As Food Costs Rise, So Do School Lunch Prices

from the New York Times

This article explores the effect that rising food prices are having on school lunches. School officials point out that what kids are getting for a dollar or two in the cafeteria would cost 6 to 7 dollars at a restaurant. - Kale

By WINNIE HU

Gas pumps, grocery stores, and now school cafeterias.

Prices on some school lunch lines are going up this fall as school officials, like many others, struggle to pay higher prices and delivery fees for staples like bread, milk, fresh fruit and vegetables. The price increases, generally about 25 cents a meal, come as school districts in New York and across the country try to eke more out of already tight budgets, with some switching to four-day schedules to reduce utility and busing costs, and others asking more of their students to walk to school or limiting out-of-town games for athletic teams.

But for many parents, nothing hits the pockets quite like lunch prices.

“It’s 25 cents a day, but if you have three kids, over a week that’s the price of a gallon of milk,” said Harry A. Capers Jr., a past president of the New Jersey Parent-Teacher Association. “I think it’s something people will notice and I am really concerned about those who have to make tough choices.”

New Jersey’s largest school district, Newark, is raising the full price of its daily lunches to $1.50 from $1.25, as its overall food budget grows to an estimated $5.2 million from $5 million last year. (Most Newark students do not pay the full price. In most cases there and elsewhere, increases in the cost of full-price lunches will not affect the reduced prices — a maximum of 40 cents a meal — that students from poorer families have to pay.)

In Paterson, N.J., the full price is also increasing by 25 cents — to $2.25 in high schools and $2 in elementary schools — to help cover a 23 percent increase in bread prices alone in the last year. The district, which serves 18,000 lunches a day, now pays 12 cents for each hot dog bun, compared with 9.5 cents a year ago.

“It’s something we have to do,” said Tonya Riggins, Newark’s director of food services, who oversees 29,000 daily lunches. “People may not be happy, but it’s the economy and it’s beyond our control.”

Across the metropolitan area, many suburban and rural schools are raising lunch prices while large urban districts are taking other measures to cover rising food bills, from reducing food management costs in Yonkers to shopping around for cheaper plastic plates and cups in Syracuse.

The New York City schools, which serve 626,670 lunches a day, will keep full lunch prices steady at $1.50. But the system will save money by, for example, replacing individual bread rolls and cherry tomatoes in salads with slices of French bread and whole tomatoes that can be bought in bulk. “It’s a lot of little things that add up to big savings,” said William Havemann, a spokesman for the city’s Department of Education.

To help offset higher food costs, the United States Department of Agriculture, which subsidizes school lunches, has increased its average lunch reimbursement to districts this year by 10 cents to $2.57 a meal for students who qualify for free lunches, and $2.17 for those who qualify for reduced-price lunches. Last year, the increase was 7 cents.

The department issued a report this summer, called “Meeting the Challenge of Rising Food Costs,” to help districts develop strategies to control food costs and stretch budgets. In addition to cash reimbursements, it will provide more free food this fall to 101,000 school districts participating in the lunch program. It will also expand another program, which provides free snacks of fruits and vegetables, primarily to low-income districts, to all 50 states from 14 states last year.

But many school officials contend that the federal lunch money is not keeping up with rising food prices, particularly in districts that are stocking their cafeterias with healthier food choices like skim milk, whole grains and fresh fruit.

“When you start including more fresh fruit and vegetables instead of green beans in a can, your costs increase,” said Brian Sirianni, assistant superintendent for business in the Ballston Spa district, north of Albany. His 4,500-student district is raising lunch prices by 35 cents, to $2, in the middle and high school, and by 25 cents, to $1.75, in the elementary schools — and may have to increase prices again in the next two years.

Affluent suburban schools are also feeling the pinch. In New Jersey, the Mount Laurel district, which serves an average of 1,985 lunches a day, will raise its lunch price by 20 cents — the highest increase in recent memory — to $2 in the middle schools, and $1.90 in the elementary schools. “We’re not trying to make a profit, we’re just trying to break even,” said Marie Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the district.

In poorer areas, people will definitely feel squeezed, said Irene Sterling, president of the Paterson Education Fund, a nonprofit group made up of parents and community leaders seeking to improve that city’s schools. “I think there’s going to be people upset, but I also think there’s very little anybody can do about it, because it’s part of a bigger picture,” Ms. Sterling said.

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Albany cuts funds in half to Rochester poverty fighter

from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

The state government in New York cut funds to a children's poverty fighter. The organization called the Rochester Surround Care Community Corp. will see it's budget slashed by 2 million dollars. - Kale

by David Andreatta

The significance of the reduction is difficult to overstate for the fledgling social services organization, which has faced a string of setbacks and false starts in launching its grand vision to revitalize the impoverished northeast section of the city.

As of last week, the organization had received just $700,000 of its original state Department of Education grant but had committed to disburse over $1.1 million to local nonprofit agencies, according to financial records examined by the Democrat and Chronicle.

The agency is designed to bring a holistic array of services to poor neighborhoods. Nearly $884,000 of the earmarked money, intended to cover a wide array of health care, community safety, youth and financial literacy services provided by 20 different agencies, has yet to be delivered.

The depth of the cut stunned the newly named executive director, Iris Banister, who learned of it from a reporter. She said it would undoubtedly force the group to curtail some commitments.

"It is our intent to try to uphold as many of the promises we have made to people as possible," Banister said. "But I can't give you a clear pathway how we're going to do that right now."

Banister, who started her $125,000-a-year job five weeks ago, dismissed the suggestion that the cut could sink Rochester Surround Care altogether. She acknowledged, though, that the news was crushing.

"We are devastated but not discouraged," she said. "We will survive because it's about these children and this community, so we will survive."

The $2 million was among $427 million cut by the Legislature and Gov. David Paterson, who persuaded lawmakers to reopen the budget adopted in April as a first step toward reducing state spending by $1 billion over the next year and a half. The amended spending plan now stands at $120.9 billion.

Surround Care was not the only local nonprofit bloodied by the budget ax. The $980,000 slated for the Hillside Work Scholarship program was cut in half to $490,000. The Rochester Summer Youth program and the Catholic Family Center of Rochester also took hits.

But none of those cuts is arguably as potentially destructive as that sustained by Rochester Surround Care.

"It's an enormous blow because it's half of a lot of money," said Nancy Ares, an associate professor of teaching and curriculum at the University of Rochester's Warner School of Education, who has been studying the organization since its inception in 2005.

"Four million was going to go toward a lot of important things," Ares said. "They have operated on a shoestring for a while, so I wouldn't anticipate that this will stop them, but to have to figure out how to continue their work with half of what they expected will be quite a challenge."

Indeed, many of the organizations that Surround Care pledged to support have received only a small fraction, or nothing, of what was promised.

A group called Slater's Raiders for Peace, an anti-crime and youth mentoring program operated by Grace Community Village in memory of slain Rochester resident James Slater, was granted $181,580. It has received just $46,000.

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Rochester's poverty levels more concentrated than Buffalo

from the Buffalo News

Here is another story on the Brookings Institution report that is focused on New York State

By, Jonathan Epstein

A new study by the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution shows that the concentration of low-income working families in high-poverty areas is significantly higher in Rochester than in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area.

According to the Brookings report, to be released today, about 21 percent of Rochester's low-income working families lived in ZIP codes where at least 40 percent of all taxpayers get the federal Earned Income Tax Credit. Low-income families were defined as those who receive the EITC.

