West Virginia House bill to establish anti-poverty project advances

The House Health and Human Resources Committee on Tuesday approved a bill that would direct the state’s minority affairs office to create an anti-poverty initiative in one area of the state.

Last Tuesday, Bill White, executive director of the Herbert Henderson office of Minority Affairs, and Rev. Matthew Watts, of the HOPE Community Development Corp., appeared before the committee to answer questions about the bill.

At the time, the bill would have renamed the agency the Herbert Henderson Office of Inclusion and directed the office to establish a “community-based pilot demonstration project, for the duration of four years, to develop a model to promote public health through comprehensive community development in communities across West Virginia.”

The pilot project would operate on the West Side of Charleston and operate out of “a centrally located building owned by a local nonprofit organization to coordinate services for members of the community” and be “overseen by a collaborative of local nonprofit organizations” who would “leverage existing resources.” Its objective would be “to create a template to address poverty, substance abuse and other social determinants of health; to improve community and populations’ health; to improve labor force participation; and to support economic development through comprehensive community development in rural, suburban and urban communities across West Virginia.”

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