Our Projects
True to our name, we are at heart an advocacy organization. The Community Advocates Public Policy Institute will, as needed, conduct research and prepare analyses that relate to poverty, its symptoms and its remediation. Unless the facts are known, advocacy cannot proceed. But developing concrete proposals to actually reduce poverty and its burdens—and then advocating for those policy changes—is our main work.
We are intensely engaged in the business of organizing, communicating and ultimately persuading policymakers to take action. The Institute has taken a leadership role in six major projects aimed at reducing poverty and improving the poor’s circumstances:
Transitional Jobs
In the midst of uncommonly high unemployment, the Public Policy Institute has worked closely with Milwaukee lawmakers to create wage-paying transitional jobs that allow low-income, unemployed men and women to do useful work and support themselves and their families. Our efforts have resulted in two significant pieces of legislation, the first to create and the second to expand the Transitional Jobs Demonstration Project, a $34 million program that will help get 4,000 Wisconsin residents back into the workforce. Additionally, as a local leader on transitional jobs, the Public Policy Institute helped to found the Milwaukee Transitional Jobs Collaborative, which seeks to obtain state and federal programs and funding to make transitional jobs available to Wisconsin’s unemployed. Read more about transitional jobs.
Milwaukee Addiction Treatment Initiative (MATI)
This PPI-led collaboration among more than 80 local and state organizations—including law enforcement, public health agencies, treatment providers and advocates—sought to expand access to drug and alcohol treatment for everyone in Milwaukee County and Wisconsin who needs it. MATI pursued two approaches for closing the addiction treatment gap: advocacy for expanded health insurance and parity; and facilitating improved treatment delivery. Because insurance parity alone does not mean that people can actually access the treatment they need, the Public Policy Institute implemented the statewide Making Parity Real series of symposia to explore which public policy changes will increase access to treatment, and improve quality of care for the treatment of mental health and addiction conditions. Read more about the Milwaukee Addiction Treatment Initiative.
Project for Health Insurance Exchange Education (PHIXE)
PHIXE seeks to harness the potential of state health insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act. A central goal of the project is to educate state policymakers about how a properly structured exchange can enable market forces to put strong and enduring pressure on health care insurers and providers to lower costs and enhance quality. Another project goal is to help policymakers understand how exchanges can improve addiction treatment by adopting smart enrollment procedures for state parolees, creating a sound relationship between Medicaid and the exchange, and rethinking the interaction between insurance and stand-alone treatment programs. Read more about the Project for Health Insurance Exchange Education.
Mental Health Policy Initiative
The Mental Health Policy Initiative is a multiyear project that aims to improve state and local policies for individuals suffering from mental illness. Funded by a 2009 gift from Wildflower Communities, the Mental Health Policy Initiative has been engaged in increasing public and private funding for mental health services; integrating mental health treatment with addiction treatment, physical health services, and non-health services such as employment and housing; and assisting the City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County in the formulation of a county-wide supportive housing plan for people who have a mental illness, have a disability or are at risk of homelessness. Read more about the Mental Health Policy Initiative.
Community Justice Project
With the 2010 merger between Community Advocates and Justice 2000, the Public Policy Institute incorporated the Community Justice Project, which aims to strengthen the quality and efficiency of the criminal justice system, both in Milwaukee County and statewide. Funded in part by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the national Open Society Foundations, the Community Justice Project aims to educate the public and other key stakeholders in Wisconsin about the value and importance of implementing comprehensive, evidence-based policy change within the statewide criminal justice system. The Project will also engage in community outreach and coalition building to create an ongoing forum for discussing criminal justice reform and related community issues. Read more about the Community Justice Project.
Tobacco Prevention and Control Program
In April 2010 the Community Advocates Public Policy Institute was selected by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services to lead the Milwaukee operation of the state’s Tobacco Prevention and Control Program. The program’s primary responsibility is to help implement the Wisconsin Smoke-Free Act in Milwaukee, a new law which went into effect in July 2010 ensuring clean air in bars, restaurants and all other workplaces in Wisconsin. Public Policy Institute staff also heads the Milwaukee Tobacco-Free Alliance, a grassroots coalition of Milwaukee-area tobacco prevention and control supporters trying to eliminate the death and disease caused by tobacco use. Read more about the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program.
Milwaukee Brighter Futures
The Milwaukee Brighter Futures Initiative is a Community Advocates-led coalition of 22 local, youth-focused, community agencies whose mission is to develop strategies geared toward preventing and reducing child abuse and neglect, youth violence and delinquent behavior, youth alcohol and other drug use and abuse, and non-marital pregnancy. Brighter Futures supports evidence-based positive youth development and prevention strategies to inspire greater hope for youth, building stronger families and creating better neighborhoods. Read more about Milwaukee Brighter Futures.
Pathways to Ending Poverty
Pathways to Ending Poverty seeks to change the way we think about poverty by creating and testing a specific “policy package” that, if implemented, would reduce poverty in Wisconsin to a residual 2-5%. This new framework, based on the best evidence about which policy changes actually lower poverty, as well as rigorous modeling, aims to shift the debate about poverty to a serious, evidence-based discussion about which combination of policies for ending poverty would actually make the most sense for our state.
With the help of Steve Holt, who has written extensively on poverty issues for the Brookings Institution and other groups, this project will develop an updated, realistic poverty measure. This effort parallels the work of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty, which has created a Wisconsin-specific measure that more accurately reflects resources and need in our state.
The Public Policy Institute has also prepared, with the help of local and national experts, a "policy package"—a combination of specific policy changes for the poor with disabilities or over age 65, the unemployed poor and the working poor—that's calculated to lift them above the poverty line. We are now testing several versions of this "policy package" through the Urban Institute's TRIM model. Read more about Pathways to Ending Poverty.
Internship and Fellowship Program
The Internship and Fellowship Program provides an opportunity for talented students to enrich the work of the Public Policy Institute. The Public Policy Institute provides an experiential environment where interns and fellows not only learn about our work, but also take an active and substantive role in research, communications and advocacy projects that support our goals. In addition to normal office work, each intern and fellow will work on a special project designed and executed in collaboration with the Public Policy Institute’s staff.
Read more about the Internship and Fellowship Program.
