Well, we were waiting for the other shoe to drop on this one.
About a week ago, we began seeing this interview circulate: a Vice writer talked to his friend, a young social worker in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, about what it was like to work in what the writer called “the most hellish neighborhood in San Francisco.”
The TL’s terrible reputation is attributed to its high rates of crime and open drug use. For people who live there, like a recent interviewee of mine, these aspects of the TL are used to paint the neighborhood with a too-broad brush that doesn’t account for its diverse populations, or for the contributing role of San Francisco’s urban planners in their efforts to sanitize the rest of the city for tourists. (more…)
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Adam Hudson on Monday, Jan. 9th
Despite his reputation, in some quarters, as a friend of the downtrodden, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and current presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, is an ally of Wall Street and Corporate America.
Last week, Santorum made a racially charged comment that garnered a lot of criticism. Speaking to Republicans in Iowa, Santorum said his administration would cut welfare programs because they make people “dependent” on the government for help. His full statement was: “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”
This statement was fallacious and offensive. One, it relied on the false assumption that most or all welfare recipients are black. This is not the case. Most welfare recipients are white, mainly because whites make up the majority of the American population. Two, it perpetuates the racist stereotype that black people are lazy people who look for hand-outs.
And the last sentence of Santorum’s statement, advocating revitalization of the manufacturing sector, highlights how Santorum is trying to portray himself in the Republican primary. In a time of economic depression, massive unemployment, and poverty, Santorum is touting himself as a man who can jumpstart the American economy. He claims he can do this with massive tax cuts, particularly for the rich and corporations, cutting government spending (except the military), and eliminating various government regulations. In his eyes, these policies will make it easier for businesses to create jobs in America.
However, these are bad policies. Tax cuts for the rich, spending cuts, and less government regulations spur very little job growth and only help the rich. Since government creates jobs in the public sector, such as teachers in education, tax cuts and spending cuts would harm job growth, particularly during a recession. In fact, public sector job cuts have already hit African-Americans the hardest; Santorum’s policies would exacerbate that. The best ways to spur job growth are through increasing consumer demand and creating job programs, which Santorum would not do.
Santorum, and others, have sought to frame his legislative record as one that’s been concerned with the issues of underprivileged people, citing things such as homeowner tax credits and savings accounts for poor children. In addition, Santorum cites his strong advocacy for stable families as the core of his welfare policies.
In fact, however, Santorum has long history of supporting legislation that benefits powerful corporate and financial interests and hurt poor and working people. For example, he helped draft the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, which nearly gutted welfare for low-income families. He voted in favor of the 2005 bankruptcy reform bill that made it harder for people to declare bankruptcy. This helped credit card companies but harmed ordinary people. In 1999, Santorum voted in favor of Financial Services Modernization Act, which repealed the Glass-Steagall rule separating commercial banks from investment banks. This laid the groundwork for the 2008 financial crash and present economic depression by creating banks that are “too big to fail”. In addition, most of Santorum’s campaign funding comes from the financial, insurance, and real estate sectors. His top contributor is the health insurance company Blue Shield.
No matter how much Santorum wants to portray himself as an advocate of the poor, his track record and policy ideas reveal something different. Rick Santorum, like nearly every other politician, is a loyal servant of the very rich.
You can read more of Adam Hudson’s writing at his blog.
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Leslie Berenstein Rojas on Tuesday, Nov. 8th
The Pew Hispanic Center has interpreted the U.S. Census Bureau’s new alternative measure of poverty, which is intended to better reflect the cost of basic living expenses, along with the resources that people have to live on. Called the Supplemental Poverty Measure(SPM), it uses additional factors to measure poverty than does the official federal measure.
Counted in are medical expenses, tax credits and government benefits such as food stamps, housing subsidies and school lunch programs, according to Pew’s report on the new numbers today. Geographic cost-of-living adjustments are also factored in.
The result? There are even more poor people in the U.S. than previously counted, and more of them are Latino, Asian, and foreign-born. Latinos make up the biggest group of the poor under the new measure, compared with black Americans, still the poorest as counted by the official measure.
The SPM figures released by the Census Bureau show a national poverty rate of 16 percent, higher than the official poverty rate, which is 15.2 percent. As for Latinos, the alternative measure shows 28.2 percent of Latinos living in poverty, compared with the official rate of 26.7 percent. The new data also shows substantially more poor Asians (16.7 percent versus 12.1 percent) and slightly more poor whites (11.1 percent versus 10.0). Black Americans fared better, with the alternative measure showing 25.4 percent living in poverty, compared with an official poverty rate of 27.5.
Read the rest of the article at Multi-American.
