For a woman fighting her way out of poverty, day-to-day life often gets harder before it gets easier.
A small boost in income can result in lost social services, such as child-care subsidies or food stamps. Many end up sliding back into poverty before they attain financial security and self-sufficiency — especially those without a support network of friends or family.
But a new center, launched this week by the YWCA Southern Arizona, will try to bridge this gap.
The YWCA’s new Women’s Center for Economic Opportunity will have three main goals: helping women out of poverty, boosting leadership opportunities for women in business and supporting female entrepreneurs, organizers say. They expect to reach 2,000 women annually.
“The poverty level of women and children in this community is outrageous, and stubborn,” said Kelly Fryer, executive director of the YWCA. “We’re really interested in getting at the core of it.”
The center’s outreach will be geared toward women of all income and career levels.
“It’s not just low-income women who are struggling. Women at every level on the economic spectrum face obstacles simply because they’re women,” including a persistent gender pay gap, Fryer said.
The center’s first initiative will be the Women’s Leadership Institute, with management and leadership training designed by and for women. Offerings to female entrepreneurs include business-planning courses in Spanish, management training for small-business owners, and small-business incubation for low-income women.
Women are underrepresented in executive-level positions and overrepresented among the working poor, Michelle Pitot, the center’s first director, said in a statement.
“They start nearly as many businesses as men but face enormous obstacles to raising the capital they need to grow those businesses,” she said.
PILOT PROGRAM
The center will partner with the University of Arizona’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women to evaluate its pilot program testing strategies for helping women out of poverty. The program, which will enroll 50 women per year for three years, will create a variety of support for working-class women, including connecting them with mentors and helping them develop the “soft skills” needed to secure promotions.
“We intend to fill gaps around transportation, child care, social support — those types of issues that tend to drop off when women become employed and some of their entitlements dry up,” said Sally Stevens, executive director of the UA’s Southwest Institute for Research on Women.
After three years, researchers will analyze how participants fared, looking at how many still have jobs, earned promotions or increased their salaries.
The center will also use the data to seek funding to expand aspects of the pilot program proven to be effective, as well as advocate for policy changes that help women and families, organizers said.
Policies that could make a huge difference in the lives of women include expanding child-care subsidies in Arizona, increasing the minimum wage and assuring paid sick leave, Fryer said.
“It’s not a mystery why there are so many women living in poverty,” she said. “It’s not a mystery why three out of every 10 kids in Southern Arizona live in homes at or below the poverty line. It’s because the policies have stacked the deck against them, and against their moms.”
Through a community of strong and supportive women, the new center will hopefully help improve the odds for those facing a daunting uphill battle, she said.
“We’re going to give them a vision of where they might be going in their lives,” Fryer said.
