Promoting health insurance for poor children in South Carolina

South Carolina has 130,000 uninsured children. The state does run an insurance program that could cover them. So state legislators are looking at improving efforts to get the word out about the program.

From the Post and Courier writer Yvonne Wenger details the State's effort to promote the program.

"This is a message to all the parents in South Carolina: If your children do not have medical insurance coverage, we want you to know that you may qualify," said Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg.

The state Legislature has set aside money since 2007 for an estimated 70,000 children to receive coverage for checkups, hospital stays, dental care, eye exams, prescriptions and other services through the S.C. Healthy Connections Kids. So far, only 12,000 children have signed up.

Legislative budget writers are still drafting the state's spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and money for the State Children's Health Insurance Program was included in the House-passed version.

On Thursday, Sue Berkowitz, director of S.C. Appleseed Legal Justice Center, and Frank Knapp, president of the state Small Business Chamber of Commerce, announced an effort to get 650,000 fliers in the hands of parents whose children could benefit.

Rep. David Mack, D-North Charleston, is among legislators who will be distributing fliers to local school districts as a way to get the word out.

"This is not only the morally right thing to do, it is the fiscally responsible thing to do," Mack said. If a child gets the proper preventive care, then expensive health problems can be avoided, he said.

GLEAMNS event aims to fight poverty

from the Greenwood Index Journal

By JAIME MADEWELL

May is celebrated as the National Month of Community Action, and Wednesday GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission, Inc. celebrated Community Action Day in support of the national theme: “rooting out poverty.”

“The National Month of Community Action is when we celebrate the services and hard work you provide,” said Alex Alderman, statewide project coordinator for the South Carolina Community Action Partnerships.

South Carolina has 15 community action agencies statewide, and the largest is GLEAMNS, which is incorporated in 13 counties. GLEAMNS sponsors after-school programs, child care food programs, early Head Start programs, weatherization programs, workforce development programs and much more.

“Rooting out poverty is something that is very important,” Greenwood Mayor Floyd Nicholson said. “We can get there if we work together. The key to rooting out poverty is good jobs, and you get a good job through a good education.”

When it comes to education, Nicholson said, “if you go into the race two miles behind and keep the same pace, you will always stay two miles behind.”

The keynote speaker for the Community Action Day celebration was Claude Thomas, chairman of the GLEAMNS board of commissioners.

“Poverty implies lack of resources for comfortable living,” Thomas said. “Poverty is nothing new. There have been many attempts to rid the world of poverty but it still remains. Poverty encompasses race, gender the world over. 14.2 percent of the population in Greenwood is below the poverty level.”

Investment by foreign countries might help punch hole in South Carolina's poverty belt

from the Charleston Post Courier

By Doug Pardue , Adam Parker

PROVIDENCE — Dahl Shuler steps down from hammering in roof trusses on a new concession stand for the Purple Hurricanes baseball diamond at Providence United Methodist Church. The stand is about the only new construction around this tiny crossroads community amid the vast farmlands of eastern Orangeburg County.

From this vantage point, you'd never know that Providence sits at the middle of what Orangeburg County economic development officials have dubbed the Global Logistics Triangle, a huge chunk of the county bordered by interstates 26 and 95 and U.S. Highway 301.

If county planners have their way, Providence will soon be bustling, as it hosts a mammoth inland port, factory and office complex serving not only the Port of Charleston but also companies shipping products up and down the East Coast.

It could bring thousands of jobs and do what nothing has done before: End the high unemployment that has kept this county strapped in the poverty belt that runs along I-95 from Georgia to North Carolina and forms a semi-circle around the Charleston metropolitan area.

Orangeburg's dream may be on the verge of coming true with two massive projects proposed for Orangeburg County: One is a 1,300-acre land deal in which Jafza International, a division of Dubai World, the mega Persian Gulf trading company, plans to build an inland port and office complex. Earlier this month, Jafza opened its North American headquarters in Charleston.

The other project is a 1,200-acre land deal in which a Charleston-based company, World Trade City Orangeburg LLC, plans to build a massive business center and bring in Chinese manufacturing and assembly plants. Together the two projects could bring investments of up to $2 billion over 10 to 15 years and thousands of jobs.

"Get ready for the incoming tsunami of trade," says Gregg Robinson, executive director of the Orangeburg County Development Commission. "I want every child in Orangeburg County to know when they finish high school they have a job in the Logistics Triangle."

Shuler offers a more sober perspective.

He runs a construction company and says the influx of money and construction will be good for him. But his two brothers are farmers, and he worries that all the investment and increases in land value will kill the farming nature of eastern Orangeburg County. "They see what one guy sold a 100 acres for, a million dollars, and you think, 'I'll just sell mine,' " he says.

Shuler says he's happy that the companies might bring badly needed jobs, but adds, "I'm scared of the Chinese and Arabs" and the change they could bring to this county's lifestyle.

He gazes across the baseball diamond. He used to play here as a kid. He was catcher. His kids play here.

He built the concession stand for the church baseball diamond without profit.

"Everything is volunteer in these places," he says. "Things aren't going to be the same."

Reward for a lot of work

Robinson smiles a lot when he talks about what's happening. This is what Orangeburg County has been waiting for forever, he says. And it's the product of years of work getting money, strong political leadership and cooperation between county, city and town governments to lay down the costly but necessary combination of water, sewer, power, roads, rail access and available land to finally take advantage of the county's position astride two interstates.

The result is what he calls "fertile soil conditions" — a readiness to plant the seeds of economic growth.

James E. Clyburn, the powerful U.S. House Majority Whip who represents the Orangeburg area in Congress, says the effort really got under way in the early 1990s when he set out with county and community officials to get one thing much of the area lacked: clean drinking water. That led to sewer systems and the other basics that businesses and industry need.

