies that
have evaluated the impacts of dropout prevention
programs.4 The organization also suggested several
strategies for implementation under each recommendation, all of which are quoted directly from
the study:
▶
Recommendation 1: Use data systems that support
a realistic diagnosis of the number of students who
drop out and that help identify individual students
at high risk of dropping out.
▶
▶
▶
▶
▶
Use longitudinal, student-level data to get an
accurate read of graduation and dropout rates.
Use data to identify incoming students with
histories of academic problems, truancy,
behavioral problems, and retentions.
Monitor the academic and social performance
of all students continually.
Review student-level data to identify students
at risk of dropping out before key academic
transitions.
▶
12
100
Monitor students’ sense of engagement and
belonging in school.
Collect and document accurate information on
student withdrawals.
Choose adults who are committed to investing
in the student’s personal and academic success,
keep caseloads low, and purposefully match
students with adult advocates.
Establish a regular time in the school day or
week for students to meet with the adult.
Communicate with adult advocates about the
various obstacles students may encounter and
provide adult advocates with guidance and
training about how to work with students, parents, or school staff to address the problems.
Recommendation 3: Provide academic support and
enrichment to improve academic performance.
▶
4 IES Practice Guide, Dropout Prevention, September
2008.
80
Recommendation 2: Assign adult advocates to
students at risk of dropping out.
▶
▶
60
Provide individual or small group support in
test-taking skills, study skills, or targeted sub-
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
TABLE 2. Intensity of dropout prevention components by intervention type. WWC-rated interventions showing
positive or potentially positive effects. (Dark shade = key characteristic; pale shade = other characteristic)
WWC-RATED INTERVENTIONS
1. DATA
2. ADULT
3. ACADEMIC 4. CLASSROOM 5. PERSONAL- 6. HELP
ANALYSIS
ADVOCATE
SUPPORT
BEHAVIOR AND
IZED LEARNING
STUDENTS
SOCIAL SKILLS
ENVIRONMENT
DISCOVER
Achievement for Latinos with
Academic Success (ALAS)
Career Academies
Check and Connect
High School Redirection
Talent Development
Talent Search
Twelve Together
▶
ject areas such as reading, writing, or math.
Provide extra study time and opportunities for
credit recovery and accumulation through after
school, Saturday school, or summer enrichment
programs.
Recommendation 6: Provide rigorous and relevant
instruction to better engage students in learning
and provide the skills needed to graduate and to
serve them after they leave school.
▶
Recommendation 4: Implement programs to improve students’ classroom behavior and social skills.
▶
▶
▶
▶
Use adult advocates or other engaged adults to
help students establish attainable academic and
behavioral goals with specific benchmarks.
Recognize student accomplishments.
Teach strategies to strengthen problem solving
and decision-making skills.
Establish partnerships with community-based
program providers and other agencies such as
social services, welfare, mental health, and law
enforcement.
Recommendation 5: Personalize the learning environment and instructional process.
▶
▶
▶
▶
Establish small learning communities.
Establish team teaching. Create smaller classes.
Create extended time in classroom through
changes to the school schedule.
Encourage student participation in extracurricular activities.
▶
▶
▶
▶
Provide teachers with ongoing ways to expand
their knowledge and improve their skills.
Integrate academic content with career and
skill-based themes through career academies or
multiple pathways models.
Host career days and offer opportunities for
work-related experiences and visits to postsecondary campuses.
Provide students with extra assistance and information about the demands of college.
Partner with local businesses to provide opportunities for work-related experience such as
internships, simulated job interviews, or longterm employment.
Table 2 shows the intensity of components of interventions related to each one of the recommendations suggested above. Darker shades correspond to
key characteristics while pale shades correspond to
other characteristics that are not key. WWC is the
“What Works Clearinghouse.” Three of the programs in Table 2 are explained below.
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
13
High School Drop Outs
PURPOSE
FIGURE 2. Graduation rates in Muscogee and contiguous counties.
High School Drop Outs
Harris
Talbot
Lee
2004-2005
Graduation Rate
70 - 80%
60 - 70%
less than 50%
Muscogee
Russell
Chattahoochee
Examples of Interventions
ACHIEVEMENT FOR LATINOS THROUGH ACADEMIC SUCCESS (ALAS) 5
ALAS, an acronym for “Achievement for Latinos through Academic Success” meaning “wings”
in Spanish, is a middle school (or junior high
school) intervention designed to address student,
school, family, and community factors that affect
dropping out. Each student is assigned a counselor
who monitors attendance, behavior, and academic
achievement. The counselor provides feedback
and coordinates students, families, and teachers.
Counselors also serve as advocates for students and
intervene when problems are identified. Students
learn problem-solving skills, and parents are
trained in parent-child problem solving, how to
Marion
participate in school activities, and how to contact
teachers and school administrators to address issues.
Research
One study of ALAS met the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards. This study
included 94 high-risk Latino students entering seventh grade in one urban junior high school in California . The study examined the program’s effects on
whether students stayed in school and progressed
in school. These outcomes were measured at the
end of the intervention (ninth grade) and two years
after the intervention had ended (11th grade).
Effectiveness
ALAS was found to have potentially positive
effects on staying in school and potentially positive
effects on progressing in school at the end of the
intervention (ninth grade).
TABLE 3. ALAS Effectiveness
EFFECTIVENESS RATING
IMPROVEMENT INDEX
STAYING IN SCHOOL
Potentially positive effects
+ 42 percentile points
PROGRESSING IN SCHOOL
Potentially positive effects
+ 19 percentile points
5 Intervention: ALAS (Achievement for Latinos
through Academic Success) .October 5, 2006. U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences.
What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). http://ies.ed.gov/
ncee/wwc/reports/dropout/alas
14
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
COMPLETING SCHOOL
Not reported
Not reported
CAREER ACADEMIES
Career Academies are school-within-school
programs operating in high schools. They offer career-related curricula based on a career theme, academic coursework, and work experience through
partnerships with local employers.6
Research
One study of Career Academies met What
Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards.
This randomized controlled trial included 474
youth who were predicted to be most at-risk of
dropping out of high school prior to the intervention. The Academies were located in eight urban
areas in six states.
Effectiveness
Career Academies were found to have potentially positive effects on staying in school, potentially positive effects on progressing in school, and no
discernible effects on completing school for those
youth most at-risk of dropping out prior to the
intervention. The Career Academies served a more
heterogeneous population, and the results for the
high-risk youth may not be independent of their
participation in the intervention with youth less at
risk of dropping out.
PROGRESSING IN SCHOOL
Potentially positive effects
Average: + 13 percentile
points
Range: + 11 to + 15 percentile points
COMPLETING SCHOOL
No discernible effects
Average: -0.1 percentile
points
“Check” and “Connect.” The Check component is
designed to continually assess student engagement
through close monitoring of student performance
and progress indicators. The Connect component
involves program staff giving individualized attention to students, in partnership with school personnel, family members, and community service
providers. Students enrolled in Check & Connect
are assigned a “monitor” who regularly reviews
their performance (in particular, whether students
are having attendance, behavior, or academic problems) and intervenes when problems are identified.
The monitor also advocates for students, coordinates services, provides ongoing feedback and
encouragement, and emphasizes the importance of
staying in school.7
Research
One study of Check & Connect met the What
Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence standards,
and a second study met WWC standards with
reservations. The two studies included a total of
more than 200 students attending Minneapolis
high schools. In both studies the students entered
the program at the beginning of the ninth grade.
The studies examined the program’s effects in three
dropout prevention domains considered by the
WWC: staying in school, progressing in school, and
completing school.
CHECK & CONNECT
Check & Connect is a dropout prevention strategy that relies on close monitoring of school performance, mentoring, case management, and other
supports. The program has two main components:
6 Intervention: Career Academies. October 5, 2006
U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education
Sciences. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). http://
ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/dropout/career_academic
Effectiveness
Check & Connect was found to have positive
effects on staying in school and potentially positive
effects on progressing in school. It was found
7 Intervention: Check & Connect. September 21, 2006
. U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education
Sciences. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). http://
ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/dropout/check_conn
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
15
High School Drop Outs
TABLE 4. Career Academies Effectiveness
STAYING IN SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS RATING
Potentially positive effects
Average: + 13 percentile
IMPROVEMENT INDEX
points
to have no discernible effects on completing school
within four years of entering the program.
High School Drop Outs
ACCELERATED MIDDLE SCHOOL8
Accelerated middle schools are self-contained
academic programs designed to help middle school
students who are behind grade level catch up with
their age peers. If these students begin high school
with other students their age, the hope is that they
will be more likely to stay in school and graduate. The programs serve students who are one to
two years behind grade level and give them the
opportunity to cover an additional year of curriculum during their one to two years in the program.
Accelerated middle schools can be structured as
separate schools or as schools within a traditional
middle school.
Research
One study of accelerated middle schools met
the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) evidence
standards, and two studies met them with reservations. The three randomized controlled trials
included more than 800 students in school districts
in Georgia, Michigan, and New Jersey. Based on the
three, the WWC considers the extent of evidence
for accelerated middle schools to be medium to
large for the staying in school and progressing in
school domains. The studies did not examine relevant outcomes in the completing school domain.
Effectiveness
Accelerated middle schools were found to have
potentially positive effects on staying in school and
positive effects on progressing in school.
8 Intervention: Accelerated Middle Schools. July 2008.
U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education
Sciences. What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). http://
ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/reports/dropout/ams
TABLE 5. Check and Connect Effectiveness
STAYING IN SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS RATING
Positive effects
Average: + 25 percentile
IMPROVEMENT INDEX
points
Range: + 18 to +31 percentile points
TABLE 6. Accelerated Middle School Effectiveness
STAYING IN SCHOOL
EFFECTIVENESS RATING
Potentially positive effects
Average: + 18 percentile
IMPROVEMENT INDEX
points
Range: - 5 to + 33 percentile
points
16
PROGRESSING IN SCHOOL
Potentially positive effects
Average: + 30 percentile
points
COMPLETING SCHOOL
No discernible effects
Average: + 1 percentile
points
PROGRESSING IN SCHOOL
COMPLETING SCHOOL
Positive effects
Not applicable
Average: + 35 percentile
Not applicable
points
Range: + 15 to + 44 percentile points
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
Marriage and Family:
SUPPORT PROGRAMS & INITIATIVES
Social science researchers have examined the
importance of marriage and family as related to
poverty indicators. Marriage has been found to be
an important public good, associated with a range
of economic, health, educational, and safety benefits that help local, state, and federal governments
serve the common good.1
Researchers have found many benefits for children and youth who are raised by parents in healthy
marriages (compared to unhealthy marriages),
including children who are more likely to attend
college, be physically and emotionally healthier,
less likely to attempt or commit suicide, less likely
to be a victim of physical or sexual abuse, less likely
to abuse drugs or alcohol, and demonstrate fewer
behavioral problems in school.2
1 Healthy marriage initiative (HMI). U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. Administration for children and families. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/benefits/index.html
2 Healthy marriage initiative (HMI). U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. Administration for children and families. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/benefits/index.html
Children with parents in a healthy marriage
also have a better relationship with their mothers
and fathers, a decreased chance of divorce when
they get married, and are less likely to be sexually
active as teenagers (so they are also less likely to become pregnant as a teenager, impregnate someone,
or to contract STDs). Most critically for this report,
children with parents in a healthy marriage are less
likely to be raised in poverty.3
In addition to lower rates of child poverty, researchers have found many benefits for communities when they have a higher percentage of couples
in healthy marriages, compared to unhealthy
marriages. This includes: (1) higher rates of physically healthy citizens, (2) higher rates of emotionally healthy citizens, (3) higher rates of educated
citizens, (4) lower domestic violence rates, (5) lower
crime rates, (6) lower teen pregnancy rates, (7)
lower rates of juvenile delinquency, (8) higher rates
3 Healthy marriage initiative (HMI). U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services. Administration for children and families. http://www.acf.hhs.gov/healthymarriage/benefits/index.html
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
17
Marriage & Family
of home ownership, (9) lower rates of migration,
(10) higher property values, and (11) a decreased
need for social services.
