New poverty stats for Washington D.C.

A group of poverty-fighting organizations in the Washington D.C. area say that one in five of the residents live below the poverty line. The report also says that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening in the district. Washington D.C. also has a higher rate of child poverty than the nation's average, as one in three children are in poverty.

From the Washington Post, writer Tim Craig gives us more from the report.

The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995.

Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents -- up 11,000 in a year -- living at or below the poverty rate, which in 2009 was $21,800 for a family of four.

"With D.C.'s unemployment rate of 12 percent, it's very likely poverty is also on the rise in 2010 and a decline could be a long way away," said Jenny Reed, a policy analyst at the institute.

The coalition notes that the District's official rate won't be known until more census income data are released later in the year. But the report is designed to sway the political debate in the District this year, when voters will elect a mayor, a D.C. Council chairman and six council members.

The institute, DC Appleseed, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and more than three dozen other organizations have teamed to form Defeat Poverty DC. The group hopes to force candidates and elected officials to make combating poverty a central focus of their campaigns.

"D.C. has struggled with this persistent poverty for years and years," said Michael Edwards, the campaign director for Defeat Poverty DC. "We are going to be looking for elected officials to identify how they would address these issues and bring us back down.

Paying for Performance

The experiment of giving cash for good grades is expanding in the US. The hope is that cash can help motivate students in districts with high poverty rates. This snippet from the Washington Post story explains the new program starting in the nations capitol.

Costs of the incentive will be split almost equally between the school system and Harvard's American Inequity Lab, which studies poverty and race issues. The program, Capital Gains, will be run by Roland G. Fryer Jr., an economics professor with the lab. Fryer also operates a pilot program in New York City public schools.

In justifying the program, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said the city has spent an inordinate amount on a school bureaucracy over the years that has failed students. Instead, he said, why not direct some of the cash to the students.

"If it seems outside of the box, it is," Fenty said.

A cash-incentive program that pays high school students as much as $500 for earning a 3 or more on an Advanced Placement test has been launched in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Kentucky and Virginia.

A study of the program released yesterday by a Cornell University economist said the incentive resulted in higher scores and an increase in the number of students attending college.

Alfie Kohn, an independent researcher whose book, "Punished by Rewards," details the downside of such programs, said incentives "undermine the very thing you're trying to promote by getting them hooked on the rewards."

Rhee said she is targeting sixth- through eighth-graders because some students in the group typically have had intractable behavior and academic problems. She said middle school is a pivotal time because many students are setting the patterns to become high school scholars or dropouts.

District middle-schoolers, often trapped in violent and academically weak campuses, typically flee the system in higher proportions than other groups, school officials said. Thirty-six percent of the city's middle-grade students are proficient in reading, and 33 percent are proficient in math, Rhee said.

The schools need to focus on "how we can ensure that students are engaged, that they are invested in their education," Rhee said. "I think it's incredibly important to make sure students take ownership of their learning."

Parents had mixed reactions to the program. Some said it was an understandable solution to an intractable problem. Others said students should not receive money to go to class. "I just totally disagree with this," said Dionne Davis, whose daughter attends seventh grade at Hardy Middle School. "I think the incentive should come from within, just to want to do well, rather than doing it for a dollar." Her daughter was not so sure.

"I think it's a good idea," said Samantha, 11. "I think middle schoolers should have rewards for getting good grades and stuff on their tests. . . . I would save it for college and maybe give some to charity."

Some school activists expressed shock and anger at the incentive.

"That's pretty pitiful," said Mary Levy, director of the Public Education Reform Project for the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. "It makes me sad to see we've sunk so low that we have to pay kids to show up."

Rhee said that if the incentive program is successful she could expand it to 14 other middle schools and possibly high schools. Parents can choose not to allow children to participate in the program.

Fryer said D.C. school officials will establish criteria for the program and he will track the progress. "The key is innovation, not just sitting around watching the test scores dwindle," he said.