But it also took something outside the county's control: a surge in international business, which many expect will bring a flood of imports through the Port of Charleston and other nearby ports, bound for cities across the eastern United States. And Orangeburg County sits at the center of that.

For years that position gave this county no advantage. Its list of negatives is long, including a massive economic disparity between its majority black population and minority whites, one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, and poverty gripping more than one in four residents.

While some in the county worry that the newcomers will change the county's rural character, Robinson disagrees. "We've got plenty of land," he says. Besides — and this is a theme he and his team repeat again and again — "poverty is not acceptable."

"This is an opportunity for Orangeburg to turn the corner," he says. "If we fail to deliver, we're missing a golden opportunity."

And missing is not an option.

"I want children in Orangeburg County to know that when they finish high school or college, they can stay at home and work," Robinson says.

Other residents of the county say any change is welcome if they can get good jobs in the county.

That has not been an option for many in Orangeburg who must commute to Columbia or Charleston, each about an hour away.

Marion Cain, 37, a route salesman for Sara Lee, says he would jump at the chance to work in a factory or plant. He's done it before. The area needs more industry, he says.

Cain's colleague, Tyrone Johnson, 37, figured that his military training would help him land a good job and support his two sons and daughter. "Family, that's why I came here," he says.

His wife has no choice but to commute. She's a flight attendant based in Charlotte. But the airline allows her to work out of the Columbia airport, a 40-mile drive.

"Coming here, you have to have a plan," Johnson says. The promise of good jobs from new international businesses could make it a lot easier to call Orangeburg home.

Jessica Roberts, 24, is part of the Gina's Housekeeping team that cleans the Santee Wire Products facility on Vance Road and other buildings in the county. Surely, new development would bring more work, she says.

"Orangeburg's been needing change for a long time," she says. "Orangeburg needs to be really on the map."

Homer Spencer, 45, fills out a job application at the South Carolina Employment Security Commission. Spencer does a little landscaping and painting work, when he can find it, but wants something steady. He worked part-time for most of last year at Koyo, a bearing manufacturer, but such jobs often are temporary or seasonal. The planned inland port sounds good.

"I'm waiting on that," he says.

At what price?

Walter Dantzler's family has farmed near Providence for generations, but he's worried that the industry could be threatened by all the incoming development and people. He's concerned about "how it will affect our way of life, and the way we do things. You have to understand our way of life. All we do is farm."

He, his son and four employees grow corn, cotton, wheat, soybeans and peanuts and raise beef cattle on some 3,500 acres spread over 10 miles of eastern Orangeburg County. Some of the land butts up to what would become Jafza's inland port.

He's worried about increased traffic on the rural farm roads that his farm equipment travels as he and his workers move between fields. Already, he says, drivers unfamiliar with farming grow increasingly intolerant of his slow-moving equipment. He's worried about safety.

And he's worried about the influx of people into a farming community, people who aren't used to the dust and noise that farming naturally creates, or the smell of hogs and cattle and chickens.

He's suspicious about all the concern over unemployment. He says the biggest problem for him and other farmers is finding people willing to work. He says he pays salaries "much higher than minimum wage," and provides health benefits and performance bonuses.

Still, he says, he can't get all the workers he needs. Perhaps they think farming is back-bending work, but it's not really like that any more. Today, farmers run high-tech machines with air-conditioned cabs.

Dantzler worries most about the price of land. With all the development and speculation going on, he says, some land already is selling for as much as $3,500 an acre. Soon, he says, it will be next to impossible for him to buy additional farm land, and renting land to farm at a profit may be even harder.

Study: Poverty rampant, especially for black women

from The State

By JAMES T. HAMMOND
jhammond@thestate.com

A new study on the economic status of South Carolina women shows one in seven lives in poverty, including almost a third of the state’s black women.

The study from the Washington-based Institute for Women’s Policy Research and Columbia College cites lagging education as a major cause of South Carolina women’s disadvantage, and asserts “barriers to their economic equality remain embedded in the state’s social and economic fabric.”

South Carolina ranks in the bottom 15 states for women’s educational attainment, at 37th, the report states, with black women earning college degrees at half the rate of white women. While 25.5 percent of white women hold at least a four-year college degree, just 12.7 percent of black women have such a degree, the report states.

The proportion of women 25 and older with a college degree or more has almost doubled, to 26.5 percent in 2005 from 13.6 percent in 1980, and that in turn has raised women closer to men in earning potential.

But the picture remains grim.

“Despite gains in credentials, women continue to lag behind men in their earning power, and occupational segregation persists,” the report states.

The report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research recommends more financial aid and scholarships for women.

But Columbia College president Caroline Whitson believes that’s a simplistic answer to a problem with far more basic roots. She said other studies have shown that fathers and other authority figures set low expectations for young women.

“One study showed that teachers thought girls talked too much in class, but video reviews of the classes showed boys talked twice as much as the girls,” Whitson said.

Such preconceptions cause girls and young women to lose confidence and set low expectations for themselves, and reduce their ability to be advocates for themselves, Whitson said.

“If these girls are getting pregnant and dropping out of high school, they sure won’t be going to college,” Whitson said.

Henri Etta Baskins, regional director of regulatory and external affairs for AT&T in South Carolina, said educated, professional women should reach out to schools and ask if they can mentor young women. Older women can talk to them about social pressures and how to handle themselves in different environments.

“The schools are always reaching out for corporate help,” Baskins said. “Maybe we need to call up the schools. African-American women have a responsibility to educate other young women.”

