Compared to cities the same size, Rochester ranks second in overall poverty, first in child poverty, extreme poverty, and the rate of poverty for female-headed families.
Those are some of the findings in a report released Tuesday by ACT Rochester and the Rochester Community Foundation showing that poverty continues to be a growing problem in the region.
ACT Rochester senior director Ann Johnson it’s a crisis that has been decades in the making.
"It won't be overnight that we start to see the tide turn, she said." I think we should, as a community, celebrate when we stop having the poverty rate increase, when we just get control of being flat."
More than a third (33.8%) of people living in the city of Rochester are below the federal poverty level. That's a more than 2 percent increase since the last time figures were released three years ago.
52.5 percent of Rochester's children are living in poverty, the highest child poverty rate among cities the same size.
Johnson says when you include the number of city of Rochester residents whose incomes don’t meet the federal poverty standard, but who still rely on assistance to meet their basic needs, two thirds of them are struggling.
"Now the part that is even more eye-opening is that only 8.3 percent in the suburbs are considered at the poverty level, but 20 percent are not yet self-sufficient,” she said. “So almost one third of Monroe County (residents are) not self-sufficient."
African Americans and Latinos were more than three times as likely to be poor as those who identify as non-Latino White.
The report was based on U.S. Census data between 2010 and 2014 - before the Rochester-Monroe Anti-Poverty Initiative was formed.
Johnson says the community has reason for hope because of the unprecedented number of resources that are currently focused on solving the problem
"People still think there is an easy solution and the people who aren't involved in understanding some of the efforts happening in the community are less optimistic,” she said. “We think the community needs to just understand the realities, but also (the initiatives) that are happening and just to continue to get involved in ways that make the most sense to them."
The goal of the RMAPI is to reduce poverty by 50 percent over 15 years.
