¶ … Poverty Reduction Programs in Urban Communities Needs Assessment For Poverty Programs In Urban Communities

Many countries around the world have made poverty reduction a policy priority by adopting the goals of the Millennium Declaration or similar objectives. The Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) Program to enable it to analyze income and poverty trends in individual counties such as Wilson County. The application of the SAIPE Program in the State of North Carolina in 2012 revealed that despite some major poverty-reduction plans being implemented, the overall rates of poverty still remained relatively high. It has been estimated that Wilson County, N.C., has a population in which approximately 18.5% of the population (representing around 13,747 people) and 13% of families live below the federal poverty line; the second poorest county in the state.

The rates of poverty are worrying because there have been several attempts to attempt to alleviate poverty through programs such as the Work First Cash Assistance Program, the North Carolina Weatherization Program and the Individual Development Account (IDA) Program run jointly by the county Department of Social Service and the Community Improvement Association (WCIA). It has been argued that one of the primary reasons that these programs have failed to reduce rates of poverty is because they are not consistent with the actual needs of the community. An accurate needs assessment that considers many perspectives and specific objectives needs to be developed in order to design a more effective policy intervention to help the county reduce its poverty rate and comply with the objectives of the Millennium Declaration. This analysis will attempt to provide both qualitative and quantitative methods of designing a more accurate intervention.

Data Collection Methods

Societies do not occur naturally, rather they form through the people and institutions that work to shape them. The constructivist approach requires a foundation of knowledge that can be used for interpretive research. These foundations can be either built upon qualitative or quantitative approaches or some combination of each. Each approach has advantages and disadvantages. For example, qualitative analysis can contain a heavy amount of subjectivity in the recording of data. Quantitative approaches, on the other hand, offer less possibility of bias but also may miss some of the rich data that could be not included in the approach. For example, an interpretivist approach can allow individuals to provide an evaluation of their own experience which in many cases could not be gained otherwise.

Collecting data for a poverty reduction needs analysis undoubtedly needs to combine both a quantitative and qualitative approach. There are different economic and social metrics that can provide valuable information about the current state of Wilson County. These might include metrics such as education levels or opportunities, individual and family incomes, internet access density, aggregate economic data, job opportunities, or many other valuable indicators. Interviews with the population itself and community leaders could provide insights that could gained through traditional metrics. The opinions of individuals about the local culture and barriers to poverty could align the resulting policies and the assessment on a level that could not be gained without a subsequent qualitative approach.

Literature Review

Reducing poverty has been vowed by a majority of politicians all over the developed world. However, the "rhetoric" is usually accompanied by policy proposals to provide increases in the minimum wage, child tax credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, Unemployment Insurance, government-funded child care, and the creation of "Green Jobs" among others that many argue are inefficient programs for alleviating poverty (Besharov & Call, 2009). Some believe that income transfers are effective in targeting poverty and reducing inequality. Some studies have indicated that welfare reform had no strong differential effect of moving the private poor out of poverty (Bollinger & Hagstrom, 2011).

Yet others lean more towards the development of human capital as a long-term solution and challenge the notion that good governance leads to poverty reduction. They point to education, training, and development as the solution to alleviate poverty. However, the realization that poverty has on the academic process has been largely studied. While many look to education to reduce poverty they typically ignore the roles that poverty plays on educational outcomes (Pedro, 2011). Instead of blaming poverty as an obstacle to education, many politicians blame poor teachers or some other problem without directly challenging the role of poverty.

After more than a decade of work, the first target of Goal 1 of the Millennium Development Goals -- to halve the proportion of the world's poor by 2015 -- is expected to be achieved on a global scale; however at the same time much of this progress is directly attributable to China and regions such as sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast...

Thus it can be argued that, despite policy efforts on an international scale, most policies have failed to create the desired consequences. It has been further argued that the one-size-fits-all approach to poverty reduction may be a useful buzzword for politicians, but offers little of the localization that is needed to construct effective interventions (Cornwall & Brock, 2006).
In the United States, many of the disparities in income equality must also consider the cultural basis as opposed to simply economic considerations. Problems of poverty, poor health, and incarceration are unevenly distributed among racial and ethnic minorities in the United States (Nikansah-Amankra, Abvanu, & Miller, 2013). The challenges of diversity in poverty reduction can multi-faceted and difficult to understand. Racial, ethnic minorities, women, youth, and the elderly are all groups that can face specific obstacles to poverty reduction. The role of race, age, and gender can add a layer of complexity to any assessment.

Multi-disciplinary Approach

Socioeconomic development projects have historically been designed from a single discipline without much consideration of the actual people who are expected to benefit from the solution; however, some have argued that a human-centered design (HCD) model can offer better outcome through involving more comprehensive approach (Vechakul & Agogino, 2013). There have been many calls to integrate many different objectives into poverty reduction policies. Many groups have called for the implementation of environmental sustainability and biodiversity conservation into poverty alleviation efforts (DeClerck, 2012). Environmental sustainability and social sustainability have many of the same objectives inherent in their design and using both approaches simultaneously can offer many advantages. Some have proposed similar arguments with information and communication technologies (ICT) and poverty reduction programs (May & Diga, 2015).

The program must be based on the specific poverty needs of the poor in the City of Wilson. Statistical (quantitative) data will be obtained from the CSBG Training and Technical Assistance web-based resource developed by the Community Actions Network, and which provides among other things, community statistics at the lowest administrative level. The resource was selected as the primary source of quantitative data because it provides data elements around multiple indices/indicators of poverty - health, transportation, nutrition, housing, education, level of income, and employment.

However, to further collect data in the most holistic manner possible, a qualitative analysis must also be conduct with the county's residents and community leaders. Interviews with these individuals can help to provide a more accurate picture of the specific needs in Wilson based on the information that is generated that goes beyond the basic socioeconomic indicators that are generally used. Given that the purpose of the needs assessment is to reduce poverty, questions in the interviews will be based on the perceptions of individuals to identify what they believe contributes to poverty in Wilson. They can also provide information about what resources they believe could be put in place to address this problem as well as be instructed to the intended application of the study's findings.

In any community, there may be a wide range of different perspectives regarding how individuals understand the problem and what cause contribute to it. It is that the person's position within the community is also understood to help frame their perspective. Social and political factors can definitely play a role in respondents' justifications and should be balanced to help identify opportunities to design effective programs and services. It will be necessary to try to obtain the recommendations of as many different cultural and social groups as possible to ensure that the community is fully represented.