'Hunger Doesn't Take a Summer Break'

If Montgomery County weren't handing out free lunches this summer, Ariana Rodriguez might have gone hungry yesterday. But the bright-eyed 8-year-old walked through the Rolling Terrace Elementary School cafeteria clenching an apple in her teeth before she sat down to a meal.

Ariana was one of 13 students at the Takoma Park school to literally taste the fruits of the county's expanding summer lunch program. Like others across the country, the Montgomery school system is attempting to ensure that children from low-income homes receive nutritious food over the summer. Ariana's mother, Maria Rodriguez, said the difficult economic situation leaves parents with dire choices. Even if they feed their children, they can't always afford nutritious food.

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Chinatown land trust helps low-income housing

Just a few years ago, floor boards popped up as Ji Jian-guang walked across his cramped Chinatown apartment.

Jian-guang Ji laughs as he sits on his new couch he bough...Ru Mei Peng, a longtime resident at 53 Columbus in Chinat...The Columbus United Cooperative at 53 Columbus is
His wife, Ru Mei Peng, washed vegetables in a sink the size of a shoe box. Their two adult sons - along with a daughter-in-law and grandbaby - shared a bedroom split by a bookcase.

Though cramped, 53 Columbus, Room 108, was home. For nearly a decade, the Jis feared they would lose it to encroaching developers.

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Education & new life for women after prison

Vivian Nixon knows how the College and Community Fellowship program at the City University of New York changes lives.

It changed hers.

Nixon, 49, is executive director of CCF, a nine-year-old program that helps formerly incarcerated women get college educations.

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‘A Confusing and Frustrating Maze’: Underlying Reasons for Underenrollment in Preschool

In 2007, a group of community organizers in Chicago surveyed several low-income neighborhoods and discovered some disturbing news: Between 40 and 64 percent of preschool-aged children in those areas were not enrolled in the state's preschool program or Head Start -- even though both are free to at-risk children.

"Why Isn't Johnny In Preschool?" is a new report that both reveals what has stymied pre-k attendance among children with the greatest need for it and offers a series of recommendations for how to increase enrollment. It was published this spring by the early learning committee of a group called POWER-PAC, a Chicago organization of low-income parents who advocate for new ways to help families. Recommendations derive from more than 5,000 interviews conducted from 2006 to 2008 in low-income neighborhoods with predominantly Latino or African American populations.

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Survey: 1 in 3 homeless are children

One in three of Riverside County's homeless are children, a survey released Monday shows.

Riverside Homeless Program officials said their survey shatters the popular myth that the homeless are men.

Roughly 60 percent of the county's homeless are women and children, the study shows.

“That's what we see,” said John Wolohan, executive director of Martha's Village & Kitchen in Indio.

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Phone plan helps low-income families stay in touch

Cell phones have become all but a necessity in today's society. But what if you are unable to afford a phone and monthly bill?
Advertisement

One company is working to make sure a cell phone is available to everyone.

Safelink Wireless, which is modeled after U.S. govern­ment-supported Lifeline, will provide free cell phones and 68 minutes of talk time, along with in-demand fea­tures such as voicemail, text messaging, call waiting, call­er ID and international call­ing, to eligible low-income households.

According to a company news release, more than 647,000 Alabama residents are eligible to receive the TracFone benefits, and na­tionwide Safelink Wireless is available in 17 states.

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A Baker Tells Her Family Story

I got here around 30 years ago from a little town called Atlixco, in Puebla, Mexico. My older brother was the one who started this business 37 years ago. Then, all the family came, one by one. Now we are split. We were 14 brothers, six living in the United States, four living back in Puebla, and two are dead.

I started to work when I was eight years old. That is the way of life if you are poor in Mexico. No school, just work. That is the main reason we came to the United States, to progress, to have a better future for our children.

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Hundreds Rally for Health Care Reform

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Hundreds of doctors, nurses and other social and health care workers gathered in Washington, D.C.’s Freedom Park Wednesday, asking Congress to end the racial and economic disparities in the United States’ health care system.

"How can we be talking about the American Dream when some women have to choose between food for their children or going to the doctor?" Eleanor Hinton-Hoytt, president and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative asked the assembled crowd.