The barriers for women extend from the bottom of the political-economic ladder to the top. South Carolina is 50th in the nation for women’s political representation in state legislatures. The state’s political leadership remains largely white and male, as elections to city and county councils, the Legislature and boards and commissions come and go with little progress toward adding women to their ranks.

Sheryl McAlister, director of Columbia College’s Alliance for Women, said boosting political participation is one of the top goals for the alliance.

“As long as women are not at the table where decisions are made, they are going to continue to be left out,” Whitson said.

Whitson has sought to make Columbia College, a historically all-female institution, an agent for change in women’s lives statewide.

In 2004, when Gov. Mark Sanford proposed shutting down the state Commission on Women, Whitson offered for the college to take over staffing, fundraising and policy work, if the governor would continue appointing the seven-member board. Now, she has asked the General Assembly to expand the board to 15 members, to “create more advocates,” she said.

Even in areas where there was improvement, the report states parity is a distant dream. When it comes to wages, women would require another 50 years to catch up with men at the rate of progress between 1995 and 2005.

For all women, wages amounted to just 73.1 percent of the wages of white men. For black women, the contrast is even more stark, with average earnings just 54.6 percent of those of white men.

“Such large gaps in earnings between women and white men underscore the ways in which gender and race intersect to disadvantage women in South Carolina, particularly African-American women,” the report states.

Obtaining health insurance is a greater challenge for black women than for women overall. Among white women, 82.9 percent had health insurance, compared with 78.4 percent of African-American women.

The study was based on 2005 data, the most recent available for comparison purposes.

Poverty's grasp grows wider

from the Myrtle Beach Sun News

Carolinas groups aid rising ranks of poor
By Jason M. Rodriguez
The Sun News

As head of the Brunswick County Family Assistance program, Joe Cannon is used to seeing construction laborers seek help in the slow months.

But in the past six to nine months he began to notice that those seeking assistance rose a work tier to include small contractors. Taking it as a sign that it was time to work harder than ever, his agency began to seek more money from an already ailing economy.

"Quite honestly, we're out there begging for money more than we've ever begged for money before," he said. "What we're seeing as an agency is an explosion in demand in the last year, year and a half.

"We've been on a downhill slide since 2004," he said.

Poverty numbers across the Carolinas have been growing in the past years, according to officials in Horry and Georgetown counties and Brunswick County, N.C. In January, the U.S. Census Bureau released its most recent data, which show the percentage of people living in poverty in those counties rose by as much as 1 percentage point from 2004 to 2005.

Officials in those counties warn that the situation is much worse than the numbers might make it appear.

Dianne Ramsey, executive director of the Horry County Community Kitchen, said the number of people served by her kitchen has nearly tripled since 2005

"Our numbers have gone from 90 to 130 [per month] during [2005] to last year between 150 to 170 month to now 225 to 270 this year," Ramsey said. "We're seeing an incredibly large number of people. We have lines around the building."

She estimates about 30 percent of the kitchen's clientele are homeless, while the rest are working poor.

The Census Bureau uses the definition of poverty from the Office of Management and Budget. It is updated annually for inflation using the Consumer Price Index.

In 2005, the national poverty threshold for a family of four was $19,971. A single person would have had to make less than $9,973 to be considered living in poverty.

In Georgetown County, 17 percent of residents fell under the poverty level in 2005, more than the two other counties in the coastal area.

Annette Perreault, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Georgetown County, said she has seen an increase in requests for help, but has also noticed more people getting in over their heads financially.

"We've also seen an increase in the debt load that our clients are accumulating from examining their applications," Perreault said. "We're doing our best to address that."

Perreault said Habitat offers a six-week course on financial responsibility that was created only for those who applied for housing. That course now is being offered to more people in need of help, including victims of predatory lending.

"This is an education process for them as well," she said.

The census data showed 14 percent of Brunswick County residents lived in poverty in 2005. Cannon said that number has grown since then, according to his calculations, to about 18 percent currently who live below the poverty level. He said about 22 percent of children in the county live below the poverty level.

Cannon said the family assistance program has seen the number of people it serves increase 211 percent from 2004 to 2007. He said from 2006 to 2007 alone, the volume increased by 71 percent.

It has prompted the family assistance program to institute creative programs for donations.

Sea Trail Golf Resort and Convention Center and Ocean Ridge Plantation golf courses have been collecting food for the food pantry, which is run by the family assistance program, since December and offering discounted golf to those who participate. Cannon said both programs have collected as much as 1,600 pounds of items per week.

In another program, churches and social organizations adopt a family for $3,500 per year.

Cannon said the high volume of requests for aid is making it hard for the program to help those in need to learn to help themselves.

"We don't have time to do that," he said. "Neither the family nor the agencies have the time to do the second piece of the equation, which is the crucial piece."

Horry County
Community Kitchen

1411 10th Ave. N.

Myrtle Beach, SC 29577

Phone: 444-9383

Habitat for Humanity Georgetown County

1907 Hampton Court

Georgetown, SC 29442

Phone: 546-5685

Brunswick County Family Assistance Agency

P.O. Box 333

Supply, NC 28462

Phone: 910-754-4766

The face of poverty - Understanding the scope of local problem

from The Times and Democrat

By DIONNE GLEATON, T&D Staff Writer | Monday, January 28, 2008

Leave a Comment | Default | Large

Writer and political activist Michael Harrington said, "Life is lived in common, but not in community," a statement that has become a glaring reality in the underworld of poverty.

There are 37 million Americans living in poverty today, with more than 600,000 of them, including children, living in South Carolina.

