Struggling Families Look for Help at Resources Fair

More than 50 social service agencies in Brown County teamed up to spread the word about what they offer the community.

The groups set up booths at a resource fair at the Salvation Army in Green Bay on Tuesday. Churches, pantries, and staff with social service groups handed out information and talked with people about their programs.

Organizers say at least 250 people attended the two-and-a-half hour event.

"Trying to find help when they need it, trying to find what's available, and this is a very helpful place for them to come. It's a one-stop shop for them to come on in," Bonnie Kuhr, director of NEW Community Clinic, said.

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Homelessness adds to students' hurdles and schools' burdens

DURHAM -- In a cramped room with cinder-block walls, a linoleum floor, two bunk beds, a single dresser and a crib in the center of it all, 14-year-old Daniel King sat on the bottom of one bunk, leaning over a pre-algebra workbook.

It's the same room he has done homework in every night since school started -- in a homeless shelter where he lives with four other family members.

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Nonprofits scramble as Census reports rising poverty rates

The nation’s poverty rate has increased as the recession’s impact is felt by families across the country and local food banks and other nonprofits scramble to help meet growing needs.

The national poverty rate stood at 13.2 percent in 2008, an increase of just under 1 percent from 2007’s 12.5 percent, according to U.S. Census data released Tuesday.

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3,500 children keep coverage in county

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 1422 and prevented more than 3,500 Yolo County children from losing health insurance.

"It's a significant number of children that would have been affected," Jackie Hausman, children's health coordinator with First 5 Yolo, said.

AB 1422 imposes a tax on managed care health insurance plans providing Medi-Cal, some funding from the federal government, a one-time donation from the state-level First 5, and increased premium fees.

Thousands get free medical care at event

More than 2,000 people came to Reliant Center to see doctors for free. Many of the people we talked to can't afford health insurance, especially in the rough economy. Some say it shows the need for health care reform.

Doctors, nurses and volunteers arrived at around 7am to see patients in what is believed to be the largest free clinic ever held in the United States. The National Association of Free Clinics said it decided to hold this event in Houston because this is where it felt the need is the greatest.

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One Man’s Trash ...

AMONG the traditional brick and clapboard structures that line the streets of this sleepy East Texas town, 70 miles north of Houston, a few houses stand out: their roofs are made of license plates, and their windows of crystal platters.

They are the creations of Dan Phillips, 64, who has had an astonishingly varied life, working as an intelligence officer in the Army, a college dance instructor, an antiques dealer and a syndicated cryptogram puzzle maker. About 12 years ago, Mr. Phillips began his latest career: building low-income housing out of trash.

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Homeless student numbers grow

The number of homeless students in Dubuque schools started increasing dramatically last school year.

While many sectors of Dubuque's economy appeared impervious to the national economic downturn, school officials were witnessing direct recessional effects on vulnerable local families.

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Weatherization: Illinois gets $97 million in stimulus funds for homes

The federal government is sending $5 billion to states to weatherize the homes for low-income families, nearly as much as it has spent on weatherization since the government stepped in to cut heating bills for low-income people in the 1970s.

Illinois is flush with $97 million awarded over the summer -- nearly half the $242 million in stimulus weatherization money promised to the state -- and is taking applications from low-income families for free weatherization upgrades to their homes.

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Matsui Introduces Legislation to Help Low-Income Americans Subscribe to the Internet

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OBSNews.com) - Today, Representative Doris O. Matsui (CA-05), a Member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet, introduced legislation to expand the Universal Service Fund’s (USF) Lifeline Assistance program for universal broadband adoption. The bill, the Broadband Affordability Act of 2009, directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to establish a broadband program that provides low-income Americans living in rural and urban areas with assistance in subscribing to affordable broadband internet service.

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MONTEREY COUNTY'S HOMELESS GET STIMULUS: $1.6 MILLION FOR ASSISTANCE

Help is on the way for fighting homelessness in Monterey County.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office announced plans Tuesday to distribute its federal allotment of nearly $43 million to fight homelessness in California, with $1.6 million coming to Monterey County.

The stimulus funds, which come from the federal Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program, are to be used for short-term rental assistance for homeless families, and for families and individuals with homes who are on the verge of becoming homeless.

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Rent a big burden for half of Chicago renters

More than half of Chicago's renters are paying more than a third of their income for housing, according to a new report from the Chicago-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization.