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Schools feel the impact of homeless students

School is tough enough. But when a student doesn't have a home, the pressures increase even more.

A few homeless students might thrive — one homeless parent said her daughter looked forward to school because it is the "one constant" in her life.

But too often, homeless students face uncertainty, from changing schools to losing friends. And even those who have homes are affected, as classrooms in schools with high numbers of homeless students are often in a state of flux.

U.S. Workers Need Paid Leave

Workers in the United States, unlike those from nearly every other nation, do not have the right to receive paid leave when they have a child, when they are ill or when they have to take care of a relative who is sick. What’s more, the United States stands alone among developed economies in not providing paid time off for workers.

Today, most U.S. families no longer have a stay-at-home parent. In the typical household, parents — or one parent in single-parent families — are in the labor force. This means that when a child comes into the family, or when a family member becomes ill and needs someone to help them, there is no one available to provide that care. Someone needs to take time off work.

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Gina Womack, 2009 Ms. Foundation Women of Vision Awardee

Recession can be even tougher for low-income families

Minneapolis — Families of every economic stripe have had a tough time during the recession, and recovering may take a long time. For those who were already living on the financial edge before the recession hit, the economic blows can be even more punishing.

If the recession has pulled the rug out from under people, it has pulled the rug, the floorboards and whole foundation out from under a woman we'll call Cheryl. She asked us to use a pseudonym because she's ashamed that she, her husband, and four daughters are homeless and has been keeping it a secret.

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Student's video puts school cuts on personal level

The challenge had come from Los Angeles Unified School Board member Tamar Galatzan.

"We hear from all of the adults about budget cuts," Galatzan told me. That would be the teachers, administrators, parents, union bosses, legislators.

"But we don't hear from the students."

Good point. And it's not as if the wisdom of the adults has gotten us anywhere.

So Galatzan put out the word in her district, asking students in high school, middle school and elementary school to see what they could accomplish in one short reel, and she wasn't kidding about "short." The videos had to be one minute or less.

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Check out the videos

City Seeks New Powers in Its Stalled Fight Against Homelessness

In June 2004, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg made a lofty promise to address one of the city’s most intractable problems: he would reduce the homeless population of 38,000 by two-thirds in five years.

Today, with the total homeless population down only slightly, and with more families in shelters than five years ago, the administration is seeking state approval for a new set of policies designed to move families out more quickly, applying the same market-driven, incentive-based philosophy to homeless shelters that it has used in schools and antipoverty programs.

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Deporting Fathers in the Name of Homeland Security

As families celebrate Father’s Day, consider the case of Roxroy Salmon. The father of four U.S.-born children, Salmon has lived in the United States for more than 30 years. Yet the Department of Homeland Security now threatens to deport him to Jamaica, a country where he has not resided for decades, due to minor drug convictions from more than 19 years ago for which he served no time. This would effectively deny his children their father by permanently exiling him from his family and their common homeland.

Salmon’s story is hardly exceptional. Each year the federal government deports tens of thousands of non-citizens, many of them with U.S. citizen children, to countries to which they often have tenuous ties. By doing this, the federal government seriously injures children and families, and produces large numbers of a particular type of refugee.

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Senator Jim Webb proposes 2009 national prison reform

The blue-ribbon commission would be charged with a thorough, 18-month review of the criminal justice system with the intention of determining responsible reforms to effectively reduce the incarceration rate, improve actions to effectively impact international and domestic gang violence, potentially restructure policy on the adjudication of drug crimes, provide for appropriate treatment of mental illness, improve prison administration, and create and establish a system that provides for the effective reintegration of ex-offenders.

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Officials Join to Open Larger Homeless Complex

The project includes a 3,780-square-foot addition to the Home Builders Care Assessment Center (formerly named the Men's Emergency Shelter), which provides 24-hour shelter for up to 135 homeless men. A second building, containing 14,520 square feet, was constructed to house Adrianne's Safe Havens, the Chase Partnership House and offices for Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless services and staff members.

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Winning Back Daycare Vouchers for Low Income Families

NEW YORK, NY June 19, 2009 —Two-thousand out of three thousand vouchers were restored. These are used almost exclusively by large Orthodox and Hasidic families in the neighbourhoods of Williamsburgh and Borough Park.

