Task force zeroes in on poverty

Meetings focus on compiling report to spur legislation

BY LINDSAY RUEBENS
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LITTLE ROCK — More than 40 people attended a town-hall meeting Thursday night to discuss
how to reduce poverty in Arkansas.

The meeting, which took place at the Willie L. Hinton Neighborhood Resource Center, is one of
the first steps a legislative task force is taking to decrease poverty. There are plans to present
the report to the state Legislature and the governor later this year.

The Arkansas Taskforce on Reducing Poverty and Promoting Economic Opportunity comprises
22 people, most of whom represent community leaders and nonprofit groups in Arkansas.

At the meeting, state Sen. Joyce Elliott, who sponsored the legislation to create the task force,
said she wants to reduce poverty in a systematic way.

“For people like me who survived it, we were lucky,” Elliott said. “But a child’s life should not be
about being lucky.”

Elliott, who grew up in Nevada County, said she doesn’t want people to give up on trying to
solve poverty.

“When something is this big, you don’t just sit and look at it and say, ‘I don’t know what to do
about it,’” she said. “I hope Arkansas won’t just settle.”

This town-hall meeting was one of five across the state, said Rich Huddleston, co-chairman of
the task force and executive director of Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. There
have already been meetings in Texarkana and Northwest Arkansas, he said, and there will be
meetings in Dumas and Jonesboro later this month.

Huddleston said after the meetings that the task force will compile data on all of the ideas and
then prioritize the list in August.

Elliott, the other co-chairman of the task force, said the task force hopes to complete the report
by Nov. 1.

After presenting the report, Huddleston said, the hope is that state lawmakers will pass
legislation aimed at reducing poverty.

“It will be up to the individual advocates and legislators to run with it,” he said.

Joyce Hardy attended the meeting because, she said, she felt compelled to be a part of the
solution to reducing poverty.

“Issues of poverty are very dear to my heart,” Hardy said. “My faith tells me I’m supposed to be
working on issues of social injustice.”

Hardy said she believes health care for the impoverished is a pressing problem.
“I see a need for more access to health care,” she said. Hardy is a volunteer coordinator at
Harmony Clinic, a free interfaith clinic in Little Rock.

“I think we need to talk about it more and understand it more and have these kinds of
dialogues,” she said.
This article was published today at 5:01 a.m.
Arkansas, Pages 17 on 07/17/2010