Mark your calendars for the citywide healthcare information and enrollment fair coming up on Saturday, November 23rd! See more details below. [For more information, you can go to DCHealthLink.com or call 1-855-532-5465].
WANT AFFORDABLE HEALTH INSURANCE?
Enroll today!
Join us at the DC Health Link City-wide Information Day & Enrollment Fair
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23
10 AM TO 3 PM
MARTIN LUTHER KING LIBRARY 901 G STREET, NW
FEATURING:
• Trained experts to work with you one-on-one to help you enroll
• Licensed insurance brokers to help residents and small businesses choose coverage
• Free health screenings
• Zumba classes and Yoga demonstrations
• Kids’ Corner
• Entertainment
ALSO:
• Meet members of DC United and personalities from WPGC, El Sol, and much, much more
FOR MORE INFORMATION
…and a checklist of information to bring with you, please visit DCHealthLink.com/enrollmentfair or call 855.532-LINK
Last week, more than 40 million people’s food stamps benefits were cut.
As wealth continues to concentrate and poverty continues to grow, Congress has decided that it’s acceptable to reduce the monthly allotment for food stamps (or SNAP benefits) more than thirty dollars a month for low-income individuals and families.
Over and over again, we’re reminded that many, if not most, of our elected officials are more interested in getting reelected than empathy. More interested in maintaining tax shelters and keeping donors than the safety and well being of their constituents. Not to mention, the rhetoric that they’re putting out – about private charities making up for the gap – is misguided at best. The nation’s food banks are already struggle to meet the needs of their clients, and a reduction in food stamps is just going to make the problem worse.
Charitable organization’s can’t be expected to make up for the lack of resources that are aggravated by a broken financial system.
It feels hopeless a lot of the time, but fortunately here in DC, there are folks working towards employment justice. Now’s the time to get involved with a local campaign that we have a good chance of winning. Then, we can show the feds how to do it!
Join the Paid Sick Days Rally on Friday to make our collective voice louder – folks deserve living wages, and to be able to take care of themselves — whether that means feeding their families of taking time off to get healthy.
One response that came to our attention is from the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, an organization whose mission is to “to use the law to make justice a reality for our neighbors who struggle with homelessness and poverty.” Here’s some of what they had to say:
In a city where a worker earning the current minimum wage of $8.25/hour would have to work 132 hours each week to afford the fair market rent on a 2 bedroom apartment, the prospect of a $12.50/hour wage could mean the difference between remaining a District resident or being forced to abandon a life-long home in DC for a less expensive jurisdiction. A livable wage is key to addressing the crisis of homelessness in the nation’s capital. Families and individuals who are homeless are not going to be able to earn their way out of shelter in a community where housing costs are as high as in DC, unless they are able to earn a better wage than the law presently mandates.
One of the Mayor’s cited reasons for vetoing the LRAA in his letter to the DC Council is that it would only raise the minimum wage for a small fraction of the District’s workforce. While we absolutely support a higher living wage bill for all DC workers, the LRAA is an important step forward in allowing District workers to make a wage that will actually let them live in the place they have called home their entire lives. (For a point by point response to Mayor Gray’s stance against the LRAA, read the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s blog.)
Budget season is over. The process takes several months starting with a budget proposed by Mayor Vincent Gray, then hearings in which members of the public comment on the mayor’s proposed budget, an amended budget proposed by members of the city council, a contingency list of items that the Mayor would like to fund but isn’t sure we can afford, etc. Finally, last Wednesday, June 26, 2014 the DC City Council took their final vote on DC’s budget for fiscal year 2014, deciding on behalf of the residents of the District of Columbia how to spend our tax dollars.
As part of Grassroots DC’s mission to provide media coverage of issues that impact the underserved communities of the District of Columbia, we’ve reported on some of the issues in question on this blog. We wanted to cover more but alas, lacked the manpower. (Feel free to take that as a veiled plea to potential contributors.)
Here’s an update, as per DC’s Fiscal Policy Institute, on some of the provisions in the budget that are generally favorable to DC’s low-income and working-class residents:
Help for homeless residents. The FY 2014 budget included many increases in funding to help homeless residents or residents at risk of homelessness. Increases included:
$2.2 million increase in permanent supportive housing, which provides housing to chronically homeless families and individuals.
$1.5 million increase in emergency rental assistance, which helps prevent residents from becoming homeless.
$400,000 to offer services to single homeless residents to help move them out of shelter quickly and into housing with supportive services.
$5 million increase to the Office on Aging, including $3.5 million in operating funds. $1.5 million in capital funds.
Help for vulnerable families and individuals. The FY 2014 budget included two changes to DC’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that will improve the lives of vulnerable families with children. First, the mayor’s budget included a delay in the benefit cut for families who have been on assistance for longer than 60 months. In addition, the Council also included funding to exempt some families with severe barriers from the time limit. These protections, which most states offer, give families a break from the 60-month time limit on benefits to give them time to deal with serious issues that interfere with their ability to work such as domestic violence, illness, or caring for a family member with a disability.