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Things Fall Apart, Our Job Is to Bring Them Back Together
The Fall season of State of the Re:Union is now underway on public radio, and the first episode in the set takes an in-depth look at the Bronx.
From President Carter’s famous 1977 urban decay photo-op in the wastelands of the South Bronx to Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s iconic early hip-hop rhymes about growing up in poverty, the Bronx has long been a symbol of America’s failings. It still contains the poorest urban congressional district in the nation. For people who live in New York’s other boroughs, the Bronx is usually a place to avoid. And for Bronxites themselves, this place is often thought of as a place to escape—somewhere you get out of if you’re lucky. But through the worst of the arson and abandonment of the 1970s and 80s, some reacted with determination. They stayed, and put down roots, intent on surviving and making the Bronx better. This episode shines a light on the hold-outs and the dreamers who’ve committed their lives to keeping chaos at bay in the Bronx.
Catch this episode of State of the Re:Union on your local station, the SOTRU website or by subscribing to their podcast feed(iTunes).
Hosted by Public Radio Talent Quest Winner and performance artist Al Letson, each hour-long program of SOTRU uses a journalistic, documentary-style approach to focus exclusively on one city or town and features interviews, commentary, recordings, listener-generated letters and music. The series is distributed by PRX and National Public Radio.
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Robyn Gee on Thursday, Sep. 15th
The recent Census Bureau data on poverty is staggering: the number of people living below 50 percent of the poverty level is the highest it’s been since 1975, according to Mother Jones. President Obama and presidential candidates are putting jobs plans at the top of their lists to respond to this crisis.
One sector that noticed the increase in people affected by poverty is college financial aid. We spoke with Peter Coe, Financial Aid Specialist at City College of San Francisco, whose job only gets harder when people don’t have enough money.
Students applying for aid complete the Free Application for Financial Student Aid (FAFSA) and are allocated funds based on this document. Parents usually document their previous year’s income on their financial aid application. “I’ve definitely seen more application changes based on loss of income than in the past,” said Coe. If a parent or guardian has lost a job, then the student might be eligible for more financial aid.
Making these changes takes time. Coe said he sits down with each student individually to work through the documentation. “With this many people out of work it’s definitely a challenge to serve students,” said Coe. “It’s impacting the office… When there’s more work, there’s delays in getting money out, and the quality of service goes down,” said Coe.
A huge indicator of more financial need for Coe is the number of Pell Grants awarded every year. The Pell Grant is a federal grant of $5,500 that does not need to be repaid. It is based on financial need, the cost of attending school, and your status as a student. The more Pell awards the school gives out, means the more students are eligible for aid. Coe said the number of Pell Grants he’s awarded has increased dramatically over the last three years. “We’re approaching 11,000 Pell awards, that’s a 3,000 plus jump from the previous school year,” said Coe.
In addition to parents losing income, Coe said he sees many students losing their jobs as well, and therefore making more appeals for aid. What happens if there’s no more aid available? “Student retention is always an issue with financial aid. Of course students need to drop out all the time – financial aid – that’s always a piece of the equation,” said Coe.
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Laura Heaton/Enough on Thursday, Aug. 11th
This article was republished with permission from Enough and managing editor Laura Heaton, an American journalist.
Enough spoke with eminent Somalia expert and political science professor Ken Menkhaus about what’s behind the famine sweeping East Africa and lessons that we should take away from the crisis.
The famine in the Horn of Africa was spurred by a drought, but there are plenty of man-made triggers of the current crisis. Can you pinpoint the most responsible?
MENKHAUS: This is a part of the world that is more susceptible to extreme variations in seasonal rainfall than almost anywhere in the world. One in every five years there is an extreme drought; one in every five years there is an extreme flood. Historically, local populations have developed pretty elaborate coping mechanisms. But those coping mechanisms have been overloaded in recent decades by a wide range of factors, which have disrupted the old coping mechanisms that populations used to have. Previously, people would suffer during these years of extremes, but they would usually survive. Now that’s broken, particularly in Somalia.
So what we’ve got is the worst drought in 60 years, combined with 1.4 million Somalis internally displaced by years of warfare. As we all know, internally displaced people are always the most vulnerable because they’ve lost their livelihoods and their support system at home. And this has all been unfolding in the context of a perfect storm for food insecurity globally: We have a spike in fuel prices and food prices. A big part of the crisis in Somalia is not just that people used to be able to farm for subsistence and now can’t; there are lots of people whose purchasing power has been badly eroded. There is food on the market in much of Somalia, but people can’t afford it.
