In 1982 the Milton S. Eisenhower Foundation, with funding from the Ford Foundation and assistance from more than 60 local and national funders, began a neighborhood self-help crime-prevention program in 10 inner city communities. The program was based on reducing urban violence and drug abuse through youth empowerment, community revitalization,…

Although the vast majority of single mothers do not fit the description of an underclass, there is a small group of predominantly black single mothers concentrated in northern urban ghettos that is persistently weakly attached to the labor force, socially isolated, and reproducing itself. Although welfare programs are necessary for those who are…

Poverty, violence, illegal drugs, and despair dominate the lives of many inner-city children, most of whom are Black and Hispanic. To reverse the social and economic decline of poor neighborhoods in major metropolitan areas, the State of New York has embraced an agenda, outlined here, for rebuilding high-need inner-city communities. (Author/BJV)