Nearly 40 city leaders gathered in Washington, D.C., last month to explore ways to put money in the pockets of low-income working families and help these families cover basic expenses, such as food, health care, home heating and child care.

Participants in the first ever NLC Helping Working Families (HWF) Leadership Academy discussed opportunities to assist working families who are struggling to make ends meet, while bringing additional federal and state resources into the local economy.

Hosted by NLC?s Institute for Youth, Education, and Families, this forum showcased research and municipal best practices to help cities connect residents with multiple public benefits, such as tax credits, food stamps, free or low-cost health insurance, energy assistance and child care vouchers.

Urgent Need, Prime Opportunity

The HWF Leadership Academy underscored the alarming fact that millions of American families work but do not earn enough to pay for basic needs such as food and decent housing.

City leaders have a tremendous opportunity to publicize key work supports. During the holiday season in particular, city officials can use visits to food pantries or similar programs as an opportunity to highlight available resources for struggling families.

Communication and Targeted Outreach

City officials can promote work supports through simple messages and strategic outreach.  According to communication professionals, messages should be customized to target audiences and delivered through several mediums at once.  Also, it is vital to promote a clear action step, such as: ?Call our toll-free number to find out more.?

Local elected officials can help tape and place radio or television ads and public service announcements and can work with local businesses or utility companies to get the word out to employees and customers.

City leaders can also tap neighborhood leaders as spokespeople about key benefits. For example, both San Antonio, Texas, and Oakland, Calif., are using neighborhood ambassadors to deliver outreach messages to the Latino populations.

Increasing Access Using Technology

A growing number of communities are using technology to improve access to information about benefits and to promote enrollment.

Through a set of questions, electronic prescreening tools are designed to give families a sense of all the benefits for which they are likely to be eligible and the financial impact these could have on their family budgets. Some go a step further and facilitate the application process.

The City of Milwaukee, Wis., hosts the ?Milwaukee Workers Website? located on the front page of the city?s website. In Chicago, Ill., outreach workers use a prescreening tool in the public schools, while in Tulsa, Okla., this technology is used to serve the thousands of residents who receive free tax assistance through their local community action program.
In Memphis, the city and its partners will provide grants to selected community-based organizations to help clients complete an electronic prescreening process.

A strong partnership between the city and the State of Tennessee will eventually lead to a greater availability of online applications to further ease the process for clients.

Measuring Impact

Many campaigns measure the direct benefit of their outreach and enrollment campaigns by tracking the total value of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) refunds claimed or the number of children covered by health insurance who no longer rely on emergency room care.

An analysis of the benefits of EITC funds circulating through the local economy in San Antonio, Texas, also showed an impressive positive impact on job creation and local sales tax revenue.

Finding Resources

While benefit outreach initiatives do cost money, most communities cover these expenses through a variety of local partnerships.

Cities can often set the tone by providing some direct funding ? from the general fund, community service block grants or community development block grants ? and in-kind support through staff time, printing costs, donated space and more.
Municipal leaders can be instrumental in securing business support for outreach efforts.

Participants shared how they have worked with local utility companies, chambers of commerce, financial institutions and employers of low-wage workers to provide financial or in-kind support to the larger initiative.

Community-based partners can also be critical. Through city contract requirements, the City of San Antonio requires more than 50 human service providers to inform clients about a variety of benefits including the EITC, healthcare insurance, food stamps, utility assistance and school readiness services.

Many cities have also found local ? and in some cases national ? foundations to be supportive of multi-benefit outreach efforts.

NLC Resources

NLC?s Institute for Youth, Education and Families offers a variety of resources on connecting families to tax credits and benefit programs, including a ?Helping Working Families? action kit for municipal officials and a new toolkit entitled, ?Maximizing the Earned Income Tax Credit in Your Community.?

More information on city strategies to promote the EITC and other benefits will also be provided through the ?High Yield Investments for Local Economies? workshop at NLC?s Congress of Cities in Indianapolis.

Details: For the more information on municipal opportunities to promote state and federal benefits, contact Abby Hughes Holsclaw at holsclaw@nlc.org. Institute resources on promoting public benefits can be found at: www.nlc.org/iyef. For information and registration details for NLC?s Congress of Cities, visit www.nlc.org.