Another element of this perfect storm is the suspension of food aid to southern Somalia [the area controlled by the militant group al-Shabaab] for two years. Somalia hasn’t been self-sufficient since the early 1970s. But aid delivery has been suspended in recent years for three main reasons: Insecurity – In 2008 a third of all casualties worldwide occurred in Somalia, so aid groups started pulling out because they couldn’t justify the risk. Second, the U.S. government’s suspension of aid due to counterterrorism grounds; allowing aid to reach Shabaab was a violation of the Patriot Act. Third was Shabaab’s ban on most international agencies from working in the areas it controlled, accusing them of being spies and of trying to put Somali farmers out of business. We heard good news this week on a shift in U.S. policy to legally protect NGOs from being prosecuted under the Patriot Act. But that third bottleneck is still unresolved. As long as Shabaab continues blocking food aid, we’re limited in what we can do.
When Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government was created in 2004, it was seen as a step in the right direction because it represented the first government in Somalia since 1991. But the TFG has had little success stabilizing the country, and TFG officials are often accused of personally profiting from Somalia’s lawlessness. What role has the TFG played in the current crisis?
MENKHAUS: The TFG is now in its seventh year of transition and has yet to even exercise modest governance capacity in the portion of the capital where it is located. It is protected by 9,000 African Union peacekeepers, and if they were not there the TFG would be driven out in hours. They have been largely irrelevant in the current famine – they are not a cause of the famine; they lack any capacity to play a constructive role in famine response. We’re hardly even talking about them, which in some ways is a real indictment of this transitional period.
The TFG does have legal control over an area of Mogadishu where the African Union provides protection, and that is a safe haven where food aid is being brought in. Somalis are flocking there in increasingly large numbers to get assistance. But what is happening unfortunately, but predictably, is that uncontrolled elements of the TFG – paramilitaries – have been fighting among themselves and have been in some cases looting the food aid. So the TFG, in as much as it could play a role right now, is actually looking like part of the problem rather than the solution.
How are independently governed areas like Somaliland and Puntland faring? I understand the crisis hasn’t been as severe in those areas, but it’s interesting to consider how governance factors in to either prevention or response to the famine.
MENKHAUS: Actually, the drought has been quite severe in the north of Somalia as well, but what is interesting is that the north is generally much more arid than the south. The south has rivers and generally has better rainfall. But the north, despite being more arid and being affected by the drought, has not seen famine. The reason for that is pretty straightforward: There is a social peace, [managed by clan elders]. There is governance. The Somaliland government has been able to maintain a reasonable level of security and stability that has allows for the flow of commercial food, and as the drought hit, for the flow of international assistance. As a result, they have been hosting more and more displaced people from the south.
There have been conflicting reports on whether the militant group al-Shabaab would let aid groups into the most gravely affected parts of Somalia or not. But you’re in touch with people in the region all the time – local sources, aid groups, governmental entities. How has the group’s presence impacted the response?
MENKHAUS: We’re pretty sure that Shabaab is splintering now. The famine has been a source of tension within the organization, and the hope is that we’ll see some breakaway wings again that would say, ‘our people are starving, and we welcome aid.’ It would be very risky for those splinter groups, but desperate times call for desperate measures. That could open some space for aid groups to come in. That’s the last best-case scenario we’ve got left, because right now we have people flooding the Kenyan border, and that creates a massive, long-term refugee crisis that will haunt us.
It’s important to flag the breaking news that Shabaab has pulled out of Mogadishu. We’re still trying to make sense of that – Is it a tactical measure? Do they want to launch more hit-and-run attacks instead? There are a lot of possible explanations, but it could be that the social pressure now is so great that clans are rebelling, that the group is fragmenting and actually being pushed out by local Somali communities. That would be a major break for the famine response. Regardless, Shabaab’s in trouble. [The famine] is just disastrous for this group – by blocking food aid, blocking people from getting out, they have just shredded what little credibility they had left with Somalis and jihadist around the world.
What lessons should the international community take away from this present humanitarian crisis? How should the U.S. government revamp its approach to Somalia or to the Horn more broadly to help prevent crises from continuing to occur in regular intervals?
MENKHAUS: This crisis is a potential opening, both for humanitarian response and for new policy directions on Somalia. The scale of this crisis has forced people to do a fundamental rethink of all of our policies and assumptions. It has also put political pressure on actors to do things they wouldn’t have otherwise done for bureaucratic reasons. The challenge right now is just to get food aid in. The second challenge is going to be the immediate transition toward rebuilding livelihoods, and that – between insecurity, state collapse, and Shabaab’s continued presence – is going to be very difficult both logistically and legally, because of OFAC [Office of Foreign Assets Control] restrictions on humanitarian aid [to prevent it from benefitting terrorist groups].
