Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

• 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.

The HHPTF, in partnership with the OLOS Subcommittee on Library Services to Poor and Homeless People, reported the findings from the ALA Task Force Member Survey on Policy 61.

Here is the full report:

Summary of the ALA Task Force Survey on ALA Policy 61 Library Services for the Poor.pdf

Attendees were asked for their input as well. Your comments and suggestions are welcome and will be compiled in a final report during the 2009 ALA Midwinter Meeting. Please send us your comments and suggestions.

If you are a library actively serving the poor please share your information and resources on the Library Success Wiki page.

The June 30, 2008, issue of The Nation features a variety of articles covering economic insecurity, wealth distribution, and intractable plutocracy in the United States.

In their introductory essay, “The Rich and the Rest of Us,” John Cavanagh and Chuck Collins observe,

Too many Americans see the enormous concentration of our nation’s wealth as a symptom of a sick society, not a cause. Indeed, most of our politicians and pundits refuse to treat it as any sort of problem at all. They may sometimes bewail particularly unseemly CEO paychecks. They may twitter occasionally about the latest bilious billionaire extravagance. But that’s it.

The Senate couldn’t even manage to eliminate a tax loophole for gazillionaire hedge-fund managers last year. And even progressive wish lists tend to call only for a return to pre-George Bush tax rates, a step that would undo a mere one-sixth of the rise in income inequality we have experienced since the late 1970s, according to the Brookings Institution.

Cavanagh and Collins also note,

In April 2007 … a national coalition of organizations under the umbrella of Half in Ten (www.halfinten.org) put forward a broad set of proposals to cut poverty in half over the next decade. But this effort will likely fall short as long as concentrated wealth defines our nation’s political priorities. And until we seriously tax the holders of concentrated wealth, we will lack the funding resources that any bold poverty-fighting initiative demands.

Be sure to review the links and “new and recent” books list compiled in “Extreme Inequality: A Nation Guide.”

[Special thanks to Sandy Berman for the heads-up!]

Join us on Saturday, June 28, 1:30-3:30 pm, at the ALA Anaheim 2008 Annual Conference in the Disneyland Hotel Dreams D room for our Building Communities Through Libraries free panel discussion.

Find out how special and academic librarians are providing information outreach services that address community needs such as healthcare, literacy and education. Special and academic librarians will talk about successful partnerships that have led to lessening the knowledge gap and reducing information impoverishment.

Speakers: John Buschman, Associate University Librarian, Georgetown University Library; Dorothy Warner, Professor-Librarian, Rider University; Nancy McKeehan, Assistant Director of Libraries for Systems, Medical University of South Carolina
Library; Eileen Abels, Master’s Program Director and Associate Professor, College of Information Science & Technology at Drexel University; Denise E. Agosto, Associate Professor, College of Information Science & Technology at Drexel University

Chair: Lisa Gieskes, Coordinator, HHPTF