An experiment that probably has not changed lives

A few years ago, New York City began a conditional cash transfer program for residents at or below the poverty line. "Conditional" because it only gave money to reward good behavior like seeing the doctor or getting good grades in school. The program was modeled after very successful programs in Brazil and Mexico. However, a new study conducted by the same group that designed New York's program says that it hasn't been life changing.

From this Associated Press story that we found at Google News, writer Sara Kugler tells us more about the study.

The first analysis of New York's effort was released Tuesday by a nonprofit social policy research group called MDRC that also helped design the program. Researchers are also tracking a control group of another 2,400 families that do not receive payments.

New York City's program began in 2007 and has bestowed total of $14 million on 2,400 participating families. The average award per family was $3,000.

The payments, also known as conditional cash transfers, were modeled after successful similar programs in other countries, including Mexico and Brazil. The theory is that the cash rewards reduce immediate hardship for poor people while reinforcing small but significant actions they can take to improve their long-term stability.

Before the city took up the idea, it had never been attempted in the United States.

Participants were offered 22 different incentives to earn money, ranging in value from $20 to $600. Ninety-eight percent of all families earned at least one reward, but just 65 percent achieved payments in every period they were available.

When compared with the control group, 10 percent more families in the reward group had two dental visits per year, 1 percent more had health insurance, 20 percent more had bank accounts and 3 percent fewer used costly services like check cashing.

But fewer people in the reward group held jobs in the first year, and cash rewards had no effect on school performance or attendance for young children.

The rewards also had no effect on test scores or attendance for low-performing high school students, and made only modest differences for higher-achieving students.

New York state poverty higher than national average

A new survey finds that the poverty rate in New York state is higher than the national average. The report was issued from the New York State Community Action Association which is a group of over 50 community action agencies. The study used data from the U.S census numbers from 2006-08, so some of the effects of the recession are not fully included in the survey.

From the Troy Record, writer Jessica M. Pasko unpacks the numbers from the report.

More than 2.6 million New Yorkers live in poverty, including 852,000 children. That makes for a poverty rate of 13.8 percent, slightly higher than the national rate of 13.2 percent. The city of Buffalo was ranked as the third poorest city in the U.S., with close to 30 percent of the population there living in property. The poverty rate is defined as the percentage of the population living in households below or at the federal poverty line.
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In the breakdown by county, Rensselaer County has a 10.1 percent poverty rate, compared to 12 percent in Albany County, 10.8 percent in Schenectady and just 6.9 percent in Saratoga County.

The city of Troy has a much higher poverty rate, with 21.4 percent or about 9,520 individuals living in poverty, including nearly 3,200 children.

New to the report this year is data highlighting the plight of the working poor and families headed by single women.

Nearly 50 percent of all families in poverty statewide are headed by single women with children, and 70 percent of Troy’s poor families are headed by single mothers.

The report also found that a major issue continues to be what’s called working poor – those employed but still living in poverty. Close to 28 percent of those living in poverty are employed, and the state’s unemployment rate reached nine percent in December.

A George Soros donation helps with poor children back to school needs

Billionaire George Soros made a 35 million dollar donation in a New York State back to school program. New York State families that use food stamps found another 200 dollars in their accounts today thanks to the donation.

From Time Magazine, reporter Gilbert Cruz explains how the donation used a part of the US economic stimulus plan.

Soros was aiming his donation at a part of President Barack Obama's stimulus package that hasn't garnered much attention until now: a four-to-one federal matching program designed to help states assist poor families. This $5 billion pot of cash was set aside as an emergency fund to supplement the 12-year-old Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, i.e., the one that Bill Clinton boasted in 1996 would end "welfare as we know it."

TANF typically provides cash-assistance to families with no jobs. But as the recession has worsened, several states have seen a rise in the number of people needing welfare and food stamps. The stimulus fund allows states to do several things with their share of the $5 billion pool as long as they — or private groups such as Soros' — pony up 20% of the overall cost. The Feds cover the remainder. States can (a) provide more cash payments to families, (b) subsidize additional jobs, or (c) set up one-time, non-repeating benefit programs. New York's Back to School initiative, which used Soros' private donation as its initial seed money, utilized the third option, appealing to the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs TANF and its emergency fund, for the additional $140 million.