In fact, Rochester had the eighth-highest concentration of poverty in the country, among the 58 largest cities studied by Brookings. And it had the fourth-highest increase in that concentration, which rose by 13.2 points from 1999 to 2005.

By contrast, just 13.5 percent of Buffalo's low-income families lived in such concentrated areas. And that was up just 5.1 percent in the six years.

Indeed, the concentration in Buffalo Niagara area almost matches that of the 58 largest cities in the country -- 13.3 percent nationwide.

However, nationwide, the number of low-income families living in high-poverty neighborhoods soared 40 percent, as 34 of the 58 large cities saw higher rates of concentration. Many are in older industrial cities, like Rochester, Detroit and Cleveland, and suburbs saw increases in high-poverty neighborhoods as well.

Brookings blamed the rise on the economic downturn and slow recovery in the first half of this decade. The report said "extremely poor neighborhoods" often discourage private-sector investment, offer less access to job opportunities, and have higher crime rates, underperforming public schools, poor housing, and poor health conditions. That's on top of the regular daily challenges of being poor.

Research director and report co-author Alan Berube called for "smart policies" that foster more "economic integration" throughout metropolitan areas while linking residents of impoverished neighborhoods to labor markets.

Nationwide, the worst metropolitan area for concentration of poverty was Fresno, Calif., where 30 percent of low-income filers live in high-poverty areas, according to Brookings. And that was down by 4.3 points from six years earlier.

That was followed by Augusta, Ga., at 29.3 percent; Detroit at 27.5 percent, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale at 26.7 percent; and Philadelphia at 25.5 percent. Cleveland was seventh, at 21.5 percent.

The lowest concentrations among the 58 cities -- in all cases, zero -- were in Sacramento and San Diego, Calif., and in Washington, D. C. Trenton, N. J., was next, followed by Phoenix, Ariz.

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Seeking Common Ground

from MPN Now

Women in New York State are more likely to live in poverty then women nationwide. This story profiles an organization that can help women in New York. - Kale

By Julie Sherwood

While there are many organizations and government programs aimed at helping people in need, one organization co-founded by a South Bristol woman is working to specifically address the needs of women through education, programs and the development of a support network.

Co-founder Deb Denome is now director of that organization, a nonprofit called Seeking Common Ground. She and four friends started it in 1997. At first they wanted to form a community-based business, said Denome, who then had a corporate job in publishing. The idea soon evolved into much more than that. They discovered that other women were “feeling the same pressures we did,” she said, wanting to spend quality time with their children and make a living, too.

That wasn’t all.

“We saw women not being able to break out of poverty,” said Denome, 41, a mother of three who was facing her own set of challenges then that included her newborn daughter being diagnosed with cancer. Denome, who was married at the time, said her husband was starting his own business, which added to the financial strain.

Then she had a dream about a type of place that would soothe the spirit as well as help women manage financially.

Seeking Common Ground and the programs that operate under its umbrella are the embodiment of that dream. The programs include a community organic farm at Denome’s home on Hicks Road in South Bristol; a farm-to-cafeteria program that works with Ontario County Cornell Cooperative Extension, local farmers and food service directors to increase the use of local foods in cafeterias; and Herb Haven, an herbal gardening and retail training program for women and children who are striving to become economically self-sufficient.

About 50 women are participating in one or more of the programs. The community farm is a cooperative that offers the chance to learn about agriculture and help grow a variety of vegetables and other edibles in exchange for having healthy, homegrown food. At Herb Haven, women attend eight to 10 hours a week to learn life skills (such as budgeting and setting goals), horticulture and retail job skills and attend a support group. They plant, tend and harvest the garden, create useful products with the herbs and then sell them from a shop at the site in Crystal Beach on Route 364. Free nutritious meals are provided for women and children, and a child-care program offers arts, crafts, song, dance, gardening, cooking and creative play.

Herb Haven is grant-funded and free to participants, said Denome, who is an herbalist and horticulture therapist. The women are asked to make a minimum commitment of six months. Most of the women are from Ontario and Yates counties and in transition from situations such as underemployment, job displacement, illness, divorce, abuse, chemical dependency and incarceration for non-violent crimes.

Robin Cross, 45, of Canandaigua, is one of those women who turned to Herb Haven. A widow, Cross is a mother of three and legally blind. “It’s strengthening, the support here,” said Cross, who works in the garden and may soon be using her computer skills to help with organizing special events at Herb Haven.

Herb Haven doesn’t provide job-placement services, but it does work with Finger Lakes Works, an organization that helps match people with jobs.

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'Real responsibility, real work'

from The Watertown Daily Times

Summer time is when kids are out of school, and they have time to taketrips and lend a helping hand. This one is for building houses in Mexico. - Kale

MEXICO MISSION: Local teenagers brave variety of challenges to build houses for the poor

By GABRIELLE HOVENDON

The 10 adults and 34 teenagers who signed up for the fifth annual Watertown First Presbyterian Church Mexico Mission Trip found themselves faced with poverty and tough conditions when they arrived in Tijuana, Mexico, on July 1.

The group, led by the church's associate pastor, the Rev. Matthew D. Schultz, partnered with a San-Diego based organization called Amor Ministries to build three houses for Mexican families.

The ministry was founded in 1980 and has built more than 12,000 homes in poverty-stricken Mexico since its inception.

The two-room structures measure just 11 feet by 22 feet and lack both electricity and plumbing. However, to the 800,000 Mexican families that Amor Ministries says lack basic, secure homes, they represent a big improvement.

The teens and adults alike were struck by the number of tiny, ramshackle dwellings that passed for houses in Tijuana.

Jillian R. Sanzone, a June graduate of Watertown High School who is the only person to have participated in all five First Presbyterian Mexico mission trips, said that seeing the poverty is still overwhelming.

"Every year just makes you realize that none of our problems really matter that much compared to what they face every day," Miss Sanzone said of the Mexican families' living conditions.

The houses constructed by the Watertown group were designed to improve the poor living conditions for three families chosen by Amor Ministries and local Mexican parishes. The structures were built by hand from the ground up with the most rudimentary materials and no power tools.

Teams of students and adults from various churches in Watertown worked together at three separate locations to level ground, mix and lay concrete foundations, and construct wall and roof sections out of two-by-fours. They then covered the roofs with plywood and tar paper and the walls with layers of baling wire, tar paper, chicken wire and stucco.

The work was difficult, at times backbreaking, and challenges were faced by each of the three building teams. Blisters and bruises abounded as muscles ached with the physical demands of shoveling gravel, lifting lumber, mixing concrete and pounding nails.

"The first day was extremely tough. It's some of the hardest work I've had to do in my life," said Stephen A. Hirst, a rising senior at Watertown High School.

Mr. Hirst's team faced the unusual dilemma of having an uneven base to begin with. To solve the problem, they were forced to add enough shovelfuls of dirt and rocks to raise the ground 3 feet, a process that delayed the laying of the concrete foundation for hours.

Miss Sanzone, one of the leaders for Mr. Hirst's site, agreed that this was a difficult year. In addition to the problem with the uneven ground, she said, a mismeasurement made the entire roof bow sideways and led to hours of extra work when fitting plywood.

"The other houses have been pretty smooth for me," Miss Sanzone said about her previous experiences in Mexico. "I'd say this one was one of the more challenging years."

In addition to the demands of construction work, the builders dealt with less than luxurious living accommodations.