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Number of poor kids keeps growing

Once a year, the non-profit Colorado Children's Campaign takes the pulse of the state's kids, and for the second year in a row it has a discouraging diagnosis.

The campaign’s 2008 report found that the number of Colorado children living in poverty had increased 73 percent from 2000 to 2006.

This year’s study found an 85 percent increase from 2000 to 2007, with 192,000 Colorado children below the poverty line (defined as income of $22,050 a year for a family of four).

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Sharpton seeks help in Ariz. sheriffs abuse probe

The Rev. Al Sharpton is calling for opponents of an Arizona sheriff who has aggressively cracked down on illegal immigration to videotape alleged racial profiling by his office.

The civil rights leader is scheduled to meet with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday. Sharpton says the videos will help the U.S. Department of Justice in an investigation of alleged civil rights abuses by the sheriff's office.

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New low-cost housing restores hope for Allapattah families

In a region with scarce low-cost housing rentals, low-income families will have a chance at new housing that will be available as early as next month, city and county officials say.

Recently, Miami-Dade officials dedicated the Pinnacle Plaza, a 10-story, multifamily rental building. Administrators open applications on July 1, and those approved can move in by early fall.

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Stimulus Sparks a Summer Jobs' Comeback

It's nothing new, wanting to snag a summer job, save up those pennies and get a new bike, a new Xbox 360, a new car (price tag: 1,500,000 pennies). But for many low-income teens in the U.S., like those in Tate County, where Singleton lives, jobs have been in scarce supply since the Federal Government gutted its summer-jobs program about a decade ago. But the Obama Administration is changing all that, having directed $1.2 billion to pay for summer jobs for youths. Every state is now flush with stimulus dollars — ranging from about $3 million (in Wyoming, South Dakota and other low-population states) to $186 million (California) — to fund local job programs. Most states have started hiring, and many kids are already in their first weeks of work. The White House estimates that the stimulus money will create 125,000 jobs for low-income youths, though outside experts put the number at up to four times that.

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Ready by five is a five-star project

Ready by Five organizers - as well as 43 community partners, or stakeholders - are hoping that early learning and subsequent education will break the cycle of poverty and the problems that often come with it: crime, increased drop-out rates, poor nutrition and other physical health problems, depression, substance abuse, teen pregnancy and low-wage jobs or joblessness.

Young children in Yakima, particularly in east Yakima, are at risk. Studies show the achievement gap for children from low-income families becomes evident as early as 18 months. And Yakima's Ready by Five target area, one of the poorest parts of town, has almost double the national birth rate, according to Marieskind.

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L.A. homeless girl headed to Harvard University

Khadijah Williams is known as "Harvard girl," the "smart girl" and the girl with the contagious smile who landed at Jefferson High School only 18 months ago.

What students don't know is that she is also a homeless girl.

As long as she can remember, Khadijah has floated from shelters to motels to armories along the West Coast with her mother. She has attended 12 schools in 12 years and lived out of garbage bags among pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers. Every morning, she upheld her dignity, making sure she didn't smell or look disheveled.

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Head Start, free program, enhances development of low-income preschoolers

The Office of Head Start (OHS) operates under the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Head Start is administered by OHS and DHHS and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), which provides grants for programs.

This federally funded program targets low-income families to prepare their preschool children for school by enhancing physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. Head Start provides education, health, nutrition, and social services.


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Homes for low to moderate income families to be built in Pasco

Three gold-ribboned shovels dug into the ground on Ainsworth Avenue and Fifth Street in Pasco at the site where three new homes will be built by year’s end.

Pasco Mayor Joyce Olson, along with Community and Economic Development Director Rick White and Aaron Sullivan, owner of Titan Homes, stood on the empty lot Friday envisioning the future.

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Michael Harrington: Warrior on Poverty

If there is a heaven, and it has a place for virtuous skeptics, I imagine Michael Harrington is looking down, amused by the recent cover of Newsweek proclaiming, “We Are All Socialists Now,” not to mention Newt Gingrich’s lament that the United States is seeing “European socialism transplanted to Washington.” Back in the 1960s, Harrington had some experience trying to “transplant” some socialist ideas to Washington — and the results were rather different from what he had hoped.