Fifty-three percent of renters fell into this so-called "rent-burdened" category in 2007, up from 40 percent in 2000, the report showed. The percentage of renters who pay 50 percent or more of their income for rent grew from 21 percent to nearly 30 percent.

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Surge in Homeless Pupils Strains Schools

SHEVILLE, N.C. — In the small trailer her family rented over the summer, 9-year-old Charity Crowell picked out the green and purple outfit she would wear on the first day of school. She vowed to try harder and bring her grades back up from the C’s she got last spring — a dismal semester when her parents lost their jobs and car and the family was evicted and migrated through friends’ houses and a motel.

Charity is one child in a national surge of homeless schoolchildren that is driven by relentless unemployment and foreclosures. The rise, to more than one million students without stable housing by last spring, has tested budget-battered school districts as they try to carry out their responsibilities — and the federal mandate — to salvage education for children whose lives are filled with insecurity and turmoil.

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A Medical School in Florida is Pairing Students With Low-Income Families

Miami - At the start of the new school year, a dream is finally coming true for Hanadys Ale.

She has wanted a career in medicine since girlhood, when she saw how compassionately a doctor treated her grandmother at their home in Cuba. But she interrupted her medical studies to move to Miami with her family. Now, having mastered English, she's back on track as one of 43 students in the inaugural class of the new medical school at Florida International University (FIU).

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The price is right

When San Diego got the go-ahead two years ago to withdraw from the federal government's long-standing public housing program, it came with the proviso that the city create a relatively modest 350 new housing units for low-income households.

The feds would be happy to learn that the city's housing agency intends to nearly triple that, thanks to a battered economy that has greatly depressed housing values.

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Prison dads try to break cycle

CHESHIRE, Conn.—When prison inmate Jordan Rambert, 19, contemplates his 2-year-old son's future, he imagines they are close and his son doesn't get into trouble.

Rambert, who is from New Haven, is serving 3 1/2 years at Manson Youth Institution in Cheshire for drug possession. At the prison, he has been taking a course on how to be a good parent.

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Momentum grows for national jobs march in Pittsburgh

With the Sept. 4 announcement that unemployment in the U.S. has hit an official high of 9.7 percent, organizing for the National March for Jobs on Sept. 20 in Pittsburgh and the Tent City in Solidarity with the Unemployed has reached a critical stage. Unemployed workers and their allies will be in Pittsburgh at the same time the G-20 Group of major capitalist countries will be holding their summit in that city.

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Pax Christi NJ Helps Organize Statewide Vigils to Keep Families Together

EWARK, NJ (September 15, 2009) - Ten communities throughout New Jersey are holding "Children’s Vigils" today as a part of a coordinated campaign by Pax Christi NJ and NJ Advocates for Immigrant Detainees called "We Are One Human Family" in support of children at risk of family separation because of immigration detentions or deportations. Immigrant rights advocates and religious leaders will gather with families at churches, parks and town halls in Bridgeton, Dumont, Freehold, Hightstown, Jersey City, Highland Park, Keyport, Montclair, Morristown, and Newark in support of the rights of millions of children living in families in which at least one parent is an immigrant.

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Help for homeless on the way to S.A.

Sitting in a room at Motel 6 with his wife and two daughters who have little more than the clothes they are wearing, Jeffrey Ryan is in tears.

His wife, Deborah, and daughters, Brittany, 13, and Kaylan, 10, try to console him. This is no vacation.

As much as the girls like to swim in the motel pool, they know why they are there. Just days earlier, the family was at Miller’s Pond Park wondering where they would sleep. They know that if SAMMinistries hadn’t helped by paying for the motel room, they could be living in that park.

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A ‘Little Judge’ Who Rejects Foreclosures, Brooklyn Style

The judge waves you into his chambers in the State Supreme Court building in Brooklyn, past the caveat taped to his wall — “Be sure brain in gear before engaging mouth” — and into his inner office, where foreclosure motions are piled high enough to form a minor Alpine chain.

"I don't want to put a family on the street unless it's legitimate," Justice Arthur M. Schack said.

Every week, the nation’s mightiest banks come to his court seeking to take the homes of New Yorkers who cannot pay their mortgages. And nearly as often, the judge says, they file foreclosure papers speckled with errors.
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