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Social Services

We Need Our Public Libraries, And Now They Need Us Too

July 4, 2024 Georgia Jensen, Inequality.org. , , ,
If you’ve been anywhere near New York City these past couple weeks, you know it’s been miserable outside, with temperatures in the nineties and a heat advisory warning residents to stay inside. But that’s not always an option, particularly for unhoused or low-income individuals who don’t have access to reliably air-conditioned spaces.  These individuals are often forced to bear the consequences of extreme weather, facing dehydration, heat stroke, and more. For these people, access to cooling centers can be a matter of life and death.  As the latest heatwave drags on across the eastern U.S. and prepares to hit the South next, one of America’s oldest and most beloved social institutions has extended an open invitation to cool off.

Rallying Call For Disability Rights In North Carolina

June 28, 2024 Rose Hoban, North Carolina Health News. , , ,
Just as in Marvel comics, when a superhero summons the team with the  “Avengers assemble!” rallying cry, one member of the national disability rights group ADAPT put out a call — and advocates from across the country responded with collective force. This past week, people with disabilities from Minnesota, Texas, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Kansas and other states loaded up their wheelchairs and assistive devices, recruited personal assistants and made their way to Raleigh to push for better housing and more services for people with disabilities in North Carolina. “Our sister, one of our members, lives in North Carolina, and she called upon us to come to her state,” said Shona Akin, who traveled from Pennsylvania.

The Biggest Financial Scam In Human History

January 29, 2024 Lee Camp, BreakThrough News. , , ,
It's the largest financial scam in human history. $1 Trillion a year of your tax dollars goes to the Pentagon and they can't say where it's going. In fact they recently said they can't account for 63% of their assets — as they failed their sixth straight audit. But we do know they buy $52,000 trash cans. And we know they once lost $12 Billion of shrink-wrapped dollar bills in Iraq. And that's just the beginning of it. Most of the money is used to destroy lives around the globe. In this episode of America Inc. Lee Camp reveals all the dirty details with a dose of comedy thrown in to help the truth go down easier.

Disabled Mothers Are Fighting Back Against Social Services

July 9, 2023 Steve Topple, The Canary. , , ,
We have come together to make the situation of disabled mothers and our children visible. We are launching a Charter of Rights which will spell out what support we are entitled to, and what councils and the family courts must do to end the discrimination and abuse of power we face at their hands, especially if we’re also single, of colour, immigrant, working-class, a victim of domestic violence, a sex worker and/or were in care as children. The universal bond between mother and child must be respected and supported, financially and in every way, not the privatised child removal industry where disabled children/of colour are placed disproportionately. The state of social services and family courts in the UK is dire.

Violence Intervention Program Focuses On Stability And Support

May 7, 2023 Natalie Kerr, Next City. , , ,
A new community violence intervention program beginning in Philadelphia this spring connects providing basic needs services to gun violence reduction. Led by the Office of Policy and Strategic Initiatives for Criminal Justice & Public Safety, the initiative will provide returning citizens with wraparound services like therapy, employment and, crucially, housing assistance with the aim of reducing violence and recidivism. Participants attend group and individual meetings for 12–18 months that assist with professional development, trauma, safe housing opportunities and other support services they may need.

Activists Are Reclaiming Jails As Community-Operated Social Service Facilities

March 17, 2020 By James Kilgore and Ivie Osaghae, Truthout.org , ,
Jails have emerged as a key focal point of the struggle against mass incarceration. Several trends are in motion at the same time. In jurisdictions like New York and Los Angeles, grassroots-led struggles have closed facilities and blocked others from being built. By contrast, in many rural areas, local authorities are manipulating the opioid crisis and bail reform into a jail-building platform.

For Those Living In Public Housing, It’s A Long Way To Work

March 4, 2020 Sarah Holder, Citylab.com , ,
Let’s say there are two people in Atlanta who need jobs. They poke around on Snagajob, a job-search site for hourly work that lists hundreds of thousands of jobs in 300,000 locations. They scroll through listings for FedEx delivery driver, or shift manager at Wendy’s, or lot associate at Home Depot. But one job seeker lives in a public housing development, and the other doesn’t.

‘Just Get On And Go!’ Olympia Transit System Goes Fareless

January 13, 2020 By Tom Banse, Opb.org , ,
As of the New Year, no bus fare is needed to ride the Olympia area’s Intercity Transit. On Jan. 1, the transit agency became the largest in the Pacific Northwest to eliminate fare collection, leapfrogging Corvallis and Missoula which did so earlier. Intercity Transit leadership looked at the cost of replacing its obsolete fare boxes with new electronic fare card readers and decided it wasn’t worth it, especially given the potential to increase ridership and speed up boarding by not charging fares at all.

