A bill is in the Illinois House of Representatives that will form a commision to eradicate poverty. The commision would address and research many of the causes of poverty, while coming up with solutions.

Doug Schenkelberg is the associate director of policy for the Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights. The alliance works closely with those living in poverty, and has also worked on this legislation.

var UniqueNameFO = { movie:”https://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/interactive/13ose5rn.swff”, width:”200″, height:”305″, majorversion:”8″, build:”0″, xi:”true” };

UFO.create(UniqueNameFO, “di_inline_flash”);

Schenkelberg said this bill is important because a society is only as strong as it’s most vulnerable, and according to the Illinois constitution no one in Illinois should live in poverty.

“Well, we have this great vision and aspiration built into this aspiration that fundamentally addresses poverty,” Schenkelberg said. “We don’t have the mechanisms in place to do it, so this commission has to tool to do it in that aspiration.”

Schenkelberg has worked with many organizations in Champaign to try and establish techniques to fight poverty.

One of those organizations is Salt and Light, a local ministry that serves those living in poverty. Nathan Mountgomrey is the executive director and said our society is not doing enough.

“Unfortunately what we thought as a society would quote-unquote cure poverty as far has been more of throwing money at the problem,” Mountgomrey said.

Over six hundred thousand families in Illinois live in poverty.