Several themes have emerged in recent years as
social scientists have focused on marriage as a possible tool in reducing factors that influence poverty:
1. Even though marriage has lost ground in the
minority communities in recent years, marriage
has not lost its value in these communities.
2. An emerging line of research indicates that
marriage benefits poor Americans and Americans from disadvantaged backgrounds, even
though these Americans are now less likely to
get and stay married.
3. Marriage seems to be particularly important for
men, turning their attention away from dangerous, antisocial, or self-centered activities and
towards the needs of a family.
4. Beyond its well-known contributions to adult
health, marriage influences the biological functioning of adults and children in ways that can
have important social consequences.
5. The relationship quality of intimate partners
is related to both their marital status and, for
married adults, the degree to which these partners are committed to marriage.4
These themes translate into real numbers when
applied to children, men and women individually.
With respect to children:
▶ Parental divorce reduces the likelihood that
children will graduate from college and achieve
high-status jobs.
▶ Children who live with their own two married
parents enjoy better physical health, on average,
than children in other family forms. The health
advantages of married homes remain even after
taking into account socioeconomic status.
▶ Parental divorce approximately doubles the
odds that adult children will end up divorced.
▶
▶
With respect to men:
Married men earn between 10 and 40 percent
more than single men with similar education
and job histories.
Married people, especially married men, have
4 Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-Six
Conclusions from the Social Sciences, September 2005.
18
▶
▶
▶
▶
longer life expectancies than otherwise similar
singles.
Marriage increases the likelihood fathers will
have good relationships with children. Sixtyfive percent of young adults whose parents divorced had poor relationships with their fathers
(compared to 29 percent from non-divorced
families).
With respect to women:
Divorce and unmarried childbearing significantly increases poverty rates of both mothers
and children. Between one-fifth and one-third
of divorcing women end up in poverty as a
result of divorce.
Married mothers have lower rates of depression
than single or cohabiting mothers.
Married women appear to have a lower risk of
domestic violence than cohabiting or dating
women. Even after controlling for race, age, and
education, people who live together are still
three times more likely to report violent arguments than those who are married.
Crime statistics are affected by marriage rates,
as well. Marriage appears to reduce the risk that
children and adults will be either perpetrators or
victims of crime. Single and divorced women are
four to five times more likely to be victims of violent crime in any given year than married women.
Boys raised in single-parent homes are about twice
as likely (and boys raised in stepfamilies three times
as likely) to have committed a crime that leads to
incarceration by the time they reach their early
thirties, even after controlling for factors such as
race, mother’s education, neighborhood quality and
cognitive ability.5
Strengthening marriages and relationships in
low-income families has emerged as a national
policy strategy to enhance child well-being. Building Strong Families (BSF) is an initiative to develop
and evaluate programs designed to help interested
unwed parents achieve their aspirations for healthy
marriage and a stable family life.6 The Building
Strong Families project is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Admin5 Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-Six
Conclusions from the Social Sciences, September 2005.
6 http://www.buildingstrongfamilies.info.index.htm
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
istration for Children and Families. Studies conducted under this initiative demonstrate that four
critical components must be present in the design
of successful Building Strong Families programs7:
1. Skills Associated with Healthy Marriage.
Instruction in the relationship skills found to
be essential to a healthy marriage; information
to enhance couples’ understanding of marriage;
and emotional support and guidance. This is
the core, distinctive component of Building
Strong Families programs.
2. Family Support Services. Services to address
special issues that may be common among
low-income parents and that are known to
affect couple relationships and marriage. These
services might, for example, help to improve
parenting skills or provide linkages to address
problems with employment, physical and
mental health, or substance abuse, and thus
make individuals more “marriageable.”
3. Family Coordinators. Staff who can assess
couples’ circumstances and needs, make
referrals to other services when appropriate,
reinforce marriage skills over time, provide
7 Building Strong Families: Guidelines for developing
programs. August 24, 2004.
ASSESSMENT AND REFERRAL TO FAMILY SUPPORT SERVICES
Education
Marriage & Family
TABLE 7. The Building Strong Families program model.
INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL SUPPORT FROM FAMILY
CORE COMPONENT GROUP SESSIONS IN MARCOORDINATORS
RIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP SKILLS
Encouragement for program participa- Communication
tion
Reinforcement of marriage and relaConflict management
tionship skills
Ongoing emotional support
Affection, intimacy, trust, commitment
Assessment and referral to support
Considering marriage
services
The transition to parenthood
Parent-infant relationships
Children by prior partners
Stress and postpartum depression
Family finances
Employment
Parenting
Physical and mental health
Childcare
Legal issues
Substance abuse
Domestic violence assistance
ongoing emotional support, and promote
sustained participation in program activities.
4. Reducing Marriage Disincentives. Current
policies can in some cases make couples worse
off financially if they marry. Building Strong
Families programs may include approaches to
enhance the effectiveness of the program by
reducing such financial barriers.
The three main components of the Building
Strong Families program model include weekly
group instruction in marriage and relationship
skills, individual-level program support from “family coordinators,” and referrals to additional family
services as needed (summarized in Table 7). Building Strong Families programs are not necessarily
new programs. Several implementation strategies
using Building Strong Families components could
help strengthen existing programs. One strategy
is to begin with existing programs that serve the
target population of unmarried expectant or new
parents. Existing programs that serve single mothers, non-custodial fathers, unwed couples, or intact
low-income families might focus current services
on what is defined in the Building Strong Families model as “marriage-ability” issues, but not on
strengthening how the mother and father relate to
each other or chart the future of their relationship.
To develop a Building Strong Families program
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
19
Marriage & Family
FIGURE 3. The Building Better Families conceptual framework.
Intervention
Services
received
Instruction in
marriage and
relationship skills
Marriage and
relationship
education groups
Marital/relationship status
Parenting/father involvement
Parents’ relationship quality
Family structure
Support services
Individual support
from family
coordinators
Co-parenting
Family self-sufficiency
Social and emotional
development
Relationship with New Partner
Parent well being
Language development
Family
coordinators
Child
Family
Couple relationship
Economic resources available to child
Assessment and
referral to support
services
Contextual Factors / Background Characteristics
Socio-demographic
chacteristics
Quality of couple
relationship at baseline
from this institutional foundation, it would be
necessary to add the marriage/relationship skills
education and family coordinators.
A second strategy would be to create an initiative that provides the core marriage/relationship
skills instruction and family coordinators. The core
program staff would link participants to existing
service providers for family support services on
issues such as employment, mental health, and
substance abuse.
Figure 3 illustrates the conceptual framework
that guided design of the intervention and the
evaluation outcomes to be assessed. It highlights the
important linkages among the background characteristics of couples, services offered by Building
Strong Families and couples’ participation in them,
and the expected program outcomes — marital
status and quality of couple relationships, family
outcomes, and child well-being.8
The Health Policy Center at Georgia State
University (GSU) and the Latin American Association serve Building Strong Families couples in
Atlanta. The GSU Health Policy Center is the lead
agency for the site and is responsible for managing the program and conducting all outreach to
potential participants, as well as providing services
8 Implementation of the Building Strong Families
program. January 7, 2008
20
Stressors and supports
Child characteristics
for English-speaking couples. The Latin American
Association, a nonprofit community organization, delivers Building Strong Families services to
Spanish-speaking couples, including a fatherhood
program. Prenatal couples are primarily recruited
from Grady Memorial Hospital, the largest hospital
in Georgia and public hospital for Atlanta. The site
began its pilot in July 2005 and began enrolling its
evaluation sample in December 2005. This Atlanta
site created a Building Strong Families by adding
new capacities to existing entities.
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., has been
engaged to evaluate the impact of Building Strong
Families programs in seven sites: Georgia, Florida,
Indiana, Texas, Louisiana (Baton Rouge), Maryland
(Baltimore) and Oklahoma.9 The 15-month survey
ends in June 2009 and results of the study should be
available in spring 2010. A second 36-month study
just began and the impact study is due in late 2011.
The impact analysis will address couple, family and
child well-being outcomes.10
9 Mathematica Policy Research, Inc . Building Strong
Families: Guidelines for developing programs.
10 Implementing a large-scale test of marriage and
relationship skills education: Building Strong Families.
National Council on Family Relations Annual Conference, November 5, 2008.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
Teen Pregnancy: PREVENTION INITIATIVES
The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the industrialized world. The Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) reports that, on average, one-third of girls get pregnant before the age
of 20. Teenage mothers are more likely to drop out
of high school, be and remain single parents, and
score lower in math and reading into adolescence.
Research shows that the vast majority of teen
births are unintended1 and that teen mothers are
more likely than other young women their age
to drop out of school, live in poverty and rely on
public assistance.2 Their children tend to grow up
in economically and educationally disadvantaged
households.3 Because of the wide range of impacts
1 Finer, L. B., & Henshaw, S. K. (2006). Disparities
in rates of unintended pregnancy in the United States,
1994 and 2001. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive
Health, 38(2), 90-96.
2 Klepinger, D. H., Lundberg, S., & Plotnick, R. D.
(1999). How does adolescent fertility affect the human
capital and wages of young women? Journal of Human
Resources, 34(3), 421-448.
3 Maynard, R. A., Editor. (1997). Kids having kids:
resulting from teen pregnancy, more studies have
been done on this poverty indicator than almost
any other.
In 2002, the CDC Division of Reproductive
Health funded a national project to promote science-based approaches in teen pregnancy, HIV
and sexually transmitted disease (STD) prevention.
The goal of this national project was to decrease
teen pregnancy, STD and HIV rates by increasing
the use of research-proven, science-based practices
and programs. Based on studies of this initiative,
programs that were found to be most effective fall
into three broad categories4:
1. Curriculum-based sex education that discusses abstinence AND contraceptive use.
These programs are generally offered as part of
regular school classes or as part of after-school
Economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
4 What Works: Curriculum-Based Programs that Prevent Teen Pregnancy • A Project of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
21
Teen Pregnancy
programs either on school grounds or in community centers.
2. Youth development programs where the
primary focus is keeping young people constructively engaged in their communities and
schools. Participants in such programs typically take part in community service (such as
tutoring, working in nursing homes, or helping
fix recreation areas) and reflect on their service
through group discussions or writing about
their experiences. Often, education about ways
to prevent teen in the curriculum.
