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Federal
Children and Youth Programs Cut
Despite
increasing homelessness among families with children, federal funding for the
Education for Homeless Children and Youth (EHCY) program was cut by 20% in FY96.
The simultaneous increase in homelessness among families with children
and reduction in federal funding for the EHCY program now threatens the progress
that states and local communities have made in helping the nation's most
vulnerable children enroll, attend, and succeed in school.
A new report, published by the National Coalition of the Homeless (NCH),
reveals that budget cuts have reduced educational opportunities for homeless
children and youth and have restricted the ability of states to meet the
increasing demand for services. The
report, America's Homeless
Children: Will Their Future Be Different?, presents the findings of a
survey of state administrators of homeless children's education programs.
All State Coordinators for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth
were polled; forty states (80%) responded.
The survey found that at least 15,690 fewer homeless children received
educational services as a result of the FY96 budget cut and that 41 local
education programs have been or will be eliminated.
Other findings include:
Reduced
funding prevented many states from expanding services to meet needs.
At the current funding level, schools and other service providers are
able to serve only a small proportion of the children estimated to be homeless
in their state. On average, the states responding to the survey provide
direct educational services to 24% of their estimated population of homeless
children.
Loss of funding forced 63% of states responding to the survey to reduce
tutorial hours, transportation, school supplies, and coordination of services.
For example, in Colorado, there was a decrease in staff hours for
tutoring and outreach in all funded programs, and almost all support services
and materials were cut, such as eye glasses, school supplies, and books at home.
In Washington state, the distribution of school supplies to homeless
children and youth was reduced in both
quality and quantity, and summer programs were eliminated.
Many states report that changes in welfare programs have increased, or
are expected to increase, the number of homeless children in their schools.
In early findings, 25% of
states responding to the survey believe welfare
reform has already impacted their homeless education programs.
Lack of funding has restricted the efforts of several states to provide
services to homeless preschoolers. Minnesota,
Michigan, Nebraska, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington all cited examples
of loss of services, or inability to expand services, to homeless
preschoolers.
In Wisconsin, all preschool programs were eliminated.
West Virginia's plans to offer programs for preschool children were
canceled.
The NCH report presents state profiles for each of the 40 states that
responded, including the amount of the Education for Homeless Children and Youth
grant, the number of children served in both 1995-96 and 1996-97, the estimated
number of homeless children in the state, and the accomplishments education
program.
The report also profiles the impact of funding cuts on local homeless
education programs. For example, in Minneapolis, McKinney funding was cut by more
than 33% for the 1996-97 school year. In
Ohio, funding for the education of homeless children and youth received a 25%
cut, which left many organizations scrambling to maintain services.
Copyright
Homeless Grapevine Issue 23 October 1997
Activists
Call for an Expansion of McKinney
Washington, D.C. The nation's leading advocates for homeless people marked the
10th anniversary of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act with a call
for a White House Commission on Homelessness.
The
executive directors of five national groups that address homelessness were
joined by homeless and formerly homeless people and the widow of
Stewart B. McKinney in a calling for a renewed federal commitment to
address the structural causes of homelessness.
"The McKinney Act provides critical services which are literally
saved the lives of many Americans and enabled them to escape homelessness and
its underlying problems," said John Lozier, Executive Director of the
National Health Care for the Homeless Council.
The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act was the first and is
still the only comprehensive federal response to the emergence of mass
homelessness in the early 1980s. The
Act created new federal programs and modified existing programs to address the
emergency needs of homeless people. The
McKinney Act was signed into law by President Reagan on July 22, 1987.
The legislation was named after the late U.S. Representative Stewart B.
McKinney, R-CT.
In
her statement, Lucy McKinney said, "Only weeks before he died, my husband
spent the night on a subway grate to demonstrate the plight of the homeless.
Until the promise of the McKinney Act is redeemed, he sleeps there
still."
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, candidate Clinton pledged to hold
a White House Conference on Homelessness as part of his plan to address
homelessness. "Five years
later, there has been no White House Conference and homelessness has
increased," said Maria Foscarinis of the National Law Center on
Homelessness and Poverty. "The President should establish a White House
Commission to examine the policies which reproduce homelessness and should
develop a strategic plan to ensure that adequate housing, incomes, health care
and social services are available in other significant barriers to employment.
