In short,

A community with no poverty is one in which means every resident is safe. It is not idyllic any more than your desire for your own children to be free from rape, murder, assault, and abuse is idyllic.

A community with no poverty is one in which children can grow intellectually as well as emotionally and socially in the same manner as their peers in other communities, with schools that are not allowed to continue failing their children at rates exemplified by having less than 20% being able to test at grade level for reading or being five grades behind in math by the tiem they reach high school.

A community with no poverty has less to do with an outdated and inadequate government-produced federal poverty threshold or guideline and more to do with the day-to-day quality of life that your neighbors are able to have.

In detail,

Keeping in mind that poverty is defined as the inability to live for a sustained period of time without financial assistance, eradicating poverty in your community simply means that every individual and family can independently meet their daily needs on an ongoing basis.


The characteristics of a community with full economic stability include:


  • Banks and financial planners located in or close by neighborhoods for people to save money for their future and their children’s futures


  • Accessible healthcare for all residents who do not have their own means of transportation

    • Prevention: wellness and fitness facilities such as recreation centers, healthy food stores, and gyms

    • Treatment: primary care facilities, labs, clinics, hospitals


  • Reword: No child or adult chronically hungry or malnourished

    • Healthy food, clean drinking water


  • Up-to-code housing available for everyone who seeks it

    • Use of 3D, tiny homes (rw), and prefab homes…


  • Adequate public transportation so individuals can efficiently get to work or to extracurricular activities

    • Nobody in your community should have to travel (90 minutes to get 10 miles), as is the case in many parts of the country today where individuals without their own means of transportation must rely on public transportation.


  • Employment opportunities are plentiful for people with various training and skill sets

    • Apprenticeships

    • Emphasis for youth on pathways to financial stability 


  • Education

    • Children not passed from grade to grade without being at grade level in reading, math, and other agreed-upon metrics for learning


  • Minimal to no violence in public domains

    • Provide a detail here


Ending poverty means every one of these conditions exists for every family. The SHP Action Guides offer practical steps, tools, and proven strategies to help you take action, solve local problems, and create lasting opportunities in your community. In addition to these guides, we provide support and other resources that give you what you need to drive change and end poverty in your community in five years or less.


Sending human beings to the moon is considerably more complicated than
eradicating poverty in your community.

See for yourself here.

Join a cohort

Learn from individuals across the country about what is working well — or not working well — in their communities. Or work with your own neighbors from different sectors.

If your community needs to make greater progress, working with a cohort may increase the likelihood of success.