The statistic was among those shared at a free workshop hosted by the United Way of the Midlands and designed to show how people from different economic classes access various resources and the "hidden rules" that guide the lives of low-income, middle-class and wealthy people.
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Kay Barlow, director of community and education for the Midlands Education and Business Alliance, conducted the training at Orangeburg's Trinity United Methodist Church based on Dr. Ruby Payne's "A Framework for Understanding Poverty."

Outreach ministries and the operation of locally based national service organizations are among the ways several community leaders in Orangeburg and Bamberg counties are working to reduce poverty.

A better-organized network of resources among service agencies and an ultimate mobilization of county-level resources in the formation of a strategic plan, however, are missing pieces in the puzzle, they say.

"Not that any one needs more committees or meetings, but a group of leaders from all areas of our county and all walks of life ... needs to form a coalition, develop a plan to address one issue at a time and then find the resources and implement the plan," said Cindy Smith, executive director of the Greater Edisto Chapter of the American Red Cross.

"I think that many do not recognize the face of poverty. An awareness campaign will tie nicely to any plan," Smith said.

The workshop was made possible through UWM's Compassion Capital Fund grant program "Partners in Compassion." The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded UWM a Compassion Capital Fund grant in October 2007.

Bunnie Lempesis, UWM director of community capacity building, said the workshop was designed to provide basic training before the grant is actually implemented to support 20 faith-based and community organizations serving at-risk youth or homeless people in six Midlands-area counties, including Orangeburg and Calhoun.

The workshop touched on the difference between generational and situational poverty, with the latter being a lack of resources because of a particular event such as death, chronic illness, divorce or alcoholism. Generational poverty is defined as having been in poverty for at least two generations.

"We mostly discussed what we already knew. I was thrust into situational poverty," said Smith, whose agency recently serviced three families who lost everything to home fires. With the ARC chapter having financial challenges of its own, Smith has said more must be done to address the issue.

"This is not a problem that can be solved without the entire community working toward the same goal. I do agree with the premise that education is the key to addressing the problem. Funding will be the issue," Smith said. "Poverty is something we face every day and many times a day at this chapter. I have taken food to homes where there was absolutely nothing in the house."

Bamberg resident Dr. Michael Watson helps run the city's Mission Cottage, a joint relief project of Trinity United Methodist Church and Mt. Carmel United Methodist Church. The outreach ministry, which is housed in what Watson said used to be a "crack house," provides a safe haven for latch-key children. Volunteers help them with homework and provide them with a hearty supper. The mission also feeds the poor and elderly, but Watson said education is indeed the key out of poverty.

"I tell all those children education is the only thing you can ever get that nobody can take away from you. We've done well. The teachers tell us that they can tell the children that go to Mission Cottage," he said, noting the workshop was "kind of a review."

"We're all bound together if we're poor," Barlow said, but if "you teach these kids and give them a good education, kids can get out of poverty."

Richard Fowler, director of the Tri-County Commission on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, said substance abuse is a big culprit that often leads those in poverty to incarceration. "Addiction and poverty go hand in hand, especially if you're on the chronic side of that."

The Rev. Caesar Richburg, pastor of the Williams Chapel AME Church, said the poverty issue can be traced back to an imbalance between economics and opportunity and the collapse of the general overall support of the community in helping raise children.

"Orangeburg is about to explode with industry and the poor are going to get poorer. We don't have any more villages. Integration came and the village dissolved," he said, noting the African proverb, "It takes a village to raise a child," has been reversed.

"Now it takes the church to raise the village," he said.

Orangeburg resident Jodi Bates is founder of Community In Action Outreach Ministries. The ministry distributes food, clothing and donated items such as blankets and space heaters to families in need in the tri-county area of Orangeburg, Bamberg and Calhoun. It also provides basic biblical studies and biblically based life-skills classes on topics such as budgeting, parenting and anger management.

"That feeds them holistically and sets up an accountability structure. I truly think the agencies in this community need to pull together and network. ... Be very aware of the what the other agencies are doing so we can effectively refer folks to each other ... and stop the cycle of people using the system," said Bates, noting the workshop was enlightening from the perspective that Payne had not only worked with those in poverty but had once walked in their shoes.

Leader decries poverty, calls for summit

from The Brunswick News

By BRANDEE A. THOMAS

The Brunswick News

Seeing is believing – a truism the Rev. Ken Adkins takes close to heart.

There's poverty in Brunswick, a lot of it, and he wants everyone from the governor on down to see it first-hand and offer solutions for helping individuals and families out of the clutches of economic despair.

It's the goal Adkins has in mind for the War on Poverty Summit he and others are planning for early February in Brunswick.

"We want to call attention to the situation," Adkins said. "We've invited the movers and shakers of the state."

Movers and shakers like Gov. Sonny Perdue, as well as other state and community leaders.

Adkins would like for leaders like Perdue to ponder Brunswick's problems the same way they pondered the problems of Jekyll Island, where the state is now proposing a $441 million revitalization plan.

"We believe (Perdue) has the power to look at the issues and help put together some strategies and programs to create solutions," said Adkins, pastor of First Jordan Grove Missionary Baptist Church, 2004 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. It has to do with more than just rescuing people from poverty. There's also a question of public safety.

Like thunder and lightning, poverty and crime tend to go hand in hand, Adkins said. When one takes up residence, the other generally isn't too far behind.

Adkins ought to know. He sees it every day from his church, across the street from McIntyre Court Apartments, one of the larger low income housing projects in Brunswick.

Adkins says he has seen the effects poverty can have on a neighborhood. In 2007 alone, McIntyre Court was the scene of a murder, a shooting, and multiple assaults and robberies.

Don't get the wrong idea, he quickly adds.