From July 1 to 5, the group slept in tents and showered with buckets at an Amor Ministries campground in Tijuana. The steep, bumpy roads to the work site were difficult to navigate and often unpaved, and outhouses at the campground and work sites could be counted on to add an interesting flavor to daily life.

Dehydration and sunburns were major concerns, as was the issue of safe drinking water. Average temperatures for the week ranged in the mid- to high-80s.

And yet, despite all the hardships, it would have been difficult to find someone who regretted going on the trip. Mr. Hirst, a newcomer to Mexico mission work, was completely satisfied with his decision to come to Tijuana by the end of his first workday.

"It's a great experience, and I'm already getting from it, being here, what I wanted to get from it. It's fulfilling my expectations," he said.

The Rev. Mr. Schultz agreed that it is the chance to have these experiences and make a difference that attracts many of the students. Adults chaperone the trips and oversee projects such as the mulch-sale and spreading fundraiser held in Watertown, but the students participate fully in the building of the houses.

"I think that young people go on the trip frequently because they see they're being given real responsibility and real work to be done. Every nail that goes in is done by the young people, and every single job is accomplished by the young people," said Rev. Mr. Schultz.

Students also join the mission trip for an experience that transcends the physical actions of building a house, added the pastor.

"They have the chance to actually engage in the lives of the people that really live there, and that affects them on an emotional, personal and spiritual level," said the Rev. Mr. Schultz.

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Waterford market expands its sources

from the Troy Record

By: Tom Caprood

WATERFORD - Visitors to the Waterford Harbor Farmers Market Sunday were greeted by the addition of a new Ballston Spa vendor in honor of the market's focus on the many benefits of fair trade.

Mango Tree Imports at 2124 Route 50 in Ballston Spa was represented by the shop's owner, Kim Anderson, who was on hand to sell some of her store's wares, as well as answer any questions about the Fair Trade Federation that people had.

"Fair trade is basically an attempt at poverty alleviation in the developing world through sustainable business practices rather than just through charity," said Anderson, who noted that her shop was one of roughly 300 nationwide members of the Fair Trade Federation.

Anderson explained that her shop offers items from over 55 countries in the developing world and that she and her husband, who also teach language classes for adults and children in their Las Mariposas language center, try to work closely with some of the artisans of work that they sell in order to learn exactly what kinds of products they are getting and where they are coming from.

"In the big picture it's about educating consumers to make wise buying choices and realize that every purchase affects someone on the other end of the deal," said Anderson. "If you purchase a product from a fair trade retailer, it affects someone in a good way, but those that are not could have alternative effects on the living conditions of the workers used to produce those products."

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Access to activities limited

from The Albany Time Union

Anti-violence advocates say summer programs fail to serve poor children

By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer

ALBANY -- Young people in the city's poorest neighborhoods are cheated out of access to summer programs that would get them away from streets plagued by violence, a group of church, civic and governmental leaders said Monday.

They said most of these seasonal recreation and educational activities are concentrated outside the neighborhoods where they are most needed.

The Inner City Youth and Family Coalition formed was last summer after the murder of 15-year-old Shahied Oliver in Arbor Hill. Its efforts gained renewed emphasis after 10-year-old Kathina Thomas was killed last month by a stray bullet outside her home in West Hill. On Monday, the group urged the city to provide $100,000 to bus young participants to programs beyond walking distance from their homes.

"Most of the services that are provided for children are out of the way," said Allahson Allah, whose sister, Glenda "Pam" Jones, was killed five years ago while holding her toddler. "Our children today are getting shot in the street. Our children are witnessing violence and drug dealing. Our children have lost respect for us. We need to find aid that is going to help our children find a better way. If not, there will be more death, there will be more crime, there will be more drug selling."

Allah said he wants to see a Kathina Thomas Center opened in her West Hill neighborhood.

Coalition member Fareed Michelen, who is outreach director for the Capital District Area Labor Federation, said poverty is the root cause of the violence. Forty percent of children in the city's most troubled neighborhoods live below the poverty line, he said.

"Most of these parents are working two or three jobs a day, and their time with their children a day is limited," he said.

Mayor Jerry Jennings said Albany offers youth programs throughout the city and is employing 1,500 teens this summer. Community organizations need to work together to determine what programs exist, he said, and then decide how to fill any gaps.

"What we need is cooperation," he said. "We need the school district to cooperate, the churches to cooperate."

Recreation Commissioner John D'Antonio said the city created a fitness center at Lincoln Park that draws 475 kids, and its boxing program on Quail Street draws 130. All the city's programs are free, he noted.

Some of the summer programs are quickly filled. At Trinity Institution, about 60 children participate in a six-week summer camp that runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each weekday. It is held at the nonprofit's location in the Mansion neighborhood.

"We probably have over 100 kids on a waiting list," said Corey Ellis, director of Trinity's Family Neighborhood Resource Center and a member of the Common Council.

At The College of Saint Rose, the Summer Academy for Youth offers six weeks of programs, with a different theme each week for students in grades 6 through 10. Parents can sign up for as many weeks as they want. College spokesman Ben Marvin said few slots are available for disadvantaged children.

The Arbor Hill Community Center offers two summer programs. Both are full. The Youth Empowerment and Mentoring Program includes some 65 children, while the Afterschool Crafts and Arts, Recreation and Education program has room for 30 children.

"The waiting list for that is endless," said Stephanie Robinson-Brown, an administrative assistant. "I have parents calling all the time."

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Poverty addressed at forum

from Mid Hudson News

KINGSTON – It is summer and the humidity may be an annoyance. Or thoughts center for some on a vacation.

But winter already has a lot of people thinking about the cost of survival since fuel oil has nearly doubled since last year and the minimum fill-up may approach more than $1,000 for 250 gallons of fuel oil.

“I have greater fear for the coming winter than I have ever had for the people of Ulster County,” said Michael Berg, the executive director of the Family of Woodstock.

He was one of the featured speakers during a panel discussion on poverty in Kingston and Ulster County at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation.

Berg sat on the panel with Rev. Darlene Kelley, of the Clinton Avenue United Methodist Church, which runs a soup kitchen in midtown Kingston, and Roberto Rodriguez, the commissioner of Social Services for Ulster County.

Rodriguez’s department oversees the HEAP program, which helps people with heating assistance. Rodriguez said there’s already been interest from workers, who don’t normally seek this kind of assistance.

“We are looking to what I believe will be a very challenging fall and winter,” said Rodriguez.

“The challenge is that we may have more need than we have allocation for. We’re seeing case loads going up.”

Winter is only one worry. There is also the present, and many Hudson Valley residents have always struggled to meet the region’s escalating housing costs and other necessities like health care – before rising energy costs starting pushing the price of food and commuting through the roof.

“The impact of the cost of housing, utilities, gasoline, the cost of food, and the cost of health care are all hitting at the same time, and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of relief coming from the major governments,” said Berg. “We have a lot of people that were rent burdened three years ago. How are they going to survive this year?”

Berg said he saw a 26 percent increase in 2007 for the services of his food pantries, and now he’s very pessimistic about the future.

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Ossining teen takes on poverty

from Lower Hudson dot com

Kevin Zawacki

OSSINING - When asked on a college application what he felt strongly about, Ossining High School senior Omar Herrera thought of some of the people struggling to live and get by in one of the wealthiest places in America.

"The issue of poverty leapt to mind," explained Herrera. "Many don't realize that, according to the Westchester Food Bank, an estimated 200,000 people are hungry in Westchester County."