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Focus on juvenile-justice reform

The Louisiana Legislature is currently considering a number of measures that would change the way our juvenile justice system works. Some would change the way parole is addressed for juvenile offenders. Some would change the way juvenile offenders are treated in secure care facilities.


One of particular note would take a first step toward refocusing efforts on community programs addressing both public safety and effective treatment, rather than on the costly incarceration of youth. This is an example of the direction our state needs to take in order to properly serve our youth. Early intervention is a key factor in keeping low-risk youth from becoming juvenile offenders. Investing in and expanding the use of evidence-based programs provide improved outcomes for youth and communities throughout Louisiana while protecting public safety.

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In New York, Sotomayor Put Focus on the Poor

WASHINGTON — Time and again, Sonia Sotomayor challenged her fellow board members at the State of New York Mortgage Agency, asking pointed questions about its work: What of the poor? As we help build new neighborhoods upon the rubble of the old, are we abandoning those with the lowest incomes?
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More weatherization dollars up for grabs

U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Thursday in Columbus that the department approved the state’s plan to spend $106 million, or 40 percent, of the $266 million in weatherization funding that Washington will send to Ohio. The state in April got approval to release 10 percent of the funds and expects to release the last half after the Energy Department reviews Ohio’s progress in allocating the money.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said the stimulus money will allow the state to improve the energy efficiency of more than 32,000 houses owned by low-income families. The state typically receives $51 million from the federal government for such initiatives.

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Giving back to the homeless with children

Father's Day is this Sunday. A handful of Tucson dads will be celebrating in a shelter. They are homeless men with children, and The Giving Tree charity is making a difference in their lives.

It's breakfast time at the shelter residents call Angel Wings. Among those at the table are homeless fathers and their children.

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Florida tent city offers hope to homeless

A Florida tent city for hundreds of homeless people lies at the end of a dead-end street, but residents say they have not given up hope of a better life despite the U.S. economic downturn.

The Pinellas Hope camp, 250 single-person tents in neat rows on land owned by the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg in a wooded area north of the city, has room for about 270 and has been filled to capacity since it opened two years ago.

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Data Show Childhood Poverty Rate Continues to Rise; Access to Quality Child Care is Part of Solution

Childhood poverty continues to rise in Colorado, and quality, affordable child care is an important part of supporting families and ensuring the best outcomes for kids at risk, according to the 2009 KidsCount in Colorado! report released today by the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

According to the report, Colorado had an 85 percent increase in the number of children living in poverty between 2000 and 2007, one of the highest rates in the nation. More than 192,000 children were living in poverty in Colorado in 2007, compared to 104,000 in 2000. Poverty is currently defined as $22,050 for a family of four.

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Healdsburg breaks ground on new affordable housing

The town of Healdsburg in Sonoma -- known for its swanky boutiques, elegant hotels and restaurants, as well as numerous wineries -- is set to have a new development of affordable housing.

On Wednesday this week Healdsburg's Mayor, Eric Ziedrich, will break ground on what will become 64 apartments of family rental housing near downtown. The apartments will be arranged in 11 residential buildings configured as both flats and townhouses, and the project includes plans for a community room, computer lab, landscaped gardens and kids' play areas.

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Homeless Shelter Shifts To Accommodate More Families

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Monday morning, officials at the Center of Hope shelter began moving women to new quarters at the beginning of summer for the third time in three years.

The moves will continue throughout the week, taking women to the winter, or overflow, shelter, which is about a mile down the street. The reason for the move is space.

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Study: Family time down, Internet use up

NEW YORK — Whether it's around the dinner table or just in front of the TV, U.S. families say they are spending less time together.

The decline in family time coincides with a rise in Internet use and the popularity of social networks, though a new study stopped just short of assigning blame.

The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California is reporting this week that 28 percent of Americans it interviewed last year said they have been spending less time with members of their households. That's nearly triple the 11 percent who said that in 2006.

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Scope of Budget Cuts Could Have Major Impact on Poor Families

California — Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed deep cuts to several health and welfare programs to help balance the state’s budget. That would be a double or triple whammy for some California families who rely on multiple services. Health care reporter Kelley Weiss visited one of those families to find out how the combination of cuts could affect them.