Help for parents who need child care. The FY 2014 budget increased funding for DC’s Subsidized Child Care program by $11 million. This program pays part of the childcare costs for parents of young children who are in school, working or looking for work but who cannot afford child care. The $11 million will increase the number of spaces available for infants and toddlers in community-based child care programs. It will also increase the reimbursement rates paid to providers by 10%. This is the first increase since 2004.
Help with rising housing costs. The FY 2014 budget includes significant increases to affordable housing. In addition to Mayor Gray’s proposed $100 million for affordable housing, the Council added funds for key affordable housing programs that had not received an increase in the mayor’s proposed budget. Including:
An increase to DC’s Local Rent Supplement Program, which provides rental subsidies to families with very low-incomes. The Council’s budget includes $1.75 million to provide rent vouchers that will help approximately 120 low-income families obtain affordable housing.
Increases to Low-Income Property Tax Relief or Schedule H, which is a tax credit for lower-income residents when rents or property taxes are high relative to income.
An expanded property tax break for seniors. Under current law, senior homeowners with income under $100,000 qualify for a 50 percent cut in property taxes. The FY 2014 Budget will provide property tax reductions for seniors with incomes between $100,000 and $125,000.
On the flip side, I’m not too happy about the Council’s decision to accept Mayor Gray’s proposal to restore a tax break on income from out-of-state bonds. This will reverse legislation adopted in recent years to phase out the tax break for investments made starting in 2013. DCFPI points out that much of the tax-exempt income in DC is earned by very high-income residents, including some who earn millions from these investments. They proposed phasing out the tax break for wealthy residents while maintaining the exemption for low- and moderate residents. But the Council has proposed allowing all residents to retain the tax break, regardless of income.
On the whole, the DC Budget for Fiscal Year 2014 looks okay for low-income and working class residents. It’s certainly better than last year’s budget. Considering the $417 million budget surplus from 2013, it should be better. Is it better enough? That’s a question we hope to pose and attempt to answer before budget season for fiscal year 2015 begins.
Since 2003, Washington D.C. has seen a 43 percent decline in children placed in foster care. Though some progress has been made we are still seeing greater numbers of families struggling to access the resources they need to stay together when compared to the rest of the country. Our nation’s capital has one of the highest child poverty rates in the country with nearly 50 percent of youth in Ward 8 and 40 percent of youth in Ward 7 living below the federal poverty line. In 2011, Ward 8 had the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
These same wards are predominantly African-American and have the highest rates of children entering the child welfare system, of which 99 percent are youth of color (93 percent African-American and 6 percent Latino) according to research in Fostering Change, the latest report put out by the Justice Policy Institute. Fostering Change shows how family and neighborhood poverty are two of the strongest predictors of child maltreatment, and that the conditions poverty creates can ultimately lead to a child being removed from their home.
When considered in a broader socioeconomic context, poverty becomes more than the absence of income and or earning potential—that is, a lack of work opportunities, quality or not, to support oneself and her or his dependents. It is also dealing with the collateral effects of not being able to take care of basic needs such as buying food, medical care, school supplies and adequate clothing or paying for transportation, utilities and rent. These are just some of the conditions that can lead to children being maltreated. JPI’s report found that abused and neglected children are 59 percent more likely to be arrested, 28 percent more likely to be arrested as adults, and 30 percent more likely to commit a violent crime. In 2011, half of youth under the supervision of the District’s juvenile justice agency, Department of Youth and Rehabilitative Services (DYRS), were from Wards 7 and 8.
You see, in the end, these children grow up. For all people currently incarcerated in the United States 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men report a history of abuse as children. So, when we think about the needs of children in poverty, equal thought must be extended to that child’s family on whom she ultimately depends.
How many hardships would be mitigated and lives spared the trauma of family separation and or justice system involvement if they had access to quality jobs, mental health services and for the child, an uninterrupted education? Fostering Change cites parental incarceration, substance abuse and inadequate housing as some of the leading causes for youth involvement in the child welfare system. Nationally, 80 percent of children entering foster care are a result of at least one parent experiencing a substance abuse disorder. In 2010, 1 in 6 District youth entering foster care had an incarcerated parent. Think if substance abuse were treated like a public health issue rather than a criminal one? Or if instead of building exorbitantly priced condos, there were parallel investments made in maintaining and increasing the availability of affordable housing that kept pace with the need, as articulated by the city’s poverty levels?
These problems, however daunting, aren’t insolvable. Families are doing their best and brave varying levels of unrelenting uncertainty every day. That is courage and something we need a little more of in this city—not from those going through it, calling for it, and writing reports about it but the decision makers with the power to eliminate these conditions that flat-line the trajectory of countless African-American and Latino youth in D.C.’s at-risk communities.
The other half of what’s needed is a comprehensive plan that’s viable. Substance abuse, disproportionately high incarceration rates, poor health, and low educational attainment are symptomatic of deeper systematic social inequity and a historical lack of access. Fostering Changeis a report in a four-part public safety and juvenile justice series that offers a way forward for the District in the way city agencies, through strategic collaboration and community partnership, address the needs of its most vulnerable residents. Public safety starts with securing our city’s youth, and their families, who need it the most.
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