3. Programs with a broad approach that combine healthcare, academic assistance, sex
education, participation in performing arts
and individual sports, and employment assistance. All these activities encourage participants to think and plan for their future.
Given these three broad-based program assumptions, researchers found 17 characteristics of
effective, science-based pregnancy and HIV prevention programs.5 These were reported and organized
around curricula for the programs:
DEVELOPING THE CURRICULUM
1. The best programs involved a curriculum
developed by multiple people with different
backgrounds in theory, research, and sex and
STD/HIV education.
2. The best programs assessed relevant needs and
assets of the target group.
3. The best programs used a ‘logic model’
approach that specified the health goals, the
behaviors affecting those health goals, the risk
and protective factors affecting those behaviors,
and the activities addressing those risk and
protective factors.
4. The best programs designed activities consistent with community values and available resources (e.g., staff time, staff skills, facility space
and supplies).
5. The best programs were pilot-tested on a small
group of people.
5 Tool to Assess Characteristics • Healthy Teen Network & ETR Associates • February 2007
22
THE CONTENTS OF THE CURRICULUM — GOALS
AND OBJECTIVES
6. The most successful programs focused on clear
health goals — the prevention of STDs, HIV
and/or pregnancy.
7. The most successful programs focused narrowly on specific behaviors leading to these
health goals (e.g., abstaining from sex or using
condoms or other contraceptives), gave clear
messages about these behaviors, and addressed
situations that might lead to them and how to
avoid them.
8. The most successful programs addressed
multiple sexual psychosocial risk and protective factors affecting sexual behaviors (e.g.,
knowledge, perceived risks, values, attitudes,
perceived norms and self-efficacy).
THE CONTENTS OF THE CURRICULUM — ACTIVITIES AND TEACHING METHODOLOGIES
9. The best programs created a safe social pregnancy and related problems is included environment for youth to participate.
10. The best programs included multiple activities
to change each of the targeted risk and protective factors.
11. The best programs employed instructionally
sound teaching methods that actively involved
the participants, that helped participants personalize the information, and that were designed to change each group of risk and protective factors.
12. The best programs employed activities, instructional methods and behavioral messages that
were appropriate to the youths’ culture, developmental age and sexual experience.
13. The best programs covered topics in a logical
sequence.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CURRICULUM
14. The most successful programs secured at least
minimal support from appropriate authorities
such as ministries of health, school districts or
community organizations.
15. The most successful programs selected educators with desired characteristics (whenever pos-
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
TABLE 8. Programs with strong evidence of positive impact on sexual behavior, pregnancy or STD rates.
Both
Girls only
Boys only
Senior high or age 15 and over
Junior high or under age 15
Mixed
Grade / Age Gender
Hispanic
African American
Non-Hispanic white
Race / Ethnicity
Community settings, clinics or
afterschool
Schools
Both
STD/HIV
Pregnancy
Setting
CURRICULUM-BASED SEX AND STD/HIV EDUCATION PROGRAMS
Becoming a Responsible Teen: HIV Risk
Reduction Program for Adolescents
X
Cuidate: Latino Youth Health Promotion
Program
X
X
X
X
Draw the Line, Respect the Line (effective for boys only)
X
X
X
X
X
Making Proud Choices: A Safer Sex Approach to HIV/STD and Teen Pregnancy
Prevention
X
X
Reducing the Risk: Building Skills to
Prevent Pregnancy, HIV and STD
X
X
X
X
Safer Choices: Preventing HIV, STD and
Pregnancy
X
X
X
SiHLE: Sistas Informing, Healing, Living,
Empowering (effective for girls only)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
MOTHER-ADOLESCENT PROGRAMS
Keepin’ It R.E.A.L.
X
X
CLINIC PROTOCOLS AND ONE-ON-ONE PROGRAMS
Advance provision of emergency contraception (effective for girls only)
X
Reproductive Health Counseling for Young
Men
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
COMMUNITY PROGRAMS WITH MULTIPLE COMPONENTS
HIV Prevention for Adolescents in LowIncome Housing Developments
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
SERVICE LEARNING
Reach for Health Community Youth Service
Learning
X
X
Teen Outreach Program (effective for
girls only)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
MULTI-COMPONENT PROGRAMS WITH INTENSIVE SEXUALITY AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT COMPONENTS
X
Aban Aya (effective for boys only)
Children’s Aid Society Camera Program
(effective for girls only)
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
X
23
Teen Pregnancy
Type of Program
Impact on behavior replicated in
subsequent studies
Primary Focus
Teen Pregnancy
sible), trained them, and provided monitoring,
supervision and support.
16. The most successful programs implemented
activities to recruit and retain youth and overcome barriers to their involvement (e.g., publicized the program, offered food or obtained
consent).
17. The most successful programs implemented
virtually all activities with reasonable fidelity.
Other common characteristics of successful
curriculum-based programs include (1) convincing
teens that not having sex or that using contraception consistently and carefully is the right thing to
do, as opposed to simply laying out the pros and
cons of different sexual choices. A clear message
and clearly communicated values are critical; (2)
addressing peer pressure and communication skills;
(3) last a sufficient length of time (i.e. more than
a few weeks); (4) select leaders who believe in the
program and provide them with adequate training; (5) actively engage participants and have them
personalize the information; and (6) reflect the age,
sexual experience, and culture of young people in
the program.6
With funding from the CDC, the National
Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy has joined
with Child Trends to assess the effect of after-school
programs on adolescent sexual activity, contraceptive use, and pregnancy and childbearing. For the
purposes of their report, the term “after-school programs” encompasses programs that either occurred
after-school, occurred on weekends but could be
altered to fit an after-school format, and/or had
both after-school and school-day components.
The need for additional after-school programs
was one that was highlighted by several counties
in the Community Assets and Critical Issues Assessment.7 Taylor County, in particular, named it as one
of its top challenges. Not coincidentally, observations about the lack of after-school programming
6 What Works: Curriculum-Based Programs that Prevent Teen Pregnancy • A Project of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
7 Community Assets and Critical Issues Assessment,
pp159-160 (Tobin, Epps and Bivins 2005) at http://www.
fanning.uga.edu/download/cacia/report-10taylor.pdf
24
and the need for greater supervision arose in the
context of discussions around teen pregnancy:
“Start a Boys and Girls Club … we have 9to10-year-olds walking home after football
games … walking for miles and then there are
no parents there when they get home.”8
The CDC’s report, A Good Time, provides
detailed descriptions of after-school programs
that have been carefully evaluated and met several
scientific criteria.9 The programs are categorized by
Curriculum Based Sex Education, Youth Development and Service Learning Programs.
Curriculum Based Sex Education Programs:
▶ Becoming a Responsible Teen
▶ Focus on Kids
▶ Be Proud! Be Responsible!
▶ Making a Difference! An Abstinence-Based
Approach to HIV/STD and Teen Pregnancy
Prevention
▶ Making Proud Choices! A Safer Sex Approach
to HIV/STD and Teen Pregnancy Prevention
Youth Development Programs:
▶ Children’s Aid Society (CAS) Carrera Program
▶ Quantum Opportunities Program
▶ Washington State Client-Centered Pregnancy
Prevention Programs
Service-Learning Programs
▶ Teen Outreach Program
▶ Learn and Serve America
8 Community Assets and Critical Issues Assessment, p.
160 (Tobin, Epps and Bivins 2005) at http://www.fanning.uga.edu/download/cacia/report-10taylor.pdf
9 http://www.thenationalcampaign.org/resources/pdf/
pubs/AGoodTime.pdf
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
Workforce Development:
A SECTORAL APPROACH
The not-for-profit organization Public Private
Ventures (PPV) offers several reports and initiatives that may be useful in Columbus-Muscogee
County. PPV’s purpose is to look for the best existing programs (or create new programs) that combat
elements of poverty, research and evaluate those
programs, and make changes to strengthen the programs.1 In November 2008, PPV released the final
report from its Sectoral Employment Initiative, Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving
Opportunities.2 The report distinguishes traditional
workforce development initiatives from those that
also involve a sector strategy, arguing that the latter
are more successful in achieving desired outcomes.
According to the report:
▶
“A sector strategy to workforce development:
Targets a specific industry or cluster of occupations, developing a deep understanding of the
interrelationships between business competitiveness and the workforce needs of the targeted industry;
1 www.ppv.org
2 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff, 2008).
▶
▶
▶
▶
Intervenes through a credible organization or
set of organizations, crafting workforce solutions tailored to that industry and its region;
Supports workers in improving their range of
employment-related skills, improving their
ability to compete for work opportunities of
higher quality;
Meets the needs of employers, improving their
ability to compete within the marketplace;
Creates lasting change in the labor market system to the benefit of both workers and employers.”3
Many existing workforce development programs fail to focus on the needs of local industries
themselves, instead trying to make broad training
programs fit a variety of sectors. The programs also
fail to focus on internal processes or policies within
the industry that have the unintended consequences of keeping low-wage workers in dead-end jobs.
3 Sectoral Strategies for Low-Income Workers: Lessons
from the Field (Conway, Blair, Dawson and Dworak-Munoz 2007).
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
25
Workforce Development
As the November 2008 PPV report notes:
SKILLS TRAINING ORGANIZATIONS
“A sectoral approach is different: It focuses on
both developing worker’s skills to meet the
needs of the sector’s employers and addressing
its entrenched practices in hiring, promoting
and training workers.”4
Action to Rehabilitate Community Housing (ARCH), a community-based organization
founded in 1986, serves the residents of southeast
Washington, D.C., by helping to locate affordable
housing, quality education and effective health and
social services. ARCH participated in the SEI by
offering advanced skills training and placing people
of color in the paralegal profession. As its goal for
systemic change, the organization hoped to alter the
traditional hiring practices of the local legal profession, which relied exclusively on college graduates
to fill paralegal positions.
In cooperation with the Charles Stewart Mott
Foundation’s Sectoral Employment Initiative, PPV
selected nine programs in 1998 and began studying whether (1) low income participants in sectoral
programs experience positive changes, and (2) any
of the nine participating organizations were able to
foster systemic change in the working conditions
within sectors that traditionally pay low wages and
offer unfavorable working conditions. The nine
programs studied were:
1. Action to Rehabilitate Community Housing
(ARCH), Washington, D.C.
2. Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE),
Providence, R.I.
3. New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, Manchester, N.H.
4. Philadelphia Area Accelerated Manufacturing
Education, Inc., Philadelphia, Pa.
5. Primavera, Tucson, Ariz.
6. Project QUEST, San Antonio, Texas
7. Southern Good Faith Fund, Pine Bluff, Ark.
8. Training, Inc., Newark, N.J.
9. WIRE-Net, Cleveland, Ohio
Six of the programs focused on skills training
for participants, two organizations operated social
enterprises, and one created a membership organization for workers. However, all nine programs
used different strategies to try to influence sector
behavior on behalf of the workers. A description of
each of the organizations follows, as described by
PPV in its report5:
4 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities, Executive Summary (Roder, Clymer
and Wyckoff, 2008).