Gina Jackson’s a single-mom with four kids. Two of them are in college but two are still at home. Sammy, who’s 6 and Jasmine, 11. Jackson is rummaging through the fridge in her San Jose area home.

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President pressing health care overhaul

President Barack Obama visits Green Bay on Thursday, as his administration begins a final push toward the most sweeping changes in the nation's health care system since Medicare was introduced in 1965.

With Congress working to pass legislation by early August, the once-improbable goal of significant health care reform stands a chance of becoming a reality.

"The big story here is how far and how fast health care reform has come in 2009," said Jonathan Oberlander, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, who has written extensively about the obstacles to such reform.

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STIMULUS WATCH: $25 check may cost you food stamps

The Georgia Department of Human Resources explained in a letter to him last month that, because of the stimulus, he was ineligible for food stamps. He now makes $1,538 a month -- $21 too much for a family of two to qualify.

"We have to pay him that $25 a week," said Brenda Brown, assistant commissioner at the Georgia Department of Labor. "And he doesn't have the option not to accept it."

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Low Income Workers Can Finally Go back to College: Government Pays

Finally, our voice has been heard.” These are the words at the tip of the tongues and in the hearts of many low income earners. President Obama in a bid to encourage low income earners to earn a degree online has offered certain incentives.

While targeting most Americans to go back to school and earn a college degree online, it is quite evident that he had keen interests on meeting the needs of the low income workers. President Obama has been able to ‘push’ Congress into offering financial aid to all those who qualify for it.

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For homeless kids at hotels, some treats also a necessity

Baker discovered the hunger behind “vacancy” signs while volunteering at Norcross Cooperative Ministry a decade ago. A woman asked for food for three teenage sons. Baker noticed her hotel address on a form.

“That was the first clue that I had that a lot of people were living in hotels with kids,” she said.

It didn’t take Baker long to figure out that summer equaled no school-based breakfast and lunch for homeless children, and that families in hotels had limited means to prepare meals.

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Nonprofits learn to stretch a buck

Elkhart, Ind.— As the economic downturn began to take its toll in Elkhart, demand for help from the Salvation Army soared.

People who needed aid for utility bills formed lines that snaked out the entryway and onto the street. Demand for free meals and rental assistance skyrocketed.

Meanwhile, local service groups that donated reliably for years were sending smaller contributions — with apologies. The single biggest blow came when the United Way in Elkhart — after suffering a dismal workplace fundraising campaign — slashed its annual allotment to Salvation Army from $90,000 to $40,000.

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Ethnic Media Indispensable Says U.S. Census

June 4 in Atlanta. Some 200 representatives from ethnic media outlets met with census officials at a briefing before the 2009 New America Media Expo and Awards.

In the past, minorities' and immigrants' distrust of government has been blamed for low response rates and census undercounts in ethnic communities.

The Census Bureau says it will invest dollars in order to cement its partnership with ethnic media. Overall, it will spend $145 million on media to promote the 2010 census, with more than half of that money going to local and regionally targeted media.

Recession leaves parents hunting for affordable day care

While some parents who've lost jobs are canceling day-care they no longer need or can no longer afford, some stay-at-home moms are heading back into the work force as they try to make up for income that their husbands have lost through layoffs or reduced hours.

At the Winter Park Day Nursery, the usually-long waiting list for the two-year-olds' room has disappeared. "When we call the people who are on our waiting list, they're either out of work or they no longer need child care," said director Judy Nelson.

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A helping hand on the Venice boardwalk

St. Joseph Center, a Venice-based social service agency that has served poor and homeless individuals for more than 30 years, wants to find them before it's too late.

That is why dozens of volunteers and social workers fanned out for three nights earlier this month to survey the community's street denizens. With a grant from Los Angeles County, the agency plans to crunch the data and identify the 40 most vulnerable individuals. The next step will be to use Section 8 vouchers provided by the Los Angeles Housing Authority to house them and provide supportive services to help them overcome addictions and other physical and mental issues.

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FEWER PLACES TO TURN: More homeless families facing closed doors

Though the city increased the shelter’s capacity from 58 to 65 beds in December, only seven rooms are set aside for families. With these rooms full, Churches United turns away five to 10 families a week, said executive director Durk Thompson.

