Ballot Talks: advice for the next mayor – poverty

Guests: Tiana Gaines Turner, Sharon Dietrich, Sister Mary Scullion

In this week’s edition of Ballot Talks: we continue our series in which we assemble a panel to give (unsolicited) advice to the next mayor of Philadelphia on a variety of issues facing the city. Today, we discuss poverty: how to reduce it and ways to alleviate its devastating effects. Philadelphia is commonly referred to as America’s poorest big city, as it has the highest rate of what is known as “deep poverty” according to figures from The Inquirer of the U.S. Census 2013 American Community Survey. Deep poverty refers to the people who earn below half of the poverty line. Today, we are joined by TIANA GAINES-TURNER, who herself has lived in poverty and advocates on behalf of the city’s poor as a member of Witnesses to Hunger, part of Drexel University’s Center for Hunger-Free Communities. We’ll also be joined by SHARON DIETRICH, litigation director for Community Legal Services, an independent organization that provides free legal services to low-income Philadelphians. We’ll also hear from SISTER MARY SCULLION, president and executive director of Project HOME, a Philadelphia-based organization that works to break the cycle of poverty.

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)