Promise Zones and Broken Poverty Promises

Drive around San Antonio’s Eastside and you’ll notice the pockmarked roads, the strings of verdant but unoccupied residential lots and the roaming dogs -- off leash, sometimes in a pack, wandering without an owner in sight. While some blocks have sidewalks and streetlights, it’s striking how many don’t. Vacant houses have boarded up windows, chipped paint and rusty, slumped-over fences. Much of the area is boxed in by highways and a railroad, isolating the neighborhood from a bustling downtown less than a mile away. Beyond the visible signs of neglect are troubling statistics about the well-being of people who live on the Eastside. Their rates of unemployment, poverty and violent crime are all well above the city average. The percentage of adults without a high school diploma is nearly twice as high as in San Antonio overall.

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