In 2008, the shelter turned away 1,199 family members. So far this year they are on target to double that number, with more than 2,500 expected by the end of 2009.

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College program reaches out to eligible middle-schoolers

Aliha Strange, a seventh-grade aspiring novelist, gathered brochures and chatted up college recruiters from Seattle University, Eastern Washington University and University of Washington on Saturday morning. If she seemed young to be thinking about college, she didn't show it.

"I'm really into going to college," she said at the College Bound Scholarship information session. "I'm trying to find the right fit."

Her mother, Sunda Strange, said, "Moneywise, I don't have a lot to offer her" for college, but the state scholarship program has given them both hope.

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Area homeless growing in numbers

Onslow County is home to about 1,600 homeless people, of whom more than 500 are children, she said.

OCM runs a homeless shelter that can house around 200 people.

The rest of the homeless in the area float between living with family, staying with friends and the worst-case scenario: surviving in the woods.

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Family of four at poverty line?

Low-income families of four in Alabama owe one of the nation's highest state income tax bills on poverty-line earnings. They also will begin to owe state income tax at one of the lowest incomes in the country.

Alabama had the nation's highest income tax for a two-parent family of four at the poverty line in 2007, and the amount they owe in 2008 is even higher. A family of four at that income, which was estimated at $22,017 in 2008, owes $483 in Alabama income tax. The state income tax on the same family in 2008 would be $222 in Georgia and $73 in Mississippi.

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Bureaucrat scuffs dream of homeless shoe shiner

He sleeps under a bridge, washes in a public bathroom and was panhandling for booze money 11 months ago, but now Larry Moore is the best-dressed shoeshine man in the city. When he gets up from his cardboard mattress, he puts on a coat and tie. It's a reminder of how he has turned things around.


In fact, until last week it looked like Moore was going to have saved enough money to rent a room and get off the street for the first time in six years. But then, in a breathtakingly clueless move, an official for the Department of Public Works told Moore that he has to fork over the money he saved for his first month's rent to purchase a $491 sidewalk vendor permit.

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7 in 10 valley kids may not have food when schools let out

Not surprisingly, childhood hunger is worse in the east valley, where nine in 10 low-income students in the Coachella Valley Unified School District qualify for reduced-price meals.

The seven in 10 valley students qualifying for free and reduced-price meals is not the worst figure in the state, those numbers are well above the average, 53 percent.

Summer classes could offer a respite, but those free meals end with summer school.

“The worst thing that you can have is a child who's starving,” said Joanne Vilardi, chief operating officer for FIND Food Bank, which runs an independent summer feeding program.

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Study reveals 'hidden homeless' in rural America

Many of the rural homeless stay at shelters - just like their urban counterparts - but some counties don't even have shelters, forcing the homeless to live in encampments, abandoned buildings, barns or cars. Many move from place to place, sleeping on a friend's or relative's couch or floor until they move on to the next person willing to take them in for a while.

All told, 1,200 people sought help at Maine's rural shelters last year, but the number of rural homeless is thought to be much higher. Of those who were looked at for the study, 97 percent had mental illness, 18 percent were alcohol abusers and 16 percent were drug abusers. Eleven percent were veterans.

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Sandra Dowling Suing MCSO, Arpaio

PHOENIX - Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been slapped with yet another lawsuit. Back in 2006, Arpaio's officers raided the home of the former Maricopa County School Superintendent's office, as part of an investigation into embezzlement of school money.

She says she was harassed by deputies, her office and home raided, and had boxes and computers taken. She was indicted on trumped-up charges that included: bid rigging and misuse of public funds.

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Slump Pushing Cost of Drugs Out of Reach

Even with the Medicare drug benefit, even with the prevalence of low-cost generics, even with loss-leader discounting by big chains, many Americans still find themselves unable to afford the prescription medications that manage their life-threatening conditions.

In downtrodden communities like Rocky Mount, where unemployment has doubled to 14 percent in a year, the recession has heightened the struggle. National surveys consistently find that as many as a third of respondents say they are not complying with prescriptions because of cost, up from about a fourth three years ago.