5 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities, pp. 7-9 (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff,
2008).
26
Philadelphia Area Accelerated Manufacturing
Education, Inc. (PhAME) emerged in 1995 as a
response to the need for technically trained precision-manufacturing workers in the Greater Philadelphia region. By producing a pool of well-trained
workers, the organization aimed to preserve and
strengthen the region’s fading manufacturing base.
Targeted Industry: Manufacturing.
Project QUEST, founded in 1993, helps residents
of San Antonio, Texas, access skills training for
healthcare occupations such as registered nurses
and surgical technicians. In addition to providing advanced training, QUEST hoped to shorten
class time and enable workers to advance faster in
their careers by establishing core competencies for
healthcare workers in all local hospital systems. Targeted Industry: Healthcare.
Southern Good Faith Fund, located in Pine Bluff,
Ark., works to increase the incomes and assets of
low-income and low-skilled individuals through
skills training. In addition to offering entrylevel skills training for certified nursing assistants
(CNAs), the organization sought to increase the
value of CNAs to local employers by heightening
certification standards. In county and state welfare
reform discussions, Southern Good Faith Fund
advocated for policies that would make it easier
for welfare recipients to continue to receive public
assistance while being trained. Targeted Industry:
Healthcare.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
WIRE-Net, founded to serve the manufacturing
employers of Cleveland’s West Side, is a citywide organization with members from across northeastern
Ohio. The organization’s primary strategy involved
engaging local educational institutions and employers to build entry-level and advanced metalworking
training programs that met industry needs, recruiting the targeted population — those whose income
was at or below 50 percent of the median income in
the county — and offering the supportive services
participants needed to complete training and obtain
jobs. As for its systemic goals, WIRE-Net worked
to convince local training providers to incorporate
standardized skills into their training curricula
and urged employers to hire and promote workers based on these standards. Targeted Industry:
Manufacturing.
TWO SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AND ONE MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATION
Since 1983, the New Hampshire Community
Loan Fund in Manchester, N.H., has provided
technical assistance and low-interest loans to
projects that help low-income workers achieve a
livable wage. During the initiative, the organization formed Quality Care Partners, a staffing firm
designed to provide CNAs to healthcare providers
such as home-care agencies, nursing homes and
healthcare networks. Quality Care Partners provided training for its participants and employment
upon their graduation. By producing well-trained
healthcare workers and demonstrating that improved working conditions could result in greater
employee retention, the organization wanted to
compel other providers to improve working conditions. The organization also created the Direct Care
Workforce Initiative to advocate for the interests of
paraprofessional healthcare workers statewide.
An advocacy and social service agency, Primavera was founded in 1982 to improve the lives of
homeless and formerly homeless people in Tucson, Ariz. During the Initiative, Primavera created
Primavera Works, a day-labor hall that paid higher
wages than the for-profit agencies operating nearby.
Primavera also provided workers with free tools
and free transportation to get to jobs rather than
deducting the costs of these expenses from their
paychecks as was typical of the for-profit agencies.
In addition, the organization tried to help its workers obtain permanent employment. Through these
services, Primavera Works intended to provide better workers than other agencies and anticipated that
its competition would compel for-profit day-labor
halls to improve employment conditions.
Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE),
a community organization in Providence, R.I.,
has organized people around social, economic
and political justice issues since 1986. During the
Initiative, DARE formed the Day Care Justice Coop, a membership association for family child care
providers. The Co-op offered a variety of services
to its members, including training and professional
development, access to a toy-lending library, a technology access program and a mini-grant program.
The Day Care Justice Co-op also worked to shape
public opinion, and, as part of its advocacy efforts,
members sought leadership roles in policy forums
to represent the interests of child care providers
who serve low-income families.
While several of these programs were relatively
new, study conclusions showed that gains were
achieved in several areas when a sectoral approach
was added. Cumulatively, these programs showed a
series of measurable outcomes:
▶
▶
▶
Participants’ median household income two
years after training was $2,473 per month, almost twice median monthly household income
reported prior to program entry.
The percentage of participants living in households with incomes below the poverty line
decreased by nearly half, from 64 percent to 35
percent.
Among participants in the advanced skillstraining programs, the poverty rate decreased
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
27
Workforce Development
Training, Inc., is a national nonprofit with sites in
seven cities. Its Newark, N.J., site, located within
Essex County College’s Department of Continuing
Education, offered advanced hardware- and software-technology training that included preparation
for the A+ computer certification test. The organization also tried to increase the accessibility of college to its participants and others through academic
advising and combining basic skills remediation
with hands-on experience in computer science.
Targeted Industry: Information Technology.
Workforce Development
▶
from 58 percent to 24 percent, and fewer participants received public assistance two years
after training.
The percentage of participants receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
in the month before the survey decreased from
16 percent to 3 percent, and the percentage
receiving food stamps declined from 39 percent
to 22 percent. The majority of those receiving food stamps 24 months after training were
participants in the programs targeting entry
level jobs.6
The report sought to distinguish between the
initiatives and make determinations about which
elements of each program contributed to its success or its lack of success. The following are lessons learned from evaluating the six skills training
organizations:
1. Disadvantaged populations often cannot meet
the threshold requirements of programs that
require college and/or intensive training. “Strategies that include enrolling participants in college
or intensive training must be accompanied by
investments in adult basic education if they are
to have a greater reach.”7
2. Organizations engaging in a sector strategy
must have a good reputation regionally with
both potential employers and workers. Initiatives often must cast a wide net regionally to
obtain enough qualified potential workers for a
particular industry sector.
3. Programs need to use career assessments, testing, tours of workplaces, and discussions with
potential employers about the chosen field to
determine if candidates are a good match with
the sector.
4. “Participants in full-time, long-term training
must be able to financially support themselves
and their families throughout the duration of the
training program.”8 Student loans, family mem6 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities, p. 26 (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff,
2008).
7 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities, p. 54 (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff,
2008).
8 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improv28
bers who can help, and other resources must be
present if an intensive training program is to be
successful. In addition to financial support, it is
critical that the organization have the capacity
to assess the need for, and provide, other types
of support throughout the training.
5. “Programs should involve employers in program
design and implementation; doing so increases
employer confidence in the skills training that
participants receive and in the individuals
themselves.”9 However, the type of involvement
is also critical. The study found that most of the
‘industry work groups’ were ineffective and had
stopped meeting by the end of the study. The
exception to this was WIRE-Net, which started
the study as a regionally well-respected partner
with industry, worked around staff changes at
the companies and addressed concerns over
competitive information-sharing to engage
companies in a long-term strategy. WIRE-Net
“helped build a coalition of industry employers that worked together on issues regarding the
recruitment and advancement of workers and it
played an important role in helping that coalition
develop a plan to address workforce development
needs in the Cleveland area.”10 While it was too
early to say that the organization had effected
change systematically, the study noted that the
infrastructure was in place for change to occur,
and initiatives such as a Technology, Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing Academy at a
local high school were already occurring.
The study also noted that not every organization is well-equipped to provide this type of
program. Two of the organizations closed their
programs prior to the end of the three year study.
In the case of both ARCH’s paralegal training and
PhAME’s machinist training, several common factors help explain why those programs may not have
succeeded. First, both were operated outside the
ing Opportunities, p. 54 (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff,
2008).
9 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and Improving Opportunities, p. 54 (Roder, Clymer and Wyckoff,
2008).
10 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and
Improving Opportunities, p. 38 (Roder, Clymer and
Wyckoff, 2008).
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
1. The organization must find its niche in working with the targeted sector, and labor market
needs often direct and refine those niches.
2. Gaining credibility in the targeted sectors
is critical to creating the infrastructure for
systemic change. While several of the organizations were not able to accomplish their original
goals, through their efforts they were able to
gain credibility and lay the groundwork for accomplishing revised goals.
3. “Key to the legislative and policy successes of all
three organizations was their ability to frame
issues in ways that would garner support from a
wide range of constituencies.”11
The PPV report identified several factors and
associated actions that may enhance the pursuit of
systemic change by organizations concentrating on
specific sectors. The first of these was support from
within the organization’s leadership. WIRE-Net
was cited as an example, where its business-driven
board was frustrated that the educational system
was not producing the programs the sector needed
and the board saw value in attempting to change
the system. The second was that the strategies must
be aligned with goals designed to change systems.
WIRE-Net was again cited by the study in that it
chose to work with existing training providers (and
thus set up the infrastructure to change the system)
as opposed to other organizations that designed
and offered their own training, which did not affect
the overall system. “While potentially effective for
their own participants, these strategies did not align
with their goals for systematic change.”
11 Targeting Industries, Training Workers, and
Improving Opportunities, p. 55 (Roder, Clymer and
Wyckoff, 2008).
The third factor that helped lay the groundwork
for systemic change emphasized establishing positions of influence and leverage within the targeted
sectors. The report noted:
“WIRE-Net’s involvement with industry employers and trade associations helped leverage
its work to effect change at educational and
training institutions, since those institutions
were more likely to respond to the business
constituency than to a single community-based
organization.”
Fourth, it is critical for the organization implementing the program to establish credibility by
demonstrating knowledge of issues that affect
sector employer and taking action to address those
issues. Southern Good Faith Fund was successful in
training and placing low-income women as CNAs,
which gave it credibility in developing partnerships
with local community colleges. Other organizations
were not as successful in the roles they identified
for themselves, and the programs suffered as a
result.
Finally, hiring excellent staff who were focused
on making progress on systems change goals was
critical to the ultimate success of the program. The
study cited several of the programs in this respect:
“Both the New Hampshire Community Loan
Fund and Southern Good Faith Fund hired
policy advocates to focus on state policy issues.
WIRE-Net hired a director with experience in
its targeted industry and a strong aptitude for
developing relationships with employers.”
The study concluded that “strategies combining
employment and training services for individual
job seekers with efforts to influence the practices of
employers and educators or state policies have the
potential to be more far-reaching than traditional
workforce development programs.”
The data presented in Table 9 is from the Living
Wage Calculator referenced at the beginning of this
report and provides a typical hourly wage for sectors of businesses in Columbus-Muscogee County.12
The occupational areas listed in bold are those that,
12 Reproduced from http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.
edu
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
29
Workforce Development
higher education system, requiring a greater investment of resources by the organizations and negating the possibility of student loans for participants.
Additionally, both organizations had a reputation
for serving poor communities in relatively small
geographic areas, which hindered their ability to
recruit participants on a regional basis.
Similar factors were identified that helped make
(or would have helped make) the social services enterprise and membership organizations successful:
Workforce Development
for Columbus-Muscogee County on average, are
below a living wage. This data points to several areas where Columbus could chose to focus a sectorbased workforce development program.
Another report issued by PPV entitled Good
Stories Aren’t Enough: Becoming Outcomes-Driven
in Workforce Development13 followed and evaluated six workforce investment programs for their
success in moving toward becoming more outcome-based organizations. The report noted that
the organizations that not only met but exceeded
their goals had several program elements in common, even though they implemented the initiatives
in different ways. The organizations that have been
successful in this economy have used data to go
beyond simply providing measures and outcomes
to funders.
