Public-private partnerships key to helping QC end poverty

To help the Quad Cities chart a new course to end poverty community leaders are working to Level Up residents, lift up neighborhoods and end permanent punishments, QC leaders said Thursday during the Second Annual Rooting Out Poverty Conference. Anti-poverty leaders took center stage at the daylong April 18 conference at Rhythm City Casino Resort […]

To help the Quad Cities chart a new course to end poverty community leaders are working to Level Up residents, lift up neighborhoods and end permanent punishments, QC leaders said Thursday during the Second Annual Rooting Out Poverty Conference. Anti-poverty leaders took center stage at the daylong April 18 conference at Rhythm City Casino Resort in Davenport. The event attracted more than 300 community and nonprofit leaders.

Speakers included: Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati; Thurgood Brooks, coordinator of the Rock Island’s West End Revitalization initiative; and Sharon Varallo, executive director of the Augustana College Prison Education Program.  The Augustana professor shared the stage with two of her top students who have found success both in the program and on the Rock Island campus. One of them is David Staples, a former inmate who graduated from Augustana through the prison program. After spending decades in prison for a crime he did not commit, Mr. Staples was freed through the work of the Innocence Project. He is now looking forward to pursuing a graduate degree. The afternoon session targeted effective public-private partnerships. And Project NOW Inc. Executive Director Dwight Ford – who led the conference – said they are key to addressing poverty.

Moline seeks to Level Up

In Moline, that includes the new Level Up guaranteed income program developed by the city under Ms. Rayapati’s leadership. Level Up has two components: a guaranteed monthly income for a year and one-time emergency expenses.

The first level, the guaranteed income program, provides $400 a month for 12 months to qualifying families or single parents or families with children “because we wanted that generational impact,” Ms. Rayapati said. The second level offers a one-time grant of up to $2,000 to help families deal with emergency issues. Level Up launched in January and is being run by Project NOW. Ms. Rayapati said she got the idea for the program while attending her first U.S. Conference of Mayors. There she met Michael Tubbs, then the ground-breaking mayor of Stockton, California, and a leader of the Mayors for Guaranteed (MGI) income program. She later contacted Rev. Ford and told him “‘I’ve got an idea, a skeletal idea for a Level Up program.’ So we talked it through.” After looking at such data as median income, poverty rate, free and reduced lunch programs, and level of income, the mayor said she was convinced Moline needed to act. At the same time she said Moline was looking at ways to “ justly use our cannabis tax revenue, and I said, ‘That’s it.’”

Staff, council step up

She applauded council members who “put their votes on the line” to make it happen and city staff, led by KJ Whitely, who created the Level Up program which is being administered by Project NOW. Rev. Ford said he was particularly pleased by the unanimous vote. ”Why $400 a month for up to 12 months?” he asked. “Because most Americans  – over 51% – cannot at any point of their daily existence afford a $400 emergency. That’s where that number comes from. That’s why we started with how to make sure they have enough when the bottom falls out.” Through the Level B program, in which any resident can qualify for up to $2,000 one time, Ms. Rayapati added, “We really think that is going to provide access to clearing fees of driver's licenses, for example, paying emergency fees toward house or car repairs.” That allows families to not only get on with life but look at “getting to the next opportunities.” She urged other  Quad Cities communities to visit the Mayors for Guaranteed Income website to learn more from communities that are making it work. Ms. Rayapati is among the leaders featured there, in an entry that says: “I am excited to join this coalition because for me, providing strategies for increasing opportunities for economic mobility is not only a high impact goal, but a moral imperative. Making space for others at the table of opportunity using the tools MGI provides will create a better and more prosperous community; one in which every resident is proud to live.”

West End plan updated

Also at Thursday’s poverty conference, Thurgood Brooks, a coordinator of the Rock Island West End Revitalization (WER) program, shared an update and sought support for the neighborhood’s homegrown strategic plan and the community’s hopes for the future. The City of Rock Island’s Rock Island Martin Luther King Jr. Center, which employs Mr. Brooks, and fellow WER coordinator Avery Pearl, serves as the backbone of the project. In addition to thanking Rock Island for the planning effort, Mr. Brooks also lauded key supporters and funders including the John Deere Foundation and the Quad Cities Community Foundation. And he thanked the steering committee of West End residents who have been working on a revitalization effort that was first launched in 2019.  The committee began its work in November of 2022 and released its detailed, action oriented document last month. Through that process, Mr. Brooks said, West End leaders created a plan that is long-term and holistic rather than merely slapping band-aids on problems.  It also is centered on “a beautiful vision and simple vision: The West End is a preferred place to live and thrive,” the plan coordinator said. And its goal is to build the West End’s wealth, power and livability while also focusing on inclusion and equity. The WER steering committee also recognized that they could not address poverty without addressing issues such as housing, infrastructure, workforce and more.  “People in our community were adamant, and I do mean adamant – we had some fierce discussions – behind the belief that we had to find a way to look at these recommendations and tag them in an appropriate and prioritized way that is inclusive behind success,” Mr. Brooks said. “And that’s what we’re going to do.” Their dreams are big. “Can you imagine a pipeline working with our youth where we have the next senators and mayors and board members? And we’re going to get it done,” Mr. Brooks said. 

WER ready to invest

WER also is seeking to build West End assets and income and looking for partners to build its neighborhoods and workforce creation. A community grocery store is planned to feed what is now a food desert. Planners want to redevelop Franklin Field, the site of a former Rock Island school off Ninth Street, by working with the Rock Island Milan School District which owns the property. And a long list of other neighborhood needs include rental property inspections and accessible and affordable broadband. Mr. Brooks said the committee recognizes that revenue and investment by the community is needed to make it happen.“We’re not asking for a handout,” he said. “We’re not asking you to give us anything that we don’t earn.” To make that happen, the West End community intends to help orchestrate its own growth and revitalize through a community development corporation. It also plans to establish a Special Service Area so that West End residents “can invest in our community ourselves and for them to have a pot of money so that we know we can have a stable base to go and do the work and collaborate with folks.” As the plan moves forward, Mr. Brooks told conference attendees the MLK Center will continue in a role that includes pushing for community ownership, partner engagement and localization of resources as well as creating a way to measure the work that’s being done. “We are in the business of organizing, advocating and providing true accessibility to folks in our community,” Mr. Brooks told conference attendees. “We’re not interested in becoming experts. We’re interested in getting your cards, shaking your hands, and in Zoom calls,” he added.  “If you want to meet at 2 o’clock in the morning on the moon, I’ll find a way to get there.”