Alexie Torres-Fleming is founder and executive director of Youth Ministries for Peace & Justice, which rebuilds neighborhoods by developing leaders among youth to work on community issues, including poverty. It’s based in the Bronx, N.Y. She spoke at the 2009 Mobilization to End Poverty event in Washington, D.C.

Dan Wakefield is a veteran writer and Unitarian in Boston whose newest book is The Hijacking of Jesus: How the Religious Right Distorts Christianity and Promotes Prejudice and Hate (Nation Books, 2006). Read an excerpt in the April 24, 2006, issue of The Nation.

Bradley R. Schiller is professor emeritus in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. His book The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination has been a standard teaching text for two decades.

The Coalition for the Homeless of Central Florida provides services to the area’s homeless, with support from individuals, businesses, philanthropic and faith-based groups. Contact Trinette Nation.

Ezra Rosser is assistant professor at the Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., where he teaches a course on law and poverty. He co-edits and writes the Poverty Law.

The Progressive Interfaith Alliance formed in Delaware in 2009 to focus on finding ways to ease poverty in its area. It now works on a variety of social justice issues. Contact the Rev. Michael Smith of the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware in Lewes.

NETWORK is a national Catholic social justice organization that promotes economic justice at the federal level. Sister Simone Campbell is executive director. You can also email specific staff members through the website.

The Coalition for the Homeless implements programs to help end mass homelessness in New York City. According to their website, they provide services to more than 3,500 homeless people in New York each day.

John Iceland is professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University. He is the author of Poverty in America: A Handbook and has authored numerous papers and reports on poverty patterns, causes and measurement.