Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

Anna Sussman writes about Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans joining the ranks of the California homeless:

More than 2,000 military personnel return home to California each month. Most have no specialized job experience, education or an easy familiarity with civilian life. And many have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), making it difficult to get along with friends and family, and almost impossible to hold down a job.

“You feel like the whole world is against you when you get home,” said [Ethan] Kreutzer. “I was sleeping on the sidewalk, whereas I had been wearing a uniform less than a year before.” Soft- spoken and restless, Kreutzer was recruited in a 7-Eleven while still in high school. After five months in Afghanistan, he had a mental breakdown, diagnosed as PTSD. When he returned to the United States, he spent almost four years living on the streets.

Tara McElvey’s piece on the VA’s inadequacies is equally perplexing:

Veterans of wars in Vietnam and Korea, many of whom are over 60, generally receive outstanding care at the VA facilities. Yet the newer patients—soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan—are in their 20s and 30s and have a different set of problems. Often, they need help for psychological, not physical, problems.

A study released by RAND Corporation earlier this year shows that roughly 300,000 men and women who have served in Iraq or Afghanistan are suffering from mental illness, particularly post-traumatic stress and depression. The VA has been slow to respond to their needs. Only half of these individuals have sought treatment, and they often experience severe delays or minimal care within the VA system.

If you’d like to find ways to support returning veterans, start with Iraq War Veterans Organization (www.iraqwarveterans.org).

The Iraq War Veterans Organization, Inc provides information and support for: Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans, Global War on Terror Veterans, Operation Enduring Freedom Veterans, active military personnel and family members related to pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment issues, as well as service member and family Operation Iraqi Freedom Deployment Readiness problems, information about PTSD, Health issues and Veterans Benefits.

The Iraq War Veterans Organization website has links to information about Department of Veterans Affairs health care, readjustment after deployment, education, employment, military discounts, PTSD issues, support-chat forums, family support and deployment information.

Another group, Iraq Veterans Against the War (ivaw.org), has a helpful page on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

As the country awaits the transition of power from the Bush administration to the Obama administration in January, take the time to examine the President-Elect’s approach to poverty issues:

“Fighting Poverty and Creating a Bridge to the Middle Class” [PDF]

Sample:

Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they deserve. Obama and Biden will create a new “Making Work Pay” tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. This refundable income tax credit will provide direct relief to American families who face the regressive payroll tax system. It will offset the payroll tax on the first $8,100 of their earnings while still preserving the important principle of a dedicated revenue source for Social Security. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans. The tax credit will also provide relief to self-employed small business owners who struggle to pay both the employee and employer portion of the payroll tax. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit offsets some of this self-employment tax as well.

See also the campaign’s Poverty page.

It will be interesting to follow how these and other proposed changes (big and small) play out in 2009.

• Election and economy spur discussion of poverty

• Number of working poor increased from 2002 to 2006

• Midwest and Northeast see increase in concentrated poverty

• Teenagers comprise only 7% of the low-wage workforce

• Right-wing radio blames poor for country’s financial mess

• Federal poverty measure is outdated

• Housing First strategy is a success

• Minnesota foreclosures creating more homeless students

• New Jersey food banks struggle to keep up with demand

• Cleveland parking meters collect change for homeless people

• New Yorkers ask, “So where’s my bailout?”

• Federal bailouts and tax cuts rescue financial giants but not low-income people

• Minneapolis’ former library chief working once again to end homelessness

• U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) announces $36.7 million in grants for homeless programs

• Florida agency provides housing for growing number of homeless women veterans

• Las Vegas sees marked increase in number of homeless families

• Mentally ill Tennessee man arrested for living in portable toilet

• Michigan church donates portable toilets for use by downtown homeless population; public urination can lead to sex-offender status

• Atlanta Muslim group feeds 1,000 homeless people

• Kansas City police officers help homeless man find stability

The national network of food banks formerly known as America’s Second Harvest has changed its name to Feeding America:

This new name best conveys our mission—providing food to Americans living with hunger—and will be supported through expansive public outreach campaigns that will raise awareness of domestic hunger and our work.

Despite a 30-year legacy of fighting hunger, America’s Second Harvest has been confronted with low awareness among the general public, and a broader misunderstanding of domestic hunger …

Our new name, Feeding America, directly conveys that we are providing access to food for people who need it. It also communicates the positive power of food to be a catalyst in people’s lives. In essence, “feeding” serves as a double meaning—both providing food and enriching lives …

Learn more from Feeding America about hunger and food insecurity here.