"Everyone who is poor isn't a bad person," Adkins said. "A lot of people have indicated to me that they've been working in their jobs for many years but they still aren't making any money.

"Knowledge is power and we want to put people in a room with the state's leaders where they can get information to help take their lives to the next level. This isn't about giving them a hand out; it's about giving them a hand up."

The summit, planned for 6 p.m. Feb. 4, will follow a very concise format. A speaker will define poverty and another will discuss the affects of poverty on education and neighborhoods. There will also be a question and answer period.

Although the event's organizers are looking to political leaders for solutions to help Glynn County's poorer citizens, they are also looking to citizens themselves to work on their own solutions.

"We are expecting residents to come and listen to what is being said and to also take personal responsibility for pulling themselves out of the doldrums of poverty," Adkins said. "What that means is they need to get an education and make sure their children get an education, too.

"It's also about not making decisions like having five kids when you know you can't afford it."

Although Perdue and others will be invited to the summit, there is no guarantee that they will attend, he said.

Child poverty up in county after dip in late '90s

from The Greenville Times

By Lark Reynolds
STAFF WRITER

People on the state's welfare rolls reflect a deeper level of poverty than indicated by U.S. Census estimates, a state official says.

To qualify for welfare in South Carolina, a household must have an income that is 50 percent or more below the federal poverty guidelines, said Linda Martin, director of the family independence program for the state Department of Social Services.

"That's dirt poor," she said.

The number of children in Greenville County schools living below the poverty line increased by 3,380 between 2000 and 2004, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The total number of school-age children in the county rose by 3,971 during that time.

In 2004, the agency had 922 households on welfare and 14,100 on food stamps in Greenville County, according to DSS data.

Most neighboring school districts showed a similar trough pattern during that time period, as did estimates for child poverty statewide and nationwide. For example, Pickens County dropped from 13.8 percent in 1995 to 11.4 in 2000, then rose to 14.9 percent in 2004.

Census estimates for 2005 put the rate for the Greenville County school district at 15.7 percent, but the bureau warns that because of a new collection method, the 2005 figures should not be compared with previous years.

Judy Snyder, director of Graduate Greenville, said county residents often don't associate significant poverty with Greenville County, but it's there.

"We look like a really prosperous community," Snyder said.

She said in August 2007, volunteers with Graduate Greenville visited the homes of students who had not shown up for the first day of school to try to persuade them to stay in school.

"They were absolutely floored at some of the areas they went into to try to find these kids," Snyder said. "They had no idea that that existed in this county."

Scott Dishman, the special projects coordinator for A Child's Haven, said a few Greenville County neighborhoods have child poverty rates of more than 50 percent. One near Cherrydale has a 70 percent rate.

"In the state, when people talk about child poverty and poor school conditions, they often talk about the I-95 corridor," Dishman said. "We have a lot more children in poverty in this county. The numbers are higher here. Some of the percentages are higher there."

Availability of affordable housing is a contributing factor to child poverty, said the Rev. Beth Templeton, director of Our Eyes Were Opened, an outreach of United Ministries that prepares people to work with poverty issues.

"If a family doesn't have a stable place to live, then it's very difficult for the parents to do what they need to do to take care of their family," Templeton said.

Greenville County has experienced a lag in the number of available, low-rent units in recent years as old housing was demolished and rehabilitated.

Mary Blackstone Ross, executive director of the Greenville Housing Authority, said while 600 substandard units have been demolished to make way for new affordable housing developments, currently only 221 of those units have been rebuilt.

Putnam anti-poverty group might close doors

from the Charlestown Gazette

By Alison Knezevich
Staff writer

After months of money troubles, officials with the Putnam County Community Action Council are strongly considering closing the anti-poverty agency, a board member said Thursday.

Board members met Wednesday night and discussed dissolving the organization, board vice president Jackie Chaney said. But the board, which has nine members, lacked enough members at the meeting to take official action.

“We did not make a decision,” Chaney said.

The group has served the needy for more than 40 years — teaching them to read, paying utility bills, helping them find jobs and get food and other items. In recent years, Community Action has helped almost 3,000 people annually.

Last week, county commissioners gave the group a $10,000 loan to help it stay open through the holiday season. Every winter, Community Action works with local churches to run the Holiday Helpers program, which matches needy families to sponsors who give them Christmas toys and food.

Since summer, Community Action has employed only one person, Executive Director Dawn Bennett. She will be laid off next week, Chaney said.

In July, one of Community Action’s funding sources, the Region 2 Workforce Investment Board, announced it didn’t have enough money to pay contracts for the 2006-07 fiscal year. The agency froze payments, and still owes Community Action $45,000.

Other factors also contributed to the budget problems, Chaney said.

“It’s just a horrible set of unfortunate circumstances,” she said. “I am certainly feeling so depressed about it all because it’s something that has been around a long time.”

Community Action board members hoped they could get funding for next year from Capital Resource Agency, which distributes federal funds to social service agencies.

But on Tuesday, Capital Resource director Oren Thornhill told county commissioners he had “lost confidence” in Community Action.

Thornhill said his agency plans to open its own Putnam location to serve the poor with services such as weatherization assistance and education programs.

Next week, the Community Action board members plan to meet with commissioners again to discuss the loan, Chaney said.

County Commissioner Gary Tillis spoke in favor of granting the loan at the county commission meeting last week. On Thursday, he said he does not regret lending county money to the group.

Even though Capital Resource plans to open a Putnam office in January, they wouldn’t have been able to help all the families who needed assistance in December, he said.

Man explores homelessness, poverty in S.C.

from Myrtle Beach Online

Man built new life in Charleston with $25 cash, bootstraps mantra
Josh Shaffer
McClatchy Newspapers

Adam Shepard hopped a train out of Raleigh with $25 in his pocket, carrying only a a tent, a sleeping bag and a young man's optimism.

