Columbus must finally break the shackles of poverty

For all that Columbus and central Ohio have to boast about, the fact that many residents still live in poverty is a shameful stain.

It is a sad fact that keeps being reinforced, most recently by release of a statewide report and in Franklin County commissioners’ announced intention to work on the problem.

Poverty and related issues of crime, drug abuse and education failures have challenged civic leaders for decades, so annual reports tracking poverty’s stubborn hold are not new. Nor is much excitement generated about another government study or parochial initiative.

What is needed is a coordinated, collaborative approach to put poverty on notice that its days are numbered here.

That poverty is a major problem should not be doubted.

The Ohio Association of Community Action Agencies has tracked poverty in Ohio and reported on it annually for 25 years. Its most recent study this month shows 14 percent of Ohioans live below the federal poverty level (now $25,100 for a family of four), but Executive Director Philip Cole called that measure meaningless, contending 30 percent do not make enough to feed their families, provide transportation or access the health care they need.

In Franklin County, more than 205,000 residents, or just over 17 percent, live at or below the poverty level, according to U.S. Census data.

The problem was made crystal clear more than a year ago when The Dispatch published Dividing Lines, a three-day series of stories detailing problems with economic segregation and wage disparity in Columbus. And even then it wasn’t new news. Separate national studies in 2015 found Columbus to be the least economically diverse large city in the United States and second-most economically segregated American city, following Austin, Texas.

Forces that could be brought to bear more effectively on poverty in Columbus and Franklin County are many.

In City Hall, Mayor Andrew Ginther has targeted Linden and the Hilltop, two of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, for special attention from his administration to lift families out of poverty. He has helped focus efforts of the $50 million federal transportation program, Smart Columbus, on improving the ability of Hilltop and Linden residents to get to jobs and to access health care.

The county commissioners expect to pay $100,000 for the report they are seeking to identify what steps they can take to tackle the problem — but they won’t even have that report in hand until June 2019.

To its credit, United Way of Central Ohio set a single goal for itself in 2016 — to reduce poverty. But changing leadership in 2017 required new Executive Director Lisa Courtice to spend the past