Fryer is working with 62 schools in New York, which provides as much as $500 for fourth- and seventh-graders who perform well on a standardized test.

He said his staff is collecting data to gauge progress. Surveys of students and parents show support for the concept, he said. Results showed that 96 percent of the schools participating in the program reported that they were excited about the money; 91 percent reported an increased focus on exams; and 59 percent reported better classroom performance.

"The kids unquestionably love it. Whether that is translating into higher performance, I can't tell you for a fact" until a report is released in October, said David Cantor, spokesman for the New York Department of Education. The program, funded by private donations, cost $400,000 last year.

United Way to Target Health, Education and Income

from the Washington Post

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer

The United Way of America, alarmed at the nation's fraying safety net, will announce today that it will direct its giving toward ambitious 10-year goals that would cut in half the high school dropout rate and the number of working families struggling financially.

The nonprofit organization also wants to increase by one-third the number of youths and adults considered healthy. The announcement comes as it releases a report detailing a precipitous decline in key education, personal finance and health indicators.

The report finds that one in four high school students does not graduate on time, one in four families does not earn enough to provide for its household, and two in three young people and adults lead unhealthy lives, including those who engage in such risky behaviors as drug use, binge drinking and unsafe sex.

"The country is at a crossroads right now," said Brian A. Gallagher, the United Way's president and chief executive. "I've never felt a time in my career where there's this combination of enough pain, feeling of a lack of progress, feeling like we've stalled, combined with a next generation of leadership demanding change."

He said the announcement he plans today at the United Way's annual conference in Baltimore is a "clarion call to action."

Although local affiliates historically have funded a variety of programs, United Way leaders say the giving has done little to solve the country's social problems.

Today, they will pledge to spend the money raised in the next 10 years to support programs directly related to education, income and health care. The Washington area affiliate, which emphasizes these priorities, said it supports the national initiative.

The United Way is the largest U.S. nonprofit organization, with about 1,300 affiliates that collectively raise more than $4 billion a year through workplace campaigns and other private donations. By harnessing its giving power, the United Way is trying to reignite a social movement of the philanthropic, government and corporate sectors to improve conditions for working families.

Despite spending millions to support scores of local programs, the 121-year-old United Way has not made measurable progress on these core problems, Gallagher said. The country's social safety net is broken, he said, and the United Way must redirect its money toward the root causes and hold itself accountable by declaring bold and measurable -- even if unattainable -- goals.

"For years and years and years, folks saw us as a fundraising organization . . . but the issues we care about weren't getting better," Gallagher said in an interview at the Alexandria headquarters. "So the change here is to put a stake in the ground on the issues that drive improving social conditions."

The initiative comes as the United Way faces increasing competition for philanthropic dollars and as donors demand more accountability.

The initiative has the backing of some large corporations and leading philanthropies. One partner is America's Promise Alliance, a coalition of business, nonprofit and community leaders founded by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and his wife, Alma, that supports youth initiatives.

Alma Powell said the education statistics in the United Way's report illustrate a "crisis for our country." According to the report, 74 percent of high school students graduate in four years.

"We are losing our standing in the world as other nations emerge, and their emphasis on education is so much stronger," she said.

She said it is crucial for nonprofit groups, philanthropies and businesses to pool their resources and work together.

Brenda Suits, a senior vice president at Bank of America, one of the United Way's biggest corporate partners, said the organization's new mission is "definitely on the mark."

But the United Way might have a difficult time galvanizing the nonprofit sector, let alone its affiliates. Although the national organization sets the agenda for its 1,300 affiliates, it does not have the power to dictate that local organizations award grants only in the areas of education, income and health.

It is hard to gauge the reaction of local United Way leaders, many of whom will learn of the national initiative today. But the affiliates are historically independent, and many have deep relationships with donors and nonprofit groups in their communities. "All they have is a persuasive leverage, and I'm not sure that's going to be good enough to move a lot of these entrenched local United Ways," said Pablo S. Eisenberg, a senior fellow at Georgetown University.

