Welcome

Voices for Action is a statewide effort to reduce poverty 50% in Michigan by 2020.

Led by the Michigan Department of Human Services, the initiative has created a network of organizations including human service organizations, government agencies, local faith-based and community organizations, non-profits, and businesses.

This space is for you to share your Voices for Action stories and current information. There are three ways to share.

- Submit a post via email to: voices4action6@haltpoverty.org and we'll post it for you, be sure to include contact info

- Submit a post through blogger: Google account required; request author invite by sending an email with name & organization information to: voices4action6@haltpoverty.org

- Comment on published posts, no login required

You can use tags to highlight themes, such as 'asset building', 'workforce development', 'food assistance', etc.

Here are current poverty statistics for Region 6:

2009 Poverty and Median Income Estimates - Counties
Name	Poverty Estimate All Ages	Poverty Percent All Ages	Poverty Estimate Under Age 18	Poverty Percent Under Age 18	Median Household Income
Allegan	12,850	11.5	4,601	16.2	50,487
Barry	6,038	10.4	2,111	15.2	53,566
Berrien	27,259	17.4	9,481	25.4	39,856
Branch	7,430	17.9	2,780	26.8	40,798
Calhoun	22,951	17.4	8,193	26.1	39,130
Cass	7,837	15.9	2,334	21.5	45,799
Kalamazoo	46,977	19.6	11,748	21.8	42,336
St. Joseph	10,265	16.9	3,710	23.9	43,402
Van Buren	12,755	16.6	4,409	22.8	41,731

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Small Area Estimates Branch
Internet Release date: December 2010

View Michigan Counties - Region 6 Poverty in a larger map

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Road to Prosperity Wants Your Stories

The Campaign to Cut Poverty in Half in Ten Years

Half in Ten and CHN release the Road to Shared Prosperity story map

The Half in Ten campaign and the Coalition on Human Needs are thrilled to announce the release of the Road to Shared Prosperity, an interactive map displaying a collection of personal stories about programs building the American Dream. At a time when human-needs programs like Medicaid, food stamps/SNAP, and numerous others are facing the threat of extreme budget cuts, it is critical to show how such programs make a difference in the lives of real families, communities, and the economy. Designed to be a rich resource for the public, all stories contained in the map are paired with data on a state’s social and economic situation to show that this is about more than one person’s struggle or one family’s encounter with the safety net, but rather systemic issues that federal programs are successfully addressing.

Visit our resources for advocates page to learn best practices for leveraging the map’s contents for advocacy. We urge you to include stories and data from the Road to Shared Prosperity into your correspondence with members of Congress, in opinion editorials, and in social media campaigns.

Half in Ten and the Coalition on Human Needs are seeking additional stories to add to the map, which will be updated regularly. We welcome short video clips and written stories from service providers, beneficiaries, community leaders, business owners, and others who can speak to the value of federal programs that build prosperity and increase opportunity for all Americans. If you’d like to add your story to the Road to Shared Prosperity, click here.

We hope that this map will prove to be a useful resource in your advocacy around the budget debate. With your help we can pave the road to shared prosperity for all Americans.

View the Road to Shared Prosperity

Submit your story to the Road to Shared Prosperity