Archive for February, 2012

Regions with high poverty and unemployment rates frequently rank low in homeownership, and Erie County, Pennsylvania, exemplifies this fact. The county’s minority populations are even less likely to own homes than their white counterparts.  Experts find these trends discouraging, since homeownership frequently indicates an individual’s measure of financial stability and progress toward self-sufficiency. »

Dental disease has been a leading cause for visits to the emergency room by low-income and uninsured young people in Maine, a Pew report finds.  With the rise in economic hardship, many residents cannot afford regular, preventive dental care, and Medicaid provides limited reimbursement for dental bills.  Improved access to preventive care would reduce... »

The Vermont Department of Education found that the number of students on free and reduced lunches has risen over 2 percent in the last year.  School administrators express concerns over the resulting strains placed on schools and children, since child poverty is frequently linked to lower test scores, poor health, and diminished brain development. »

Lack of public transportation is a major roadblock to finding or keeping employment for residents of rural Washington County, Washington.  Many low-income families struggle to remain employed without reliable transportation:  bus routes are limited, and many must rely upon their own, often balky, cars. Inequitable funding exacerbates these challenges, as social service agencies in cities get... »

Although veterans have been found to be at greater risk of homelessness than non-veterans, it is not clear whether those who are homeless have more severe health problems or poorer outcomes in community-based supported housing. This observational study compared 162 chronically homeless veterans to 388 non-veterans. Results showed that veterans tended to be older,... »

Poor and homeless people have taken advantage of the bottle bill provision of California’s Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction measures to earn income by collecting beverage containers for redemption at the Haight-Ashbury Neighbourhood Centre (HANC) in San Francisco. As the recession worsened, middle class and retired individuals, as well as organized gangs, took... »

The article explores the debate over sex trafficking and prostitution and its relation to inequality. It discusses the difference between the sex work and sexual exploitation approaches to prostitution, and the position of both perspectives on the question of abolition. Among the global commonalities of prostitution are the poor economic condition and the declining... »

Unemployment rates among women have overtaken those of men, in large part because of cuts in the public sector where women constitute a large percentage of the workforce. Furthermore, recent studies show that budget cuts in health, education, and economic security programs disproportionately hit the jobs and services upon which single mothers rely. »

The number of families living on $2 per person per day for at least a month has more than doubled in 15 years, a new study finds.  Government benefits ameliorate the impact of extreme poverty for some, but even when food stamps are included as income, the number of households has almost doubled from... »

Lamar West has lost his parents twice during his life, first when he was 4, then again just before his 18th birthday. This article details the young man’s life and how the adoption system has left more teens homeless when adoptions “fail.”   »