The government should implement a set of policies and programs utilizing
direct subsidies and the tax code to ensure that all low income Americans have
access to housing which does not cost them more than 30% of their income.
The McKinney Act program that converts vacant federal property to
homeless assistance should be expanded.
Federal programs to provide emergency shelter, transitional and permanent
housing to homeless persons should be reauthorized, with funding set at $1.6
billion annually.
Employment and income-Poor persons should have income sufficient to
afford housing.
To eliminate homelessness, the federal disability payments should be at
least enough to bring recipients' incomes up to the poverty line.
The federal minimum wage should lift the average family out of poverty.
Elderly and disabled poor people should be eligible for federal welfare
benefits adequate to their basic needs.
A
couple of interim measures should be that no one who is unable to find work
should lose food stamps. The
federal government, including the Social Security Administration and The
Department of Veterans' Affairs should conduct outreach to help homeless persons
obtain those benefits, such as food stamps, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF)
disability and veterans benefits, for which they may qualify.
The
IRS should conduct outreach to working homeless persons to inform them about the
Earned Income Tax Credit- a refundable tax credit for working homeless persons.
Services- Adequate services should be available to help poor persons
achieve long term stability.
Education:
To eliminate homelessness:
Federally funded adult education programs should be available and
accessible to those in need. Adequate Federal funding, including transportation dollars,
should be provided to eliminate barriers for children to participate in Head
Start, primary, and secondary schools programs.
Interim
measure:
The
government should ensure that all pubic schools provide access to a free,
appropriate public education for homeless children, including pre-school age
children. Health Care: Comprehensive health care services must be available to all
poor persons, without regard to age, employment status, ability to pay or nature
of disability. Substance abuse and
mental health disorders must be treated on the same basis as other diseases.
Treatment must always include provision for housing.
Disability
benefits should not be withheld on account of the nature of the disability.
Interim measure: The
entitlement to Medicaid must be preserved and expanded.
Medicaid managed care arrangements to accommodate the difficult
circumstances of homeless persons and health care providers must be paid the
reasonable costs of providing appropriate care for populations with special
needs. The McKinney Act's Projects
in Assistance for Transition from Homeless (PATH) mental health program must be
increased from $20 million to $40 million in FY 98.
A
federal substance abuse treatment program for homeless people must be created
and funded. Federally funded
institutions must include housing in their residents' discharge plans.
The VA should not deny health care to homeless veterans who are not
enrolled in the A VA styled managed care system.
Non-Discrimination - Discrimination against homeless persons must be
eliminated.
McKinney
Act: Joint Policy Proposals.
To eliminate homelessness: The
federal government should encourage local governments to adopt measures t o
address the causes of homelessness. E.g. raise local monies to fund housing, job
programs and health care, support the housing and services for low-income
persons. Interim measures: The
government should prohibit discrimination against homeless persons such as anti
sleeping ordinances and other laws that punish homeless persons for being in
public that provide housing or services to homeless persons.
Barriers
to voting and registration of homeless persons should be moved.
These federal policy proposals are supported by:
The National Alliance to End Homelessness; the National Coalition for
Homeless Veterans; the National Coalition for the Homeless; the National Health
Care for the Homeless Council; the National Law Center on Homelessness and
Poverty; and the Stewart B. McKinney Foundation.
Copyright
Homeless Grapevine Issue 23 October 1997
by
Marni Sholiton
This summer, six other college students and I took on a job
responsibility in Cleveland unlike any we have ever had.
As AmeriCorps*VISTA members, we accepted President Clinton's America
Reads challenge to help children read at the third grade level by the end of the
third grade. As tutors in Cleveland homeless shelters, our aim was to
provide homeless and at-risk school-age youth with enrichment activities and
individual attention that they might not otherwise receive.
Our students were children who likely do not get the attention in school
that they require simply because they lack structure and regularity in their
lives. They relocate often, and,
consequently, switch schools throughout the year.
These children were referred to us by the Cleveland Public Schools'
Project ACT's (Action for Children and Youth in Transition) homeless youth and
teens program.
