Moline, Rock Island progress in addressing poverty
Project NOW held its 2nd-annual Rooting Out Poverty Conference Thursday at Rhythm City Event Center, Davenport.
Among the six-hour event, that attracted over 300 people, Moline Mayor Sangeetha Rayapati discussed the new Level Up and Thurgood Brooks talked up West End Revitalization, two major efforts to help lift local residents out of poverty.
Level Up (a pilot program for the 2024 calendar year) was launched to offer critical or emergency assistance to residents in need who are not met by other programs or services. It was initially supposed to be funded by $200,000 in cannabis tax revenue, but there was a delay in filing the paperwork, and the city is not going to get that revenue until beginning July 1.
“The staff found us money for us this first round, but the intent is to be funded by cannabis tax revenue,” Rayapati said Thursday. Project NOW (which administers the program) is funding $120,000 for the monthly grants, $60,000 for one-time emergency assistance, and $20,000 for program administration.
The Level A funding is $400 a month for a year, helping 25 qualifying families. They must be Moline residents, single or two-parent families where a parent is enrolled in a program at Black Hawk College, WIU-QC, UnityPoint or University of Illinois nursing programs, or in a local apprenticeship in a trade organization or other credentialing programs.
Level B one-time grants (of up to $2,000) are for anyone 18 years old or up who meets the above requirements, and they can’t also receive monthly grants.
Level Up has the goal of moving people up in quality of life and economic mobility, Rayapati said. In Moline, 15 percent of residents live in poverty and over 57% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch.
“We’re looking forward to the data gathering that will happen throughout the year, we know by the next budget cycle, how we can continue to help folks – see what worked and what needs improvements,” she said.
“It’s really up to case management at Project NOW to see what their needs are,” Rayapati said of recipients.
No one will be negatively impacted by receiving Level Up, meaning other public assistance won’t be reduced, the mayor said.
The program is based on similar programs in cities and counties across the country. “They’re working on ways to actually lift people up and out of poverty,” Rayapati said.
She wanted to promote the program at Thursday’s conference and show Moline’s success so far (they’re the only QC community to have such a program).
“When you look at data around our median income, our education level, how much farther behind some of our residents are than the state average is, it’s very clear we need to keep working hard to make sure that people aren’t stuck in the situations they might have been born into,” Rayapati said.
“We’re really proud of this specifically being for parents, or single-parent families, because we know those are some of our most vulnerable children,” she said. “We can make a generational impact in this way.”
Level Up was created because the mayor chose to learn what’s going on across the country to address economic mobility. Rayapati attended a U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Reno, Nev., where she heard Michael Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton, Calif.
“He’s really a groundbreaking mayor; he created an organization called Mayors for Guaranteed Income,” she told the Davenport conference gathering.
“I said, I wonder what I need to do in Moline to address economic mobility and access to opportunity,” Rayapati said, adding she later met with Project NOW executive director Dwight Ford about starting Level Up.
“Guaranteed income has a very long history, under lots of different titles,” she said in the panel. “The legacy stretches all the way back to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. For us to have entered into conversations decades ago, and not done anything, I think is a tragedy. We’re trying to do something in a big piece, a large way.”
To learn more about Level Up, click HERE.
Uplifting central Iowa
At the afternoon panel the mayor spoke at, coordinators of the year-old Uplift Iowa in the Des Moines area — Ashley Ezzio and Michael Berger – also spoke. It’s similar to what Moline is doing.
There are over 130 similar programs across the nation, and Uplift Iowa has worked with the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania.
“We really kind of modeled that and used their advice on how to do evaluations, best research,” Ezzio said before her panel. They started their program in May 2023 and it’s just for two years, helping 110 people with $500 a month in Polk, Dallas and Warren counties, with the last payments in April 2025.
Their eligibility is for people living with a dependent up to 25 years old, and a household income at or below 60 percent of the area median income, Berger said.
They’re doing a research study comparing participants with a control group of 140 who meet the income levels but don’t receive grants.
The participants have an average age of 37 with an average annual household income of $24,542, 85% are female, with an average of two children per household. The average participants spend 44 percent of their income on housing, more than the 30% that’s considered “housing burdened,” according to Uplift Iowa.
The funding comes from 11 sources, including private and public entities, Ezzio said.
Berger said poverty is a big problem in central Iowa, from housing instability to food insecurity. “Child care is an extremely huge cost for these folks, meaning they have to make very difficult decisions – are they going to work or does it make more sense to have a parent at home?” he said.
“We really do see the plethora of the symptoms of poverty,” Berger said.
Lifting up Rock Island’s West End
Thurgood Brooks, a 30-year-old Rock Island native, is coordinator for the West End Revitalization project. Project NOW – a key partner — invited him to speak Thursday. He grew up in the West End.
“We’ve stayed in dialogue with them through this entire process, the three-year plan,” Brooks said. “It was a no-brainer to share what we’re able to do.”
“This is intentional, deliberate actions and a strategic plan behind stability for the West End,” he said. “It’s not top down. It’s from the grassroots level up – we’re working with residents of the West End, real Rock Islanders behind this plan.”
Other major partners include the John Deere Foundation, the Martin Luther King Center and the QC Community Foundation, which awarded the project a $300,000 transformational grant earlier this year (spread over three years).
In early 2022, Rock Island City Council approved and John Deere provided funding for a one-year phase to prioritize West End Community Assessment recommendations.
That summer, a Task Force of community representatives appointed a Steering Committee for the West End Revitalization.
In 2023, it created working groups in five impact areas and one cross-cutting areas: Community Engagement, Personal Assets & Income, Housing & Land, Community Economic Vitality, Infrastructure & Visual Appeal, and Communications.
In March 2024, based on efforts by the Working Groups and guidance by the Steering Committee, a 3-Year Implementation Plan was unveiled.
“Our plan is holistic; we’re looking at five areas,” Brooks said Thursday. “You can’t look at one area; if you do, you won’t address anything. Understanding that, we can’t do it all alone. We have to collaborate – which means building relationships with folks, whether it’s a credit union, providing services for people that need financial education, financial mobility, or working with our schools.”
John Deere Foundation hasn’t committed a specific new grant yet. The city of Rock Island has been a good partner, Brooks said, and they’re also looking to businesses and the community for support.
“We’re looking at any funds and resources that are appropriate to tackle what we need to tackle,” he said.
The short-term goals over three years are to:
A new West End Community Development Corporation is fully operational with staff, an office, established partnerships, and is implementing actions in the plan.
Franklin Field is acquired with development partners and plan in place.
West End Special Service Area is created.
West End community stakeholders are regularly engaged and play key roles in moving the Action Plan forward.
Partner organizations and institutions are leading and supporting actions in the plan.
Diversified funding has been secured and a West End Revitalization funders roundtable has been established.
West End stakeholders know the purpose, progress, and goals for the West End Revitalization initiative and how to get involved.
Brooks said his main message to Thursday’s conference was: “To go fast, you go alone. To go far, you go together, and that’s what we’re looking to do.”
He networked with other experts on the issues at the Project NOW conference. “We can get buy-in into our vision of the West End, and they see their vision within ours. That’s how we’re gonna go far, together.”
To learn more about the project, visit the West End site HERE.
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