Herrera, who is working as summer intern for state Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, D-Ossining, had those thoughts in mind when he decided to organize a community forum on poverty. He promoted the Wednesday night event by sending fliers home to every parent in the Ossining public schools, putting up posters throughout the village and speaking about it the Sunday before to the congregations at St. Ann's Church and First Presbyterian Church.

The forum drew about 30 people to the Joseph G. Caputo Community Center in Broadway to discuss the implications of being poor in an affluent suburb.

"People don't want to talk about poverty," said Westchester County Legislator William Burton, D-Ossining. "But one out of every five people goes to bed hungry in this county."

Burton was among seven panelists who explored the connections between poverty and the economy, government, education, and religion.

The majority of the discussion revolved around the elusive pursuit of affordable housing.

"Safe, decent, affordable housing lays the foundation for a family's economic security," said Reggie Bush, president of Ossining's Interfaith Council for Action. "But families with income below the poverty level can't afford that."

Bush drew parallels between homeownership and educational success, civic involvement, and health. He also noted several obstacles that prevent residents from obtaining affordable housing, including a lack of rent caps and poor advertising.

Charlie Knight, area director for Ossining's Community Action Program, elaborated on the subject.

"Ossining needs more than affordable housing - it needs low-income housing," she said. "Only then can we help people become self-sufficient."

The panel also focused on the relationship between poverty and education. Angela White, Ossining schools assistant superintendent for elementary education, stressed the importance of education.

White noted that teachers should begin to tune into children's economic problems and encourage them to overcome those obstacles.

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State Programs Add Safety Net for the Poorest

from The New York Times

By RACHEL L. SWARNS

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For years, state welfare offices like the one alongside Interstate 30 have drawn the unemployed. But these days, the red-brick building here is also attracting poor, working parents with an unexpected offer: $204 a month in cash.

Shelly Thomas, a stockroom clerk and single mother, is using her windfall from the State of Arkansas to tune up the old Chevrolet she drives to work. Talia Greenwood, a day care worker with four children, spends the money on gas, diapers and baby formula.

The women are pioneers in an emerging social experiment as states across the country try to go beyond simply moving people off welfare. Over the last two years, officials in Arkansas and at least a dozen other states have announced plans to extend the safety net — through monthly cash payments — to thousands of low-income workers struggling to gain a foothold in the work world.

Most states focus on people who have left welfare for low-wage jobs. Officials believe that the programs, which typically combine several months of cash assistance with career counseling, health insurance and subsidized child care, will help low-wage workers weather family illnesses and cash shortages and deter them from cycling back onto the welfare rolls.

Arkansas provides poor working parents with $204 a month, plus bonuses for staying employed, for up to two years. Oregon offers $150 a month for up to a year. Virginia gives $50 a month for up to a year. And the California Legislature is considering a plan, proposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to provide $40 a month to 41,000 working families that receive food stamps.

“The goal had been getting parents off of welfare,” said Jack Tweedie of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who counsels states on poverty issues and has advised Arkansas officials. “The emphasis now is much more on work and helping parents stay in work.”

The new strategy reflects, in part, a growing concern about the challenges facing the poor nearly 12 years after Congress overhauled welfare laws. While states have drastically reduced their welfare caseloads, research suggests that they have been far less successful in helping people find and keep jobs that lift families out of poverty.

The trend has also been driven by new federal rules that require states to engage 50 percent of welfare recipients in work-related activities. By offering payments to people already working, states are also trying to ensure that they meet federal mandates and avoid steep fines.

By October, at least 11 states will offer cash assistance for working families. Two others plan to start next year, and an additional three states, including California, are weighing plans. Most rely on federal welfare money to finance the programs.

Advocates for low-income families point out, however, that benefits are so low in some states that officials seem to be more focused on meeting federal work requirements than on helping the working poor. Federal officials say the programs may siphon money from the welfare recipients they were intended to serve.

“One of the key issues is: how rich is the benefit?” said Liz Schott, who has studied the programs as a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. “Is it nominal, or is it an amount that will really help?”

The programs differ considerably. While Utah offers $474 a month for two months and $237 for a third month for a family of three, Michigan provides $10 a month for six months. Massachusetts gives $7 a month to more than 13,000 food stamp recipients.

Alison Goodwin, a spokeswoman for the human services department in Massachusetts, acknowledged that the benefit was “modest.” But she said it would increase the work participation rate.

Sidonie Squier, who heads the federal agency that oversees public assistance, criticized what she described as accounting tricks to meet federal mandates.

“Time and taxpayer resources are best spent helping people on welfare find jobs, not manipulating the system,” said Ms. Squier, director of the family assistance office in the Administration for Children and Families.

Because the programs are new, it remains unclear whether they will help poor parents keep jobs and advance beyond low-wage work.

But the relief has been welcomed by many families as food and gas prices soar and good jobs are harder to find because of the struggling economy.

Ms. Thomas, one of the Arkansas mothers, bubbles with enthusiasm as she envisions graduating from college next year and leaving her $10-an-hour stockroom job at a clothing store for a career in computer programming.

She says the payments from the Arkansas Work Pays Program help enormously — with gas, groceries and car repairs — as she juggles college courses and work.

“I need that extra help, even though I’m working,” said Ms. Thomas, 24, who has two sons and receives free child care from the program.

Ms. Greenwood, shy and soft-spoken behind her wire-rimmed glasses, agrees. She had been on and off welfare for years until Work Pays came along.

State caseworkers gave her a $2,500 down payment to buy a car so she could take her children to school and still get to her two day care center jobs on time.

Now, Ms. Greenwood dreams about running a day care center and owning her own home. Sometimes, she can even imagine the little brick house with the big green yard where her children could run and run.

“I had a dream that everything came together, the way that I always wanted it in my heart,” said Ms. Greenwood, 33, who lives in a two-bedroom apartment with her four children and a grandchild. “Now, I have that chance.”

But if the experiences of the two women highlight the promise of such programs, they also underscore the challenges.

About a third of the 2,334 people who have participated since the program began in 2006 have dropped out because they lost jobs, failed to work enough hours or opted out of the program, state statistics show. (Participants must complete at least 30 hours of work-related activities each week, and 24 of those hours must involve paid work.) So far, only 7 percent of participants have left because their jobs pushed them above the program’s income limit. Nearly half worked in jobs that paid less than $500 a month.

Officials say clients struggle to find and keep good jobs because of limited education and work experience. The current economic climate makes it harder.

Ms. Thomas was told recently that her store hours would drop from 30 to 20 a week because of declining sales. She is scrambling to find a second job. Ms. Greenwood was fired from her first job, as a $9-an-hour warehouse clerk, when she missed a day to care for her sick children. She found another job at a day care center, but it paid less.

Arkansas officials say such struggles are only part of the story. Eighty-two percent of the 1,225 parents enrolled in Work Pays in March were holding jobs and in good standing, they say. And officials are fine-tuning the program to make it stronger.

State officials increased the income limits from $1,430 per month for a family of three to $2,146 per month to allow more people to participate. They are encouraging clients to work two jobs, if necessary, to get the required hours. And they are urging workers to pursue promotions and better negotiate conflicts to improve job retention.

They hope the program — which was allocated $5.9 million for the current fiscal year and is overseen by the director of the Department of Workforce Services, Artee Williams — will ultimately save money, in part, by reducing the number of people who return to welfare. Currently, about 20,000 residents are receiving public assistance. From 1998 to 2004, about 40 percent of the people who left the welfare rolls returned within 18 months.