D.C. Boom Not Felt by All in City, Study Says

from the Washington Post

One-Third of Working Families in Poverty

By Mary Beth Sheridan

Nearly one in three working families in the District is poor, according to a report slated for release today that blasts the D.C. government for failing to steer more of the benefits of the recent economic boom to residents.

The study assails the city's economic-development policies for paying too little attention to low-income residents. It also charges that the D.C. government's job-training programs are inadequate and poorly monitored.

"The common perception is that people who are low-income . . . are not working, or not working enough. They are working. They're just not earning enough," said Ed Lazere, executive director of the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. The group co-authored the study with the D.C. Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, an independent advocacy organization.

The report calls for more educational opportunities for adult workers, particularly the development of a full-fledged community-college system in the District. It also urges city officials to work with employers to tailor job training to the needs of upcoming business ventures.

Neil O. Albert, the deputy mayor for planning and economic development, said in a statement: "We think it is absolutely critical that we make sure real economic opportunities are spread to all residents in the District."

He pointed to one recent success: the opening of the DC USA retail complex in Columbia Heights, which he said created more than 1,200 jobs, most going to D.C. residents.

The report, "Hometown Prosperity: Increasing Opportunities for D.C.'s Low-Income Working Families," highlights the city's uneven progress as construction has boomed and neighborhoods have been revitalized.

Between 1998 and 2006, there was a 10 percent increase in the number of jobs in the District, the report says. But the employment rate among D.C. adults with only a high-school degree dropped, from 61 percent in 1999 to 51 percent in 2006.

"We've got this huge irony of a city in the throes of enormous economic development . . . but the job growth is not going to District residents," said Walter Smith, Appleseed's executive director.

The report focuses on the poor families in the District with a full-time worker -- about half of all low-income families. It defines the working poor as those earning twice the federal poverty level, or about $31,000 for a family of three. About one-third of working D.C. families were poor in 2005, compared with 17 percent in Maryland and 21 percent in Virginia, according to the report, which is based on census figures. (The 2006 figure is about the same but was released too late to include, Lazere said.)

Nearly all poor D.C. working families (96 percent) are minorities. About two-thirds are headed by single women with no education beyond high school, the report says. Nearly one in five poor families has a parent with limited English.

The District's economic-development programs have not succeeded in creating good jobs for low-income residents, the report says. For example, under a program known as First Source, the city requires that new projects involving District land or subsidies fill at least 51 percent of their jobs with D.C. residents. Businesses that report they can't find qualified D.C. residents can hire outside workers. The program has failed, the report says, because "it does nothing to address the preparedness of District residents for the jobs that are being created."

For example, in 2004, no more than 30 percent of the jobs covered by First Source agreements went to D.C. residents, the report says. Less than one-third of the jobs at some economic-development projects, such as the Mandarin Oriental hotel and the Gallery Place retail complex, went to city dwellers.

The report calls for the creation of a community-college system with affordable tuition, the evaluation and improvement of training programs and the dedication of money toward literacy efforts to aid residents. It says the city should support partnerships between employers, government, trading providers and unions to funnel D.C. residents into jobs.

It also suggests improving employment conditions for the working poor, through such efforts as tax relief and a minimum wage that keeps up with inflation.

Smith said he thinks the business community would support the report, noting it was compiled by a team including a D.C. Chamber of Commerce representative, Margaret Singleton.

Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), chairman of the D.C. Council's Economic Development Committee, said the report "will bring to light something I've been fighting for for a long time. We have a job-training problem in the District of Columbia."

The council recently passed legislation that he sponsored to increase auditing of the job-creation results at city-supported projects. He said he is also pushing for a 24-hour adult vocational facility.

D.C. Plan Could Aid Uninsured

from the Washington Post

New Taxes Would Help Pay for Care

By David Nakamura

A D.C. Council member will propose a sweeping plan next week to mandate health-care coverage for all District residents by offering a city-subsidized program for the uninsured that would be funded through new taxes on health companies and cigarettes.

