- ‘Nowhere else to go’: Small Texas towns decimated by hurricane struggle to rebuild amid poverty, By Mary Lee Grant, September 10, 2017, Washington Post: “At a small rural hospital in this shrimping and tourist town of about 3,000, some patients visited the emergency room twice a day, obtaining insulin and other medications they could not afford to buy themselves. Nurses sometimes pooled their money to pay for patients’ cab fare home…”
- Irma pushes Florida’s poor closer to the edge of ruin, By Jay Reeves (AP), September 14, 2017, Washington Post: “Larry and Elida Dimas didn’t have much to begin with, and Hurricane Irma left them with even less. The storm peeled open the roof of the old mobile home where they live with their 18-year-old twins, and it destroyed another one they rented to migrant workers in Immokalee, one of Florida’s poorest communities. Someone from the government already has promised aid, but Dimas’ chin quivers at the thought of accepting it…”
- Homeless and in college. Then Harvey struck, By Anya Kamenetz, September 15, 2017, National Public Radio: “Christina Broussard was trapped in her grandmother’s living room for three days during Hurricane Harvey. Rain poured through the ceiling in the bathrooms and bedrooms. Broussard’s a student at Houston Community College. Her grandmother is 74 and uses a wheelchair…”
- Texas CPS, foster-care providers go all out to protect vulnerable children from Hurricane Harvey, By Robert T. Garrett, September 11, 2017, Dallas Morning News: “Texas Child Protective Services and its contractors had to evacuate more than 400 foster kids in institutions because of Hurricane Harvey and, probably, hundreds more who lived in foster homes along the Gulf coast, protective services officials said Monday…”
Tag: Florida
Affordable Housing – Miami, FL
South Florida ranked as the hardest place in nation for low-income renters to find affordable housing, By Linda Robertson, August 16, 2017, Miami Herald: “As the nationwide housing crisis becomes more dire for those who are the most vulnerable, South Florida has been ranked as the metro area with the highest percentage of low-income renters who can’t find affordable housing…”
Child Poverty in Marion County, Florida
Why do 31% of Marion children live in poverty?, By Jim Ross and Joe Callahan, August 6, 2017, Ocala Star-Banner: “When the school year kicks off later this week, almost one-third of the students who file into Marion County classrooms will be coming from poverty-stricken homes. Thirty-one percent of Marion County children live in poverty. In 2007, it was just over 21 percent. Why has Marion regressed? What is being done to improve this record? How does our community address child poverty? Those are three of the questions the Star-Banner will be asking during this school year as we publish a series of stories about child poverty…”