- Food stamp use soars, By Keyonna Summers, January 9, 2010, Florida Today: “The gnawing feeling of an empty stomach is something Neville Durant became accustomed to after losing his job as a restaurant cook two years ago. Though he searched daily for work to support himself and his paraplegic brother, jobs were scarce. The latest unemployment rate in Brevard County hit 11.9 percent. In August, Durant signed up for food stamps. ‘I never thought I would have to turn to food stamps,’ said Durant, 45, of Cocoa. ‘You think things will get better but then you turn to that point of desperation . . . when your stomach starts growling. You can’t go out looking for a job starving.’ Durant said food stamps have helped give him peace of mind. There’s food in the house. And he’s not alone. There are about 30,000 households in Brevard County currently receiving food stamps — a number that’s tripled in the past decade and more than doubled in just the past four years. Nearly 9,000 families signed up in the past year alone…”
- Use of food stamps soars in Vermont, By Tim Johnson, January 10, 2010, Burlington Free Press: “Vermonters using food stamps have increased nearly 80 percent over the last four years, and about 1 in 8 state residents now relies on this federally funded program. But Vermont’s food-security profile also includes two other noteworthy statistics:
• About one-fourth of the people eligible for food stamps — now known as 3SquaresVT — have not signed up. That’s according to a national survey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which put Vermont’s participation rate at 73 percent (compared to a national average of 66 percent).
• Of those in Vermont who are receiving food assistance, about 1 in 12 has no other source of income. The number of Vermonters depending solely on 3SquaresVT totaled 7,139 in November, according to the Department of Children and Families, which administers the program…”
Day: January 11, 2010
Homeless Children and Families
- Homeless kids: Young, invisible and largely forgotten, By Jeannette Rivera-Lyles, January 10, 2010, Orlando Sentinel: “Dymond Walker’s eyes sparkle when she talks about her future. Plan A, the 15-year-old says, is to be a veterinarian. Plan B is to work as an animal rescuer. Keeping those dreams alive is a daily struggle. Dymond and her two younger sisters, T’ara Pollins, 13, and Krystal Pollins, 11, and their mother, Shaneek Livingston, have been homeless for nine months. In that time, they have lived doubled up with a family of five, slept in a car for days and stayed in a walk-in closet with a twin bed. ‘My mom didn’t really sleep in the bed,’ Dymond said. ‘Sometimes there are three of us on the floor. We can’t curl up because the space is so tight. And it [was] hot, like 110 degrees,’ she said. The little family is the real, yet invisible face of homelessness in Osceola. According to a survey by the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, the county has 1,885 homeless people. Nearly half of those, counts show, are school-age children. In Central Florida, Osceola has the highest percentage of school-age children in its homeless population, followed by Seminole County and then Orange County, according to Homeless Services Network. Missing from these tallies are homeless children too young to be in school. In Osceola, the only county where such estimates are available, including those youngsters raises the percentage of children to nearly two-thirds of the homeless population…”
- Boost in homelessness strains families, taxpayers, By Stacie N. Galang, January 11, 2010, Salem News: “It was as if an entire neighborhood showed up on Danvers’ doorstep. Shortly before Labor Day, school administrators and town officials began to fret. Student numbers were dramatically higher than spring estimates, at one point reaching 84. ‘Sort of within a two-week time frame, we saw enrollment increase,’ school Superintendent Lisa Dana said. What town leaders didn’t realize was that the state’s burgeoning homeless population had overwhelmed family shelters. With no space left, the state had started putting families up in motels. More than 100 homeless families had been sent to live temporarily in three Danvers motels: the Days Inn, Knights Inn and Motel 6. The families came from as close as Beverly and as far as Roxbury, but primarily from the region north of Boston. As the start of school neared, the motel parents considered their options: Enroll their children in Danvers schools or ask to have them bused to their home districts, an option provided to homeless families under federal law. Soon, town officials would estimate the costs at nearly a half-million dollars. Danvers was at the center of a perfect storm. The sour economy had forced up unemployment, adding to the number of evictions and foreclosures and helping to produce the largest increase in homeless families the state has seen in generations…”
Editorial: Integration of Human Services – Michigan
Agencies must team up to serve poor better, Editorial, January 9, 2010, Detroit Free Press: “With one in seven Michigan residents now living in poverty and metro Detroit leading the nation in unemployment, state government must maintain a safety net and do more to move people out of poverty. That doesn’t always mean spending more, but it does mean working smarter — and more effectively. Government anti-poverty programs have for too long worked in silos. Narrowly focused agencies work on one set of issues, such as job training, day care or transportation. But training for a job that a worker can’t get to, for example, or can’t take because she lacks day care or has a drug problem isn’t going to help much. Michigan has aggravated the problem by gutting the adult education system over the last decade, decreasing funding from about $100 million to $22 million…”