David A. Catania (I-At Large), chairman of the council's Committee on Health, said his legislation, titled Healthy DC, is aimed at an estimated 25,000 uninsured residents who are not eligible for Medicaid programs or the city's Health Care Alliance.

Under the proposal, residents would pay monthly premiums of between $20 and $100, depending on their gross income. The city would subsidize about $21 million of the cost, with CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield contributing $5 million and making their providers available, Catania said yesterday.

The plan, if approved by the council and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D), would begin in July 2009, and residents would have until January 2010 to enroll or risk being fined $250. There would be exceptions to the mandatory enrollment, such as for those with religious objections, Catania said.

In all, Catania's plan would spend about $50 million in public money on the new program and supporting health-care initiatives. The money would be raised in several ways: by increasing the tax on commercial health-care premiums from 1.7 percent to 2.0 percent; by implementing a 2.0 percent premium tax on HMOs; and by doubling the cigarette tax to $2 a pack.

Catania said the benefits outweigh the costs.

"We are currently paying for these uninsured individuals today," said Catania, who has scheduled a news conference Monday to lay out details. "We pay for it in uncompensated care in emergency rooms. Those of us who are insured pay an extra premium. What we have not done before is construct a system where people can help themselves."

Catania's proposal comes at a time when the city is wrestling with slowdowns in several revenue streams, including sales, income and deed taxes. Fenty last week proposed a $5.66 billion budget that holds the line on new spending. Catania, however, said his plan pays for itself.

Mayoral spokeswoman Carrie Brooks said yesterday that Fenty is "supportive of the concept" of Catania's plan, but she added that the mayor has not finished reviewing the details. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) could not be reached for comment yesterday and it was unclear how many of the 13 council members support the plan.

Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the council's Committee on Finance and Revenue, said he also supports the concept, but he warned that the costs could balloon.

"If there's a way to beat the system, the people beat them," Evans said. "The idea is usually noble, but the implementation is a disaster."

Catania said he has anticipated potential problems that could increase costs, such as companies scrapping their own health-care programs, and uninsured people moving from the suburbs into the city to take advantage of the low fees. He said his legislation mandates that residents live in the District for six months before taking part and requires companies to disclose their health-care programs on their tax returns. Companies that terminate or change their programs would risk sanctions, Catania said.

Judith Solomon, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said Catania's proposal stacks up well against similar initiatives in other cities across the country because costs are low for residents.

"The fact that something is this affordable and comprehensive is a good step forward in coverage," she said.

Barbara Lang, president of the D.C. Chamber of Commerce, said she has participated in several meetings with Catania and CareFirst representatives. She said the chamber supports the plan, though she said she had not seen the final version and intends to review the new taxes more closely.

Catania said he has been working on the plan for six months with CareFirst, analysts from George Washington University's school of health, business leaders and others. He stressed that though the proposal allows for fines for those who do not buy health insurance, he does not intend it to be punitive.

Washington’s Grand Experiment to Rehouse the Poor

from the New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM

WASHINGTON — When District of Columbia officials tore down the decrepit housing project in southeast Washington where Samantha Jackson lived with her teenage son, they promised that they would build a more attractive, mixed-income community and that former tenants like herself could come back.

“I was very happy,” recalled Ms. Jackson, 42, a school custodian. “The area was rough and scary.”

Ms. Jackson, who has been staying with a friend since the demolition in 2004, is now in line to buy, with subsidies, a new apartment in a town house in the same neighborhood, and she can hardly wait. “It looks like Hollywood to me,” Ms. Jackson said of the onetime slum where glossy buildings and the Washington Nationals stadium are also rising.

Bucking national trends and citing what they call “a moral goal,” District of Columbia officials have pledged to preserve and even expand low-income housing, replacing dangerous projects with new communities that keep both poor and “work force” residents — firefighters, teachers and laborers — in the mix.

