Although the population and economic potential of Hinesville continues to increase, not everyone is benefiting from the city’s expansion.
As the city has become more metropolitan the past few years, there has been “a considerable growth in the number of persons living below the poverty level,” according to Next Step Program Executive Director Tabeter Duell-Robinson.
“Hinesville experienced a 41 percent increase in the number of residents between 1990 and 2000, as compared to a 26 percent state growth rate,” she said. “But more than 14.8 percent of Hinesville’s population lives below the poverty level, compared to 13.3 percent statewide and the national average of 12.5 percent.”
In an attempt to stem the rising poverty numbers, the NSP recently started the city of Hinesville’s Next Step IDA project.
A five-year demonstration venture, the focus of the initiative is to assist low-income, single parents in improving their financial futures by use of individual development accounts.
IDAs are matched savings accounts that help low-income families accumulate funds that can be used to buy a home or further secondary education by giving them access to “policies, tax strategies and other means” of building wealth available to higher income segments.
IDA programs, Duell-Robinson said, “encourage individual initiative and lifetime savings habits in participant families and familiarize low-income individuals with financial institutions.”
Participants will have up to two years to save a maximum of $2,000 of their own funds, but with the program’s two-to-one match incentive, they could walk away with as much as $6,000 toward a new future for their families.
“It’s a great program because you have a lot of single parents who sometimes just need that one step to make it to the next level,” Duell-Robinson, who serves as the project’s program coordinator, said. “They just need training and guidance and this gives them the right tools in order to obtain that self-sufficiency.”
The program coordinator said she expects to accept 12 single parents into the program during the first year of the project, with a minimal of nine participants being added in its second year.

Eligibility requirements
To qualify for the Hinesville’s Next Step IDA Project, single parents must meet one of these criteria:
• Be eligible for temporary assistance for needy families (TANF)
• Qualify for the earned income tax credit
• Have an income less than two times the federal poverty line, about $40,000 for a family of four in 2005
For more information, call Duell-Robinson at 876-6573.