Richard Lord

Flanked by a large mural of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., on the anniversary of his assassination, officials on Thursday said they intend to roll out a series of poverty-fighting legislative proposals in the coming month.

Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has appointed a working group to examine creating a Children's Fund to bolster early learning and out-of-school time programs for kids throughout the county.

Policing is often a big challenge in communities that face concentrated child poverty. Those communities often have anemic tax bases, making it hard to pay police, and high public safety demands.

A joint FBI and Allegheny County effort to address the epicenter of violence in troubled North Braddock has resulted in charges against a man from the borough, which the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiled this week as part of its series "Growing up through the Cracks."

This story was produced as part of a larger project, "Growing Up through the Cracks," led by Rich Lord, a participant in the USC Center for Health Journalism's 2018 Data Fellowship.

In the “Compassionate City,” governmental unity has helped to reduce child poverty rates.