Elroy Willoughby, the division chief of the state’s temporary assistance program, says Arkansas wants to smooth that transition.

“They take their first steps, two or three steps, and they wobble and may fall,” Mr. Willoughby said. “We’re there to kind of help prop them up.”

Ms. Greenwood, who is due to receive a raise soon, prays that she is on her way. She does not have to look far for inspiration.

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Poverty experiment eye-opening for leaders in Buffalo

from MSNBC

By CAROLYN THOMPSON

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Maria Whyte's two-day experiment living at the poverty level left her with debt, a parking ticket and probably a few gray hairs.

"I was so stressed out!" the Erie County legislator said Thursday as she joined a call for the city to address its census ranking as the nation's second-poorest big city.

Whyte and other community leaders spent the past few days trying to make ends meet on $9.25 a day. If they factored in the daily cost of a car, health care, cell phone and cable television, they were in the hole before breakfast.

It was an exercise in solidarity, organizers said, for the 29.9 percent of Buffalo residents the U.S. Census Bureau says are living in poverty — well over the 13.3 percent national rate. The federal poverty guideline is an annual income of $17,600 for a family of three and $10,400 for a single individual.

Only Detroit has a higher poverty rate among cities with populations of more than 250,000.

"We are a compassionate city. We can do better than this," said Whyte, who rushed her son onto a public bus to get him to day care, fed him toast and peanut butter along the way and then had less time to spend with him at the end of the day.

When she did use her car, rather than put 75 cents of the 84 cents left in her budget into a parking meter, she got a $30 ticket.

The census shows 43 percent of Buffalo children live in poverty.

"Your entire day would be spent on limiting possibility and choices for your children," said Arlene Kaukus, president of the United Way of Buffalo and another challenge participant.

Those in other large cities upstate aren't faring any better: In Rochester, 30.1 percent of individuals live in poverty, while the percentage is 29.6 percent in Syracuse and 27.1 percent in Albany.

"The food you choose, the trips in the car or where you can go, the recreational choices you can enjoy — everything you need to do on behalf of your child has to be an intentional choice," Kaukus said, "and it's all about limiting. ...Children in western New York do not deserve to grow up in households where there is no possibility."

Since learning of the census numbers in August, "We haven't had the community-wide discussion about poverty that we need to have," said William O'Connell, executive director of the Homeless Alliance of Western New York.

He called on Mayor Byron Brown and Erie County Executive Chris Collins to establish a task force to recommend poverty-reversing policies.

"Poverty needs to be the lens through which we create all of our policies," O'Connell said.

Brown in January appointed a deputy mayor, Donna Brown, and immediately charged her with developing an anti-poverty strategy for his administration.

"It certainly concerns everyone here and it's yet another reason why we're aggressively pursuing a variety of initiatives," Brown spokesman Peter Cutler said, "especially from an economic development standpoint, neighborhood based, as well as larger commercial developments."

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County poverty: Education helps provide a way out

from The Ithaca Journal

There is no yellow brick road on the path out of poverty.

Anyone who read The Journal's yearlong series about poverty in Tompkins County could appreciate how hard it is for folks to climb out of the financial basement and up the ladder to make ends meet above the federal government's poverty threshold, $21,200 (“Finding a path out of poverty,” May 3).

For all the success stories, such as Jessica Brown, 26, who is no longer dependent on social services as she was nine years ago, there are many others who are struggling.
As with many issues confronting our nation, the truth in helping people find a way to get financial stability in their lives lies somewhere in the middle of diametrically opposite opinions. But while partisans argue their cases in the court of public opinion, there are two key issues to focus on.

The first issue is wages. In earlier installments of the series, advocates for the poor pointed toward a living wage as a means to help people reach economic stability. That's not possible for all businesses, but is a worthy goal for which to strive.

The second issue is education. People who hold professional degrees experience significantly lower unemployment rates than people who receive only a high school diploma or less education, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. As a worker's level of education rises, so do their earnings, statistics show.

Herein lies the problem. How do we get more people more schooling beyond high school? We can argue all we want about what causes what, but the fact remains society must continue to do something about poverty, no matter what its cause. Education is a tried-and-true indicator of earning higher wages and avoiding unemployment lines. Individuals must also be motivated to make the climb.

One example of a way to help is the Public Assistance Comprehensive Education program offered at Tompkins Cortland Community College, which is the only college in New York that still offers the program. PACE helps families receiving social services funding attend Tompkins Cortland Community College at no cost. At one time, 14 colleges participated, but the program evolved into a different program after 1993 in some areas and died off in others.

Poverty has high costs to individuals, governments and society. If government wanted to truly help those at the bottom, it would fund more programs such as PACE and make it easier for people to afford post-high school educational pursuits. This includes funding for education aimed at helping people who live above the poverty threshold, too.

If government is looking for a way to do this it should look no further than recent state and federal budgets. The New York state Legislature could tap into the $300 million it recently doled out through member items. The federal government should look at the billions “earmarked” in the 2008 appropriations bills. A small reduction in either, diverted toward programs to help lower the cost of education, would pay big dividends. Meanwhile, colleges could help by further tapping into the billions locked away in endowments. With so much money floating around, it is obvious that more can be done.

The payback for helping pay for an education can be measured in dollars and cents by a reduction in social services' costs. But it can also be measured in a much more important fashion.

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Finding a path out of poverty

from the Ithaca Journal

Success attributed to a range of factors, from family to pure luck

By Krisy Gashler

At 17, Jessica Brown was living in a subsidized efficiency apartment above a liquor store in Trumansburg with her newborn baby.

Now 26, she is out of poverty, no longer dependent on social services and living with her daughter and fiancé in their own home in Ithaca.

Brown doesn't call herself a success story, and she doesn't credit her escape from poverty to the five semesters she spent at Tompkins Cortland Community College, the 45 hours a week she works or the friends who supported her through bad times.

It's all luck, she says, and many people aren't so lucky.

While Brown credits luck, other Tompkins County residents who have faced poverty and escaped say the path out for them was social service programs, a good job, education, a support system or simple perseverance.

No matter the path, the numbers show there is a way out.

Since The Journal began its series examining poverty in our community more than a year ago, the poverty rate reported by the U.S. Census Bureau has declined slightly, from 20.7 percent of county residents in 2005 to 18.1 percent in 2006. The federal government considers a family of four in poverty if they earned $21,200 or less in 2008.

The story is similar nationally. In census data reported last August, the poverty rate fell from 12.6 to 12.3 percent of Americans.

Those numbers, however, are already more than a year old, and the recent economic downturn — accompanied with skyrocketing costs for housing, health care and gasoline — clearly makes life harder for those at the bottom.

But the good news, based on longitudinal census data, is that most people don't stay at the bottom for long.

According to the U.S. Census' 1999 Survey of Income and Program Participation, the most recent and complete survey that tracks individuals' monthly incomes over time, between 1996 and 1999 roughly 34.2 percent of the U.S. population was poor for at least two months.

But only 2 percent were poor for the entire four years.

In fact, the survey found that of those who experience poverty, roughly half endure “poverty spells” of only two to four months.

Some people have more than one spell, notes Sharon Stern, chief of the poverty and health statistics branch of the U.S. Census Bureau, and it's difficult to track whether those whom the census counts as leaving poverty are actually leaving poverty or just hovering above the line.

