Foreclosure Bill Includes Funds for Homeless Education

The Foreclosure Prevention bill (H.R. 3221) passed by the Senate on Saturday includes an amendment that will help children affected by the foreclosure crisis stay in school and get educational assistance.

The amendment authorizes funds for school districts through the McKinney-Vento homeless education program to help ensure that students who are forced to move from their homes do not also have to leave their schools.

"It is unfair to let these children float from one unfamiliar school to another through no fault of their own and against the will of their parents," said Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., one of the amendment’s sponsors.

"When they are abruptly uprooted from the schools where they have formed a connection to the teachers, learning material and classmates, their development can be severely stunted."

A recent report by First Focus and The Brookings Institution found that nearly 2 million children will be directly impacted by the mortgage crisis.

The legislation, which also passed through the House last week, has moved to President Bush’s desk, where he is expected to sign it into law this week.

Half In Ten Campaign: Take Action for Low-Income Families

Yesterday, Senator John Edwards spoke to over 1,000 young people at the Campus Progress National Conference in Washington, DC. Senator Edwards asked these 1,000 young activists to pledge their support for Half In Ten and find 10 friends to do the same. Watch him call on these students to form the core of a movement to change this country forever. To grow this movement, we need you, too.

As we build this movement, there are specific changes that we can make today to reach our goal of reducing poverty by half in ten years. Yesterday, Senator Edwards discussed one of these: the need to expand the Child Tax Credit. Current law denies the CTC to millions of poor children and their families because they earn too little to owe federal income tax. By lowering the minimum earnings from the current $12,050 to $8,500 for 2008, families of more than 13 million children will become newly eligible to receive the credit or receive an increased amount.
During these tough economic times, helping our lowest-income families should be a top priority. The House of Representatives has begun to address this need by approving H.R. 6049, which expands the CTC to all families who make at least $8,500 a year. But it’s looking like the Senate might not go as far as the House and would leave over 1.5 million low-income children out entirely or give their families a smaller refund.

We must all voice our support for real change to the CTC. Add your name to this petition urging Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) to:

• Expand the CTC to the children who need it most, allowing those families making $8,500 a year to access the credit, and
• End the annual increases in required earnings that deprive low-income families and children from this needed help.

Starting today at East Harlem’s Yorkville Common Pantry, Senator Edwards is heading out on the road, learning from citizens affected by poverty, rallying with community activists, and putting pressure on elected officials. Together, we can build a movement to cut poverty in half, but we need you—educating yourself on the issues, bringing your friends and family into Half In Ten, and urging elected officials to take action—to make the concrete changes that can pull families out of poverty.

Thanks again for your support!
The Half In Ten Team

Half in Ten plans to reduce poverty in the United States by 50 percent within 10 years. Under the leadership of Senator John Edwards, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF), the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), have joined forces on the campaign to elevate and sustain a focus on the situations facing the poor and middle class today,build and strengthen an effective constituency to demand legislative action on poverty and economic mobility, advance specific legislative and policy proposals that will deliver real benefits to struggling American families. For more information on how to reduce poverty in America, see From Poverty to Prosperity: A National Strategy to Cut Poverty in Half by the Center for American Progress Task Force on Poverty.

Paid Sick Days Poll

This weekend, Parade Magazine, the country’s most widely-read magazine, featured a story on paid sick days. Now, Parade is conducting an online poll, asking its readers: “Should employers be required to offer paid sick days?”

Help us send the message loud and clear that paid sick days are much-needed—and strongly supported—by taking Parade’s online poll. Parade is distributed by over 400 Sunday newspapers, including several major papers, and reaches an estimated 71 million readers. This article and online poll will help paid sick days campaigns across the nation reach a broad, new audience.

Please take a moment to check out the article and, most importantly, cast your vote in Parade’s online poll, and forward it to your members, friends and coworkers in a show of support for paid sick days for everyone.

contributed by Loretta Line
YWCAs Illinois Advocacy Manager

Economic Downturn Stories Needed

YWCA USA is a member of the Coalition on Human Needs (CHN), which works on funding human needs programs and budget and tax issues, including the federal budget and appropriations process. CHN is one of the organizations leading the Half In Ten: Poverty to Prosperity Campaign with former U.S. Senator John Edwards.

CHN and the YWCA are working together to collect stories from people who can speak first-hand about how the economic downturn impacts service providers and their clients. The goal of this campaign is to put a human face on the rising economic needs.

We are hoping you or someone in your association will be willing to participate in this easy but important effort. Two types of stories are needed: 1) Stories describing the importance of human needs programs and how unmet needs, cutbacks, or proposed cuts impact communities, and 2) stories of the importance of human needs programs and how unmet needs, cut backs, or proposed cuts will harm or have harmed YWCA associations or clients. Examples include stories on cuts to programs, having to limit the clients served, having to layoff staff, rising co-pays, and longer waiting lists. Programs of interest include Medicare, Medicaid, housing assistance, violence against women programs, child care, child support and Head Start.

To give a 10-15 minute “interview” for this project, or to get more information, please email Randi Schmidt, YWCA USA Senior Advocacy Associate.

For more on Half In Ten see the related post from May 2008.

S.F. schools take on racism, classism

There have been so many conversations in GLA this year about structural racism's most tenacious problems, including race-based disparities in education and in the criminal justice system. While the road to undoing these conditions will undoubtedly be paved with trial and error, and with policies that may only scratch the surface, it is heartening to see a school district working strategically and intentionally to topple educational racism and classism.

