Paycheck Away Project: welcome paycheck away coalition!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

welcome paycheck away coalition!

We have created this blog to help consolidate all of the information that the coalition needs in the coming months. Please either post or comment to update the blog or contact Adela Flores-Brennan at the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute to add events and information to the calendar and the site.

Adela: afbrennan@cclponline.org.

Thanks! Suggestions are welcome.

1 comment:

Monica Griego CCHI said...: Legue of Women Voters has given us contact info for thier regional presidents in Ft. Collins, Delta, Douglas County and Durango. Call me for thier emails and phone numbers; June 18, 2007 at 10:59 AM

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Project History

Last year, a group of statewide low-income advocates came together to look at issues of poverty in Colorado on a comprehensive basis. The group determined that in order to gain greater visibility for issues involving poverty and hardship, greater community input was required. The coalition, named the Paycheck Away Project, conducted a series of dialogues in Colorado communities to help better understand the challenges that low-income families face, especially those families on the edge of crisis – living paycheck to paycheck. The Paycheck Away Project listening tour made stops in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, Greeley, Alamosa and Aurora. In each location, a panel of local experts or local service providers kicked off an interactive discussion by answering three key questions: 1) How do poverty and hardship manifest in your community? 2) What challenges do you face in overcoming these problems? 3) What are your ideas for solutions to these problems and how can state elected leaders and statewide advocates help you? The Project learned that each geographic area of Colorado faces unique challenges to addressing poverty and that too many families in the state struggle to break the dangerous cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Alamosa struggles with quality jobs and transportation; Grand Junction needs desperately to create a service infrastructure and build affordable housing for the thousands of fragile families that have flooded the area in hopes of landing good paying jobs working the oil wells; Aurora navigates a tension between urban growth and a growing multi-generational homeless population. In all, advocates learned that there is a need to take a fresh look at poverty, to eliminate the myth of “welfare mothers” and “homeless bums” because living paycheck to paycheck is an issue that touches us all. The Paycheck Away Project Tour ended in October of 2006. The group produced a final report and a 15 minutes video that highlight the voices of the communities we visited. Both were used to raise awareness of poverty in Colorado and to challenge policymakers to work toward solutions.

Paycheck Away Project

Thursday, June 14, 2007

welcome paycheck away coalition!

1 comment:

paycheck away calendar

Project History

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