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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Press: NIC provides hope for poor

In Sunday's editorial, the Coeur d'Alene Press comments:

Coeur d’Alene’s world-class beauty masks a very ugly truth.

Just beyond all the gorgeous homes, the expensive cars and boats, the fine restaurants and beautiful libraries are poor people. Lots and lots of them.

 Our community has a healthy class that’s wealthy, a fairly meager middle class, and a lower economic group that’s frightfully robust. A new United Way study of the Pacific Northwest reflects a startling picture of Coeur d’Alene that most of us can’t see or refuse to acknowledge. In Coeur d’Alene, 43 percent of households subsist just above the poverty level. In the rest of the county, a third of all households have their noses just above poverty’s water line. Who are these people? Why, they’re the working poor.

Unlike many communities, we have some alternatives, some actual solutions, within reach. One of them is North Idaho College. More here.

Question: How much difference economically has a college education -- or lack thereof -- meant to you?



D.F. Oliveria
D.F. (Dave) Oliveria joined The Spokesman-Review in 1984. He currently is a columnist and compiles the Huckleberries Online blog and writes about North Idaho in his Huckleberries column.

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