Barriers to Addressing Identified Needs

Major barriers to addressing the identified needs are addressed in the previous section, but these are additional ones:

• Lack of funding, especially to meet utility and medical needs,
• An aging housing issue in most of the cities and counties in the region,
• The slow rebuilding of TAPS, with no adequate structural or functional replacement(s),
• Food deserts in existence for the foreseeable future; “dollar” and convenience stores building in high-poverty areas of towns (pockets of poverty),
• Predatory lending in high poverty areas, and marketing to low income residents,
• A lack of early childhood educational opportunities in the region,
• The continued lack of mental healthcare practitioners, especially in Fannin and Cooke Counties, as well as medical health facilities,
• The continued concentration of the poor in the “pockets of poverty,” as noted earlier,
• The continued clear overlap of poverty issues and racial/ethnic issues,
• The lack of programs to address the very clear early childhood poverty and education issues.