The redevelopment of the Arthur Capper and Carrollsburg projects, where Ms. Jackson lived, is the first in the country to promise replacement of all low-income units within the same neighborhood, said Michael Kelly, director of the city Housing Authority.

“Mr. Kelly is undertaking a great experiment to see if he can turn around distressed neighborhoods and keep the original residents there to benefit,” said Sue Popkin, a housing expert at the Urban Institute. “It’s a gamble. We don’t know how to take a terrible neighborhood and make it nice while keeping the same people there.”

The federal government no longer pays to build housing projects, which in Washington, Chicago and other cities became symbols of concentrated poverty.

Since the early 1990s, it has given money under a program called Hope VI to tear down distressed projects, to be replaced by mixed communities built with private partners. In a pattern that critics disparage as “demolish and disperse,” some former tenants return but most scatter with rental vouchers, destroying community ties. District officials say they have learned from past mistakes.

The issues are in contention at the federal level now: the Bush administration proposes to eliminate Hope VI, while the House of Representatives has passed a bill that would extend it and require that all razed public housing be replaced.

The Washington venture will preserve housing, but social ties have been undermined by the stretched-out construction schedule; some former tenants will wait as long as eight years to return, in the meantime using vouchers or staying in other public housing.

Martha Queen, 72, who is raising her 17-year-old great-grandson, has been lonely and depressed since she moved to a public unit in a different neighborhood, away from her friends.

“All the things you’re familiar with, they’re gone,” she said of her former home. “It’s all rubble now.”

“I just sit upstairs and look out the window,” she added.

She has been offered a new two-bedroom at Capper-Carrollsburg, but it is smaller than the place she had before and she has resisted, fearing she would have to get rid of half of her furniture.

The Housing Authority, which controls 8,000 units, has received federal grants to tear down six projects and create mixed communities. The city says it will use bonds and private investors to redevelop more sites, but critics ask if that is financially feasible.

The current site had 707 low-income units. In the expanded community, as many low-income rentals will blend in with more than 800 homes rented or sold to working-class and more affluent people, as well as an office building, new stores and parks.

In the meantime, former tenants are offered social aid, from credit repair and job advice to drug treatment.

Ms. Jackson, who expects to buy her home in 2010, had an unpaid medical bill that tarnished her credit rating. The support program put her in touch with a legal aid center that persuaded an insurance company to pay.

Poor people will pay 30 percent of their incomes in rent. Other units are for sale, with subsidies, to the working poor, including families making as little as $25,000, while others will sell at market rates.

Many residents were suspicious. A group organized to press for a stronger role in shaping the Capper-Carrollsburg project, and fought, for example, to keep a youth center open before the final demolition.

A committee of residents, officials and neighbors decided that any returnees with a serious criminal conviction within three years of the move-in date, and anyone with seriously bad credit, would be excluded. They will keep their current vouchers or public units, officials promise.

One-for-one replacement of units will be more difficult in cities lacking high land prices, which enabled Washington to issue bonds tied to future tax revenues. Still, the drive to save public housing reflects a growing sense among urban experts of the limits of rental vouchers. Vouchers help families move out of crime-infested projects but in cities with tight housing, landlords may not accept them, driving tenants to new slums on the urban fringes.

“Vouchers sometimes have the unintended consequence of just shifting burdens around,” said Robert J. Sampson, chairman of the sociology department at Harvard.

Vouchers also depend on annual appropriations; for the coming year, the funds proposed by President Bush would reduce vouchers and aid to low-income housing, according to Barbara Sard, housing director at the Center on Budget and Policy Alternatives in Washington.

Dwayne Todd, 20, grew up in the Capper-Carrollsburg projects. “I was mad when I found out they were tearing down our home,” said Mr. Todd, who has a girlfriend and two babies. “All my friends are scattered.” But the case worker helped him get a job as a security officer, and he looks forward to returning to his own place.

Emergency Rent Funds Go Fast

from the Washington Post

High Housing Costs, Small Paychecks: They Add Up to Busy Times for Assistance Program

By Sylvia Moreno

A District program aimed at helping low-income renters avoid eviction spent $8 million in its first 14 months and is in such demand that advocacy groups are asking city officials to increase funding.

The Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), established in the last two weeks of 2006, was designed to curb homelessness in a city where one in five residents is poor and the average apartment rent is almost $1,900 a month.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute shows that 59 percent of low-income households in Washington spend half or more of their income on housing. The institute says that one in five working residents earns less than $11 an hour, or about $22,000 in a year, working full time.

"With what people earn and what it costs to live here, month in and month out, there are thousands of families that are on the edge of financial collapse," said Ed Lazere, the institute's executive director. "A worsening economy could make things worse as people see their earnings going down because they lose jobs or lose hours on a job."

Through February, the District had paid $7 million for rental arrears for 3,464 households and $1 million for security deposits and first month's rent for 874 households, ERAP officials said. Regulations limit ERAP aid to households with children or elderly or disabled persons. Applicants' annual income may not exceed 125 percent of the federal poverty guideline, which ranges from $12,999.96 for a family of one to $26,499.96 for a family of four.

Of ERAP recipients to date, 80 percent were families with children, and 20 percent were households that included elderly or disabled persons.

"This clearly provides vital assistance to residents of the District that need assistance to keep a roof over their head," said Clarence Carter, director of the D.C. Department of Human Services, which administers the program.

One of the community agencies contracted by the DHS to distribute rental assistance said recently that it could soon run out of emergency money. The number of applications for rental assistance has been "overwhelming," an official with the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness said.

"At the rate we're spending now, we're going to run out of funds before our contract ends, and we don't want that to happen," said Clarence Stewart, director of housing for the partnership. Stewart recently told the DHS that his agency, which received $2.2 million in ERAP funds to distribute in fiscal year 2008, had provided more than $1 million dollars in the first four months of its contract.

A review by the Department of Human Services showed the average emergency rental check for arrears and late fees under ERAP last year was $2,002.71. The average security deposit paid was $848.80, and the combined average first month's rent and security deposit was $1,278.80. The cap on benefits per household is $4,250 for arrears of up to five months. Families of seven or more or with member with a severe illness or disability can get as much as $6,000 for more than five months of back rent if they face "a serious threat" of losing their homes, according to program rules. Residents are restricted to one rental assistance payment within a 12-month period.

The alternative to rental assistance, say advocates for the poor and homeless, is often the much more expensive city shelter system. The average cost of housing a family in a shelter is $30,000 a year, according to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness. Through last summer, homeless families averaged at least a year in a city shelter while they waited for a spot in a transitional housing program or for something they could afford, the partnership said.

"We believe it's terrifically cost-effective to provide this assistance," said Sczerina Perot, staff attorney for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.

The legal clinic, along with the Fair Budget Coalition, lobbied the D.C. Council in 2006 to create the rental assistance program. A similar program existed for years but was abolished in 1994 during a city budget crisis. By 2006, emergency rental assistance was the top unmet need cited in constituent requests for help from the D.C. Council.

Advocacy groups are now asking city officials for increased ERAP funds in Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's fiscal year 2009 budget, which will be unveiled tomorrow, said Martina Gillis Massey of the Fair Budget Coalition. The groups are also asking for the city to help all low-income renters, not just those with children or who are elderly or disabled.

A spokeswoman for Fenty (D) would not comment on the budget before to its release, but the mayor's office released a statement saying, "The administration is committed to ending homelessness in the District of Columbia and providing the resources necessary to achieve that goal, including eviction prevention."

Evictions in the District did drop last year, the first full year of the rental assistance program. There were 2,011 evictions in 2007, compared with 2,422 the year before, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless believes ERAP has prevented thousands of families from being booted out of their apartments and becoming homeless, Perot said.

District residents may apply for rental assistance at the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, Housing Counseling Services, the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities. All four groups offer counseling services to help families learn how to prevent falling back into the rent-due hole.