He set out to prove that anyone willing to work hard and save money could make a happy life - the old bootstraps motto.

Just 23, Shepard set a goal: Find a job in a brand-new city, get a furnished apartment, a car and $2,500 in savings within a year.

He did it in six months.

Shepard believes his experience with homelessness and low-pay labor presents a countercharge to the idea that American society stacks the deck against the poor.

He concedes that he has none of the mental illnesses or addictions that fuel homelessness. He hasn't suffered from abuse, sickness or the hundreds of other forms that hard luck can take. He always knew that as a healthy, white, well-spoken college graduate, he enjoyed advantages that can help shed poverty.

But Shepard spent 70 days sleeping on the floor of a homeless shelter, and he estimates that 40 percent of the people sleeping alongside him were mentally ill. Probably half fit the stereotype of old, bearded men with whiskey on their breath.

The other half, Shepard said, were young men like him. When he came back to Raleigh last summer, he wrote a book with them in mind.

In the book, he presents two contrasting low-wage workers he met along the way: one who saves money and survives on Rice-a-Roni dinners; and the other who squanders money on lottery tickets and beer.

"If you're making $8 an hour, you've got one of two choices," he said. "You can cry 'Life is tough,' or you can say, 'Man, in two years, I'm not going to be doing this.'"

Tall and good-looking with a mop of brown hair, Shepard studied business and Spanish at Merrimack College in Massachusetts.

His experiment in poverty drew from reading "Nickeled and Dimed: On Not Getting By in America," the 2001 best-seller that chronicles life on poverty-level wages.

In the book, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich takes a string of low-paying jobs: waitress, house cleaner, hotel maid, Wal-Mart clerk.

She describes working for $6 and change an hour and being forced to take personality tests to land menial jobs, and she concludes that the working poor keep enduring their misery out of generosity and sacrifice.

The premise didn't ring true for Shepard. In the summer of 2006, he pulled the name Charleston out of a hat and headed there by train.

It's unwise to generalize about the poor, said Jeanne Tedrow, director of Raleigh's Passage Home, which finds mentors and housing for low-income families.

Poverty springs from many sources, and people land on the streets for dozens of reasons: something as quick and unforeseen as a layoff, or as permanent as a prison record or mental sickness.

"Every person has his own story," Tedrow said. "There are good people who are poor and there are mean people who are poor."

The National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., released a fact sheet last summer that breaks down common traits.

Their studies showed 22 percent of homeless mothers had taken to the streets to avoid domestic abuse; 16 percent of single adults suffered from severe mental illness; those addicted to drugs and alcohol ranged between a third and two-thirds.

As many as one-quarter were homeless despite having jobs, the study said.

Shepard's youth and good health are important factors, Tedrow said, making it easier to be a go-getter.

"In the general population," she said, "whether you're affluent or not, there's always going to be people who are more ambitious, more able."

Shepard took his first job as a day laborer, picking up garbage, working on construction sites and hanging baby clothes in a new store.

He made about $6 an hour, but once taxes were subtracted - plus a $2.50 transportation fees and a $1 check fee - his hourly pay came closer to $4.

After a few weeks, he started filling out job applications using the shelter as his permanent address. Shepard left out his college education and contacts, and got no bites from employers.

It wasn't until he took the advice of a veteran homeless man and started asking for jobs in person that Shepard found work. At a moving company, he offered to work for free - a strategy that got him hired on the spot, pay included.

He bought a battered truck for $1,000 and moved into a duplex with a fellow mover.

That roommate became Shepard's bad example. He ate fast food, played the lottery incessantly and borrowed Shepard's truck for hours at a time. They had a fistfight over his borrowing habits, and Shepard lost badly.

In contrast, the roommate's cousin lived next door and also worked for the moving company. He and Shepard cooked meals at home, packages of chicken and boxes of Rice-a-Roni.

By January he had met his goal, but Shepard stayed in Charleston until May of this year.

Capital Resource steps out as anti-poverty successor

from The Charleston Gazette

By Alison Knezevich
Staff writer

The regional anti-poverty group Capital Resource Agency Inc. is ready to finally come out of the shadows of Multi-CAP, the bankrupt agency it replaced.

Last week, the state Office of Economic Opportunity designated CRA one of the state’s 16 community action agencies, said CRA director Oren Thornhill.

Now, CRA will qualify for federal funding distributed by the state to provide social services to low-income people. In January, the organization will get an $800,000 federal block grant to serve people in Kanawha, Fayette, Clay, Boone and Putnam counties, Thornhill said.

In coming months, the agency hopes to get its name out and serve more people, Thornhill said: “We need to get out into the hollows.”

Multi-CAP shut down in 2006, five years after declaring bankruptcy. Its former director, Paul Skaff, went to jail after pleading guilty to spending federal money on strippers and a trip to the Kentucky Derby, among other things.

In January, CRA opened as an interim agency to provide the services that Multi-CAP had provided. Even though CRA is a separate entity from Multi-CAP, its staff has struggled to distance itself from the old agency, Thornhill said.

“For the first three or four months, it was very difficult to come out of that cloud,” he said.

Since January, the staff has worked on restoring broken relationships with contractors, he said. The agency now has a new board of directors and a new 501© 3 designation.

The staff also relocated from Multi-CAP’s old office location on Bigley Avenue to Kanawha Boulevard, he said.

Ten of CRA’s 14 employees used to work at Multi-CAP, he said.

“Employees were not the problem,” Thornhill said. “Management was the problem.”