The report observes what each organization did
to become more aware of their goals and how daily
activities affected those goals.
The “five core strategies that begin to address
the challenge of becoming outcomes driven” are:
1. Focus on the data that matter to the organization. If employees are measuring things they
are curious about and want to understand, their
personal investment in the data will help them
link the data to their daily activities;
2. Nurture the ‘inquisitive mind.’ Encourage employees to ask questions about data, particularly
data that does not make sense to them given
their daily experiences;
3. Help staff experience the benefits of using data.
How can it make their jobs easier, more rewarding, etc.;
4. Build systems to enhance data quality. Make
sure technology is workable so the data is not
trapped but is easily ‘mined’; and
5. Invest continuously in technology.”
Organizations that shared information, data
and goals among various levels of employees and at
various stages were more successful. Data was seen
as not just something for a report at the end of the
year, but as something of value that can help the organization continually improve. Organizations also
had more measurable outcomes where they were
directly tied to individual performance evaluations.
This was particularly effective when it was phased
in over time and when the outcomes measured
were a joint decision between management/board
and employees.
13 Good Stories Aren’t Enough: Becoming OutcomesDriven in Workforce Development (Miles, Public Private
Ventures, 2006).
30
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
TYPICAL HOURLY WAGE
$38.15
$26.61
$26.09
$27.28
$26.74
$16.79
$31.49
$18.70
$19.23
$27.65
$16.79
$15.14
$ 7.94
$ 9.58
$ 9.39
$12.95
$13.04
$12.69
$14.75
$17.25
$14.06
$12.29
Workforce Development
TABLE 9. Hourly wage by occupation in Muscogee County.
OCCUPATIONAL AREA
Management
Business and Financial Operations
Computer and Mathematical
Architecture and Engineering
Life, Physical and Social Science
Community and Social Services
Legal
Education, Training and Library
Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports and Media
Healthcare Practitioner and Technical
Healthcare Support
Protective Service
Food Preparation and Serving Related
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance
Personal Care and Services
Sales and Related
Office and Administrative Support
Farming, Fishing and Forestry
Construction and Extraction
Installation, Maintenance and Repair
Production
Transportation and Material Moving
Note: These are the typical hourly rates for various professions in this location.
Wages that are below the living wage for one adult supporting one child are
marked in bold.
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
31
Healthcare:
INITIATIVES TO INCREASE ACCESS
The system of healthcare delivery is expected
to reach people in need of services at an acceptable
level of quality and cost both to the individual and
community. This coverage has fallen short, however, for a span of the U.S. population. The National
Center for Health Statistics has attributed this trend
to multiple factors: a shortage of medical providers and services; nonfinancial barriers related to
transportation or lack of a regular source of care;
and financial barriers.
It is of great importance to identify those people with unmet preventive, curative, and rehabilitative care needs. These people tend to seek more
costly care through emergency department visits or
care for preventable illnesses or injuries. Or worse,
the uninsured or underinsured, who do not have
a regular source of care, are foregoing initial and
continuing care at primary care facilities altogether.
Access to care has also become a question of
equity. Certain populations underuse appropriate
preventive services, with consequences not only
to individual health outcomes but also to community-wide disparities. Seizing upon an urgency to
address this health inequality, the Department of
32
Health and Human Services has dedicated its national Healthy People 2010 initiative to the pursuit
of eliminating health disparities and improving
quality of life. Among 28 focus areas for disease
prevention and health promotion, access to quality
care ranks as one of Healthy People 2010’s leading
health indicators.
The 2008 Health Disparities Report for Muscogee County, commissioned by the Georgia Department of Community Health through its Georgia
Health Equity Initiative, provides a snapshot of
health outcomes and other related indicators. For
status on coverage, the report estimated that 16.6
percent of the adult population and 14.3 percent of
the child population had no health insurance. The
report also cited a particularly wide racial disparity in the number of emergency department visits
for three health conditions: uncontrolled diabetes, uncontrolled hypertension, and uncontrolled
asthma. The widest disparities were found for pregnancy and birth outcomes among black and white
women with respect to the percentage of very low
birthweight babies (3 pounds 5 ounces or less), the
percentage of births with fewer than five prenatal
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
TABLE 10. Increasing access to immunization services
PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION EFFECT
CLINICALLY
SERVICE
STRATEGY
PREVENTABLE
BURDEN/COST
EFFECTIVENESS
Immunizations
for Children,
Adolescents, and
Adults
CPB = 5
CE = 5
Reduction of
out-of-pocket
expenses
15 % increase
in vaccination
coverage
Multicomponent
programming
12 % increase
in vaccination
coverage
Services in WIC
settings
4-34 % increase
in vaccination
coverage
$34-$84 per fully
vaccinated child
Home visits
10 % increase
in vaccination
coverage
$22 per vaccinated child; $130
per vaccination
School-based
services
58 % increase
in vaccination
coverage
(highest for
Hepatitis B)
INCREASE ACCESS TO IMMUNIZATION SERVICES
Recommendations for increased vaccine coverage apply to young children (measles, mumps, and
rubella), adolescents (hepatitis B), and adults aged
≥ 65 (annual influenza vaccinations). Five strategies in particular have shown evidence of effectiveness: 1) reducing of out-of-pocket expenses; 2)
expanding access in healthcare settings through
multicomponent interventions; 3) offering vaccinations in women, infant, and children (WIC)
settings; 4) making home visits; and 5) offering
school-based vaccination interventions. The strongest recommendations are to lower out-of pocket
costs and expand access across settings by reducing
the distance of the setting to the population, changing hours where vaccination services are provided,
offering vaccination services at additional clinical
settings, or reducing administrative barriers at clinics.
TABLE 11. Increasing cancer screening behaviors
PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION EFFECT
SERVICE
STRATEGY
Colorectal Cancer
Screening
Client reminders
11.5 % increase in proportion of
study participants screened through
fecal occult blood testing (FOBT)
CPB = 4
CE = 4
Small media
12.7 % increase in proportion of
study participants screened through
FOBT
Cervical Cancer
Screening
Client reminders
10.2 % increase in proportion of
study participants who completed
Pap tests
CPB = 4
CE = 3
One-on-one
education
8.1 % increase in proportion of
study participants who completed
Pap tests
Small media
4.5 % increase in proportion of
study participants who completed
Pap tests
Breast Cancer
Screening
One-on-one
education
9.3 % increase in proportion of
study participants who completed
mammography
CPB = 4
CE = 2
Client reminders
14 % increase in proportion of study
participants who completed mammography
Small media
7 % increase in proportion of study
participants who completed mammography
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
33
Healthcare
visits, and the percentage of mothers who smoked
during pregnancy.
Five areas for health interventions were selected on the basis of prevalence and relevance
to the Columbus-Muscogee County population:
immunization coverage, cancer screening, diabetes
management, cardiovascular disease prevention,
and maternal health. The best practice intervention
strategies that follow have been strongly recommended within the CDC’s Guide to Community
Preventive Services or by the U.S. Preventive
Services Task Force, which is the leading independent panel of private sector experts in prevention
and primary care. (The task force is sponsored by
the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
(AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services.) The Partnership for Prevention , a panel of independent researchers appointed
by the CDC, provided additional cost effectiveness rankings for some clinical preventive services,
based on data for the burden of disease, service
effectiveness, use of services, and costs of delivery.
Those services that provided the highest health
benefits received a Clinically Preventable Burden
(CPB) score of 5; services that were most cost effective (CE) received a score of 5.
Healthcare
INCREASE ACCESS TO CANCER SCREENINGS
Recommended intervention strategies to
increase cancer screenings (fecal occult blood
test (FOBT), sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy for
colorectal cancer; PAP smear for cervical cancer;
and mammography for breast cancer) are client
reminders, one-on-one education, and small media.
Printed reminders combined with follow-up calls
and mail showed a larger effect for some screening
behaviors. One-on-one education demonstrated
a measurable effect, whether delivery was face-toface or over the phone, and whether in a clinical,
home, or public setting. The use of small media,
such as videos, letters, brochures, and newsletters,
had a modest effect on screening behaviors, regardless of whether or not the media were tailored to a
specific population.
TABLE 12. Increasing diabetes disease management and
screening behaviors
PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION EFFECT
CLINICALLY
SERVICE
STRATEGY
PREVENTABLE
BURDEN/COST
EFFECTIVENESS
Diabetes Disease
Management and
Screening
Diabetes screening
Disease Management
34
For diabetes disease management, the guide
recommended including case management to
provide the logistical support to manage Type 2
diabetes for adults less likely to afford continual
healthcare. Studies have shown that case management within a multicomponent intervention (such
as disease management) can decrease glycated
hemoglobin levels up to 0.4 percentage points. In
addition, diabetes self-management education has
shown effectiveness in lowering glycated hemoglobin levels for adults with Type 2 diabetes in community gathering places and for children and adolescents with Type 1 diabetes in the home setting.
INCREASE ACCESS TO CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE PREVENTION
While the CDC guide made no specific recommendations for cardiovascular health interventions,
the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)
strongly recommended aspirin chemo-prevention
for adults to lower the risk for heart disease. In
addition, the USPSTF recommended hypertension
screening measures.
CPB = 1
CE = 1
0.5 % decrease
Annual average
in glycated
adjusted costs:
hemoglobin (GHb) $143-185
levels
Case Management 0.53 % decrease
in GHb when
combined with
disease management
Diabetes SelfManagement
Education (DSME)
INCREASE ACCESS TO DIABETES MANAGEMENT
AND SCREENING
1.9 % decrease
in GHb for adults
with Type 2 diabetes through DSME
in community
gathering places;
1.1 % decrease in
GHb for children
with Type 1
diabetes through
DSME at home
Insufficient data
for DSME in community gathering
places;
$50 more per
child for DSME
at home than
compared to
traditional care
TABLE 13. Increasing cardiovascular disease prevention
PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION EFFECT
CLINICALLY
SERVICE
STRATEGY
PREVENTABLE
BURDEN/COST
EFFECTIVENESS
Aspirin Chemoprophylaxis
Discuss daily
aspirin use with
men 40+, women
50+, and others
at risk for heart
disease
Aspirin reduces
risk for nonfatal
myocardial
infarction/fatal
coronary heat
disease by 28%
Hypertension
Screening
Measure blood
pressure routinely
in all adults and
treat with antihypertensive
medication
Insufficient data
CPB = 5
available on effect CE = 3
size
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
CPB = 5
CE = 5
INCREASE ACCESS TO MATERNAL HEALTH SERVICES
TABLE 14. Increasing Access to Maternal Health Services
PREVENTIVE
INTERVENTION EFFECT
CLINICALLY
SERVICE
STRATEGY
PREVENTABLE
BURDEN/COST
EFFECTIVENESS
Smoking Cessation
Tobacco use
screening and
brief intervention
CPB = 5
CE = 5
Support and
Promote Breastfeeding
Structured
breastfeeding
education
More rigorous
studies required
to determine
effect size
Behavioral counseling programs
More rigorous
studies required
to determine
effect size
Folic Acid Supplementation
Folic acid
supplementation
of .4 mg daily
for women of
childbearing age
can reduce risk
of neural tube
defects in infant
by 50%
Screening for Rh
(D) Blood typing
and Antibody
Screening
Increased
intervention
with Rh (D)
immunoglobulin
prevents maternal
sensitization
and improves
outcomes for
newborns
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
35
Healthcare
As of this review, the Guide to Community Preventive Services has only addressed birth defects in
the area of women and infant health. It is important
to note that the smoking cessation strategy listed
in Table 14 addresses both men and women and
not necessarily woman who are pregnant. The U.S.
