Needy patients get ‘prescriptions’ for food and shelter through volunteer program, By Sandra G. Boodman, June 18, 2012, Washington Post: “Treshawn Jones was desperate. Jobless for four months, she had burned through her meager savings, was running low on food for her two young children and barely scraping by on weekly unemployment checks of $307 that didn’t begin to cover her overdue $600 utility bill and monthly rent of $900. So in March, while at Children’s National Medical Center with her 2-year-old son, Jones asked a sympathetic staff member if she knew of any resources that could help her family. Within minutes, Jones was meeting with Shalesha Lake, a junior at the University of Maryland at College Park who volunteers for Health Leads, an innovative program that has operated at Children’s since 2001. Three months later, with guidance from Lake, the 35-year-old single mother had completed a free job training course offered by Byte Back, a nonprofit group that provides computer training to underserved District residents, obtained free food and clothes for her children, applied for utility and rental assistance. . .”
Tag: Boston
Poverty Rate – Boston, MA
Poverty worsening in Hub, study says, By Meghan E. Irons, November 9, 2011, Boston Globe: “Poverty has deepened in Boston’s poorest neighborhoods, widening the gap between the city’s wealthiest and neediest residents, a report being released today finds. The study points to concentrated need in Dorchester, Mattapan, and Roxbury, where 42 percent of children live in poverty, the densest cluster of childhood poverty in the state, according to the study sponsored by the Boston Foundation. In those communities, 85 percent of families are headed by a single parent, mainly mothers, and at least 20 percent of the adults have no high school diploma. Poverty there is fueled by unemployment and low educational attainment, the study found…”