Some municipalities are using the money to create jobs. In Perry County, Tennessee, for example, 300 private- and public-sector positions are being subsidized through the use of several million dollars' worth of the state's emergency fund allotment. Some of these are just temporary, a short-term pick-me-up for the laid-off. Elsewhere, officials are eyeing the emergency fund for longer-term aid. Los Angeles, for example, has plans to kick off a year-long employment program that will give subsidized jobs to up to 10,000 people.

Buffalo's mayor launches poverty reduction plan

The third poorest city in the nation is beginning a poverty reduction plan. Buffalo's Mayor Byron W. Brown unveiled a document that will guide the cities attempt to reduce poverty.

The report calls on four new task forces and expanding already existing services. But the guidelines are already receiving criticism for having no new strategies.

From the Buffalo News, reporters Brian Meyer and Mark Sommer tell us about what the plan contains and some of the reaction.

The centerpiece of the “Buffalo Poverty Reduction Blueprint” unveiled Wednesday in City Hall by Brown and Deputy Mayor Donna M. Brown is the establishment of a task force with four work groups, each charged with developing a five-year strategy for reducing poverty in the areas of jobs, education, neighborhoods and social environment.

Rather than laying out a policy agenda, the 77-page plan largely focuses on expanding or improving many of the 129 programs the city runs to help low-income residents, with “collaboration” and “partnerships” the buzzwords to improve coordination between groups.
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The mayor has drawn heat for not having a poverty plan more than three years into his administration, 1z years since the city was named by the Census Bureau the second poorest (it’s now No. 3) and 15 months since Donna Brown was appointed deputy mayor and charged with making an antipoverty plan a top priority.

But on Tuesday, Mayor Brown stressed poverty has been a sustained problem in the city before he was mayor, and that neither of his two predecessors, Anthony Masiello or Jimmy Griffin, had put into action a plan to combat poverty as he was now doing.

Brown also stressed that poverty is a countywide problem, pointing out Erie County’s poverty rate –not including city residents — has also been on the rise. He said there are currently more than 123,800 Erie County residents living outside Buffalo below the poverty limit.

Two of the four task force recommendations call for county participation, but notably no county government representatives participated in the plan’s unveiling.

L. Nathan Hare, executive director of the Community Action Organization of Erie County, said any anti-poverty plan hatched by the city must take into consideration the broader challenges facing the region. Hare is co-chairman of the new task force with Sister Denise A. Roche, president of D’Youville College.

Poverty on the rise in Stuben County, New York

The local Catholic Charities for Stuben County, New York was profiled in a story today. The word from the workers for the Catholic Charities are that more people are asking for help these days.

From the Evening Tribune, writer Justin Head surveys the amount of need in the area.

“What we are talking about here is the hidden face of poverty. I call it the hidden face of poverty because if you are not looking for it you won’t even know it’s there, but the reality is a lot of people need help and are in troublesome situations,” said Andy Mazzella, assistant director of Steuben County Catholic Charities.

Mazzella said there has been a 26- to 28-percent increase in services being sought after in the Hornell, Bath and Corning Catholic Charities’ offices.

“We are seeing a new group of people coming here, the newly poor. These are people that are poor for the very first time,” said Donna Mehlenbacher, program manager for the Hornell Turning Point. She said her staff is seeing a large rise in the number of people needing help who have jobs but are getting their hours cut because of the bad economy.

She said many people that are assisted at Turning Point are living in their cars or alternating between several different places of their kin and sleeping on the floors of friends’ places.
“Some of these people are well put together,” said Mehlenbacher.

She also reported that since the Internal Revenue Service stopped sending out tax forms, there has been a rise in the number of people requesting help with their income taxes.

Mehlenbacher said since Turning Point opened up in June the location has seen a steadily increasing volume of those who are in need.