CRA administrators want to focus on helping people become self-sufficient, he said.

The group will continue emergency services, such as helping people pay utility bills, “but our emphasis is going to be to get those people out of the situation that requires that help,” Thornhill said.

For example, the agency has started a budget-counseling program to teach people how to stretch their dollars.

CRA also is waiting for approval to participate in the Medicaid waiver program, which helps people get medical care at home.

Another priority is keeping CRA’s books pristine. Thornhill is a retired auditor who worked in the state’s Office of Economic Opportunity.

“That fact is why it’s so important that we have absolutely faultless accounting and accountability,” he said.

At one time, Multi-CAP was the largest community action agency in the state, said Arley Johnson, director of programs for the state Office of Economic Opportunity. It once had a budget of $14 million.

CRA’s new independence should help it get “out of the shadows” of the bankrupt agency’s name, Johnson said.

“You hope that the new brand of Capital Resource Agency thrives and flourishes,” he said.

To contact staff writer Alison Knezevich, use e-mail or call 348-1240.

Local fair trade store opens

from the Charleston City Paper

Radical Retail: Will a new shop awaken Holy City shoppers to fair trade consumerism?

BY STRATTON LAWRENCE

Inside the newly opened fair trade store, Global Awakenings, Maren Anderson looks at the children seated around her and asks, "Everything in here is made by?"

"Hands!" the group of mostly five- to 10-year-olds shout back.

To which Anderson, the owner of the King Street shop, then asks, "Which takes more?"

"Time!" the children yell.

"So they deserve more?"

"Money!"

It's simple for a child to understand what's fair, but for adults, after a lifetime of hearing people tell us that "life isn't fair," our hearts harden and we sometimes forget what true fairness is. Which is probably why many of us ignore the fact that all those cheap goods we buy at the local Mega-Lo-Mart were made by unseen hands, belonging to underfed people living on paltry wages in third-world countries.

However, the growing fair trade movement seeks to ensure that those far-off laborers get paid the wages they deserve by urging retailers to purchase goods from co-ops controlled by artisans and farmers, not from those companies who seek to exploit their hard work for a hearty profit.

As a former third-grade teacher at Goodwin Elementary in North Charleston, Anderson often told her students, many of them poor by average American standards, about her time teaching in an "off the map" village in Costa Rica. "There was no electricity or hot water, so no lights or computers, and the floor was dirt," she recalls. "It was one of the ways I'd pump them up, to explain to them that, 'You are so fortunate,' because a lot of times they didn't feel that way."

Anderson says she could see in the children's eyes that they got it and realized she wanted to share that with an even larger audience. With the help and generosity of family and friends, she secured a spot on upper King Street and spent the summer waiting tables, saving money, and renovating the space. She's been open for a month and works daily as the store's only employee.

Global Awakenings' inventory comes to Charleston through co-ops all over the world. These co-ops pay artisans half the value of their products in advance and arrange the international shipping. After Anderson sells an item, she sends money back to the co-ops, who then redistribute payment to the artisans.

Items in Anderson's store range from wind chimes made from bamboo and recycled television antennas to trendy-looking handbags sewn from cloth and foil candy wrappers. It's like a museum where you can take the exhibits home. Each display is accompanied by pictures and descriptions of the artisans. A rack of brightly dyed linen shirts include the maker's signature on the tag, a far cry from the "Inspected by #42" card you might pull from a new pair of Carhartts.

"The retail aspect of this is not my forte, and I'm having to learn," says Anderson. "I want to talk to every person that comes in about fair trade and environmentally friendly products, but I'm trying to adhere to the fact that some people just want to shop and look around."

Education and community are clearly the store's bottom line. In November, Anderson's hosting a program by Mary Baker, a recently returned Peace Corps volunteer from Guatemala, to talk about the humanitarian issues the nation is facing.

"The people in my village work for virtually nothing, less than $80 a month, and they feed eight children on that," says Baker. She explains that ropa Americana (clothes from the U.S.) are far cheaper than making traditional garments and that creating international markets is a way to keep that part of their culture alive.

The Charleston chapter of Roots and Shoots, a global environmental and humanitarian program for youth started by Jane Goodall, also visited the store on a recent Tuesday afternoon. Using skits and games, children learned about fair trade through the story of Olga, a 12-year-old Dominican girl whose father farms cocoa for a co-op.

"We're trying to give kids the idea that they can recycle things and not waste energy or resources," says Charleston's Roots and Shoots founder Wende Reynolds. "Children naturally care about animals, plants, and other people, and we're just trying to keep that going so they don't turn into little consumer demon teenagers."

Anderson's friend Kate Counts, who often volunteers to help her at the store, says, "Maren's an amazing person. Most people would be afraid to invite a bunch of kids into a brand-new store."

Then, almost as if on cue, the sound of glass crashing to the floor emerges from an area of the store where a group of children have gathered. "That was bound to happen," Anderson says with a smile, and opens another brand-new puzzle for them to play with.

While Anderson claims that an average retail store marks up their items around 240 percent from their cost, her markup isn't half of that. "I don't want people to think that buying fair trade means you have to spend more," she says. "That might get me in trouble, but I'm just trying to make sure it's paying the rent and bills, and maybe, eventually, myself."

Anderson's is a fascinatingly unconventional business model. "I'm not money driven. Global Awakenings' mission is to change the minds of everyday consumers," she says. "The ultimate goal is to make enough that I can go and visit the co-ops, and shake the hands of the artisans. I want to meet them so I can better represent them here, and say, 'I know these people.'"

Panel links poverty to stress, illness

from Myrtle Beach Sun News

By Laura Giovanelli

Being poor is one of the greatest risks to people's health in Winston-Salem, local public-health and social-services experts said.