Revealed: Americans Care More About Social Needs Than Deficits

June 13, 2019 John Duda, Opendemocracy.net , ,
A recent poll from the Democracy Collaborative and YouGov reveals that most Americans are ready to spend more for social needs, even if it raises the deficit. The debate around modern monetary theory (“MMT”) is picking up steam – with its partisans pushing the model further into the public sphere than one might expect, and the old guard of establishment economics, together with some more interesting critical voices, pushing back. The questions at stake can make the average person’s head spin: can a government with sovereign control over its currency create money at will to meet social needs, or would this create out of control inflationary spirals?

In An Unequal America, Empathy, Not Just Housing, Has Become Too Pricey

June 5, 2019 By Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org , , ,
In our daily lives, as anyone who keeps a household budget can attest, the unexpected happens all the time. A refrigerator evaporator fan motor fails. Some part on your car you never realized existed breaks down. A loved one passes away and you have to — you want to — be at the funeral a thousand miles away. “Unexpected” expenses like these will, sooner or later, hit all of us. But all of us, says new research out of the Federal Reserve, can’t afford them.

“Pretty Much a Failure”: HUD Inspections Pass Dangerous Apartments Filled With Rats, Roaches And Toxic Mold

November 19, 2018 By Molly Parker, Propublica.org , ,
In the winter of 2017, a toddler was rushed to the emergency room after swallowing rodent poison inside her family’s unit at the federally subsidized Clay Arsenal Renaissance Apartments in Hartford, Connecticut. Her mother had placed sticky traps throughout the house after another one of her children was bitten on the arm by a mouse, according to a local housing advocate who worked with the family. This August, Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley sued the St. Louis Housing Authority and the private management company it hired to run the Clinton-Peabody Housing Complex, saying they both violated the state’s consumer protection laws by advertising that the development was habitable even though it was plagued by a pest infestation, black mold and water damage.

Massive Protests In Iraq

July 20, 2018 Staff, Iraqicivilsociety.org , , ,
A week ago, demonstrators gathered in Basra at the entrances to three Iraqi oilfields: the West Qurna field run by Lukoil, the Rumaila field run by BP and the West Qurna field run by ExxonMobil. Protesters accused the foreign companies of polluting the water and the environment in the city of Basra and more widely throughout southern Iraq; of failing to provide social benefits for the cities in which they work; and of not providing jobs for Iraqis. On July 10th, a group of demonstrators from Garma, in the north of the province of Basra, denounced environmental destruction and demanded “treatment of high water salinity that has killed the trees and plants and destroyed our land”. The protests intensified after Iraqi police opened fire in an attempt to disperse dozens of protesters near the West Qurna field, killing one person and injuring three others.

Soon You Cant’t Use Food Stamps At Farmers Markets — But That’s Not Half Of It

July 19, 2018 By Jill Richardson, Otherwords.org , , , ,
This week, I thought I would write about food stamps and farmers markets. People on food stamps, officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), receive their benefits on a card that can be read like a credit card. Crucial to allowing recipients to use food stamps at farmers markets are card readers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just canceled its contract with the company that makes the card readers. As a result, food stamp recipients will likely lose the ability to use food stamps at farmers markets. I was all set to write about this terrible mix-up. But then I realized it’s not the part I really care about. Of course, food stamp recipients should be able to shop at farmers markets. But it’s a tiny part of a much bigger issue. The diets of food stamp recipients lie at the intersection of two issues: our food system and economic inequality.

Why People Love ‘Assistance to the Poor’ But Hate ‘Welfare’

February 2, 2018 Ashley Jardina, Talkpoverty.org , , ,
Last Spring, in a highly publicized meeting with members of the Congressional Black Caucus, President Donald Trump received some startling news. One of the members mentioned to Trump that pushing forward with “welfare reform” would be hurtful to her constituents, “not all of whom are black.” “Really?” Trump replied. “Then what are they?” Statistically, they were probably white. But given the United States’ history with the word “welfare,” it’s not all that surprising that Trump was confused. Despite the fact that white Americans benefit more from government assistance than people of color, means-tested aid is primarily associated with black people and other people of color—particularly when the term welfare is used. For many Americans, the word welfare conjures up a host of disparaging stereotypes so strongly linked to stigmatized beliefs about racial groups that—along with crime—...

#TheseCutsHurt Day Of Action

October 23, 2017 Staff, www.witnessestohunger.blog , , ,
By Staff of Witnesses to Hunger - On October 30th, 2017, people from around the country will be speaking out to raise awareness about how proposed budget cuts will hurt their families, children, communities, and this country as a whole. By sharing their personal experiences and ideas for change, Americans can stand up together and say that THESE CUTS HURT and that they have had enough of the government refusing to prioritize our children and our families. Programs that feed millions, that house people, that provide health care – among so many others – are on the chopping block. Our country can and must do better to support families – the majority of whom are working or want to work – to make ends meet.
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