Phillip M. Bailey

@phillipmbailey

Sharon Trager stood guard over the small bounty of aluminum cans she has bundled in a plastic bag and tied to her front gate.

"They’re not giving you much money for them like they were a while back," she said.

Trager, 68, was laid off six years ago and needs every penny to cover her $350-a-month rent for her modest home next door to Lucky Junior Tavern on 26th Street in the Portland neighborhood. Each month she receives less than $500 from Social Security plus roughly $50 in food stamps.

"Even one person struggles making it out on that, I can tell you," she said. "Everything keeps going up and up and up."

A report released Tuesday by the Greater Louisville Project, a nonpartisan civic initiative, shows Louisville is third from last among 17 peer cities in terms of concentrated poverty.

And Trager's home is within a census tract — bounded by 28th, 24th, Market and Bank streets — that is one of the poorest in any of the peer cities, which include Nashville, St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Charlotte.

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The study uses the Brookings Institution's definition of concentrated poverty, which looks at income levels 150 percent below the poverty line but also takes into account higher unemployment rates, lower life expectancy, lack of health insurance and a high school degree. One in seven Louisville residents are living in such dire economic circumstances, according to the study.

It found that of the 3,228 census tracts in all 17 peer cities, Louisville had two of the most impoverished, with the Portland neighborhood tract ranked 10th poorest overall and an area nine blocks west in the Russell area — bounded by Interstate 64, Broadway, 13th and 9th streets — the third poorest.

Antwand Hendricks, who has lived in the Beecher Terrace housing complex in the Russell tract for all of his 39 years, said it was surprising to hear that his area is considered among the poorest in the city.

"We shouldn't even be in the top 10," Henrdicks, 39 said. "Just from what I see, I don't see people living in poverty like they say poverty. You might not have everything you want everyday, but that's not poverty."

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Ben Reno-Weber, GLP's director, said that group’s competitiveness report examined Louisville and its peers at the neighborhood level for the first time, and analysts, too, were surprised to find Louisville had two of the poorest neighborhoods in the study. He said the report has created a more complex understanding, though.

"That's important because when we're looking at the assets available in Russell or Portland, it's really we've got this one particular census tract in both that is extremely different than the rest of our community," Reno-Weber said.

The report said the situation is having a measurable impact on the well-being of Louisville residents and the city’s ability to lure businesses and other amenities away from its competitors.

When compared to the citywide average, residents of Louisville's four poorest census tracts — which include east downtown and South Central neighborhoods — face a jobless rate that is more than two times higher, earn roughly $13,000 less every year and live about seven fewer years.

Reno-Weber said he hopes the report will spark conversations among city officials and philanthropic leaders about creating neighborhood-focused policies that include education, health, jobs and quality-of-place reforms.

Mayor Greg Fischer, speaking at a community forum on the study on Tuesday afternoon, said the city appreciates Greater Louisville Project's work. He joined other civic leaders at the discussion event hosted at the Urban League, 1535 W. Broadway, which included the group's leader, Sadiqa Reynolds, Brandy Kelly Pryor, director of the city’s Center for Health Equity and Brian Riendeau, executive director of Dare to Care.

"This report makes it really clear to us that concentrated poverty does more than just keeping many residents from their full potential, it creates a deficit of hope," Fischer said.

But Fischer said that despite the unacceptable statistics in the report, the city has reason to be optimistic. He said Louisville has added 55,000 jobs in the past five years, helped 2,500 new businesses and slashed unemployment from 10 percent to just above 4 percent.

"The new challenge to make that great leap forward ... in addressing concentrated poverty," Fischer said.

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Reporter Phillip M. Bailey can be reached at (502) 582-4475 or pbailey@courier-journal.com