But the broader question is what do we do about governance in this country. Shabaab may be crumbling, but the TFG remains irrelevant and is just a source of massive corruption. I think what we’re going to see over the next year is a rethink about continuing to support the TFG versus finding alternatives. But it’s difficult to get people to think about alternatives when we’ve got such immediate problems.
So maybe that will be the slight silver lining from this crisis – that policymakers will see that we need to approach Somalia differently.
MENKHAUS: Yes, it would be a small consolation considering the scale of suffering in the country, but hopefully some new policies can come out that will create a more durable solution to these problems.
To learn more about Enough, please visit their website.
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Kai Hsing on Friday, Aug. 5th
What if we all had to buy our groceries at the local convenience store? For about 23.5 million people in the U.S.—according to census data—who live in neighborhoods without easy access to fresh food, or “food deserts,” this is often a day-to-day reality.
On Wednesday, July 20th, First Lady Michelle Obama launched another phase of her Let’s Move! campaign that will help businesses in these so-called food deserts sell healthier food.
Naturally, we thought it appropriate to launch our five-part web series “Hungry in the Hood,” in honor of the occasion.
These webisodes take a farcical look at what “interesting” culinary delights are possible using food often found on convenience store shelves. Yes, we hope you find it as absurd as we do.
Obama aims to eliminate food deserts in the U.S. so people will not have to resort to following our twisted recipes.
The Let’s Move! initiative even made a nifty “Food Desert Locator”, based on census data, that helps:
- locate food-deserts in the U.S.
- show population characteristics of those living in food deserts
- offer data that can be downloaded for community planning and/or research
In this episode, we show you how to take your savory microwaveable meal on the go – and without a microwave.
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Kai Hsing on Wednesday, Aug. 3rd
What if you had to buy all of your groceries at your local convenience store? For about 23.5 million people in the US who live in neighborhoods without easy access to fresh food, or ‘food deserts,’ this is often a day-to-day reality.
On Wednesday, July 20th, First Lady Michelle Obama launched another phase of her Let’s Move! campaign that will help businesses in these so-called food deserts sell healthier food.
Naturally, we thought it appropriate to launch our five-part web series “Hungry in the Hood,” in honor of the occasion. These webisodes take a farcical look at what “interesting” culinary delights are possible using food often found on convenience store shelves. Yes, we hope you find it as absurd as we do. Obama aims to eliminate food deserts in the U.S. so people will not have to resort to following our twisted recipes.
The Let’s Move! initiative even made a nifty “Food Desert Locator”, based on census data, that helps:
- locate food-deserts in the U.S.
- show population characteristics of those living in food deserts
- offer data that can be downloaded for community planning and/or research
In ‘Hungry in the Hood,’ we take a farcical look at what interesting culinary delights are possible without regular access to fresh groceries.
In this episode, we show you a different spin on the traditional pasta bake – bodega style.
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It was warm today in Brooklyn – a balmy 62 degrees that peeled the winter coats off bewildered pedestrians, exposed sidewalks that have for a month been covered by dirty mounds of ice, and sent scores of shrieking children onto the cement playgrounds and grassy courtyards that surround the public housing buildings in my neighborhood. After the snowiest January since New York City started keeping records, it was as if these kids had woken from a long dream and jumped directly into a game of tag.
It’s a widely held belief, at least among academics, that children living in the projects don’t play outside. But a
study published in an upcoming issue of Social Science & Medicine has found that children living in public housing play outdoors for more hours each day than other city kids. The researchers hypothesize that the playground that I saw today may have something to do with that unexpected finding.
“It’s possible that children living in public housing have access to community playgrounds and courtyards for children to play outdoors, which could be why we see more outside play time for them,” said Rachel Kimbro, assistant professor of sociology at Rice University and lead author of the new study.
Kimbro said that creating access to safe, open spaces is key to solving obesity problems among poor, urban children. Her study showed that the ratio of time spent watching TV to playing outdoors is an important predictor of obesity. For every additional hour the children played outside instead of watching television, they scored 1.5 percentile points lower on BMI, a measure of body fat based on height and weight.
I highlight this study because it sheds light on a central question we’ll be asking on the new environmental desk at Youth Radio, Turnstyle’s parent organization. That is, what are the environmental issues that matter most to people who live in the city? We’re interested especially in the environmental problems faced by young people whose families are too busy just getting by to take part in American environmentalism. Because while that movement has proved effective over the years by changing policies that govern the way we use and conserve natural resources, it has been dominated by the voices of people who have already met their material needs. In other words, we’re covering not only public parks, but public health, public safety and public housing as well.
Stay tuned for more coverage of these issues from our forthcoming environmental desk.
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