“If the line were 25 percent higher, would we see (chronic poverty) among 10 percent of the population?” Stern asked. “That's a really good question that I don't have an answer to.”

Is it policy or personal?
In Tompkins County, tens of millions of dollars are spent each year combating poverty, including almost $9 million in food assistance, more than $9 million in housing and $75.7 million for health care.

Many of those who propose to reduce poverty say they need even more money to do it. But suggestions about how to use that money vary widely, from increasing social services and the minimum wage to encouraging education and marriage.

At its core, opinions about reducing poverty come down to whether you believe the problem is with the system or with personal responsibility.

The Center for American Progress, a progressive national think tank, advocates 12 policy changes that it says could cut poverty in half in 10 years. It says four in particular could reduce poverty by 26 percent: raising the minimum wage; expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit, which subsidizes low-wage work through a tax refund; increasing the Child Tax Credit; and subsidizing child care for low-wage workers.

Joy Moses, a policy analyst and attorney who has focused on homeless issues at the Center for American Progress, said that for some individuals in poverty, work simply doesn't pay.

“When people are actually paid a decent wage and can get some value out of work, they are encouraged and supported in doing so,” Moses said.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative national think tank, advocates three policy changes to reduce poverty: reducing legal and illegal immigration of poor, low-skilled workers; encouraging full-time work among the poor; and encouraging marriage.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and one of the key participants in the 1996 federal welfare reform, said that on average poor families with children perform about 800 hours of paid work per year, or roughly 16 hours a week.

“No matter what your wage rate is, if you're only working on average 16 hours a week, you're not gonna have very much income,” Rector said.

Rector said that for individuals in poverty, “the principal barriers to achieving the American dream are self-inflicted, self-destructive behaviors,” such as out-of-wedlock birth, substance abuse and low levels of employment.

“Until we're willing to recognize that it's this self-destructive behavior rather than some artificial external barrier that is the principal reason people are in poverty, we're not gonna make any progress at all,” he said. “It doesn't mean that you abandon the individual, but you have to primarily focus on changing those behaviors.”

Moses had a different take.

“Certainly there are people living in poverty who can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and achieve the American dream. However, we need to recognize as a society that those people who are starting from the bottom have far more barriers to achieving that American dream than people who start from the middle or start from the high incomes,” she said. “The goal of public policy should be about reducing those barriers and making sure that more people have avenues to achieving the American dream, that they just have access to opportunity.”

Different avenues
Gaining access to opportunity — figuratively and literally — was one of the hardest things about growing up in poverty in rural Enfield, Brown said.

“Transportation was a really big deal,” she said. “My dad would sometimes drive us places, but for the most part we wouldn't go to the school functions and we wouldn't do sports and we wouldn't do those things because it just cost too much money.”

At 9 years old when her parents divorced, Brown was expected to care for her two younger brothers, a task she says she didn't mind but one that took most of her free time. The responsibility, she said, prepared her to care for her own baby when she became pregnant at 16.

Cassandra Howard's story is similar to Jessica Brown's. Both women fell into poverty when they became pregnant as teenagers. Both extensively utilized social service programs that paid for things such as housing, food, even higher education.

And both women are now homeowners: Brown moved into her home with fiancé Joshua Ganger a year ago, and Howard, using a voucher that subsidizes her housing, moved into a new house in March.

In spite of their similarities, their opinions about the causes of poverty, and the pathway out, couldn't be more different.

A single mother of two, Howard said she fell into poverty when she got pregnant at 18.

“I was young and in and out of school, of college. I was in an abusive relationship. At one point, I lost custody of my son,” she said.

With support from her mother, utilization of all available social services and a huge amount of hard work, Howard said she pulled her life and her family back together.

Until last month, she lived in an Ithaca apartment subsidized by a Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher. She moved into her new home in Freeville on March 25.

The voucher goes with her to the house in Freeville. She'll continue to pay 30 percent of her income for housing, and the federal voucher will subsidize her mortgage and help her build equity until her income level allows her to support herself.

Howard used a social service program to pay for school at Tompkins Cortland Community College and earned her associate's degree in early childhood education. Now she hopes to run a daycare out of her home.

“The job market is very hard,” Howard said. “But if you up your education and you get knowledgeable about what's out there, you can do it. And I just think you really have to be motivated and say that this is the way you want your life.”

Brown, who no longer relies on any social services, argues the idea that those in poverty can pull themselves up by their bootstraps is “a myth” and that those who escape poverty — as she has done — are lucky, not smarter or harder working than those who remain in poverty.

Brown works 35 hours a week for Family and Children's Service of Ithaca and 10 hours for the Tompkins County Workers' Center.

While she feels fortunate to be out of poverty now, Brown says that for her, as for anyone, she's one layoff away from being poor again.

“The answer lies not in studying hard, working hard, because the problem is not that poor people are lazy and stupid, the problem is that the system is designed to prey on people. Masses of people,” she said.

Education, for example, is not a cure-all because the modern American economy is dependent on low-paid workers to do things like bag groceries and clean hotel rooms, Brown argued.

“I'm wearing a T-shirt today that says, ‘some girls are just born lucky,' and I think that's really the secret to why I'm not so desperately poor. I have really good friends and family, but that's not an answer. That's kept me sane, but it hasn't kept me out of poverty,” she said.

Howard thinks her support system is exactly what's helping her out of poverty, and when asked to offer advice to others struggling in poverty it was one of the first things she named.

“Make sure you have a support system. It doesn't have to be family. It could be anyone that you're comfortable with,” she said.

In explaining how she came back from the very bottom, losing custody of her child, Howard said she couldn't have done it without her mother, Kathy Landes.

“(It) took about a year to get everything straight, but me and my mom worked it out,” Howard said. “I did what I had to do, finished school and got a job, got a place to live and got stable. Worked a lot.”

Howard said she doesn't think the way out of poverty is through luck; it's through the solid support of a safety net of social services and most importantly, personal motivation.

“You could easily inherit money and blow it away in a week and be back in poverty,” she said. “You have to be motivated. I have been motivated, not just for myself, mostly it was for myself and my kids, but it was also for the people who are out there (who didn't believe she could pull herself out of poverty),” Howard said.

The solution to poverty, Brown said, is for poor and low-wage workers to organize and support each other.

“We have such a divide between people who are working low-wage jobs (and) get off work and talk shit about people who are on welfare. And it's like, that's the divide and conquer thing that keeps everybody poor,” she said.

When asked what they would say to someone still struggling in poverty, the women's answers reflect their philosophical differences about the pathway out of poverty. Both suggest the importance of hard work and dedication, but for Howard the emphasis is on changing the individual and for Brown the stress is on changing the system.

The cost of living

* Housing your family is more expensive. In 2007, the fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Tompkins County was $773 a month. In 2008 it's $893, according to the federal department of Housing and Urban Development. That's a 15.5 percent increase.

* Heating your home is more expensive. In 2007, a gallon of propane cost $2.22, according to the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority. In 2008 it's $2.77 — a 24.8 percent increase.

* Getting to work is more expensive. A gallon of gas was $2.91 in 2007. It's $3.41 in 2008, according to the price-tracking Web site gasbuddy.com — a 17.2 percent increase.

* Feeding your family is more expensive. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's “Thrifty Food Plan” for a family of four rose from $538.50 in 2007 to $570.20 in 2008 — a 5.9 percent increase.

* Insuring your family is more expensive. The average U.S. worker's contribution to an employer health plan rose from $2,973 in 2006 to $3,281 in 2007, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust — a 10.4 percent increase.

