{"id":956,"date":"2009-11-01T00:51:56","date_gmt":"2009-11-01T00:51:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoe.com\/wheresjoe\/?p=394"},"modified":"2009-11-01T00:51:56","modified_gmt":"2009-11-01T00:51:56","slug":"bridges-out-of-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=956","title":{"rendered":"‘Bridges Out Of Poverty’"},"content":{"rendered":"

This last week I met with Mike Cobbler, who is a representative for St. Joseph County’s Bridges Out of Poverty Initiative<\/strong><\/a>. \u00a0 This program examines the sources and impact of generational poverty on families and communities, reveals the hidden rules and norms of social classes, and supports addressing and solving generational poverty. \u00a0 Mr. Cobbler said: \u00a0 “God has given enough resources that all life can be sustained. \u00a0 But people have failed us, policies have failed us and our personal lifestyles have failed us.” \u00a0 Bridges has set up a series of classes throughout the community that outline some of the systemic reasons for poverty, how people function within each socio-economic strata, and how one can (through goal setting, being mentored, and so on…) break the cycle of poverty. \u00a0 To help, those taking the courses are twinned with “allies.” \u00a0 That is, volunteers who will be there for Bridge’s students at every turn to help with strategies for success. \u00a0 “So often the poor are simply living in ‘the tyranny of the moment,” said Mr. Cobbler. \u00a0 They are just treading water trying to make the rent each month, scratching to get money for a car repair, sweating over whether there’ll be enough food for the kids… \u00a0 Mr. Cobbler added that in the three years the program has been in existence in South Bend, Indiana, there have already been some 200 graduates of the 14 week program. \u00a0 Note:<\/strong> \u00a0 Bridges liaisons with the courts, with mental health agencies, drug and alcohol agencies, with social services… in the hopes of creating an extensive referral safety net for those in need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This last week I met with Mike Cobbler, who is a representative for St. Joseph County’s Bridges Out of Poverty Initiative. \u00a0 This program examines the sources and impact of generational poverty on families and communities, reveals the hidden rules …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}