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Project Description

Goal: The development of a citizen-based process to assist local areas to assess the status of the community's low income families, examine the barriers they face in their efforts to become self sufficient, and develop recommendations to improve welfare reform initiatives. Broad involvement of directly affected families was an integral part of the project design.
Focus areas and scope of the inquiry: Transportation, child care, health care, work opportunities and skills, federal lifetime limits and family protections in state law; eleven local assemblies gathered information through an invitational hearing and a survey of families and community-based institutions; other geographic areas also participated in the surveys.
Guiding principle: Promotion of family stability, child safety and movement of the family out of poverty guided assembly activities.

Project duration: Nov 1997 - Dec 1998

Sites studied include Michigan: Detroit-Wayne County, Flint-Genesse County, Gladwin County, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing, Macomb County, Marquette-Upper Peninsula, Saginaw-Bay Counties, South Oakland County, and Traverse County

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

1) 11 local assemblies generated information through invitational hearings involving families, resource persons in focus areas (sites selected by project advisory committee to represent urban, suburban, and rural areas); 2) 1,700 (self-selected) low-income families from 59 Michigan counties responded to family survey; 3) 500 (self-selected) community-based institutions with family service sites in 56 counties responded to institutional survey. Data collected in winter/spring 1998.

Recent Findings in Brief

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