Over the past two decades, poverty has become increasingly concentrated in the nation’s inner cities, while many employment opportunities — especially entry-level jobs for people with limited education and skills — have relocated to the urban periphery. Roughly eight million residents in the urban communities where poverty is most entrenched do not have access to jobs that would give them a toehold on the economic ladder.

An innovative project targeted at poor urban communities, the Neighborhood Jobs Initiative (NJI) integrated employment services with personal and institutional networks and facilitated access to work supports in an effort to connect low-income people to jobs in or near the cities where they live. Operated from 1998 through 2001 by community-based organizations in neighborhoods across the country, this place-based program — designed as a companion to the Jobs-Plus Community Revitalization Initiative for Public Housing Families — was managed by MDRC and developed by The Rockefeller Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Chase Manhattan Foundation, the Urban Institute, and MDRC.