* The federal poverty threshold rose significantly below the inflation rate. In 2007, the federal Department of Health and Human Services considered a family of four in poverty if they earned at or below $20,650. In 2008 it's $21,200 — a 2.7 percent increase.

Note: The inflation rate between January 2007 and January 2008 was 4.28 percent.

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Councilman Eric Gioia poor-mouths food stamp diet

from the New York Daily News

BY ADAM NICHOLS

Queens City Councilman Eric Gioia shops at Sunnyside market to see what week's worth of food stamps will buy. (Hint: Not as much as last year.) DelMundo for News

Queens City Councilman Eric Gioia shops at Sunnyside market to see what week's worth of food stamps will buy. (Hint: Not as much as last year.)

Rocketing food prices are slimming down the Eric Gioia poverty diet.

The Democratic city councilman from Queens struggled to survive last year when he spent a week living on $28 - the average food stamp allowance for a single recipient.

This year, the same allowance would leave him starving.

"Last year, I lasted five days and I was out of food," he said. "I had to go to a food pantry to get through the week.

"This year, I'd last three days."

With last year's budget, Gioia loaded up on pasta, tuna, ramen noodles, white bread and a handful of vegetables.

This week, he shopped for the same groceries. The bill was more than $6 higher - a 25% price increase.

"Last year was difficult, but this year would be impossible," he said.

"Prices have gone up so much, but the food stamp allowance hasn't changed. No wonder food pantries are bursting at the seams.

"What choice do people have now?"

To fit into his unchanged budget, several items Gioia could afford last year had to be dropped from this week's shopping cart.

Among them were four bananas, three ears of corn, two cucumbers and two packets of pasta.

"The things I had to sacrifice were some of the healthiest things in my shopping basket," he said.

"Nobody wants to feed their kids ramen noodles and fake cheese slices every day, but if you can't afford anything else what else can you do?"

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Faith leaders call for political action on poverty

from Newsday

BY RHODA AMON

For the one in five Long Islanders trapped in poverty, life could get better with some concerted political action by the religious community, faith leaders say.

The call to a political agenda came at a conference of 225 faith leaders Monday at the Adelphi University School of Social Work in Garden City. That does not mean partisan politics, said Richard Koubek of Catholic Charities, a coordinator of the conference and a founder of MICAH, an interfaith coalition to end poverty and hunger on Long Island.

"We're asking the faith community to go beyond feeding and clothing the poor and to help get at the root causes of poverty," Koubek said.

Some of the causes were identified at workshops on segregation, underfunding of social service departments and child care agencies, and lack of affordable housing, health care, jobs that pay a living wage and public transportation.

Congregations could make a difference by "showing up in places where they are not often seen, such as county and state legislatures" to advocate for the poor, Koubek said.

Recent foreclosures in the wake of the mortgage crisis have deepened Long Island's housing problems, people at the workshop said.

Connie Lassandro, director of the Nassau Office of Housing and Homeless Services, said her department was working to prevent foreclosed homeowners from becoming homeless.

"We first try to remodify their loan so they can keep their house. We negotiate with the lending institution," she said. She urged homeowners in distress to call the Nassau Home Ownership Center hotline, 516-571-HOME.

Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg, a professor at Adelphi's social work school, pointed out that the poverty line should be "regionalized" for a high-cost area such as Long Island.

A poverty standard of $40,000 for a family of four -- which would show 21 percent below the poverty line -- would be more realistic and would bring more state and federal money to Long Island, social workers say.

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Middle class Long Islanders turning to food pantries

from Newsday

BY ELLEN YAN

These days, food pantries aren't just for the jobless or homeless.

Tapping such free resources has turned into a survival tactic for some working members of the middle class as they struggle with an economy that has put them in a bind.

A father of three, Bill makes more than $70,000 a year. But after his mortgage rate reset in October, hiking his payments from $3,300 to $4,300, he began going to his church's food pantry.

"I sat here at home and argued with my wife about who's going," said Bill, a Nassau County employee who asked not to be identified further. "I tried to go to work that day. ... It's very embarrassing.

"Here I'm making a decent salary. I'm a professional, but I can't even feed my kids."

More and more working Long Islanders are straining to put groceries on the table as many essentials -- milk and bread, fuel oil, gasoline and health care premiums -- have climbed faster than the Consumer Price Index. In some cases, they're people daunted by the steep rise in property taxes or payments on their adjustable-rate mortgages.

These new hard times have turned some past donors into today's receivers of charity. The number of people seeking help is up even as donations are down. Food collected from restaurants and supermarkets by the Mineola-based Island Harvest dropped from 7 million pounds in 2006 to 6.5 million last year, and the agency has started pressing more farmers to help fill the hole.

While no agency keeps statistics for food pantries across Long Island, some operators find they're facing double the number of clients from a year ago.

"We're seeing folks that may own a home, who may be working two or three jobs, but are not able to cover all the costs that they've incurred," said Gwen O'Shea, president of the Health and Welfare Council of Long Island, a social services advocacy group.

The Long Island Council of Churches, which shut down its Riverhead pantry one day in January because it was empty, finds people arriving in more desperate straits. "The big growth is not in the suddenly unemployed," said its executive director, the Rev. Thomas Goodhue. "The big growth is in the employed who can't make ends meet and the retirees who can't make ends meet."

Their last resort

Nonprofit officials and directors of church social ministries interviewed said they know of people who cry before walking into pantries. Or they drive round and round the block, building up the nerve to go in. Few of the working people who've come to rely on the pantries wanted their last names revealed.

Anne, 37, a single mother of two who said she is a salaried "middle-income" legal assistant, said she began seeking help from St. Frances de Chantal Roman Catholic Church in Wantagh less than two years ago, when her 3.5 percent pay increase was outpaced by gas hikes and rent on her two-bedroom apartment. Her ex-husband had stopped paying child support.

One day, she said, she didn't have a dime toward diapers for her daughter. That's when her resolve not to ask for charity broke.

"It was horrible," she recalled. "I felt like my world had crashed, but I had to do what I could to support the children. There were weeks when I didn't have any money."

Lately, Anne's been part of Single Moms on Long Island, a support group that also arranges activities for children. And she's found a Web site listing places where kids eat free -- which is how she arranged for her son to celebrate his birthday earlier this month, at Friendly's.

Priced out for help

Nonprofit officials said the long-term solution is moving people off emergency food and onto government programs, such as the food stamp program and HEAP, the government Home Energy Assistance Program that helps pay for oil.

But many of the middle class make too much to qualify for such programs.

"They come in here for immediate emergency resources, but the reality is where are they going to be in another six months?" Health and Welfare Council's O'Shea said. "The picture is not good."

Officials at Bay Shore-based Pronto, a social services agency, have noticed an increase in clients with college degrees, white-collar jobs or higher salaries -- economic refugees of foreclosures, gas prices and oil bills.

One of them is Edward Mott of Bay Shore, a Long Island Power Authority grounds foreman who is on disability after a 5,000-pound cherry tree fell on him. His wife works two jobs and her earnings, with his disability benefits, don't cover the $2,600 monthly mortgage and cost of groceries.

"We bring in over $40,000, and we still can't afford to give our daughter what she needs for school," said Mott, 50. "To survive on Long Island these days, you have to make at least $1,000 a week. Otherwise, you have no business being here anymore."

