Riverside County Library :: Coachella Literacy Push a Boon for City's Residents, Society

Coachella literacy push a boon for city's residents, society

Desert Sun: 2.11.2017 by Editorial Board

City and education officials are working together to help raise literacy and English language communication skills for residents who lean heavily on their more native Spanish. To those officials, we offer a hearty thank you and gracias.

Statistics show this is a major need in the eastern Coachella Valley.

As The Desert Sun’s Anna Rumer reported last week, 9 in 10 Coachella residents don’t speak English at home and nearly half don’t speak any English. This compares to about 1 in 5 in the overall U.S. population who don’t use English at all.

The lack of English skills leaves people at a clear disadvantage and other statistics bear that out. Illiteracy and poverty go hand in hand and, according to the Literacy Project Foundation, somewhere around half of adults – the majority of whom are people of color – have an income below the poverty level at least in part because of their inability to read, including three out of four welfare recipients.

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The city recently broke ground on a new, $11 million downtown library that should be up and running next year. Coachella – where nearly 32 percent of residents live in poverty and where only half have a high school diploma and just 4 percent graduated college – also is investing in its residents, setting aside $50,000 for library programs this year and planning to do the same next year.  READ MORE @