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Health care crippling the economy

Abraham Lincoln declared that government should do only that which the people cannot do so well for themselves -- defense, highways, public safety, education. And government has done a good job of fulfilling this compact with the public. In recent decades, we have been adding health care to the compact, in increments: first the elderly with Medicare, then the poor, and more recently, children, both through Medicaid. If you're not in one of these categories, you scramble for health care. Everyone in my rural area hustles to find the shelter of health-care coverage. Farmers' wives take jobs at the school in town -- for health coverage for the family. Whenever a job change is contemplated, the biggest question is: "Will there be benefits [health coverage]?"


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U.S. Effort to Reshape Schools Faces Challenges

In Chicago, Mr. Duncan worked on eight turnarounds with the Academy for Urban School Leadership, a nonprofit group whose largest project has been remaking troubled Orr Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side. Many of its 1,200 students have been incarcerated or kicked out of other schools, and its in-house day care center minds 35 babies each day while their mothers, some of them students and others teachers, are in class.

An earlier overhaul at Orr that divided it into three small high schools achieved little; Illinois’s 2008 test scores showed that 9 percent of students were proficient in reading and math. So Chicago’s announcement last year that the school would be overhauled again set off protests.

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Idaho in top 10 for child hunger

BOISE (AP) — A new study ranks Idaho among the 10 worst states for the percentage of hungry kids younger than 5. But the study also says Idaho is among 10 states showing the most improvement in combating child hunger.

The study, "Feeding America: Child Food Insecurity in the United States," by the nonprofit group Feeding America, found that 20.2 percent of Idaho children under 5 lived with hunger from 2005 to 2007.

That ranked Idaho 10th worst in the nation. The national average was 17.3 percent, the study said.

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California lawmakers hear pleas not to further slash education

A bleak picture emerged of the possible aftermath in the state's schools: only three guidance counselors for 3,200 students at Berkeley High School; classes increasing to 43 students per teacher in Los Angeles; students in a Sacramento suburb no longer given access to classes required for college admission; and an estimated 250,000 students pushed out of California community colleges by fee increases and financial aid cuts.

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Measure would help promote groceries in 'food deserts'

The $3.1 billion public spending bill passed Monday includes $10 million for the Illinois Fresh Food Fund, money that would go to urban and rural neighborhoods with reduced access to healthier foods because they're underserved by supermarkets.

"It's a modest amount, but it's much needed and a step in the right direction," said Mari Gallagher, a Chicago-based research consultant who has extensively studied the food desert issue.

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Sentence reform for child felons

The United States is the only nation in the world in which a child can be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. California has more than 200 inmates who were sentenced to remain behind bars forever for crimes they committed before they became adults. Under a bill that passed today on the Senate floor, they would get a chance to petition the court to have their sentences converted to 25-years-to-life. That wouldn't guarantee parole or eventual release; it would simply give them a chance at a hearing.

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Eating at Soup Kitchens to Pay the Rent

Each night, men begin gathering in front of the Iglesia de Santa Maria y Santa Marta before 7 p.m., forming an orderly line and waiting to enter the shelter that will provide them sanctuary for the next 12 hours.

“The homeless in the community we’re serving are not what people normally assume,” said Marlon Mendieta, program director for the Dolores Housing Program. “A large proportion are day laborers, or are working in regular jobs in a store or a café, and just don’t make enough to pay rent.”

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Economy crushes refugees' hopes of jobs

Many have fled their home countries only to find bleak prospects in the struggling job market here.

Six people came to Everett.

It's all that's left of their family, as far as they know. In many areas of Iraq, death is the punishment for helping U.S. troops, and the Hasan family made money selling refrigerators and air conditioners to soldiers.

Terrorists barged into their home one evening during dinner. They dragged one brother away. He wound up dead in a Baghdad morgue. Their father, the man who inched carefully into the crowded morgue ("like sardines in a can," another brother described) to find the body, never made it home.

The family had a choice: stay in the Middle East, where the terrorists who killed their brother, and possibly their father, might find them, or accept an offer from the U.S. to move here as refugees.

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2009 Affordable Housing Expo

SANTA ROSA COUNTY, Fla. - Santa Rosa County and the Santa Rosa Housing Coalition will hold a free Affordable Housing Expo with an emphasis on credit and home ownership on Saturday June 13 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Santa Rosa County Auditorium. That's located at 4530 Spikes Way in Milton.