In Maryland, the State Department of Housing and Community Development runs a Rental Allowance Program that offers one to two years of help to people who are homeless or in danger of homelessness. The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development has a Homeless Intervention Program that provides emergency rental and mortgage assistance to low-income households at imminent risk of homelessness.

Last month, Alindria Despertt of Southwest Washington received almost $3,900 in emergency aid to pay back rent and late fees, preventing the eviction of her and her 7-year-old from their $900-a-month, one-bedroom apartment. She fell behind when she lost her full-time job, and she's been trying to make ends meet with two occasional part-time jobs. Last week, Despertt was back at the agency, attending a money management class.

Staff writer Mary Otto contributed to this report.

One-Third of Children in Poverty, Report Says

from The Washington Post

By Yolanda Woodlee

One in three children in the District continues to live in poverty, and there has been a slight increase in the city's overall poverty rate, according to the D.C. Kids Count Collaborative, whose leaders warned of tragic consequences unless parents get help in coping with stress.

The group's 14th annual fact book, released yesterday, shows a mixed picture -- entrenched poverty alongside some positive shifts -- as it details the conditions in which many D.C. children live.

More than one-third of African American children still live below the federal poverty level, the report says, and more than half of the children live in homes with single mothers.

Infant mortality increased in 2005, the highest level since 2000. From 2005 to 2006, child-abuse cases increased 6 percent but neglect complaints decreased. The number of young adults ages 19 to 21 in foster care rose to 12 percent in 2006 from 8 percent in 2003, the report notes. It also indicates that the number of juveniles referred to D.C. Superior Court increased in 2006 after having held steady in 2005.

But the report also shows gains. Enrollment in the Head Start program increased 9 percent during the 2006 school year, up nearly 1,000 children from 2005, the report says. And more children were deemed ready for school, with the District meeting the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's goal of having more than 95 percent of kindergartners vaccinated for the first time. The city's summer youth program had 12,729 participants in 2007, more than double the number in 2003.

Although the number of new cases of AIDS among young adults remained steady, the diagnosis of some sexually transmitted diseases fell by as much as 13 percent from 2005 to 2006.

The number of children eligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families decreased from 29,741 in 2006 to 28,212 in 2007.

There was also a drop in the number of families living on the streets or in emergency shelters. In January 2007, there were 400 fewer homeless people than the year before, the report says.

While noting the indicators of success, Kinaya Sokoya, executive director of the D.C. Children's Trust Fund, said the District must continue to battle the deep-rooted poverty in the city and its effects on youths and families.

"The fact that one out of three children in our city lives in poverty is quite troubling and has a cyclical effect," she said. "Child poverty is linked with other negative outcomes, such as poor nutrition in infancy, increased chances of poor academic performance and emotional distress."

Sokoya said the report shows that parents are living in stressful situations and that the city and other service providers must offer assistance "as opposed to waiting until it's too late."

In 2006, the Child and Family Services Agency hotline received 3,180 calls about child neglect and 2,441 calls about physical or sexual abuse, according to the report.

Poverty is one of the key factors that can lead to child abuse and neglect, said Victoria Casey, chairman of the D.C. Children's Trust Fund, which is part of the collaborative. Single-head households, teenage pregnancies, substance abuse and stress are among others.

"We are aware of all the things that can lead to those situations," Casey said. "It's a very complex and serious and heartbreaking problem. This just got to a point of no return, and it just spiraled out of control."

The report was released on the second day of hearings on poverty hosted by D.C. Council member Marion Barry (D-Ward 8).

The city must respond with "a sense of urgency," Barry said, adding that he plans to organize a coalition of business leaders and community activists to attack the underlying problems of the urban poor.

Barry, who is also chairman of the Committee on Housing and Urban Affairs, chastised Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) for failing to quickly appoint members to the Commission on Poverty, which was established in 2006 and under law was to dissolve two years later.

Fenty, who became mayor last year, didn't nominate residents for the 21-member commission until two weeks ago, Barry said. None of the five residents or the government employee the mayor selected lives in Wards 7 or 8, which have the highest concentration of poverty in the city, Barry said.

