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- There is currently no national mandate or policy to reduce poverty.
- Although poverty is a societal, structural, and systemic problem, we have placed the responsibility for solving it on either the government or on the individual living in poverty. Because each of these entities is only a part of the system, expectations that either can solve it alone are unrealistic.
- Government strategies have focused on changing the behavior of individuals living in poverty. We have not placed equal focus on changing the behavior of other parts of the system (e.g. societal institutions), which also contribute to creating conditions that lead to poverty.
- Every sector of society engages in some type of behavior that hinders the ability of individuals, families, communities, and society to thrive. This points to the structural and systemic nature of the problem.
- These hindering behaviors are often only apparent when one institution's behavior or policies are examined in relation to others'. We have not engaged the whole system in focusing on this dynamic interplay in such a way that would allow us to identify and modify these behaviors.
- Individual strategies within individual sectors (e.g. tax policies, education reform, minimum wage increases, health care reform, job training) are useful, but even if successfully implemented, still do not solve the whole problem.
- The community is the best level at which to think, plan, and act on issues of poverty because it is where the conditions of poverty are most directly felt, the stakes of doing nothing are most visible, and the benefits of improved conditions are directly experienced.
- Large entities, such as the state and Federal government, are often too far away from the realities of communities to determine what is best for addressing their unique issues, nor are they responsible for implementing any strategies they might develop on a community's behalf.
- Prescriptive strategies developed outside a community and attempted within it are rarely successful beyond specific pilot projects.
- Since every community's conditions are different, no one prescribed solution will be effective nationally.
- Communities often have difficulty influencing higher-level policies that would create the enabling conditions they need to effectively reduce poverty and create prosperous conditions.
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