The officials were a panel of experts in public health, homelessness, housing and legal aid that met this week as part of the Crossing 52 Initiative discussion, "The Inequities of Health Care in Winston-Salem."

About 35 people gathered for the discussion at First Baptist Church on Highland Avenue.

Crossing 52 is a group devoted to improving race relations.

"There's no single factor of a person's state in life that's more likely to determine their health than whether they live in poverty," said Dr. Tim Monroe, Forsyth County's health director.

Poor people are more likely to live in substandard housing, or be homeless, the panelists said. They might be hungry, but they are also under more stress with fewer resources, which can lead to poor nutrition and possibly obesity and associated risks such as diabetes, hypertension and joint problems.

Tobacco use and obesity are Forsyth County's two leading preventable causes of death, Monroe said, something that is true of North Carolina as a whole.

But being poor - living at or below the federal poverty line - and being black are the two top demographic indicators of bad health, Monroe said.

Stress can't be separated from the former, he said.

"One of the things that we need to recognize is that being poor does not contribute to poor health just by limiting one's access to health care," he said. "It does in many, many other ways create poor health and much of it has to do with the constant stresses and uncertainties of those kinds of experiences.

"Not knowing for sure if you can pay the bills, that's an experience that most of us have never had to have," Monroe said.

"But many people live with this all time."

Racial and health disparities are indicators that show higher incidence rates of cancer, stoke, diabetes homicide, heart disease, infant morality and other problems among people who are not white and have low incomes.

"I Think We Can Carve Out $22 Million for Poor Children"

from WLTX

(Orangeburg) - An expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) is scheduled for this summer, however, the program has only received funding for the upcoming fiscal year.

"In a year when we have over a billion dollars in surplus, I think we should be able to carve out 22 million in recurring dollars for poor children," explained Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter.

S-CHIP provides medical coverage to uninsured children who do not qualify for Medicaid. Under the current program, children must live in a household with an income up to 150% percent of federal poverty level, which is $30,000 for a family of four. The expanded program would allow coverage for children in households making up to 200% percent of the poverty level.

"We have funded $22 million in this program, but it's one-time money," explained Cobb-Hunter, who wants the state to make a long-term commitment to the program. "I would hope the state of South Carolina wouldn't create the expectation by increasing coverage and say next year, 'Oh, by the way we aren't going to be able to do this.'"

"We wouldn't be able to have medical care if we didn't have this program," explained Veridee Hand, whose children are covered under Medicaid. A working mother-of-five, Hand says her she and her husband cannot afford to pay hundreds of dollars in insurance premiums each month. "When you don't have the major industries providing that health insurance then the state has to kick in and help."

Under explanded version of S-CHIP, families would be required to pay insurance premiums on a sliding scale based on income.

"We have a whole lot more kids in this state who can benefit from being covered," said Cobb-Hunter. "It is more important to me to cover poor children up 200% of poverty, than to give some person $3.80 back on an income tax return."

Fighting world poverty

from The Times and Democrat

WMU will sponsor WorldCrafts Conference, Sale Saturday

By SHERRYL PETERS, T&D Correspondent

Local Baptist Woman’s Missionary Unions are helping to fight world poverty by sponsoring a WorldCrafts Conference and Sale this Saturday, Feb. 3.

The event will be held from 10 a.m. until noon at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Baptist Association located across from OCtech.

According to Kay Rutland, Association WMU director, the purpose of the conference and sale is to make everyone aware of the dire poverty so many people live in.

“We do have poverty in this country, and we do address that. Right here in Orangeburg County, we have CCMO (Cooperate Christian Ministries Organization) and the Samaritan House, just to name a few of the organizations. Many people are only one pay check away from poverty as it is,” Rutland said.

“But there are certain areas of the world where poverty is more widespread than it is here,” she added. “WMU is giving its best effort to stamp out poverty in every country. One way we are doing this is by buying arts/crafts from artisans at their asking price. The items are then marketed through WorldCrafts Ministry: Project Help for re-sale. That way, the artisans get their money immediately, and WMU is able to spiritually minister to the home areas of the artisans.”

Rutland said organizers hope many people will come out Saturday and purchase some of the items “in order to help spread the Word of God and His love for all people of the world.”

“And, every purchase will help take the awful sting out of poverty,” she said.

WorldCrafts Ministry was started approximately 10 years ago. In 1998, the ministry expanded when Ann Reese set up an endowment in honor of her friend, Mrs. Lamar Jackson. Since both ladies were heavily involved in English as a Second Language efforts, their goal was to build new spiritual relationships by reaching new artisans and their homelands throughout the world. Their Purpose Statement includes four objectives: to provide a sales outlet for indigenous artisans who lack adequate income possibilities; to provide ministry opportunity for missionary personnel to relate to the artisan; to participate in the economic and spiritual development of the crafter and to provide a tangible reminder for mission awareness for the purchaser.

Currently, WorldCrafts imports more than 350 items from 37 countries. This results in their supporting more than 2,000 artisans and their families.

Everyone is invited to come look at the display samples and purchase items on Feb. 3. Some of the items include a bread cover from Thailand; greeting cards made from banana bark from Rwanda; a doll from Swahili; jewelry from India, Jordan and South Africa; soap from the Himalayas; doilies from Romania and Madagascar and painted, wooden eggs from Kazakhstan.

For additional information, call Kay Rutland at 803-536-5744 or the Orangeburg-Calhoun Baptist Association at 803-534-9712.

T&D Correspondent Sherryl Peters can be reached by e-mail at Boykinbaby@surrealestate.com or by phone at 803-263-4058. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.