Struggling to make it

Taking charity can feel lousy, some food pantry customers said. "It's not the best feeling in the world, especially for someone who's working," said Laura, 37, who every once in a while takes a jar of peanut butter or jelly from the food pantry at the Hampton Bays nonprofit where she works as a secretary.

By comparison, she said, her parents never asked for free food, no matter how desperate they were when business at their gas station went dead in winter. "My parents would have a can of soup, and we would split that to eat," she said.

Laura's plight worsened six months ago, when she and her husband separated and she was left with their four children, including a daughter who has severe scoliosis and is on a 24-hour feeding tube. Laura wants to refinance her 6-year-old mortgage, but the subprime collapse and falling property values have made it hard to get a new loan.

Now she's trying to meet a $1,863 monthly payment with her salary, child support and the benefits for her disabled daughter. "It's really sad," she said. "You're working on Long Island and it's hard to make it out here. ...

"I'm looking for a philanthropist to come in and save me," she said, laughing.

Anne, the single mom, cringes when she thinks of going to the church for help -- but that very help has kept her world from collapsing.

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Glens Falls students work toward ending poverty

from Capital News 9

Sorry for the ad that proceeds this story... - Kale

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Medicaid Soars, Covering 1/3 Of New Yorkers

from the New York Sun

By E.B. SOLOMONT

Amid a "historic" increase in statewide Medicaid enrollment, nearly a third of New York City residents are now on the state's rolls, with 1 million joining between 2000 and 2005.

A report published yesterday by the United Hospital Fund documents a 55% increase in statewide Medicaid enrollment, which reached 4.3 million in 2005, up from 2.8 million five years earlier. New York City residents account for 66% of the state's Medicaid program; 2.8 million were enrolled in the program in 2005, up from 1.8 million in 2000.

"It was definitely a major increase," the report's author, Michael Birnbaum, a senior health policy analyst at the United Hospital Fund, said. "Expanding eligibility among adults was one major reason."

Medicaid is the state health benefit program for low-income New Yorkers. With an annual price tag of nearly $47 billion, it is among the costliest nationwide.

The report offered a number of reasons for the statewide enrollment increase, including policy changes and an effort to enroll eligible, uninsured New Yorkers. In the weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the state offered a Disaster Relief Medicaid program, which temporarily simplified the Medicaid application process for thousands of new enrollees. Around the same time, the state rolled out Family Health Plus, a program for individuals and families with incomes just above the Medicaid cutoff. Simultaneously, the state encouraged managed care plans and community groups to help identify and enroll eligible applicants. Also, a 2001 court ruling allowed certain non-citizens to enroll. In 1997, New York discontinued its coverage of certain immigrant populations, including those with green cards and those in the process of obtaining green cards. Under the 2001 decision, immigrants with green cards or those in the process of obtaining green cards are eligible for state Medicaid benefits.

Undocumented immigrants are not eligible for Medicaid benefits except in emergency situations, or if the undocumented immigrant is a child or a pregnant woman.

Even as the report documented a dramatic increase in enrollment, it found that Medicaid spending grew at an average rate of 7.7%, compared with the 8.2% growth rate for national health care spending. Mr. Birnbaum said the increase in spending was more moderate than the dramatic increase in enrollment because the new enrollees largely did not include those with disabilities or chronic illnesses, whose care can be more costly.

He said the data "puts into sharp focus what a stunning policy success this increase in Medicaid coverage was because without it, there might be a million more uninsured New Yorkers."

In 2005, 2.2 million New Yorkers were uninsured, including 1.2 million in New York City. In 2001, there were 3 million uninsured New Yorkers statewide, including 1.6 million city residents.

At least one analyst suggested that the number of uninsured had remained "relatively flat" during the five-year period, suggesting that some new enrollees sought public benefits instead of private insurance.

"The figure is concerning, particularly when you dig a little deeper and see they did not come from the ranks of the uninsured," a health policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute's Empire Center for New York State Policy, Tarren Bragdon, said. Mr. Bragdon said policy makers pushed people onto Medicaid rolls when they should have been making private coverage more accessible.

"It's not good public policy to switch people from private health insurance to Medicaid, and it's not sustainable, particularly when we go into tight budget times," he said.

State health officials dismissed that notion, saying the "crowd out" number, or the percentage of people switching to public insurance from private, has been "well under" 5% in recent years.

"Your income limits for Medicaid and even for Family Health Plus are so low that the likelihood that any more than a handful of these families had access to employer-sponsored coverage is slim," the state's Medicaid director, Deborah Bachrach, said.

Medicaid eligibility is based on income as it relates to the federal poverty level. Individuals earning up to 80% of the federal poverty level — about $10,400 annually in 2008 — are eligible for Medicaid. Families of three that earn up to 100% of the federal poverty level are eligible.

Under Family Health Plus, individuals are eligible for public health benefits if they earn up to 100% of the federal poverty level. Families are eligible if parents earn up to 150% of the federal poverty level. Under the State Children's Health Insurance Program, children whose family income does not exceed 250% of the federal poverty level are eligible.

Nearly 6 million New Yorkers were enrolled in Medicaid, Medicare, or other forms of public health insurance in 2006, according to the most recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The population at that time was just more than 19 million statewide.

As part of an effort to insure more New Yorkers, the state has made a concerted effort to enroll eligible New Yorkers in public health insurance programs. In 2007, New York proposed increasing the family income limit for SCHIP to 400% of the federal poverty level.

Last month, state health officials rolled out a $10 million advertising campaign to encourage Medicaid enrollment. The agency is using radio and television spots, as well as posted signs in subways, Laundromats, and check-cashing stores.

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Famine event lesson in hunger, poverty

from the Times Herald Record

WARWICK — From noon March 7 until 6 p.m. March 8, 32 youths and four adults participated in the 30-Hour Famine at Warwick United Methodist Church.

The event is organized by World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization that works with children, families and their communities to tackle the causes of poverty and injustice. They created the 30-Hour Famine project not only to raise money, but also to educate kids on how they can make a difference for people all over the world.

The Youth Groups from Warwick United Methodist Church and Warwick Valley Church of the Nazarene united to raise more than $2,000 to battle hunger and poverty. The churches are also trying to promote the sponsorship of individual children and families through the World Vision organization.

Participants in the 30-Hour Famine played a game, which is provided by World Vision, called "Tribe." The group broke into separate "Indonesian tribes," within which each individual was given a specific identity of a child who suffers from hunger and poverty. In one activity, everyone attempted to cover some large mural paper with 29,000 fingerprints, to represent the 29,000 children who die of hunger every day. They learned that many children do not even have clean water to drink.

On Saturday evening, they broke their fast with hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers, pirogies, french fries, brownies, cookies and ice cream sundae.

"As much as we learned to identify with the feeling of hunger the children served through World Vision feel every day, we also gained new appreciation of how blessed we are to have food on our table for three meals, plus snacks, every day," said Janine Dethmers of Warwick.

Their "admission tickets" to the feast were written testimonials about what was most important to them about the experience. One student wrote: "So many people were complaining an hour before we ate that they were 'starving.' We are all in junior high or older, and children 5 and under may go for days without food. What we did is nothing compared to that!"

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Combat poverty with a regional approach

from the Albany Time Union

By CHARLES MOORE

Moving the regional economy in the right direction is a common theme in our local news these days. Local leaders understand the competition involved in luring a company here and the importance of offering strong incentives.

As regional investments abound, we must be careful not to miss the opportunity to address the equally prominent and important local news stories of neglected city neighborhoods, cri