March 14, 2017

1. How can society help the issue of poverty?

Educate society as to what the norm is for people in that situation. Everything from proper foods, to
hygiene, social behavior and the benefits of being industrious.
Introduce children born into and/or living in those situation as to other aspects of life and what is
available to them.

2. What is the reason people within our town become impoverished, in your opinion?

The question is become impoverished, which would lend itself to the aspect of Westerly being a resort
location with limited job opportunities for individuals with a low end education or job skills. What jobs
that are available are mostly low paying and seasonal.

Westerly and the surrounding towns were establish on mill or quarry type workers. Those that were
not working in factories were cutting and shaping stone products. These jobs have either been
replaced by machinery, moved to another location without the employers burden of Unions or simply
replaced due to need or demand.

With the loss of these job opportunities our support jobs as stores, shops and the like also reduced the
need for employees.

As all of these forms of income disappeared and with many of these families not changing with the
times they become dormant, depressed and impoverished.

The second prong is that people move into Westerly because it is the largest and most affluent town in
this section of RI. It has many amenities as the train, airport, shore line, banking, stores and travel on
the second major artery in this area of New England. Route 1 also known as the Victory Highway
connecting Newport to Ct.

The quality of education available along with services for the At Risk community through the basic
needs network, lower taxes and proximity to the shore draw people here. The effect of this is the
growing property values, costs of apartment rentals and the influx of retirees.

3. Because many people are uninformed about the poverty within Westerly, what is the
best way to shed light on the issue?

I will take the term uniformed to be awareness. People who are comfortable in life seem to become
subjective in their thoughts of what the norm is and disregard the possibility of others living within their
scope, living differently. Essentially, it is difficult for society in many respects to accept the negative.
They simply ignore the aspect or brush it away blaming those living in their harsh existence as a
produce of their own demise.

That being established, what would be the reason or purpose in the minds of the general population to
get involved with our impoverished community? If it were possible to bring those impoverished
families forward to present themselves to the majority, how long would the interest to help remain?
Again subjective thinking and the unforeseeable benefit of getting involved.
 4. If you could estimate, through your knowledge, do you think poverty will decrease
within Westerly or increase within the next several years?

In my experience working with the public for the past 45 years and essentially with the Homeless and
At Risk families within our school district for the past 15 of those 45 years, I believe the level of people
in this criteria to be somewhat constant.

Our At Risk population is usually double that of those classified under the McKinney Vento Act as
being Homeless. Essentially, the vast majority of those classified as Homeless are not in as great a
risk as those classified as At Risk. The reason being is that our At Risk population are unsupported by
family and friends. They are essentially on their own attempting to make a life anyway they can. Most
of the time they find themselves reaching out to the community for assistance just to get by another
year.

As I believe you are looking for a number I shall simply past out an approximate keeping in mind this is
not an exact. Our Homeless families would be in the neighborhood of less than 40 where our At Risk
would be closer to 60 families. There always seems to be twice as many children in the At Risk sector
than those as Homeless. That would be Homeless less than 80 with At Risk more than 150. These
children would also include siblings not of school age, in both figures.

The exception to this is when a disaster strikes as the flood of 2010, then the numbers jump but are
not sustained.

5. What is the best way to decrease poverty within the town?

JOBS, Hope, guidance.

This poverty aspect has been going on for such a long time, we are talking generations. It is not
something that one mode will fix all. It is a way of life that has developed through years of depression,
feelings of inadequacy with any attempt at change to be futile.