Brightpoint Report Uncovers Community Needs

Brightpoint (formerly CANI) announces the completion of a report called the Community Needs Assessment. The Community Needs Assessment is an in-depth look at the 12 counties Brightpoint serves and the major causes of poverty. This information allows us to better understand the community we serve and to improve how we serve. The report was written to identify social trends that can affect the services offered by many area organizations. This not only shows the effects of poverty, but also the demographics of the people. Anyone needing to find trends in unemployment, population, ethnicity, and health will find this report useful.

The Community Needs Assessment seeks to aid others in fully understanding the entirety of what the population needs; it reaches beyond just Brightpoint but to anyone who lives and works in the counties in the report. Area businesses, non-profits, community planners, and news sources can use this report to gain more understanding about the population around them, report on trends over time, and ultimately increase effectiveness of processes and services.

The poverty rate for Brightpoint’s service area was 14.7% in 2013 and has been increasing over the past five years, while 22.3% of youth in the service area are living in poverty. In 2014, Brightpoint’s service area unemployment rate, which can help describe the state of our economy, was 5.3%. However, 35% of households struggle to meet the basic cost of living as they fall below the Household Survival Budget. These facts are just a small piece of the picture the report provides. Beyond demographics, poverty, and unemployment, the report includes sections on the status of youth, nutrition, community health, and transportation.

To read the full report, please visit Brightpoint’s web site www.mybrightpoint.org/cna.