History
City, county and state agencies, together with private sector interests and non-profit organizations serving the public throughout Alachua County met in 1999 and 2000 in a series of "Poverty Summits" to attempt to identify why poverty had been both high and persistent in Alachua County for the past several decades. The participating organizations and individuals shared information about who they served, what resources they used to provide services, and barriers they faced in solving problems associated with poverty and its impacts. A number of specific ways to overcome those barriers were suggested, and projects were begun to address the issues.
Among the initiatives undertaken were a new project to assist low income individuals pay off utility deposit charges over time (a project of the Alachua County Housing Authority) to assist them getting into homes and apartments; a new shared database system containing basic eligibility information so that individuals would not need to go through multiple eligibility processes providing the same information to multiple agencies (a project of the Alachua County Health Dept, Community Support Services Social Services, Catholic Charities, and WE Care, Inc.); customer service training was provided to agencies to encourage professional, respectful and helpful assistance to people, not clients.
Additionally, an ongoing team of individuals met regularly to try to ensure efficient and effective coordination among all the service agencies, to share resources, to share information about potential sources of additional resources, and to make recommendations to local government about poverty reduction efforts. This team was replaced by Board of County Commissioners by the creation of the Poverty Reduction Advisory Board.