At the turn of the 20th century Bridgeport, Connecticut, was one of the most booming cities in New England. Bridgeport’s local economy thrived by housing numerous industries, which provided its citizens with numerous job opportunities. The city continued to accelerate for years, until the deindustrialization of the 1970s. Since then, Bridgeport has been a name mostly associated with crime, corruption, and poverty. Today, the city’s local economy struggles and many of the city’s people live in insufficiency. In the world in which we live today, Bridgeport’s poverty crisis and poor economic situation has been a contributing factor to the city’s lack of local business, corruption within its government, a poor reputation, and a large distinction…show more content… “Our Response to Poverty,” a local nonprofit organization, released a statement that read, “there are more than 200 homeless people in Bridgeport’s downtown area. 37.6 percent of children in Bridgeport live below the poverty line, 16.2 percent of families in Bridgeport live below the poverty line, and 18.4 percent of individuals in Bridgeport live below the poverty line” (Our Response to Poverty). The deindustrialization at the end of the 1970’s and the increase in taxes negatively affected the city’s businesses as well as its people. Within 100 years, Bridgeport went from being one of the top cities of industry, to one of the leading cities of poverty and…show more content… Even though the nonprofit organizations can do very little to help the poverty and economic situation in Bridgeport, they can still do their best to help support struggling family’s and individuals. For instance, a non-profit organization called the Community Park Audit Tool (CPAT) came into Bridgeport to evaluate 24 of the city’s parks. The goal of the organization was to identify all the parks that needed to be renovated and provide the people of Bridgeport with an argument for city officials. An article from Health promotion Practice said, “discussions based on CPAT findings resulted in city officials taking actions to address the needs identified by community members using CPAT. In other words, CPAT enabled community members to take meaningful actions related to their health” (Greer A, Marcello R, Graveline R). Here a non-profit organization succeeded in helping make a difference in Bridgeport, by helping the city’s people acquire properly cared for parks. The people of Bridgeport would never have been able to achieve this accomplishment on their own, but thanks to the help of a local nonprofit, the people can now be physically active at safety-approved