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Jill Tucker, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

San Francisco Superintendent Carlos Garcia took a first stab at putting his mark on city schools Tuesday with a plan that pushes the district to face racism and classism head on.

The district's strategic plan adopted by the school board 6-0 Tuesday night focuses on reversing the typical academic outcomes for black, Hispanic and poor students.

Although that sounds almost like a reworked version of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, district officials say they are working off a corporate model that puts everyone - from school board members to custodians - under the microscope in different ways.

A new grading system will expose schools - even the popular, high-scoring ones - that are failing to address the institutional racial inequities within their walls.

Click here for the full article from the San Francisco Chronicle

Women Rarely Receive Domestic Violence Services in Welfare Offices

Women in welfare offices rarely receive domestic violence services, according to a recent University of Washington analysis of the implementation of the Family Violence Option (FVO) (see Taryn Lindhorst, Marcia Meyers, and Erin Casey, Screening for Domestic Violence in Public Welfare Offices: An Analysis of Case Manager and Client Interactions, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, Jan. 2008, available at http://vaw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1/5). High rates of domestic violence are known among welfare recipients, and the welfare office is a vital location for providing women with resources toward financial independence.

A state option in the 1996 federal welfare reform law, the FVO helps domestic violence survivors move from welfare to work. The FVO allows states increased flexibility in applying the requirements of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to families affected by domestic violence without states being penalized financially. When states adopt the FVO, they are agreeing to

• screen applicants and recipients of TANF for domestic violence while maintaining confidentiality;
• provide referrals to counseling and supportive services;
• and make good-cause waivers from TANF program requirements.

Waivers are to be granted where the requirements would make it harder for TANF recipients to escape domestic violence or where the requirements would unfairly penalize past, present, or potential victims of domestic violence. Program requirements that may be waived include the 60-month lifetime limit on receiving TANF assistance and mandatory work requirements.

See the full article from the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.

Coalition On Human Needs partners to Reduce Poverty

The message below comes from the Coalition on Human Needs-- a YWCA USA national coalition partner. GLA is eager to join the Half in Ten Campaign!

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Cutting poverty in half in the US over the next decade is an achievable goal.

The Coalition on Human Needs is proud to have joined with three vitally important organizations and with former Senator John Edwards in a new campaign to turn that goal into reality.

On May 13, CHN joined with The Center for American Progress Action Fund, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to introduce Half in Ten: From Poverty to Prosperity, a campaign chaired by Senator Edwards and coordinated by the four organizations.

Half in Ten will seek federal and state solutions to cut poverty in half within ten years. Meeting in Philadelphia with many ACORN members as well as leaders from community action agencies, anti-hunger groups, children's advocacy organizations, labor, leaders from the faith community, and other advocates, Senator Edwards called poverty "a moral cause facing every single one of us," and the imperative of reducing poverty "a question of fundamental fairness that this country was founded upon." He has been in touch with the three major presidential candidates about making commitments to the half in ten goal. You can read about their poverty positions at the Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity website.

Drawing upon a report principally authored for the Center for American Progress by CHN's Public Policy Committee Chair and Board member Mark Greenberg, the campaign will focus on federal and/or state efforts to raise the minimum wage, expand tax credits so they reach more poor families and individuals, increase the availability of quality child care for low-income families, expand Unemployment Insurance so it reaches more low-income workers who lose their jobs, and protect people from foreclosure and other forms of predatory lending.

Half in Ten: From Poverty to Prosperity is off to a very promising start. But we know that the four organizations, even with the exciting participation of John Edwards, cannot by ourselves achieve our goal. We will seek every opportunity to work with organizations in Washington and around the country, many of whom are already hard at work on important anti-poverty initiatives - such as Catholic Charities USA, the Center for Community Change, the Community Action Partnership, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Sojourners/Call to Renewal, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the National Women's Law Center, and Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). Well - I am getting into trouble because there are so many organizations we will work with and upon whose expertise we depend. Those include all of CHN's members, and many more besides.

We urge you to check out the new Half in Ten website. . .and the press release announcing Half in Ten... and the Philadelphia Inquirer story following the launch event.

We believe that the recession, the failures of the current Administration, and the leadership of many committed organizations and public officials have all contributed to a new desire for practical solutions to poverty - and a recognition that persistent poverty hurts all of us. This is an exciting time.

More to come!

Deborah WeinsteinExecutive Director, Coalition on Human Needs

New Report on Youth Life Outcomes in Economically Distressed Communities

So many YWCAs have programs focused on helping youth navigate their social circumstances. This new report from CLASP provides useful thinking about youth development and specific ways community organizations can "be bold" in partnering and leading to advocate for youth.
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A Collective Responsibility, A Collective Work: Supporting the Path to Positive Life Outcomes for Youth in Economically Distressed Communities by Rhonda Tsoi-A-Fatt. This paper presents a picture of risk and challenge for youth in distressed communities and outlines how these communities can band together to create a continuum of supportive activities to bolster youth’s success in school and life. As youth grow and develop, individualized support and exposure to new experiences has a significant impact on their life trajectory. Youth in economically distressed communities deserve to have access to these types of opportunities, which are much more readily available to their peers in other communities. This investment in youth can have a positive effect on academic success, future life earnings, family stability, and the livelihood of the community. This paper may be helpful in guiding a community’s thinking about how to get started in creating a sustainable support system for all of its youth. 32 pages. 5/16/2008