Mehlenbacher compiled a write up of some of her cases that include a homeless couple from Hornell that walked the streets for four days, a cancer patient who can’t afford living expenses because of his medical costs and a single mother of four who can’t afford living arrangements even though she works full time at medical facility.

Numbers of people in poverty in New York state increasing

A report for areas of upstate New York show increasing poverty in the region. The State's Community Action Association compiled the report using US Census Bureau data and numbers from area aid agencies.

The details show what anti-poverty workers already now, the number of people in poverty in New York state are increasing. From the Schenectady Daily Gazette, reporter Sara Foss gets some reaction.

“This confirmed what we see,” said Deb Schimpf, executive director of the Schenectady Community Action Program.

“It’s what we expected, but it’s still hard to meet the need,” said Mike Saccocio, executive director of the City Mission of Schenectady.

The New York State Community Action Association, which wrote the report, hopes that it will serve as a resource for community-based organizations, elected officials and the public. It was put together using 2005, 2006 and 2007 data from the United States Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, and provides poverty rates for every county in the state, as well as upstate cities.

“Policy makers need good poverty information,” said Denise Harlow, CEO of the New York State Community Action Association. The report, she said, “elevates the issues of poverty.” According to the 2009 New York State Poverty Report, the statewide poverty rate is 14 percent, compared to a national poverty rate of 13.3 percent. More than 2.6 million New Yorkers live in households with incomes below the poverty line — $18,310 for a family of three. Statewide, the median income is $52,944.

In Albany County, the poverty rate is 12.4 percent, in Fulton County 16.4 percent, in Montgomery County 13.1 percent, in Rensselaer County 11.5 percent, in Saratoga County 6.6 percent, in Schenectady County 11.4 percent and in Schoharie County 11.7 percent.

The rates are much higher in area cities. In Albany, the poverty rate is 26.7 percent; approximately 39.2 percent of children live in poverty. In Saratoga Springs, the poverty rate is 8.4 percent; approximately 25.4 percent of children live in poverty. In Schenectady, the poverty rate is 21.1 percent; approximately 28.7 percent of children live in poverty.

An upstate downstate connection in New York

Students from a New York City college traveled upstate to learn more about the groups fighting poverty in Ithaca. The students from Union Theological Seminary are trying to emulate the Poor People Initiative the Dr. Martin Luther King started in the 1960's.

Krisy Gashler of the Ithaca Journal details the first meeting between the students and the people helped by aid groups in the upstate.

Roughly 50 people attended Friday's forum at the Unitarian Church on Buffalo Street. The half dozen speakers represented agencies such as the Tompkins County Workers' Center, the Multicultural Resource Center and Tompkins Community Action.

Wayne Goodin, who spoke on behalf of the Natural Leaders Initiative, said after serving in the Army he found himself dependent on drugs and alcohol and scavenging for food in garbage cans.

What helped Goodin out of poverty were social service agents and community leaders in Ithaca who treated him with respect and equality, he told the room filled with many of the people who helped him.

"You guys looked at me like this," he said, motioning looking straight ahead, "instead of like this," motioning looking down.

Kris Townsend said what she needed to get herself out of poverty was someone to believe in her.

"When I got involved with the Natural Leaders Initiative, I realized that people actually believed in me and saw me as greater than what I was seeing myself. That was a big help," Townsend said. "I needed somebody to believe in me. I just needed a mentor."

The latest great Idea in microcredit

Ah Ha!!! This guy is on to something. I now have another link to add to the "Get Involved Links" Curtis Stephen from the New York City paper City Limits introduces us to Darryl Penrice.

Darryl Penrice likes to talk. His preferred topics of conversation can roam anywhere from the music of the late rapper Tupac Shakur and the murky underside of politics in America to the mechanics of microeconomics. But if there’s one subject that the 32-year-old Brooklyn resident and self-professed “ghetto prodigy” loves to discuss more than anything else, it’s a vision of a new way to fight poverty that he's obsessed with making real.

