Seated in the living room of 6,952 Chautauqua County households who fall below the federal poverty income level is a 400 pound elephant. For many households, this elephant has become a long time resident and the pattern has been to walk around the large intruder. Most government programs which were developed to assist these households, do not address how to remove the unwanted intruder; but rather assist in making it a bit easier to navigate around it.

Chautauqua Opportunities Inc. has become focused on individual and household self sufficiency. We are looking long and hard at longstanding programs whose design, in a few cases, actually makes the elephant grow larger and more intrusive in the household. If a program forces a family into default before the family can receive assistance, the process toward self sufficiency suffers three steps back and credit falls into arrears, individuals are running counter to good budgeting strategies and the elephant gains 50 lbs. If the program allows an individual to receive lifetime subsidies with no required movement toward independence and greater autonomy and assistance linked to the subsidy to gain better wages and / or reduce household expenses, the elephant gains another 5 lbs.

As creators of service models, our legislators need to link 

subsidies with assistance to either increase household revenues or reduce expenses and at the same time build strong incentives toward maintaining sound budgeting principles, responsible management of limited resources and investing in a future through savings.

As service providers, educators and community we need to re-visit the roots of wise fiscal management. we need to teach our children and ourselves the 80/20 principle. What ever your current income, you need to live on 80% of it. You need to put 10% of it in a contingency fund that supports larger purchases and allows for depreciation of major household items (appliances, vehicles, ect.) and put 10% into a savings plan of some sort that allows for the future. The 80% that you live on then needs to be budgeted and restricted to cover your living expenses, your recreational needs and your unplanned sporadic costs (like school needs that the children come home with on a daily basis). If your income does not allow for you to meet the basic needs of a minimal budget, you use temporary subsidies over a limited period of time while you navigate a life plan that will successfully transition you to be able to pay your own minimal expenses. This can be done by minimizing your expenses and by strategically planning professional growth and development that allows for increased earnings.

No family can afford to live on the income that is represented in the federal poverty guidelines. If you simply accept that statement and believe it is hopeless, you will find yourself and your future generations doomed to remain in poverty. If, however, you believe that you can use the system to develop a long

 term strategy; you can over a long period of time mover out of poverty and accrue wealth. Wealth can be accrued by increasing my earning capacity, by becoming a home owner and developing the skills to improve the property (thus improving the value of the initial investment) and there by building equity.

The basic vision necessary for an individual and/or a house hold to move to self sufficiency is that if I maintain the long term vision, if I develop the ability to delay instant gratification and work toward long term purchases and if I begin to practice repeated behavior patterns that are not innate", I will become independent and self sustaining. All people want to believe that they are successful and that they are in control of their own destiny. Self sufficiency is empowering and it provides its own intrinsic rewards.

As a community we need to revisit many of our structured institutionalized patterns to see if we are assisting our fellow citizens toward strength and independence or if we, inadvertently, are keeping people in poverty and feeding the elephant in the living room. The first thing we need to do as a community is look the elephant square in the eye and verbalize that it does not belong in the lining room. How do you get rid of the elephant?? One bite at a time.