Program Launched to Break Cycle of Poverty in South King County

KENT, Wash. -- Hundreds of South King County residents have never experienced the basic building blocks of financial independence, such as opening a checking account or budgeting for groceries.

The Multi-Service Center, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has launched a Family Management Education (FME) Program designed to help local homeless families in South King County build self-sustaining lifestyles.

According to the Brookings Institute's Year 1999 Report on Poverty, there are approximately 35 million people in the U.S. experiencing chronic poverty. A large number of low-income individuals report not knowing how to take the many small steps necessary to reach a quality standard of living, such as opening a bank account, creating a budget, or establishing a savings plan.

In an effort to break this chronic cycle of poverty, the Multi-Service Center is launching its innovative adult life-skills curriculum, FME. This unique, hands-on course will teach low-income individuals, mostly single mothers, the key information and tools necessary to build and maintain healthy and self-sustaining families.

"It's not enough for us simply to provide food for the hungry. We must teach them how to escape the bonds of poverty so that they and their families will never go hungry again," said Dini Duclos, CEO of the Multi-Service Center.

During the course of the program, participants will work with program facilitators to master basic goal planning and money management, such as reading a pay stub, opening a bank account and creating a household budget. In addition to regularly scheduled one-on-one meetings with the facilitators, participants also can attend workshops twice a month at various agency service sites in Federal Way and Kent.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation donated over $100,000 toward the creation of the FME program. In addition, the program received a Community Service Block Grant, which is federal funding that allows community action groups to support programs to remove obstacles to the achievement of self-sufficiency for low income individuals.

The Multi-Service Center is a private, nonprofit community action agency serving approximately 25 percent of King County's welfare recipients. The agency offers a wide range of comprehensive programs and services, including energy crisis intervention; housing assistance (including emergency shelter, transitional and low-income permanent rental units); the state office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program; adult and family literacy services; HEART (Homeless Education To Achieve Readiness for Tomorrow); employment skills training, work maturity and jobs readiness programs for WorkFirst, under- and unemployed individuals; and CARES (Children Active in Recreation and Education), providing before and after school childcare to low-income families living in South King County and not qualifying for state subsidized childcare services.