Preventive Services Task Force provided additional
recommendations on interventions for breastfeeding support and promotion, and screening for Rh
(D) blood type, based on a review of the literature
for evidence-based programs.
Insufficient access to health services has individual-level and system-wide antecedents. While
the foregoing recommendations provided strategies
within the existing system of care for individual
behavior change, it is possible to conceptualize a
change in the model of service delivery. Collaborations among primary care clinics, hospital emergency departments, and outlying support services
could create a “safety net” to streamline costs, the
main barrier to care for working-age adults. As
a preliminary step to architect system change, it
would be necessary to carry out a needs assessment
of existing usage of care, service capacity, gaps in
specialty care, and costs for delivery. As a further
guide, the Institute of Medicine has released a 2009
report recommending the following six health system indicators for measuring a community’s system
status: 1) healthcare expenditures; 2) insurance coverage; 3) unmet medical, dental, and prescription
drug needs; 4) preventive services; 5) preventable
hospitalizations; and 6) childhood immunizations.
These indicators, based on reliable and valid data
sources, would serve as a baseline for measuring
change over time and allow for cross-county comparison.
Early Childhood Development
In 2008, Cooperative Extension in Columbus established a Zero to Three Task Force, which
will help develop an effective framework of early
childhood intervention programs. The following
summary provides information on ways Columbus
can continue to move forward and expand existing
efforts to target child development from birth to
three-years-old.
THE NEED FOR ZERO TO THREE PROGRAMS
Countless studies show that babies’ experiences
from birth onwards have significant impact on
brain development and success in life. For example,
babies spoken to directly on a regular basis learn almost 300 more words by age 2 than babies who are
not spoken to as frequently. Research also shows
that infants and toddlers with fewer opportunities
to explore their surroundings and play with toys
may fail “to fully develop the neural connections
and pathways that facilitate later learning.” Experiences in early childhood influence the brain’s hard
wiring for learning, handling emotions, and relating to other people. High quality relationships and
36
positive experiences early in life lay a foundation
for a healthy life and success in school. However,
low-income parents in particular often lack the financial resources and time to provide these positive
experiences for their children. For those families
living at or below the poverty line, just providing
the necessities for infants and toddlers is extremely
difficult, if not impossible.
Affording quality daycare is also a major obstacle for low-income parents. Child Care Services
(CCS) in Georgia has licensed and registered close
to 3,000 childcare educational centers, more than
6,500 family childcare homes, 2,000 informal
care providers, and 234 group daycare homes in
the state. The licensing process includes criminal
background checks, inspections of facilities, and
periodic visits to ensure compliance with state
law. Parents are advised to investigate the licensing
status of any childcare facility they may use. The
overall quality of care is better at licensed facilities versus unlicensed facilities. This highlights
the need for programs that provide quality care at
licensed facilities for parents who could not otherwise afford it.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
2. Addressing the Needs of the Whole Child
Early childhood programs ensure that infants
and toddlers receive needed healthcare, positive
learning experiences, and nurturing from their
families to start their lives in the right direction.
Children from low-income disadvantaged families
especially benefit from these programs. Early childhood programs give these families the support for
their children to receive basic necessities and the
positive experiences for a healthy start in life.
Economists studying early intervention programs have found that high quality programs for
low-income young children increase the likelihood
that those children will stay in school and go to college. Further, studies demonstrate that low-income
young children in high quality early childhood
programs are less likely to commit violent crimes or
be arrested. Research also demonstrates that certain
programs contribute positively to job growth and
fiscal health over the long term on the federal and
state level.
Further, a successful system of programs must
reflect a focus on the whole child. Early invention
combined with investment in families’ economic
security will help low-income families meet their
children’s basic needs. Additionally, increasing access to services and support means that all children will receive the care and support needed for a
healthy, positive start in life. Failure to implement
quality programs on all fronts (healthcare, education, and parental support) undermines the efficacy
of the support that is provided.
As discussed previously, early childhood intervention programs vary in their goals and focus. This
makes meaningful comparison or ranking of program effectiveness highly difficult. Nonetheless, the
general framework in Figure 4 illustrates areas of
evaluation for early childhood programs.
COMPONENTS OF EFFECTIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION PROGRAMS
EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL PROGRAMS FOR
INFANTS AND TODDLERS
Though early childhood programs vary greatly
in their focus, approach, and goals, certain attributes are necessary for programs to be effective.
Moreover, multiple zero to three programs function in combination with one another to address
children’s and families’ full needs.
The Child Care Resource and Referral
(CCR&R) Agency of West Georgia at Columbus
along with the Bright from the Start program in
Columbia are existing components of what could be
a more expansive system of programs and resources
for parents, infants, and toddlers.
Analysis of the following programs — which
could become part of an effective early childhood
development system in Columbus — show that they
are effective. These programs provide the three legs
identified by the National Center for Children in
Poverty as essential for positive childhood development. A combination of these programs addresses
good health, provides positive learning experiences,
and promotes nurturing families for children.
1. Positive Early Childhood Development
One study by the National Center for Children in
Poverty at Columbia University emphasizes that
positive early childhood development rests on three
legs:
▶ good health;
▶ positive early learning experiences; and
▶ nurturing families who are economically secure
Thus, effective, quality programs for infants
and toddlers may relate to health and nutrition,
education, and caretaking. In combination with
these types of programs, parents may also receive
economic support and guidance for good parenting
through other programs and policies.
3. Evaluating Program Effectiveness
1. Nurse-Family Partnership
This program, which began in Elmira, N.Y.,
involves home visits by a nurse who focuses efforts
on helping the mother with effective parenting.
More specifically, the program targets unmarried,
first-time mothers with a low income. The program
goals are to “improve prenatal health and birth
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
37
Early Childhood Development
BENEFITS OF ZERO TO THREE PROGRAMS
Early Childhood Development
outcomes; improve child health, development,
and safety; and to improve maternal life course
outcomes.” A nurse visits the mother’s home in the
prenatal phase (up to the 30th week of gestation)
and continues visits for two years. Research proves
that home visits from a nurse is a more effective
way to deliver parental training and guidance than
visits from a paraprofessional with less training.
The positive effects of the Nurse-Family Partnership are larger when the program is provided to
mothers in higher-risk categories compared with
those who are lower risk.
2. Parents as Teachers
This program seeks to “empower parents to
give their children a good start in life, prepare children for school entry, and prevent and reduce child
abuse.” Parents and children from all walks of life
are eligible for this universal program, which may
begin in the prenatal phase or when the child is less
than eight-months old. Some Parents as Teachers
programs continue until the child is three, others
until the child enters kindergarten. This program
includes home visits and services at a center. Developmental screenings of children and parent group
meetings are components of the program. Parents
as Teachers also provides a resource network that
links parents to necessary community resources.
Studies show that participation in this program
contributes to positive outcomes in achievement
test scores, behaviors and emotions of the child,
and prevention of child maltreatment.
3. Reach Out and Read
Reach Out and Read promotes reading aloud to
at-risk children. The program encourages parents
to read aloud to their children by providing books
at “well-child” visits to the pediatrician’s office. At
these visits, doctors and nurses also offer guidance
to the parents about reading to their child. Children
between six-months and five-years of age from lowincome families are eligible for the program. Reach
out and Read has a proven positive impact on the
cognitive development, specifically vocabulary, of
participating children.
38
4. Project CARE with Early Childhood Education
Project CARE (Carolina Approach to Responsive Education) includes home visits as well as
full-day year round early childhood education at a
center. Improving cognitive development for highrisk children is the main goal of this program. The
program targets children that receive a high score
on a high-risk index for developmental delays.
Parents of these children are also targeted as the
program includes home visits for parental training
and guidance starting when the child is four to six
weeks old. Child care at a center is available once
the child is six weeks to three months old. Services
extend past age three, until the child is five years
of age. Project CARE including Early Childhood
Education has proven to be more effective at meeting its stated goals than Project CARE without the
educational component. The program has a proven
positive impact on IQ scores of participants.
5. Early Head Start
Early Head Start began in 1994 and has been
implemented in hundreds of localities throughout
the United States. The program targets low-income families with children up to age three as well
as pregnant women. A combination of services
comprise the program, including home visits, child
development efforts, parental education and guidance, nutrition education, childcare, healthcare and
referrals, and family support. Services are delivered
both in the home and at a childcare center. Specific
goals of the program are to “promote healthy prenatal outcomes, enhance development of children
ages zero to three, and support health family functioning.” Studies demonstrate positive effects on
achievement test scores, behavior, and health.
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
FIGURE 4. Analytic framework for evaluating the effectiveness of early childhood programs.
Increase child’s motivation and
performance in school
Early Childhood Development
Cognitive: Increased
preschool child’s cognitive
and intellectual performance
Higher educational
attainment, high
school graduation,
and reduced drop
out rates
Social: Improve
preschool child’s social
competence and
social interaction skills
Increase child’s
readiness to
learn in the
school setting
Early Childhood
Development
Programs
Health: Increase
child’s use of preventive
health screenings and
medical care
Family: Supportive home
environments promoted by:
w parent participation in
educational, social and
whealth opportunities and job
training and employment
Early
identification
of problems
that impeded
learning
Support for child in
all areas: cognitive,
social, health and
family
Decreased social
and health risks:
delinquency, drug
& alchohol use,
risky sexual
behaviors
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
39
Affordable Housing: INCORPORATING HOUSING TRUST FUNDS
Because of the breadth of housing-related programs and the existing infrastructure in affordable
housing, this part of the report begins with some
definitions to help clarify programs and initiatives
in this sector. Affordable housing is defined as
“housing that is affordable to the renter or owner
of the housing unit.” To be considered affordable,
housing costs should be no more than 30 percent
of income. For an $80,000 home in ColumbusMuscogee, an individual would need an annual
income of $24,000 to afford the monthly homeowner costs.1 Rising rental costs are also impacting
working families.
The term “subsidized housing” refers to houses
and multi-family dwellings (generally apartments) that receive some federal funding either
in their construction, or in the form of assistance
to families renting the unit. The most common
programs are public housing, Section 8 voucher
rent assistance, rent assisted units for people with
special needs and Low Income Housing Tax Credit
supported units. The federal Fair Housing Act
1 The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development income on housing costs (rent/mortgage and utilities).
