Poverty

RECENT POSTS

October 14, 2010 | 4:36 PM | By

Employment Prospects Worsen for some DC Residents

The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute’s report, “Packing a Punch: The Recession Hit African-American and Non-College Educated DC Residents Particularly Hard” is a must-read if you’re concerned with the disparities that affect this city:

Looking over a longer-term period, employment prospects have worsened noticeably over the past two decades for Black District residents and for residents with no post-secondary education. For these residents, job conditions have worsened even in periods when DC’s overall economy was growing.

– Employment among African-American DC residents has fallen steadily since the late 1980s. The employment rate fell from 62 percent in 1988 to 56 percent in 2000 and to 49.5 percent in 2009. (The employment rate is the share of adults with a job.) If employment had not fallen since the late 1980s, some 31,000 additional African-American residents would be working today. Meanwhile, the employment rate for white residents has remained relatively steady.

WAMU’s Patrick Madden’s story, here.

FILED UNDER: The People, Jobs, Poverty, Race and Class
October 14, 2010 | 10:34 AM | By

No Room for Homeless Families in D.C.

jGregor

This is worrisome:

A month after pledging to do a better job of sheltering the city’s homeless this winter, District leaders haven’t figured out how best to meet that promise. Meanwhile, the Family Emergency Shelter, which can house 135 families, is nearly full. And last week, 67 more families were waiting for emergency housing, with no place else to go…

A city plan to add up to 100 rooms to the D.C. General shelter was abandoned after the idea came under fire last month from advocates for the homeless and D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6), who said it would worsen conditions at the troubled shelter.

Another plan would have transformed the former Hebrew Home for the Aged on Spring Road NW into a shelter for 75 homeless families, but Council member Muriel Bowser questioned whether it was fair to create a new shelter on a street which already has two.

With no alternatives left on the table, the city will rely on moving families out of D.C. General as quickly as possible and into 185 transitional apartments, said Laura Zeilinger, who oversees homeless programs for the city’s Department of Human Services.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Children, Homelessness, Poverty
October 12, 2010 | 2:34 PM | By

Bare Shelves at SERVE

Bread for the World

I know that this blog focuses on Race and Class in the District, but as my boss once pointed out, a lot of the people who work in the city live outside of it. With that in mind, I wanted to pass along this plea for assistance, from SERVE, the largest food bank in Prince William county:

SERVE is in immediate need of canned vegetables, pasta, canned tomatoes, and pasta sauce or any other non-perishable food item. Our shelves are currently bare! We are providing food assistance over 500 families per month and will need enough to get us through the next two months. Donated items can be brought to the SERVE Food Distribution Center (10056 Dean Drive, Manassas, VA, 20110) Monday thru Friday from 9am to 5pm. On Wednesdays, we have extended hours until 7:30pm.

That’s from an email I was sent, earlier today. I spoke to someone at SERVE who said their extended hours on Wednesday end at 8pm. Even if you don’t live or work near this facility, you might know someone who does, who’d be willing to help. As soon as I read this, I thought of the boxes of oatmeal and pasta cluttering my kitchen (huzzah for Costco); it’s a good reminder that pantries in the District are probably in need, as well.

FILED UNDER: Food, Non-profits, Poverty
October 1, 2010 | 12:45 PM | By

Children who are “weighed down by a world of no”

nika2

WaPo Metro Columnist Petula Dvorak on “The grinding reality of growing up poor“:

The no of poverty in kids’ lives today means no new clothes, no bed, no sleeping past 5 a.m. or we won’t have time to take three buses to get to your school, no telling the guard at the Metro station that we’re sleeping there tonight, no after-school tutoring program designed just for you, because, the truth is, we can’t afford to get you there and back every day.

This is the daily reality for thousands of our children, especially African American children growing up in the District.

30% of D.C. kids are impoverished. Dvorak’s piece includes a glum story about a social worker who took her mentee to see “Karate Kid”; the teen loved the movie and the martial art so much, the social worker secured free lessons for her in two different neighborhoods– neither of which she could afford to travel to.

FILED UNDER: The People, Children, Poverty, Race and Class
September 30, 2010 | 3:30 PM | By

Hunger-Free Kids Act…would leave kids hungry

Justin Knol

SNAP cuts mean it would be hard to buy fresh fruit.

Annie Lowrey at The Washington Independent spoke to anti-Hunger activist Joel Berg about Congress’ attempt to cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (i.e. food stamps). The cuts are being made to fund a Child Nutrition bill championed by Michelle Obama. The whole article (which includes a transcript of Lowrey and Berg’s conversation) is a sobering read. Of course, I excerpted the saddest bits for you below (emphasis mine):

TWI: And what will the impact be for kids?

Berg: This cut is taking something away from every other meal for children in low-income families, to help get them a better lunch. Someone in the White House last week, I saw, claimed that the child-nutrition bill will dramatically reduce child obesity.

That’s ridiculous. They are cutting the budget from kids at home to pay for kids in school. If kids eat in school every day, in a year, that’s still only 16 percent of their meals, because there are weekends, there are holidays, there are nights, there is summer. There is no way that marginally improving 16 percent of your meals is going to dramatically change your diet — especially not if you are taking away from the rest.

People want to claim victory. They want to make exaggerated claims that the child-nutrition bill will help. The most heartbreaking thing about it, for advocates, is that this is supposed to be our great champion bill that was going to solve everything! We thought it would dramatically decrease child hunger. But, the fact is, you have hunger advocates lobbying against its passage. Our emotions are ranging from outraged to heartbroken. I’m really just gobsmacked that this happened.

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FILED UNDER: The People, Hunger, Money, Poverty, Race and Class, Schools