Poverty Rate Grows Amid an Economic Boom

from the Washington Post

D.C.'s Poorest Left Behind By Renewal, Report Finds

By Sylvia Moreno
Washington Post Staff Writer

The District's poverty rate is the highest in nearly a decade, and the employment rate for African American adults is at a 20-year low, according to a study to be released today.

Although the District's robust economy has spurred job growth, higher salaries, a construction boom and neighborhood revitalization, the city's poorest and least-educated residents have been left behind -- living "on the other side" of the city's "gleaming economy," the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute says.

The institute's study, titled "D.C.'s Two Economies," also shows that the gap between high-wage and low-wage workers in Washington is at an all-time high, with salaries for the least-paid workers (adjusted for inflation) virtually unchanged in three decades. Income inequality in the District is greater than in every city in the United States other than Atlanta and Tampa, the study says.

The study's author, Ed Lazere, called the findings not only "striking and depressing," but also a clarion call for the administration of Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) to find ways to reach out to city residents "who are not succeeding . . . and who are not connecting to the economy."

"You would expect that when the tide is rising that all boats are going to go up somewhat," said Lazere, who analyzed 2006 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. "But to have worsening economic conditions for D.C. residents at a time when most people think our economy is doing terrifically should be concerning to all of us."

In a statement, Fenty said the Poverty Commission he created when he was on the D.C. Council last year will use the report in its work to determine how the city should deal with poverty. He said that his "key priorities -- education, job training and affordable housing" -- have been developed to combat poverty.

The study found that the employment rate for black adults fell from 62 percent in the late '80s to 51 percent in 2006. In addition, the employment rate among all residents with only a high school diploma is also at 51 percent, the lowest point since 1979.

The findings mirror those in other recent studies, both nationally and regionally, that have noted the District's extreme income inequality and that the poverty rate for blacks is more than triple that of whites.

"The city's economic strength and the prosperity that many people in the city are enjoying isn't being shared," said Margery Turner, director of the Urban Institute's Center on Metropolitan Housing and Communities.

In preparation for the center's annual Washington area housing report, due for release next month, Turner said her researchers also have found that "in a booming region and thriving city, the lowest-wage workers are really struggling and not experiencing gains."

Such disparity, she said, presents public policy challenges to the District government on multiple levels, especially housing.

"It's a real challenge for the city to create and expand affordable options for those in low-wage jobs at the same time it expands and grows the resurgence of the high end of the market," she said. "There's a lot of positives that come out of that revitalization, but it also makes [it] that much more difficult for those at the bottom and those slipping further behind."

A report released in June by the D.C. Chamber of Commerce characterized Washington this way: "In 2007, the District is a city etched by divides." The group noted the surge in high-priced homes and business property values as the poverty rate continues to climb; that low-income tenants pay more than a third of their annual income in rent; and that many single-parent households in which the parents work are classified as poor.

"New and affluent residents help [the city] greatly with more tax revenue but do not solve these problems," the chamber said.

Lazere, whose research organization focuses on policy issues that affect low-income D.C. residents, said District officials must look beyond "just having job fairs or just encouraging businesses to come to D.C. and hire D.C. residents. Clearly, that is not enough."

He said he applauded Fenty's announcement last month that he would use $14 million of the city's $100 million surplus generated by 2007 property tax revenue to expand job programs for youths and ex-offenders next year.

Georgetown University public policy professor Harry Holzer, formerly the chief economist at the U.S. Labor Department, said the District's economic picture stems, in part, from the migration to the suburbs of middle- and working-class white and black families during the city's fiscal decline of the mid-1990s. Higher-income whites are more likely to move back into the resurging city, accentuating the differences between them and the low-income blacks who never left.

"The city has to try to improve the earning prospects for poor people, wherever they're found, wherever the jobs are and, of course, to improve training and educational options, especially for younger people," Holzer said.