For the past year, Penrice has been anything but silent about his proposal, meeting with an assortment of potential investors, city officials, nonprofit groups, college students and major grant-making institutions. In the midst of an outreach campaign, Penrice has been trying to earn support – especially the financial kind – to transform the website that he’s created from a prototype into a full-scale, anti-poverty platform that he contends will have a significant impact in the lives of people experiencing economic hardship in New York and well beyond. “I know what I have,” Penrice declares. “I’m not the most religious person in the world, but if God gave me a gift then I’m going to share it. This is something that can feed millions of people.”

Penrice plans for his initiative – an interactive website called Poverty's Demise.org (or as he calls it, "PDO") – to combine the open source atmosphere of Craigslist with the opportunity-expanding aims of Kiva.org, which allows for “microfinance” lending to entrepreneurs in developing countries. But in many respects, if Penrice's ambitious plan ever goes live, it will launch an unprecedented Web-based undertaking.

Penrice envisions PDO as an outlet for person-to-person financial transactions in which donors help economically disadvantaged individuals – who have been screened and approved for participation – and struggling working-class families pay for essential daily living expenses, including everything from food and rent to utility bills and child care costs. Under the proposal, which Penrice details extensively on his website, the tax-deductible donations would be sent to recipients in the form of “universally redeemable” bar-coded certificates to be exchanged at participating retailers and service providers for specific goods and services. Incentives are also provided to both donors and recipients for volunteerism, and the purchase of healthy food and environmentally-friendly products.

The PDO model would also help to ease the burden faced by those on public assistance and seniors, both of whom are subjected to often-frustrating bureaucracies, Penrice charges. “The government is spending billions right now, but nothing is being done to fix a system that isn’t very efficient,” he says. “A lot of people are against welfare, but how can we tolerate a society where people who worked for 40 or 50 years are forced to choose between their medication or groceries?”

As he seeks to create a high-tech community-oriented platform that circumvents government and nonprofit social services, Penrice is clearly aiming big. He’s hoping to land an investment of $4 million to make an initial run. In addition to setting up an office, hiring programmers and sparking the first wave of donations, Penrice plans to focus on New Yorkers in need before branching out nationwide. One endeavor that Penrice hopes to launch through PDO is a program he calls Broader Horizons, where disadvantaged families are sent abroad. “Can you imagine taking a kid from Bed-Stuy and dropping him off in Japan for a week? The problem with generational poverty is that Dad is in jail, Mom is smoked out, and you think the whole world is a ghetto.”

Census figures round up: Part 3

Here are some more localized stories on the nationwide census survey that was released yesterday. The data collected ranges from 2005 to 2007. Here are links to related stories from yesterday, part 1 and part 2.

First we stop by Ohio, Dana Wilson and Jim Phillips filed this story for the Columbus Dispatch.

Ohio University students might be short on cash, but the city probably is not as poor as the U.S. Census might lead one to believe.

Athens is atop the list of the nation's poorest towns and cities that have at least 20,000 people, according to newly released figures from the U.S. Census.

Numbers from the census' American Community Survey released yesterday say that on average for the period of 2005-2007, 52.3 percent of the city's residents were living below the federal poverty level.

The only community in the United States that ranked higher than Athens was a segregated Hasidic Jewish enclave in New York, Kiryas Joel Village, which in many ways is a statistical anomaly (its median age, for example, is 15).

Athens Mayor Paul Wiehl wonders whether the city's ranking might be skewed by the large portion of the city's population made up of OU students. His city, whose total population is listed in the census report as 23,814, includes a university with an enrollment of more than 20,000.

Given that many college students probably wouldn't report high incomes to the census, Wiehl suggested that when OU students are included as Athens residents, they drive up the city's poverty percentages.

Lastly for this post, upstate New York's York County, Carl Lindquist is a writer for the York Dispatch.

The number of York County people living in poverty is on the rise, according to new U.S. Census Bureau figures.

An average of 33,700 people were living below the poverty line between 2005-2007, according to three-year Census Bureau estimates released Tuesday.

