| Notes |
In 2018, Philadelphia City Council set out to create “Narrowing the Gap,” a series of actionable strategies for preventing and alleviating poverty through identifying successful policies and programs from across the country, some of which are already underway here in Philadelphia.
The list of strategies represented here was drawn up over a six-month timeframe in collaboration with City Council and HR&A Advisors, Inc. We focused on three policy areas: housing, jobs and education, and the social safety net—ultimately condensing the list to the set of 27 strategies contained in this document. As we worked, we imagined poverty at its most fundamental level to be a gap between the income needed to live a dignified, stable life and the income earned by many Philadelphians. Each solution proposed here works to narrow this gap either by raising household incomes, by cutting burdensome costs such as the cost of housing, or by bolstering the City’s commitment to protect its vulnerable residents from financial dislocation. The strategies proposed here are diverse in subject matter as well as in terms of their timeline and complexity. Some represent changes to existing policies that could be accomplished in a matter of months, while others recommend entirely new programs. |