Step Up Savannah’s new executive director says the three-decades-long poverty problem here remains a community issue with no quick fixes on the horizon.
“It is a community-wide issue that no single organization can solve,” said Suzanne Donovan. “Step Up must help the community to understand that everybody has a role working on this issue.”
She succeeded Daniel Dodd-Ramirez who had headed the agency since April 2005 until he left in March for a position in Washington, D.C. Donovan, who had been deputy of communications and policy, will supervise a staff of eight and a budget of about $700,000.
“I’m very excited about it,” she said.
It can be a daunting task.
The basic problem, she said, is that about 25 percent of Savannah’s population lives at or below the poverty level, which translates to about 34,000 individuals.
“It is an economic and a moral issue, and it is an issue of equity,” Donovan, 58, said. “What does it mean to live in a caring community?”
Step up began as a city of Savannah initiative in 2005 and has developed into an independent, nonprofit organization that reaches out to the community.
Its 36-member board of directors includes representative of business, government, social service providers and neighborhood leaders, and Donovan said the effort must reach out to such collaborative partners as the Chatham-Savannah Authority for the Homeless and Chatham-Savannah Youth Futures Authority.
“We need to set some high aspirational goals,” Donovan said. “For example, we can ask collaborative partners to buy in to reducing poverty by a certain level over the next 10 years.”
But “Step Up is only as strong as its community.”
Under her watch, the agency will continue its efforts at workforce development, financial literacy and policy-level issues.
“This is a persistent problem that was exacerbated by the recession,” Donovan said. “One benefit of the recession it affected almost all of us across the board. It was a wake-up call, and this could happen to any of us.”
The fundamental issues in addressing poverty reduction continue to be jobs and affordable housing, she said.
“We continue to have this cycle of people not being paid enough to support their families.”
Then pieces of the puzzle such as health care, transportation and child care can be addressed.
“It’s very hard to function if you don’t have a stable home,” she said.
That, in turn, points to the lack of affordable housing in the local community.
There has been some progress, including the city of Savannah’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
In 2008, 40 percent of Savannah households were spending 30 percent or more of their income on housing, a situation called “cost burdened,” Donovan said. By 2010, the figure had grown to 40 percent, she added. At the same time, rent increased by 14 percent, according to the 2010 Census.
“Absolutely. Affordable housing is crucial to solving poverty,” said Sister Pat Baber, director of the St. Mary’s Community Center and a former Step Up board member.
The 2008 “Affordable Housing and Regulatory Task Force Report” followed a year-long study that recommended establishing a housing trust fund to energize affordable housing here.
The study defined affordable housing in Savannah as privately-or publicly-owned housing for households that generally earn less than $48,000 a year and who pay no more than 30 percent of their gross income to rent or purchase a dwelling.
It estimated that 82 new housing units would have to be created each year just to keep up with the need.
Both city and county officials have since begun to fund the program, “but it is just getting there,” Baber said, adding that finishing touches are being addressed.
“It is a reality,” Baber said.
In discussing the affordable housing issue, then Mayor Otis Johnson said the trust fund was just one strategy in a set of strategies to increase affordable housing.
But, he cautioned, “it is not a silver bullet.”
For Donovan, poverty “is a fundamental issue in the community,” adding it presents “a very uncomfortable reality in our city.”