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It is often said that those closest to problems are closest to solutions. One of the most insidious problems we face as a region is poverty. Many of our friends and neighbors are close to it. More than a quarter of Cincinnati residents live in poverty. In some neighborhoods, the poverty rate exceeds 50%. It is a widespread, decades-old problem we have yet to solve. My experience tells me we must first address a consequential variable: Those facing the most significant barriers to financial security often have the least power to change the systems standing in their way.
Poverty is exhausting. It is all-consuming and stubborn. I saw it firsthand when I was a frontline social worker for Hamilton County Job & Family Services (JFS). I witnessed the heartache, humiliation and anxiety of people caught in bureaucratic systems without voice or power.
Sometimes they were caregivers who worked two or three jobs but still struggled to feed their children. Or parents choosing whether to go to work or make it to a child welfare hearing and risk losing their job. Or families facing eviction and the loss of their belongings because they lacked good representation in court.
During my 27 years with JFS, including 13 as director, I saw the same thing repeatedly: Policies and systems made it extremely difficult to address root problems. I became president and CEO of United Way of Greater Cincinnati (UWGC) three years ago because I saw an opportunity to truly make a difference by disrupting the status quo – in a good way – and dismantling systems that hold families back.
UWGC is taking bold steps to accelerate solutions and promote systemic change. Our new approach is data-driven and relies heavily on community voice. We are funding 86 systems-change partners with a focus on six opportunity areas:
- Promoting equitable economic mobility
- Ensuring stable housing
- Strengthening community well-being
- Supporting employment pathways for young people
- Improving early education systems for children and families
- Responding to community needs effectively.
Our systems-change partners are crucial to this work, but it does not end there.
Businesses benefit from being part of a vibrant, equitable and prosperous community where success is within everyone’s reach. To that end, the numbers say we have a long way to go. Overcoming complex challenges and meeting community needs today – and in the future – requires us all to lean in collectively. For our part, we invest, educate, lobby and work to influence policy that strikes at the systems that perpetuate poverty.
This is what I believe it takes to break the cycle and move the needle for thousands in Greater Cincinnati who have fallen behind, not for lack of trying, but due to broken systems.
Moira Weir is President and CEO of United Way of Greater Cincinnati.