The latter statistic is further compounded for impoverished Blacks who additionally suffer education, employment and criminal justice disparity. In Miami-Dade, Black youth enter the judicial system due to school arrests at a 58 percent disproportionate rate to their white counterparts.

Advocacy and intervention by the ABA will be integral in breaking cyclic patterns that begin with poverty and too often end with a life of crime.

COMMISSION ON POVERTY

The ABA has established the Commission on Poverty and Homelessness as a governing body for the “Collaborate to Advocate” initiative. On Oct. 2, a committed panel of community and philanthropic liaisons gathered at the University of Miami School of Law for the first of many nationally scheduled anti-poverty community roundtable discussions.

“This convening serves as our official launch of the commission’s new, multi-year initiative,” said Ted Small, chair of the ABA Commission on Poverty and Homelessness. “The initiative is aimed at identifying and promoting best practices for eliminating legal and justice system-related policies, practices and procedures that unfairly perpetuate or worsen the harmful effects of poverty in low-income communities.”

POVERTY PANEL

Panelists in attendance collectively represented the voices of anti-poverty expertise from the state and local government, service providers, religious, academic, political and legal communities.

Included were Amy E. Horton-Newell, director, Commission on Homelessness & Poverty; Oliver G. Gilbert III, mayor of Miami Gardens; Lars Gilberts, United Way of Broward County, (Director, ALICE); Barbara “Bobbie” Ibarra, executive director, Miami Coalition for the Homeless; Paco Velez, president and CEO, of Feeding South Florida and a host of others.

“I am happy we are finally thinking about the generational causes and effects of poverty. Far too often we treat poverty like a headache that we can get rid of; take two special programs and call me in the morning,” said Mayor Gilbert. “It’s more like a genetic predisposition that can be planned for and planned around. But it all begins with diagnosing it and treating it like it is something real that won’t just go away because we want it to.”

ROUNDTABLE GOALS

The goal of each roundtable is to bring together a consortium of 10-15 community stakeholders. Professor Kele Stewart, associate dean of experiential learning, at the University of Miami School of Law, served as moderator and led the consortium through an interview-style dialogue.

Queries posed included, “How can those who are already addressing poverty in Miami/Dade-Fort Lauderdale/Broward work more collaboratively and in a cross-disciplinary fashion?”

“This [roundtable] was a good start to identifying synergies and shared priorities that will hopefully lead to collaborative initiatives,” said Stewart.

“The roundtable also included powerful insights from community advocates who have themselves experienced first-hand the harsh realities of homelessness and community displacement in Miami,” Stewart added.

POSITIVE OUTCOMES

The four-hour, Miami anti-poverty roundtable discussion informally “kicked-off” an ongoing collaboration of community representatives. Most panelists work in tandem on a regular basis, but the roundtable provided a forum for future motivation.

“What I walked away with most was the exposure to actual youth and adults who had experienced poverty and homelessness,” offered Brett McNaught, CEO and founder of Educate Tomorrow.

“They were able to give roundtable guests and the commission some real firsthand stories and experiences. I think the take away is they all found value from having support from a mentor, coach, or someone in the community organization who had taken time to get to know them and help them get out of situations,” McNaught added.

Future poverty roundtables are scheduled and include San Diego (Feb. 5, 2016), a variety of communities in Alabama (Spring 2016), two communities in Oklahoma (including a rural convening with tribal representation), and San Francisco (Aug. 5, 2016—with the possible addition of a convening with farmworkers in northern California).

Penny Dickerson is a 2015 Journalism Fellow of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, a private, nonprofit grant-making organization, which seeks to increase the public’s understanding of the issues and policies that affect families living in poverty. Through profiles, vignettes and features, Dickerson’s series hopes to shift public perception and broaden awareness in areas that critically affect the definition of poor people of color by reporting from four-quadrants of the state: Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Daytona and Miami.