40
was passed in 1968 in an effort to eliminate discrimination in real estate transactions based upon
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. State
and local laws have also been passed. It is illegal to
prevent someone from renting or owning property
in any development or neighborhood based on the
number of children in the household, or the color,
race, national origin, disability, gender or sexual
orientation or gender identity of the person in the
household.2
2 Many residents have disabilities that need accommodation in housing. Fair housing laws now make it
unlawful to “discriminate against any person in terms,
conditions, or privileges of sale or rental of a dwelling,
or in the provision of services or facilities in connection with such dwelling, because of a handicap of (a)
that person; or (b) a person residing in or intending to
reside in that dwelling after it is sold, rented, or made
available; or (c) any person associated with that person.”
Importantly, discrimination includes “a refusal to make
reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices,
or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and
enjoy a dwelling.” Under the federal law, the definition of
“disabilities” includes those who are substantially limited
by alcoholism, drug addition, emotional problems, mental
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
1. County Housing Inventory
Neighborhoods succeed over time when young
families can root themselves in a community,
where elderly residents can keep their older homes
and when young people can find their first apartment in the community that has sustained them.
The answer to the question ‘who needs affordable
housing’ is often surprising. Most people who live
in affordable housing work full-time. Often they are
the police, soldiers, firefighters, teachers, daycare
workers, office clerks, and retail salespeople that
the community relies on to improve its quality of
life. Other residents of affordable housing include
seniors and people with disabilities, who due to life
circumstances have a low fixed income.
Increasingly, families that work within their
communities cannot afford to live there. The lack of
affordable housing is costly to communities in other
ways, as more and more of the critical workforce
is forced to commute from further away, increasing traffic congestion and commute times and
decreasing green space. In contrast, support for the
production of affordable housing creates jobs, adds
to the local tax base, increases family stability, and
reduces costs associated with health, education, and
transportation.
Vacant and abandoned housing is a nationwide
problem and one that is rapidly increasing due to
the current economic climate. Many properties in
urban areas are older and the titles can be clouded
with unclear ownership, the so-called ‘heir’ properties; others have fallen into disrepair and are
uninhabitable. The owners are elderly, low income
and often disabled. The properties are abandoned,
boarded up or burned down and as such represent
a blight on the existing neighborhoods as well as
providing a magnet for criminal activities.
Many cities lack an accurate tally of vacant
and abandoned houses and do not have an accurate understanding of the scope of this challenge.
Some communities have (or have been researching) an ordinance to register houses that lie vacant
for more than a year, so city officials can prepare to
work toward adopting stronger ordinances to use in
improving neighborhoods.
South Bend, Ind., is one such community, with
621 houses that are both vacant and abandoned, according to a May 2006 survey by the city’s Department of Code Enforcement. To produce that tally,
code inspectors made on-site visits of each property — a task that will become easier as inspectors
receive new handheld digital devices to streamline
their work and make information up-to-date continually. Mayor Stephen J. Luecke introduced the
three-year, $6.825 million strategy to reduce South
Bend’s vacant houses by more than one-fifth, with
most of the focus aimed at reducing abandoned
houses by 72 percent. The comprehensive strategy
includes the demolition of 400 derelict houses and
the revitalization of 45 distinctive properties in targeted neighborhoods. It builds on the city’s existing
work in code enforcement, on public-private home
building partnerships with successful track records
and on a national trend of home buyers returning
to urban neighborhoods.
The strategy’s centerpiece is a public-private
effort to attract all income level home buyers to
targeted city neighborhoods, initially on the city’s
west and northwest sides. Over three years, the city
would make 45 homes available to nonprofit community development corporations, which would
market and sell the properties. The eventual owner
must reside in the home for five years.
HOW TO APPROACH AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Successful affordable housing initiatives involve
three main keys to aggressively curb blighted areas
and attempt to improve housing conditions. The
first is a county housing inventory to fully understand the situation and develop a plan based on
the facts. The second is developing stricter housing
codes and along with it significantly stiffer penalties. This targets landlords who are not performing
the necessary maintenance on their property. The
third key is developing an affordable housing trust
fund that is dedicated to a renewable public revenue to support affordable housing. The affordable
housing trust is a popular choice for communities
across the country and one contributing factor is
the financial flexibility the program offers.
illness or retardation, and learning disabilities. Active use
of drugs or alcohol is not behavior covered by fair housing.
Being in a rehabilitation program and not using drugs or
alcohol is behavior covered by fair housing.
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
41
Housing
THE NEED FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING
Housing
2. Developing Stricter Housing Codes and Enforcement
Several of the recommendations surrounding
the Revitalizing Columbus South initiative focused
on affordable housing and the need for better and
more consistent code enforcement in the Columbus South area.3 Of the top 27 strategies that were
identified for the Columbus South area, five were
specific to affordable housing and code enforcement:
Strategy 2 – Organize Neighborhood Improvement Groups, including the creation
of a Columbus South Code Enforcement Committee;
Strategy 4 – Speed Up the Code Enforcement
Process
Strategy 8 – Develop a Rental Rehabilitation Program for Multi-Family
Strategy 9 – Develop and Fund a Single Family
Owner Rehabilitation Program
Strategy 13 – Redevelop Baker Village Area
The Revitalizing Columbus South report identifies partners, funding sources and champions for
each strategy. A not-for-profit, Columbus South,
Inc, has been created to move these initiatives
forward, and the Victory Coalition, led by retired
General Jerry White, works on related Columbus
South issues.
Funding is often the underlying issue to code
enforcement. In the South Bend example above,
the City’s Code Enforcement staff had an active list
of 95 derelict properties but had insufficient funds
for demolition. Using nearly $500,000 in reprogrammed 2006 Community Development Block
Grant funds in the Community and Economic
Development budget, Code Enforcement began
work on those properties citywide for which it
already had legal authority to proceed with demolition. Demolition continued in 2007 on other homes
in census tracts with the highest concentration of
abandoned buildings.
Another example of the power of consistent
3 Revitalizing Columbus South 2003 (Columbus-Muscogee Consolidated Government, UGA Carl Vinson
Institute of Government and UGA College of Environment and Design).
42
code enforcement was in Roanoke Rapids, N.C.,
where the city established and enforced minimum
housing code requirements that resulted in the
demolishment and renovation of 200 abandoned
homes in a six-year period.
3. Create an Affordable Housing Fund
Housing trust funds are the single most innovative advance in the affordable housing field in the
United States over the last several decades. Because
housing is at the very foundation of every healthy
community, local governments are recognizing that
they need to contribute local public resources to
adequately house their workforce and lower income
residents.
Because the funds are local, as opposed to
federal, they are the most flexible money available for affordable housing projects and allow for
maximum efficiency in the use of the funds as well
as encourage leveraging of other public and private
dollars. Housing trust funds systemically change
reliance on annual budget allocations by shifting to
committed dedicated public revenue to affordable
housing through the creation of housing trust fund
mechanisms. There are now 38 state housing trust
funds and more than 350 city and county housing
trust funds in operation. They dedicate in excess of
$1.6 billion annually to help address critical housing needs throughout the country.
Housing trust funds are distinct funds established by city, county or state governments to
receive ongoing dedicated sources of public funding to support the preservation and production
of affordable housing. There are a wide variety of
available revenue sources that have been dedicated.
Housing trust funds may be set up to provide
subsidy as grants to create more affordable housing
solutions, or they can be structured as a lending or
enterprise fund to provide low interest construction
or rehab loans. This allows them to retain or even
grow the initial investment, providing a powerful
leveraging tool to traditional but limited HOME
and CDBG subsidies. Most housing trust funds are
created by housing advocates as members of community based organizations recognizing the impact
housing has on their communities.
EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL HOUSING TRUST
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
FUNDS AND RELATED HOUSING INITIATIVES
UNIVERSITY-COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS
University-Community partnerships are another means of creating or supplementing a housing
trust fund. Many colleges and universities — from
Harvard to local community colleges — are finding
that they have a direct interest in ensuring that their
employees have access to affordable housing close
to campus, and that the communities in which they
reside are afforded an opportunity to take advantage of the resources they offer.
An example of this is Mercer University, which
formed a partnership with the City of Macon, the
local hospital, Macon Bibb Land Bank, Bueall’s
Hill Development Corporation and the housing
authority to rehabilitate the Bueall’s Hill neighborhood. The project included student-led neighborhood cleanups and minor housing repair, $15,000
down payment assistance to Mercer employees to
purchase neighborhood homes, and funding for
the development of a 97 unit multi-family mixed
income development.
A broader example is the Georgia Initiative for
Community Housing (GICH). GICH is a collabo-
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
43
Housing
The City of Atlanta issued a $75 million bond
to fund its housing trust fund. Activities under
the fund include the allowance of second mortgage loans to for-profit and nonprofit developers
for affordable multifamily workforce rentals. The
interest rates on these loans are 0 percent deferred
for 10 years with payment due at sale, refinance or
rental. The bond funds can also be used to provide
construction financing for single family builders for
affordable units, land acquisition and predevelopment made available to nonprofit developers for
construction of affordable homes. Funds were also
used to streamline the permitting process, cutting
the average number of days for approval in half.
The City of Louisville, Kentucky, created an affordable housing trust fund that permanently dedicates a renewable public revenue source to support
affordable housing. It also funds the trust with triple
taxation for vacant properties with code violations. Also in Kentucky, the City of Bowling Green
added non-monetary components to its housing
trust fund, increasing the profitability and appeal
of affordable housing. The City waives certain
permits and fees for nonprofit developers of affordable housing, donates city owned land to nonprofit
agencies for the development of affordable housing,
and streamlines the permitting process to no longer
than five days from the date of the application.
In Fairfax, Va., the city inventoried surplus
county owned property, identifying nearly 900 lots
for affordable housing. A one penny tax on real
estate raises $22 million annually, preserving 2,200
at-risk affordable rental homes since 2004.
Closer to home, Valdosta, Ga., commissioned
a housing inventory and assessment by Valdosta
State in 1999. The City Council passed a resolution
to eliminate and replace all substandard housing
by 2020; the City now is demolishing and replacing
approximately 50 houses per year.
Durham, N.C., established the Durham Community Land Trustees in 1987. It is funded by
municipal bonds, the Federal Home Loan Bank
Board and Duke University. The trust is focused on
housing rehabilitation. As of September 2008, the
Land Trust’s portfolio includes 154 units of affordable housing in Durham’s West End neighborhoods
with an additional 47 units under development.
Through much of our history, DCLT’s work has focused on the renovation of existing housing stock.
Where to develop property has been driven both
by the availability of property and by a strategy to
target the areas that most compromised the quality
of life for the community. DCLT’s current projects
mostly consist of new constructions built under a
green building initiative. The Land Trust’s property
portfolio includes home ownership, special needs
rental housing, tax-credit rental housing, and commercial properties.
The work of DCLT goes well beyond bricks
and mortar. Our work with community residents
has led to many successes including co-developing a neighborhood community center, installing
bus shelters, addressing drainage issues, improving
street lighting, and organizing community cleanups. Today, DCLT is part of The West End Collaborative, a development partnership that includes
DCLT, Habitat for Humanity and Self-Help CDC.
This Collaborative is guided by a neighborhood
resident group, the Quality of Life Committee, on
strategic community development projects (http://
www.dclt.org/index.cfm)
Housing
ration between the Department of Community
Affairs, the Georgia Municipal Association, and
UGA’s Housing and Demographics Research Center.
