History & Demographics

2004 marks the 35th year of operations for NWLS.  We service ten counties in northwestern Pennsylvania.  Our service area is largely rural with the largest city being Erie.   Our poverty population in 1990 was 88,381.  The 2000 census lists our poverty population at 79,656.   As the financial eligibility for NWLS is currently set at 125% of the federal poverty guidelines, our service area has 111,201 low-income people who are financially eligible for our services.    Program-wide, our poverty population is 11.8% of our general population, that compares with 11% of all of Pennsylvania and 12.4% for all of the USA.