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PATH PartnersCalifornia’s state leaders are debating whether they should tax homebuyers in order to fund more affordable housing for those who struggle with renting a house, let a lone buying one.
It used to be the “American Dream” was to purchase a detached single family home down the street from Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. Today, that dream has been reduced to simply hoping your family can afford rent on a two-bedroom apartment sandwiched in a multi-storied stucco box.
It’s sad when nonprofits that advocate for the same cause openly fight with one another.
That’s what we’re seeing now as organizations dedicated to improving services for homeless people take opposite sides on a bill pending in the House of Representatives.
A federal judge recently ruled that hurting people in the State of Utah have the constitutional right to beg on the streets, based on the fact that these people have the right to free speech. Of course, they can not shout “fire!” in a crowded auditorium, but they can stick their hands out to ask for a couple of bucks for their next meal.
I’m sure business associations around the country are grinding their teeth out of frustration. They feel that beggars are an eye-sore and scare away bona-fide paying customers. Who really wants to have a beaten-up tin can shoved in your face on your way to Starbucks for a morning latte? Not Kim Kardashian, who was recently photographed ignoring a homeless man in a wheelchair begging with a Starbucks cup.
Some years ago, I was fired from a job I’d had for a long time. I was told my position had been restructured out of existence. But it sure felt like firing to me.
This was during a recession. And as time went on — and hopes dwindled — I got to thinking about what would happen if I never found work again.
So the Republicans and Democrats agreed on a deal to extend long-term unemployment insurance benefits — defying predictions of another cliffhanger or worse.
Also extended, as you’ve probably read, were the employee payroll tax cut and the “doc fix” to avert huge cuts in Medicare reimbursements. As you may not have read, some programs for low-income people got a new, temporary lease on life as well.
In 2008, Children’s HealthWatch and partners reported on a unique study aimed at finding out whether food stamp benefits enable low-income families to buy what they need for a healthy diet. Now we’ve got a followup.
The answer now, as before is no. And though the followup was conducted only in Philadelphia, the findings are generally applicable to other urban areas, including the District of Columbia.
A new bill being floated in the US House of Representatives aims to abolish a loop-hole that allows cash-aid welfare recipients to use welfare benefits at strip clubs and casinos. As reported by Politico, the bill, introduced by Republican Representative Charles Boustany is intended to prevent the “fraudulent misuse of funds” in the government’s welfare program.
Sounds pretty serious. So how big of a problem is this?
Apparently, it’s not a big problem at all. In California, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger enforced an executive order prohibiting casinos from accepting welfare benefits as payment. His order was in response to this LA Times expose on the unintended use of benefits.
Huffington Post blogger Dan Morgan looks back nearly 50 years to tell us what poverty was like in his early reporting days.
This is an important, timely post because it reminds us of how poor people lived — and died — before the creation of today’s safety net.
Here in the District of Columbia, Morgan found “people living in basement apartments with dirt floors. Many were hungry, cold and short of coal for stoves. Some children were staying home because they had no shoes.”
Huffington Post blogger Arthur Delaney has been hammering on an important fact about the just-passed temporary extension of long-term unemployment insurance (UI) benefits. It won’t fully extend benefits for everyone who’s getting them now.
By the time the temporary extension expires, workers in 11 states will have lost their benefits, he writes, even though they won’t have reached the maximum they’d have been entitled to in early December.
Safety nets are supposed to catch people when they fall so they don’t crash to the ground. So too with what we call safety net programs. We have created them so that people don’t land in desperate poverty. We’d thus expect safety net programs to catch more people when the economy tanks, as it did [...]
