Advancing Opportunity in New York City

The Center of American Progress hosted the "Advancing Opportunity in New York City." New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg established Center for Economic Opportunity. CEO used innovative methods to deal with poverty. Bloomberg came to Washington to talk about the program.

Afterwards, there was a panel discussion. Derek Douglas is Special Assistant to President Barack Obama for Urban Affairs. Linda Gibbs, Deputy to Mayor Bloomberg for Health and Human Services. Ron Haskins, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution and former poverty advisor to George W. Bush. This is a fascinating discussion on how to address combating poverty.

The early achievement of CEO have been getting people to get their GEDs. Getting people into college. Unemployed single parents now have careers.

CEO's goals:

• Breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty by investing in human capital development.

• Giving the working poor a toolbox of programs and supports that will help them move up the economic ladder and out of poverty for the long term.

• Offering youth who are out of school and unemployed, and those who have a history of incarceration, better chances to gain the skills and work experience they need to succeed.

• Intervening early in the lives of children age 0-5 to break cycles of poverty.

• Breaking down silos within government to promote new ways of collaborating, increasing efficiency, and making better use of limited
resources.

• Using data and evaluation to improve programs and allocate resources based on measurable results.

• Sharing lessons learned and advocating on a national level for strategies shown to make a difference.

I would love to see a program such as this in Tampa. Unfortunately, Pam Iorio has been obsessed with the sidewalk to nowhere.