Texas Border Business
EDINBURG – In order to address the complex issue of poverty, Hidalgo County must create an environment in which people take care of one another, Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez told a group of more than 40 child and family-focused organizations, community leaders and influencers from across the state on Thursday.
Cortez was addressing the Texas Family Leadership Council, a group of nonprofit organizations across the state that have banded together to learn best practices and advocate for Texas children and families.
“We cannot have our welfare lines growing faster than our taxpayer lines,” Cortez told the group during a teleconference meeting Thursday morning. “If we don’t tackle this problem that is affecting Hidalgo County, then Texas is going to have many more problems in the future.”
Cortez pointed out that demographic trends suggest that Hidalgo County is a microcosm of what the future of Texas will look like demographically. And as the state’s 8th most populous county, Hidalgo County has a disproportionate share of people living in poverty because of a variety of social conditions including language barriers, education and immigration status.
“That’s why we created the Prosperity Task Force,” Cortez told the group. “We wanted a way to analyze and review the complex issues of poverty.” Armed with that information, Cortez said, the goal of the 160-strong Task Force, made up of community leaders and policymakers, is to mitigate the effects of poverty in Hidalgo County and, where possible, provide vocational training and education to help people escape the bonds of poverty.
The way to help a disabled elderly veteran, Cortez said, is to find the appropriate services that are available to them and put those services to use. At the same time, people on the front lines of helping the impoverished must be trained to assess those constituents needing help and identify potential training programs to create what Cortez calls “human capital” that can escape poverty by learning skills for better paying jobs.
The Prosperity Task Force is composed of 13 subgroups that are focused on everything from providing social services to training career counselors to mentoring those undergoing job training to increasing the capacity of higher paying jobs in Hidalgo County.
“This is what our group is all about,” Family Leadership Council member Kevin Hatterly, who heads the Boys and Girls Club of Houston, told Cortez in thanking him. “It’s about hearing best practices.”