The expo will help prospective local homebuyers wade through the complex home buying process by matching them with providers of affordable housing and other housing services. This exciting opportunity will feature a workshop on The Home Buying Process and Home Purchase Assistance Programs.

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Salvation Army struggling to help the needy

The Salvation Army provides clothing, food, household and furniture items, utility assistance and emergency aid for struggling families, programming for at-risk and low-income children and families and counseling for the troubled, There is always a friendly, compassionate ear at The Salvation Army, where those who are struggling can pour out their hearts and never have to fear judgment.

Our holiday donations have long since been depleted but due to the state of the economy, more and more truly needy people are making their way to our doors ... many for the very first time ever in their lives. They are hardworking, low-income or under-employed families whose food dollars are stretched to the breaking point in summer, when their children no longer receive federal school lunches.

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Immigrant-rights activists to stage rally at City Hall

Immigrant-rights activists will stage a rally this morning in front of Los Angeles City Hall as part of a national campaign to call for legislative reforms that would give legal status to the country’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

Participants will gather at Our Lady Queen of Angeles Church at 11:30 a.m. and march to City Hall, where they will hold a news conference beginning at 12:15 p.m.

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Georgia hotline helps parents find child care

A new statewide hotline was launched this week to help parents find child-care options more easily.

By calling a live operator at (877) All-GAKIDS, families can get referrals from a list of more than 3,000 licensed child-care centers and 5,300 home providers based on location, price, hours or other specified factors.
Click here to find out more!

A searchable database that explains how to evaluate quality child care also is available online at www.allgakids.org.

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Education groups unite to fight budget cuts

Multiple state education organizations came together Monday to tell lawmakers they need to find some other way to balance the state's budget.

"There should not be cuts in the education budget. There should be other ways to fund the needs for education," says Debra Horton, president of the N.C. Parent Teachers Association.

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Lack of financial aid leaves needy families in limbo

"It's beginning to be depressing," she said. The public campus closest to their home is Henry Clay Middle School. She has spoken to officials there about putting Kamal in accelerated classes but is fearful of what she has heard about violence and fighting on campus. She doesn't want her son to be picked on because his shoelaces are the wrong color or because he does his homework.

Kamal was looking forward to a new environment at a campus where he could "expand" his mind, but is philosophical about what might come next. During the application process, he spent a half day at both Chadwick and Brentwood.

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46 States Commit to Common Standards Education Push

Forty-six states—representing 80 percent of the nation’s K-12 student population—have formally agreed to join forces to create common academic standards in math and English language arts through an effort led by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

“This is a giant step,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who has been pushing states to adopt common, rigorous standards. “It would have unimaginable, this kind of thing, just a year or two ago.”

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Anti-Arpaio march draws 2,000-plus

The Phoenix New Times posted a video of a notorious neo-Nazi approaching Sheriff Joe’s unmarked car, chatting with him, and telling the Sheriff, “We’ve got your back.” In the video, the Sheriff chats amiably with the neo-Nazi and his nativist friends, but seems unperturbed by either the group’s presence or its white supremacist philosophy. At one point in the conversation, Arpaio tells the anti-immigrant protestors that the pro-immigrant marchers are about an hour away.

Arpaio’s critics accuse his department of racial profiling and human rights abuses against Latino immigrants.

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No more California dreamin'

Because the state of California is in "crisis," forced to bridge a $24.3 billion budget shortfall that may in fact be a $27 billion shortfall, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a long list of spending cuts. Should the Legislature choose to follow his suggestions, California could become the only state in the union without a public welfare program.

California could also become one of the few states to lock its own citizens out of their own parks, as about 80 percent of state parks would be closed for lack of funding. We'd also have to yank health care from nearly a million low-income children.

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Still Working, but Making Do With Less

Many of their remaining expenses seemed impossible to reduce by much, like the roughly $360 a month for gas. It quickly became apparent how little the family had left over for necessities like food.

“People just say: ‘Oh, it’s just a 10 percent pay cut. Cut the fat out of your budget,’ ” Mrs. Ferrell said. “But we’ve cut the fat. We’ve cut the fat all along, and so this is really pushing us close to the bone now.”

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