What happened to Philadelphia City Council’s plan to lift 100,000 people out of poverty by 2024?

Three years ago, City Council announced a plan to lift 100,000 Philadelphians out of poverty by 2024.

It’s safe to say the city will fall well short of the ambitious timeline laid out in the Poverty Action Plan, which Council President Darrell L. Clarke described at the time as “our city’s moonshot moment.”

The city’s poverty rate is 22.3%, down from 24.5% when the report was released. It’s unclear to what extent local policy played a role in that decline because the prevalence of poverty is often more reflective of broader economic conditions and federal policy. If the city succeeded in pulling 100,000 residents above the poverty line, the rate would be about 19%.

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Here’s what you need to know about the status of the plan and its future:

Council intentionally set a lofty goal for the plan, centered around a public-private partnership called The Promise that is managed by the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey.

But days after the announcement, the coronavirus pandemic shut down the economy and shifted officials’ priorities. Clarke said the city, which has so far has invested $20 million in The Promise, likely would have contributed more were it not for COVID-19.

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To have a chance at reaching the “moonshot” goal, the program would likely need $100 million of total funding behind it, said Michael Banks, executive director of The Promise.

“Nobody thought that $20 million was going to fix all the challenges,” Clarke said. “If that pandemic did not happen, trust me, we would have been a lot further along and we might have been in a position to reach that goal.”

Clarke noted that the city has followed through on recommendations from Council’s anti-poverty plan through other efforts, such as investing in affordable housing through Clarke’s Neighborhood Preservation Initiative, funding rent subsidies during the pandemic, and adopting property tax relief measures targeted at middle-class homeowners.

The seeds of The Promise were planted in a 2019 Council report that called for a public-private partnership to helm Philadelphia’s anti-poverty efforts.

The program is structured so that the United Way, rather than a city agency, distributes the funds to smaller community organizations and nonprofits. Those groups include the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, the Congreso de Latinos Unidos, and the African Cultural Alliance of North America.

Banks said the structure gives the program more flexibility and avoids needless competition between charitable organizations vying for city money.

“There’s so many different nonprofits doing so many things, and it becomes The Hunger Games every budget cycle,” he said. “United Way acts as the hub.”

Additionally, the public-private structure allows corporate and philanthropic backers to get involved. Donors including Comcast, Wells Fargo, and Peco have contributed $5 million to $6 million per year, Banks said.

Clarke said he was hoping the private sector would have given more, but he remains optimistic.

“I appreciate in a very meaningful way the contributions we’ve gotten so far from the private sector, but clearly we’re asking them to do more,” he said.

The Promise has so far launched two programs that offer services to Philadelphians, each rooted by $10 million in city funding, Banks said.

The first phase focuses on helping city residents access benefits that they are already eligible for. Every year, low-income Americans fail to claim billions of dollars worth of federal tax breaks and benefits they are entitled to, such as the earned income tax credit. The Promise has funded “family stability” centers across the city that make it easier for people to file their taxes and access benefits.

As of October, the program had helped more than 53,000 Philadelphians access more than $52 million in benefits, according to its most recent annual report.

“I grew up in deep poverty, and I remember my mother taking several buses all around the city” to pay bills or access government services, Banks said. “What we’re trying to do is really just optimize it.”

The second phase involves helping people with criminal records enter the workforce through expungement clinics.

Future phases of the program will tackle other recommendations in the Poverty Action Plan, such as paying low-income residents to attend job training courses.

The Promise received $10 million in funding from the city in each of its first two years, but it did not get any money in the most recent city budget deal approved in June.

Banks said he is optimistic Council will fund a midyear budget transfer to boost the program, and Clarke said he believes the city will remain committed to the program.

It’s unclear, however, who will champion it in the coming years. Former Councilmembers Maria Quiñones Sánchez and Allan Domb led the Council committee, but they both resigned last year and ran unsuccessful campaigns for mayor. Clarke will leave office in January after deciding not to run for reelection.

Banks said it would be a missed opportunity if Philadelphia let The Promise go by the wayside amid the upcoming turnover in City Hall.

“Collaboration, stability, commitment to ongoing measurement and progress improvement, and the ability to bring 20-plus organizations in one room — that’s not something that historically has happened,” he said.