My experience working with children who live in homeless shelters was
definitely different from my expectations. I was surprised by how easy it was to
get through to kids and how receptive they were.
They were hungry for our attention.
As Rachel Goldberg, a Cleveland Heights native and student at Case
Western Reserve University, summed up, "These kids are no different from
others I have worked with, except that most of them lack the encouragement and
continuity necessary to nurture a belief in their own achievement."
This job has taught me the true meaning of the word
"flexibility." There is
no such thing as a typical day. We
had to adjust our lesson plan to accommodate the number of students that we
would be working with, and for the activity for the students.
Some mornings, students with whom we had been working for a few weeks
were unexpectedly not there to greet us: their
family had moved to a new location. While
a sudden departure for us was shocking and disrupted our lesson plan, my
thoughts were always on the child and his or her reaction to the change.
In
an unstable world, a reading friend for these children is something they learn
to look forward to. After seeing
their faces light up every day and being bombarded with hugs when we arrived at
work, it was no surprise that we quickly we became attached to them.
Debbie Ensler, a CWRU senior from Atlanta, agreed, "I loved being
greeted each day as if it were a surprise that I would be there."
Even though they asked us every day before we left if we would be there
the next day, there was still an element of doubt.
Leaving the shelter was often hard, too, because the children did not
want us to go.
As
the pilot season of the America Reads program comes to a close, we ask ourselves
if we feel like we have reached our program goals. While we may not have worked many literacy miracles in two
months, I feel that our legacy is rich. We
have helped to create a sense of competence in these children in their literacy
abilities, an area in which many of our students had previously lacked
self-confidence. We also have
encouraged their families to become more involved with the education of their
children. Most importantly, I feel
we have shown these kids that people genuinely care about them.
At our Pre-Service Orientation in Columbus, we were told that the lessons
and experiences that we would take with us from our job would outweigh what we
put into it. It did not take long to realize the wisdom behind these
words. I am leaving this job with
new perspectives and many rewarding experiences.
The most important lesson I have learned, however, is that all it takes
is a little effort to really make a difference in the life of a child.
I have seen the immediate results of my work, both in the expressions on
the faces of the children with whom we work and in their sense of accomplishment
when they successfully complete a challenge that we have set for them.
My only hope for them is that they continue to receive the special
attention and encouragement that we have given them this summer. As the new school year begins, I sincerely hope that Project
ACT finds individuals who will help to continue our efforts during the school
year. This is a unique experience
from which everyone benefits: the
children learned from us, and we learned a lot from them as well.
M.
Sholiton is a senior at Cornell University, Ithaca NY and participated in the
Summer America Reads Program.
Copyright Homeless Grapevine Issue 23 October 1997
by
Jean E. Taddie
Ken B. nervously opened the letter from his lawyer.
Ken had been anxiously awaiting a decision on his third appeal for
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits.
He hoped that the letter would bring news of a positive judgment from the
administrative law judge who heard his case.
Ken suffered a serious brain injury in June, 1976, that destroyed
one-third of his brain, including half of his temporal lobe.
Ken is blind in his left eye and deaf in his left ear.
He experiences grand-mal and petite-mal seizures and was diagnosed with
epilepsy in 1977. He also
experiences pressure in his eyes that was diagnosed as glaucoma in 1988.
Ken first tried to obtain SSI benefits in 1977.
He was denied SSI benefits and was told that he was able to work.
So for the next eight years, Ken tried a number of maintenance,
groundskeeping, and other jobs to try to support himself.
"It was hard to keep a job. If
employers found out I had epilepsy, or saw me have a seizure, I got fired.
I had one incident where I went into a seizure at work that spun me
around. I slammed right into a
steel support beam and was knocked out."
Ken explained that after a grand-mal it takes him at least three days to
recover from its effects. This
recovery time has also caused him to miss a lot of work.
While driving four years ago, Ken experienced a grand-mal seizure that
made him pass out behind the wheel. "When
I came to, there was blood everywhere and my car was wrecked.
I realized that I had just hit five vehicles parked along the road.
Thank God no one was hurt but me. That's
the day I gave up my driver's license."
