Month: October 2009

SafeLink Wireless (www.safelink.com) is a government supported program that provides a free celll phone and airtime each month for income-eligible customers.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (10/17/09) examines the difficulties poor people face when searching for new jobs, including computer access and transportation:

Transportation problems and the absence of a computer in the home, [Washington University social welfare professor Mark] Rank said, are companion obstacles standing between the poor and meaningful employment.

Rank points out that it is hard enough for low-income urban residents to reach Internet access sites.

But urban dwellers, at least, have some access to public transportation.

Not so the rural poor, said Rank, citing a study that determined that 40 percent of the country’s rural areas are not served by public transportation.

Compounding the problem, the study also revealed that 57 percent of low-income rural residents lack access to a vehicle in operating condition …

The “Utopian conversation” about the benefits of cyberspace … “masks just how serious this problem is. And there is no one looking at it.”

For a deeper look at rural poverty and how it is assessed, read “A Critical Review of Rural Poverty Literature: Is There Truly a Rural Effect?,” (pdf) published by the Institute for Research on Poverty.

From the LA Times (Bob Pool, 10/16/09, via subscription):

She’s 97 years old and homeless. Bessie Mae Berger has her two boys, and that’s about all.

She and sons Larry Wilkerson, 60, and Charlie Wilkerson, 62, live in a 1973 Chevrolet Suburban they park each night on a busy Venice street.

For the most part, it’s a lonely life—days spent passing the time away in public parks, parking lots and shopping centers around the Westside.

Occasionally, when they need cash, Bessie sits by the side of the road and seeks handouts. She holds a cardboard sign in her lap: “I am 97 years old. Homeless. Broke. Need help please.”

(With thanks to Michael McGrorty for the tip.)

“D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) said Friday that the $11 million cut in local funding and $9 million cut in federal funding for homeless services was revealed to him Thursday as he prepared for an oversight hearing.

‘Obviously, I was taken by surprise and furious because we have a tenuous relationship with the community as it is,” said Wells, chairman of the Human Services Committee, which oversees the city agency responsible for serving the homeless. “You have to have honesty and transparency in actions, and this undercuts the relationship we’ve developed with the community.’”

For the full article click here.