About
Malheur Poverty to Prosperity was created to address the grassroots common agenda: Economic Recovery. The MP2P CTE committee is committed to drastically reducing poverty while building a strong local workforce. By improving outcomes for Opportunity Youth and Priority Youth, businesses and communities have the potential to increase savings for society, improve the quality of talent available to employers, and interrupt a multigenerational cycle of poverty for youth and their families.
Improving outcomes for Malheur youth is a complex, multifaceted challenge—a challenge that no one organization can solve alone, but one that our community can solve together. Historically, Malheur County has been the poorest, most disadvantaged county in the state. Malheur County’s poverty rate is currently at 22.6% compared to Oregon’s 14.8%. This poverty results in a corresponding higher rate of unwed pregnant teens (teen pregnancy rate of 13.6%; Oregon is 10.1%), high contact with the law enforcement, court and jail/prison systems, and a loss of the value these young men and women could add to Oregon’s social and economic base.
One of the causes of poverty is our failure to train our children for jobs readily available in our community, and in not using or developing resources that we have in abundance within Malheur County.