For the last two years, Ken has been scraping by on Medicaid, food
stamps, rent assistance and a $118 monthly Disability Assistance (DA) check to
cover utilities and living expenses. Ken's
lawyer advised him that the best he could hope for would be about $450 a month
from SSI. He is not optimistic about the outcome of his third appeal
since his original denial in 1977.
Ken
explained, "I got so mad sitting in this latest hearing.
The federal work specialist said I would be qualified to work as a
janitor or receptionist. They forget that I have 2-dimensional vision and can't even
climb stairs, let alone clean them. Or
how would a company like it if their receptionist had convulsive seizures in
front of their clients?"
Ken's letter from his lawyer was just more depressing news.
"The judge told me that I would have a yes or no decision to my
appeal within 60 days. Well it's
been 45 days and now this letter says that I have to go for more complete
evaluations. I'm just tired of this runaround."
Copyright Homeless Grapevine Issue 23 October 1997
Street
Newspapers Unite in Poor People's Movement
by
Brian Davis
Vendors, editors and volunteers of street newspapers from around the
United States and Canada gathered in Seattle in mid September to officially form
an organization called the North American Street Newspaper Association.
While the new organization's stated goal is to foster the creation of new
papers and support existing street newspapers, there was a great divide among
the member papers over ideology. It
is too soon to tell whether even a loose federation of street newspapers can
survive or if it will follow the fractured and aborted paths of the labor
movement, the anti-war movement, and environmental movement.
Staff and vendors came from Victoria, British Columbia; San Antonio,
Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Boston, Massachusetts.
There were representatives from large papers such as Chicago's huge
StreetWise and the bigger Big Issue in London to small papers like Urbana's
Homeless Whispers, and the one women show from Eugene, Oregon, the Houseless
Journal. Indio, the Editor of North
America's first street newspaper, Street News, was able to attend this year, and
was presented with a special award recognizing the importance of Street News.
Four members of the Homeless Grapevine in Cleveland were able to attend
thanks to the generosity of the National Coalition for the Homeless, The
Coalition for Housing and Homelessness in Ohio, the Robert Kohn Family and
Stanley Meisel Family Fund.
The conference featured one day of workshops to provide technical
assistance to the journalists and staffs of the street newspapers.
Then those gathered painstakingly gave birth to this new federation known
as NASNA. At the 1996 conference in
Chicago, those in attendance had agreed to the concept of a Street Newspaper
Association. At this year's
conference the group actually sat down to hammer out a Mission Statement and
some goals and objectives (see insert)
Michael Stoops, Outreach Director of the National Coalition for the
Homeless and organizer of the conference, said, "I think it's working well.
People are getting to know each other and trust each other better.
Out of this weekend in Seattle will come a stronger, not a perfect, but a
stronger street newspaper movement." He
saw a promising future for the organization.
"I see some power struggles here,"
commented Bridget Reilly of Houseless Journal, who went on, "It is
important that women speak up because I see some male/female type of power
struggles potentially." She
did say, "I feel good about it over all.
There is a lot of good energy, good contacts.I hope we are headed in the
right direction."
Harold Chapman, vendor of the Denver Voice, said, "We have to figure
out how to utillize what we learned and what will work in Denver."
Linda Larson, Editor of Spare Change in Boston, said that what struck her
were the horror stories about assaults on the rights of homeless people from
around the U.S. and Canada. "In
Cambridge and Boston we are sheltered from this kind of abuse.
When I hear these lists of abuses and new policies and crimilization of
homelessness, I am galvanized," she said.
She added that we are all subject to this abuse, and vowed to devote more
attention to covering these issues.
One semi-impartial observer, Norma Green, an alternative press Professor
at Columbia College in Chicago and volunteer at SteetWise, said, "I always
think birth is a painful but rewarding process.
So I was glad to see that despite what seemed to be all the distance.and
even though there seemed to be a lot of acrimony, I think that ultimately people
see that they have common goals and they're coming to some understanding."
The distance and acrimony comes from the two separate visions of the
purpose for a street paper. One is
the business orientated, job creation type newspaper and the other is the grass
roots organizing project that brings homeless people together to give them a
voice in the media.