Front-line librarians can use FA’s Food Bank Locator for referrals in your area.

Found on CNN.com:

From Seattle to Athens, Georgia, homeless advocacy groups and city agencies are reporting the most visible rise in homeless encampments in a generation.

Nearly 61 percent of local and state homeless coalitions say they’ve experienced a rise in homelessness since the foreclosure crisis began in 2007, according to a report [PDF] by the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH).

The group says the problem has worsened since the report’s release in April, with foreclosures mounting, gas and food prices rising and the job market tightening.

On a tangential note, the NCH has an informative page detailing the voting rights of homeless people and ways to help homeless and precariously housed people register.

Check out You Don’t Need a Home to Vote!, which includes a description of barriers homeless people face when attempting to vote.

Salon.com is running a new series called “Pinched: Tales from an Economic Downturn.”

In the second installment, Heather Ryan describes the circumstances that prompted her, and her three children, to obtain meals from a soup kitchen:

I could segue into some political rant here, a slick dismissal of the Bush administration, perhaps, or a paragraph declaring my support for Barack Obama. But the moment I walked into the soup kitchen—the moment I acknowledged, publicly, that I could not provide food for myself or my children (which is why the soup kitchen is so much more difficult than the food bank)—is the moment that my ability to believe in the politics of this country was forever altered.

I know why poor people have historically low voter-turnout rates. If you vote, you acknowledge that you believe in the system. And to believe in the system when you’re at the very bottom, when you’ve watched the chrome and ink-black SUVs drive by while you’re packing your own beater with dried beans and lentils, to believe at that point is fucking painful. You either say the system works and you’ve earned your place, or you concede that there is something wrong and there might not be any way to fix it.

The entire summer of 2007, as I struggled to keep us fed, I hated thinking of politics, an unusual characteristic for me. It hurt to listen to any presidential candidate talk about the working poor, and not because they weren’t genuine, but because all their talk was just that—talk. It was like listening to my former self, the one who didn’t know how bad things could get.

InsideToronto.com profiled new Toronto Public Library Chief Librarian Jane Pyper, who is charged with implementing TPL’s new strategic plan.

As Pyper articulates, the plan will specifically address, among other things, the needs of low-income people:

“What people who come here are looking for is assistance in language—fluency in English,” she said. “And information in their particular profession. We’ve all heard about the taxi drivers with a PhD. Well they’re looking for the tools to get re-accreditation and textbooks that support retraining. Sometimes we do that in partnership with other settlement workers. We’re finding that to be a mutually beneficial partnership.” …

“Part of our success has been that we respond to what’s happening in Toronto. And you are as successful as you are relevant. So we must ask, what is the city facing? Well, diversity is a fact of the city’s life. Growing income disparity and child poverty is increasing, so one focus is on getting a foundation in life and for us that involves promoting early literacy. I think the secret is relevance and responsiveness.”

Our best wishes to Pyper and TPL staff in their endeavors!

By way of Stateline.org:

As the economy falters and the ranks of the poor multiply, states for the first time in recent memory are mounting high-profile, comprehensive campaigns aimed at radically reducing poverty—many with an emphasis on children.

At least 15 states and the District of Columbia have created bi-partisan commissions to narrow the widening gap between the rich and the poor by eliminating barriers—such as lack of education, poor transportation and inadequate child care—that prevent many from finding better jobs and escaping chronic poverty. In addition, the states are working to help disadvantaged children in the hope of breaking the generational cycle of poverty.

Is your library actively helping low-income people?

Stay informed about poverty in your state or region by subscribing to the IRP’s “Poverty Dispatches” email service.

It’s free!

Whitney Malkin sees similarities between the homeless, working poor, and college students…. Here are excerpts from her article:

“Right now, with things the way they are, a lot of students just can’t afford to eat,” said Terry Capleton, who started a Facebook group called “I Ain’t Afraid to be on Food Stamps” when he was a student at Benedict College in South Carolina….

Deirdre Wilson, a junior at Francis Marion University in Florence, S.C., applied for food stamps in November because her paycheck from a work-study job didn’t stretch far enough to cover her expanding grocery bill.