That's up from 25,269 reported in the 2000 Census.

The figures show that nearly 8.3 percent of York countians living in poverty, compared to 6.7 percent in 2000.

The estimates were released Tuesday by the Census Bureau as part of its American Community Survey, which offers a variety of demographic, housing and population estimates. The information was averaged over three years.

It offers the first look since the 2000 Census at detailed socioeconomic and housing characteristics of mid-size areas with populations between 20,000 and 64,999.

York City, like the county as a whole, experienced an increase in poverty, according to the Census estimates. The newest figures show about 33 percent of the city's population living in poverty, up from 24 percent in 2000.

"Toys for Joy" helping provide Christmas in buffalo

Here is a pretty good profile of a charity that has a Christmas toy drive in the Buffalo, New York area.

"Toys for Joys" expect nearly 4000 children will come to their toy giveaway event on December 20th. The number dwarfs any from previous years, another indication that needs are greater during this time of recession in the States.

Emma Sapong of the Buffalo News introduces us to a parent who is seeking help from the toy drive.

Christmas was on its way, and Tracey Mullen was unprepared. The mother of two was jobless with no means to buy gifts for her daughters and stepgrandson.

“It was really a concern,” said Mullen, a Buffalo resident. “When you are not working, you just don’t feel like you are part of anything. It’s hard to explain, but you feel awful.”

Mullen turned to FATHERS, an East Side community group, for help. She and her children attended the organization’s holiday bash, “Toys for Joy,” and received donated gifts to go under their Christmas tree.

“FATHERS were a big help; I was able to get presents for my children,” she recalled. “Not just toys for my grandson, but gifts for a teenager and a 12-year-old.”

Mullen’s financial condition has improved since that Christmas six years ago, but you’ll still find her at the Christmas party sponsored by Fathers Armed Together to Help, Educate, Restore and Save, one of the organizations participating in The Buffalo News Neediest Fund.

“I’m a committed volunteer because I know it makes a difference,” she said. “It’s just a really joyous event. I see the joy in the faces of the children, I truly do.”

Video: Read to Succeed in Buffalo

The Buffalo News has a great video today about an educational program that helps poor children get a head start on reading.

Read To Succeed Video

This is part of the Buffalo News special series on Children of Poverty

Religious groups target poverty

from the Buffalo News

By Harold McNeil

Members of the three Abrahamic faiths and other religious traditions broke bread together and endeavored to collectively address local poverty during an event Wednesday in the Islamic Society and Mosque, 745 Heim Road, Getzville.

The third annual "Tent of Abraham" coincides with the Muslim observance of Ramadan, a monthlong period of daily fasting. The aim, according to Dr. Khalid J. Qazi, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York, is to invite those of other faith traditions to join local Muslims in collecting nonperishable food items and cash donations for distribution to the area's needy through the Food Pantry of Western New York and Viva La Casa.

"The Muslim Public Affairs Council of Western New York started this two years ago to bring all faiths together under one roof to share the blessings of Ramadan with everyone," Qazi said.

"But at the same time, we also felt there was a need in the community that should be addressed simultaneously," he added.

A charitable response to poverty is a part of all religious faiths, said the Rev. Stan Bratton, executive director of the Network of Religious Communities. Bratton's organization had planned a joint venture with Catholic Charities of Western New York to collect food and raise money for the needy when it decided to join forces with the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

"Instead of two separate events, we merged the two into one," Bratton said. "So, we're trying to retain still the Tent of Abraham, but then it's as a religious response to poverty."

In addition to the three Abrahamic faiths, the Network of Religious Communities is made up of individuals from five other religious communities, including those of the Sikh, Hindu, Bahai, Unitarian and Buddhist faiths.

Bratton said the network is circulating a petition asking Gov. David A. Paterson to create a commission that will identify and address the needs of those in poverty, particularly in Western New York.

Those attending the event heard from several guest speakers who spoke about the duty to assist the poor.

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.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

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.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

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.

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.

'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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