Ending poverty

There are a couple of initiatives out there, hoping to end poverty, in our generation.

Which is an admirable goal.

My question: how would such initiatives measure that their goal had succeeded?

Poverty is a moving target. Most of those we consider "poor" in the US have a home, air-conditioning, heat, TV, cars, and other luxuries that would have been the envy of 16th century royalty. How are we to measure poverty? What's the objective, hard definition?

(Homelessness is very often a function of mental illness. Not always, but the explosion of homelessness came about after the de-institutionalizing trend of the 1970s. When someone's without a home, there's usually some component of this issue lurking in the sidelines).