Stoopes said, "The majority of the street newspapers here are
similar to the Homeless Grapevine in Cleveland.
They are grass roots, they involve homeless people.
There are a few papers that have more of a corporate, non-profit, charity
outlook. These are in the minority.
I think they need to be part of this movement.There is attention.
There has been debate, and there have been a few people who walked out in
anger."
Tim Harris, Director of Real Change in Seattle and host of this year's
conference, said, "The central conflict in the street paper movement is
whether they should be more entrepreneurial and business orientated and focus on
job creation. Different people feel
strongly about that and that comes out in the debates.
I think that is all very helpful and the movement is going to grow as a
result of this conference." Harris
was voted to be President of NASNA over the next year.
From the grass roots side, Paul Bowden, of San Francisco's Street Sheet,
felt that this all could be expected. Bowden,
who has been a part of organizing poor people for years, is the Director of the
San Francisco Coalition for the Homeless and publisher of Street Sheet.
The paper is distributed free to vendors, accepts no ads, and is written
and controlled by homeless and formerly homeless. Bowden characterizes Street Sheet as a "political
rag."
Bowden said, "I think the steering committee (should have) put out
more of the decisions that were made in advance and why (they made them.)
so we didn't repeat the base over again.instead we are going back to
people's assumptions about power and who's making decisions and getting really
freaked out over that shit. It is
natural, its human nature especially at the beginning."
From the business orientated side, Brandon Stiller, Editor of StreetWise
in Chicago, said that this conflict occurs within NASNA as well as within each
of the newspapers. StreetWise has almost 400 vendors and sells 140,000 papers a
month.
StreetWise is currently buying a building to support vendor development,
and have a week long training for vendors.
They attempt to appeal to the masses by reserving space for movie
reviews, an entertainment section, and an advice and sports column.
They attempt to appeal to a broad constituency, which they hope
translates into a well paying job for the thousands of homeless people in
Chicago. Stiller characterized his
paper by saying, "Our position has always been that in order to serve the
largest number of vendors possible, in order to create the best possible
product, we need grants, donations, and advertising."
Stiller said, "In the end, the debates remain, not only nationally,
but within StreetWise itself. What
is comforting, however, is that in this case all the debaters have the same goal
in mind-it is just how to get there that is controversial.
And, with so much discussion and debate, the right road will eventually
become clear."
Nancy Parker of Victoria,
British Columbia's Red Zone said, "I don't know that it isn't healthy that
we have different points of view. It
hasn't come to blows so I don't think it's anything unusual."
Parker was voted Vice President of NASNA.
She also noted that she was so full of information that it was going to
take a few weeks to process it all.
Spare Change office
manager, Fred Ellis, struck a neutral stance on the controversy claiming that
the differing missions was a myth. "The
base direction, which is applicable to all papers, is exactly the same.
The means by which each of us gets there varies like night or day."
He said the conference reinforces his faith in what he was doing.
Street News Editor,
Indio, had similar thoughts. "The struggle goes on.We are here because we
are all going in the same direction, and I am proud to be a part of it."
With all the
controversy and debate a great deal of information was exchanged, and Parker of
Red Zone said, "I love it. (Our street newspaper) is not an isolated thing.
It does seem that anybody in the anti-poverty movement is the odd one
out, but now I realize this a movement across Canada and across the United
States."
Harris of Real Change
also noted that this is a larger movement.
"I think the street newspaper movement is just simply a part of a
poor people's movement. Bringing in new people, and involving new people, and giving
poor folks a voice. I think street
newspapers are just tools for that sort of thing to come around in the last
decade. So I want to see it grow
and I hope this conference is a step towards that."
The poor people's movement as well as the street newspaper movement most
likely will grow, but as Walt Crowley, the keynote speaker for the conference,
explained, it must avoid the philosophical impasses that caused the
"underground" or anti-war newspapers to fizzle in the early 1970s.
It was decided to hold the 1998 annual meeting of NASNA in Montreal,
Canada and the 1999 conference in Cleveland.
Also resolved was the construction of an 11 person executive committee of
which Angelo Anderson of the Grapevine was voted to be a part.
Copyright Homeless Grapevine Issue 23 October 1997