There’s Hope for Fresno
To Address Poverty, the City is Nurturing Entrepreneurs, Counseling Families, and Learning to Take Pride in Itself
In 2005, the Brookings Institution released a depressing statistic about Fresno: The landlocked Californian city, about 200 miles southeast of San Francisco in the state’s Central Valley, had the highest concentration of poverty of any city in America. This stat was referenced frequently in a Zócalo/The California Wellness Foundation event held at Frank’s Place in downtown Fresno. Speaking to a standing-room-only crowd, four panelists—Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, Fresno Bridge Academy founder Pete Weber, Poverello House executive director Cruz Avila, and Edit LLC president Irma Olguin—acknowledged that today, 10 years after …