▶
▶
GICH offers communities a three-year program of collaboration and technical assistance
related to housing and community development.
The objective is to guide communities in the
creation and implementation of a locally based
plan to meet their housing needs.
▶
GICH provides professional facilitators, housing experts, legal experts and an administrative
support structure to help guide a Housing Team
through the steps of (1) clearly identifying
what the community wants related to housing,
(2) showing how to develop an asset map and
to identify resources, and 3) developing and
implementing a housing work plan.4
A partnership with GICH would be an excellent
first step if the steering committee selects affordable
housing as one of its key priorities.
4 Participating communities will (1) Create a Community Housing Team; (2) Develop new ideas about meeting local housing needs; (3) Learn about approaches and
available resources to meet housing needs; (4) Produce a
community housing plan; (5) Begin implementation of
their plan; (6) Participate in two facilitated retreats each
year over a three year period designed to allow communities to fashion solutions to their housing needs; (7) Be
able to attend related workshops and receive technical
assistance for the community housing team to engage
in cross-community sharing and collaboration; and
(8) direct grants/financial support of up to $15,000 are
available through GICH. The GICH contact is Dr. Karen
Tinsley, Housing and Demographics Research Center,
University of Georgia. Athens, GA 30602-2622, http://
www.fcs.uga.edu/hace/hdrc/about_gich.html.
GICH Reference Contacts:
1. Pete Alday- Director, Community Services, City
of Cartersville, 770-387-5661
2. Gaile Jennings- Executive Director, Dalton-Whitfield CDC, 706-281-4804
3. Mara Register- Assistant City Manager, City of
Valdosta, 229-890-5409
4. Bob Hopkins- City Manager, City of Moultrie,
229-890-5409
5. Jesse Stone- Mayor, City of Waynesboro, 706-5548000
44
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
Regional & Alternative Transportation Systems
Simply having public transportation does not
assure job accessibility. The key is access (or lack of
access) to jobs, an issue that is exacerbated in rural
areas. Regional Transportation Systems, Vehicle
Donation Programs, and Transportation Voucher
Programs are viable options that have been shown
to help certain segments of the community in accessing and retaining employment.
REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS
The Southwest Georgia Rural Development
Center’s (RDC’s) coordinated rural transportation
program consolidates the previously existing transportation programs in the region, namely the 5311
programs (programs that receive federal funding to
support public transportation in areas of less than
50,000 people) and includes its member jurisdictions, DHR client transportation services, and
Medicaid non-emergency transportation services.
This consolidation results in improved service to
riders, greater efficiency, and reduced costs. The ad-
dition of Medicaid transportation makes the system
quite complicated, but the resulting savings and
efficiency are, according to the executive director,
worth the extra effort.
The Southwest Georgia RDC operates 73 vehicles serving 14 counties, with most exceeding 20
percent public (i.e. non-DHR or Medicaid) ridership. The service is demand-response, though the
organization is considering the addition of a few
fixed routes. Four contractors supply most trips,
while several smaller contractors handle long-distance medical trips, e.g. to Atlanta and Augusta.
The RDC also coordinates with the City of Albany’s
transit system, which provides Albany Transit
tokens at a reduced cost for DHR and Medicaid
riders. The complete annual operating budget is
currently $15 million. Overhead built into the cost
of each trip is placed in escrow and used for capital
costs and to provide local match for federal funds.
Motivation for consolidating the transit programs was chiefly to improve the efficiency and
service of existing programs, but also came from
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
45
Transportation
RDC member counties that wanted to offer 5311
service but couldn’t come up with the required local
matching funds. SWGRDC stepped up and offered
to handle the administration and management of
the program, and the counties passed resolutions
authorizing SWGRDC to apply for the 5311 funds
on behalf of the entire region. The program is supported by major businesses in the region, such as
poultry plants, because they want the transportation available to their workers, many of whom do
not own cars. Some businesses deduct the transportation fees directly from workers’ pay.
Both Southwest Georgia and the Coastal
Georgia Regional Development Centers administer
regional public transportation systems. ColumbusMuscogee County could take a regional approach
and work with the Lower Chattahoochee Regional
Development Center to develop a regional transportation network that assists the working poor.
Currently, the Lower Chattahoochee RDC is working with four southern counties (Clay, Randolph,
Stewart and Quitman) on a regional transit system.
These counties received a federal appropriation to
build a facility and to buy needed equipment, such
as vans and computer tracking software. The Lower
Chattahoochee RDC plans to request bids for the
construction of the building after the first of the
year. Once it is up and running the program could
expand to other interested communities.
VEHICLE DONATION
Many nonprofit organizations use vehicle
donations for fundraising. Donors arrange for the
organization to pick up an older car, and the nonprofit sends the car to an auction. In this scenario,
the nonprofit turns the vehicle into cash to support
its activities, and the donor is usually allowed to
take a tax deduction. The Internal Revenue Service
has recently changed its rules regarding the amount
of the deduction allowed (generally the “blue book
value” of the vehicle is not accepted. Instead, the
IRS wants donors to deduct the fair market value of
the vehicle).
In Baltimore, Baptist Family Church matched
the vehicle with a family in need, thus putting an
older (but well-maintained) minivan to immediate
use. The donor could still claim a tax deduction,
but the vehicle was used by a family in need. The
46
mother to whom the car was given began using it to
travel to her new job and take her children to doctor’s appointments.1 Safe and reliable transportation
makes a great and positive difference in the life of a
family in crisis. It can be the key to the rebuilding of
a family’s economic life, and give them the opportunity to flourish after a new start.
There is potential for this type of project in the
Columbus area, but other factors (such as insurance, liability, reliability, maintenance and repair)
need to be considered. While the overall impact
may not be as significant as other initiatives, a partnership between a faith-based organization, Columbus Technical College’s Automotive Technology
Degree Program or Jordan Industrial Technologies
Academies could be developed.2
TRANSPORTATION VOUCHER SYSTEMS
Columbus could use a concept such as a
voucher system to support the community’s existing infrastructure, the Metra Public Transportation
Network. The Metra’s ridership general rate of 1.25
is relatively low, and bus service ends at 8:30 p.m.
and does not run on Sunday. A voucher system run
in partnership with the private sector could help
subsidize the hours. The city of Columbus could
apply for funding from the Federal Transit Administration to subsidize a voucher study.
The City of Olathe, Kan. (population 122,500),
created a public-private partnership for people
in need of general trips, medical appointments,
and work-related transportation (The “Work Taxi
Coupon Program”). Olathe’s voucher program for
disabled or the elderly is 30 years old. The work
specific program is 4 years old.
All the programs together have a total of 1,000
riders, but only 200 to 300 are actively involved. It is
growing by 10 riders per month. The total program
costs $600,000 a year to run. It is supported by a
50 percent local match. Olathe’s local taxi companies provide transportation services to low-income
residents for job preparation skills/work & work
1 http://www.baptistlifeonline.org/
2 http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/DMGetDocument.aspx/
Magnet%20Schools%20Address%20List.pdf?p=4BE1EE
CF99CD364EA5554055463F1FBB77B0B70FECF5942E1
2E123FE4810FFF5BCC5B826721EFEAB2E38C3E9B8B8
EC6B&Type=D
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government
3 http://www.april-rural.org/trans portation_resources.
html
transportation. After five years, the results from
surveying participants indicated that riders were
very satisfied with the program, particularly the increase in independence they achieved, and drivers
were satisfied with the reimbursement.
While a program such as this would not solve
all rural transit problems, this is one example of a
fairly low-cost way to provide services for existing
gaps.
Another option worth exploring is the Joblinks
Employment Transportation Initiative of the Community Transportation Association of America.
Since the early 1990s, CTA has been working
with communities across the nation to help them
improve the mobility options of people working
in their cities and neighborhoods. With funding
from the Federal Transit Administration and the
U.S. Department of Labor, the Association works
to improve employment transportation opportunities through many types of activities, ranging from
demonstration projects to direct, short-term technical assistance to employment transportation-related
conferences, to name a few. These resources are
available to all communities attempting to improve
the delivery of employment transportation services
in their area.4
Conclusion
4 Joblinks Director: Carolyn Jeskey (202.415.9659;
800.891.0590 x724); Joblinks Program Manager: Amy
Conrick (202.415.9692; 800.891.0590 x734); Joblinks
Program Specialist:Pamela Friedman (800.891.0590 x
720; 202.403.1629)
Building Prosperity in Columbus-Muscogee County
47
Transportation
related activities. The City of Olathe has entered
into an agreement with local companies to provide
rides at a reduced cost. The coupons are used to
“pay for” a one-way door-to-door trip in a taxi or
wheelchair lift equipped van. Work coupons are
not allowed for personal trips. The number of work
coupons a program participant may purchase per
month is unlimited as long as they are only used for
work related trips. Work coupons may not be used
for general shopping trips or medical trips. The
cost of each coupon is $2.50 (includes a 50 cent gas
surcharge) and are sold in books of ten coupons for
$25.00. Participants may purchase as many coupon
books as necessary for work related trips within the
city limits of Olathe.
Record keeping and monitoring are essential
to running an effective program. By keeping track
of money spent, consumers’ changing needs, and
where and how vouchers are used, the program
can become more efficient and tracking necessary
changes becomes easier.3
Anecdotal notes from a conversation with a
representative of Bain, Inc., in Bainbridge, Ga., indicate that this program shows promise. Based on a
first year grant of $7,500, the organization provided
services to visually impaired residents of the rural
Bainbridge area. The initial grant could be used
for any type of transportation, but follow-up grant
funding could only be used for employment-related
transportation. Approximately 40-50 riders used
the program monthly, and payments were made by
the organization to citizens who provided the
Transportation
TABLE 15. Ten Demonstration Sites and Their Characteristics. Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living
(APRIL).
SITE
LOCATION
CHARACTERISTICS
ILC
Homer, Alaska
Low population density; experience with a transportation voucher coupon
program.
BAIN, Inc.
Bainbridge,
No transportation experience; 10% of county population has a visual impairment;
Georgia
large black minority population.
DSNWK
Hays, Kansas
Transportation provider was the lead organization in partnership with a CIL;
transportation experience; large rural service area.
Southern Illinois CIL Carbondale,
Large rural service area; high unemployment; large black minority population
Illinois
limited transportation options.
South East CIL
Fall River, MasHigh population density, but many remote rural areas; partnership of three CIL’s;
sachusetts
taxi service available
SW CIL
Marshall, MinVery large, very rural area; upper Midwest; rural transportation system available.
nesota
Salish and Kootenai Pablo, Montana
Section 121 VR program; high unemployment (49%); limited transportation
Tribes
options and experience.
Zuni Entrepreneurial Zuni, New Mexico Section 121 VR program; high unemployment (67%); transportation experience
Enterprises
with tribal transportation system.
CIL of Central Penn- Camp Hill, Penn- Rural area; several counties; transportation experience. Taxi services available.
sylvania
sylvania
Active Re-Entry
Price, Utah
Very rural area with population density of 5 people per square mile; no transportation experience and very limited transportation.
48
University of Georgia
Fanning Institute, Carl Vinson Institute of Government