Hunger, Homelessness & Poverty Task Force – SRRT/ALA

American Libraries Online reported the positive news that Worcester (Mass.) Public Library has implemented a new policy to ensure equal access for homeless patrons and others without permanent address.

Worcester Head Librarian Penelope Johnson said in the Telegram and Gazette that everyone who has a library card will be treated equally; they can take out two items during their first visit and up to 50 thereafter. Homeless patrons or patrons living in shelters will be mailed a postcard, which they can bring back with them to the library as proof that they can receive mail.

As the article indicates, the lawsuit filed against the library has not yet been resolved. And despite the library’s insistence about poor book return rates among low-income patrons, no borrowing statistics have ever been made public.

The policy change is not so much a “win” for homeless people—who should not have been discriminated against in the first place—but more a case study of the disconnect between a library and the needs of low-income citizens.

Las Vegas, Orlando, and other cities have made it difficult, even illegal, to give food to homeless people in public places. Tulin Ozdeger, an attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty, is critical of such punitive ordinances:

The latest trend of restricting groups that share food with homeless people is truly baffling. Clear gaps exist between the needs of homeless and poor people and federal, state, and local government efforts to deal with homelessness. Instead of embracing private efforts to fill those gaps, cities are now trying to punish those private actors for their good deeds … Instead of wasting law enforcement resources on enforcing these laws … cities should be looking for more constructive ways to grapple with the real challenges facing them. Removing a crucial food source … will not solve the problem. Jailing a homeless person for sleeping or resting in a public space will not make that person go away.

In Steamboat Springs, Colo., two men were recently sentenced to six months in prison for removing food from a garbage can:

Giles Charle, 24, of Sumersworth, N.H., and David Siller, 27, of Wayne, Pa., … were on their way to the Rainbow Family’s annual gathering when they were arrested in June and charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor theft. Authorities said they took five cucumbers, four or five apricots, two bundles of asparagus spears and a handful of cherries from a garbage can at Sweet Pea Produce. The two pleaded guilty to misdemeanor trespassing Wednesday and the felony charge was dropped.

Hunger is increasing in the United States. According to America’s Second Harvest, food is the second-largest family expense and the use of emergency food assistance is growing:

America’s Second Harvest / The Nation’s Food Bank Network provides emergency food assistance to more than 25 million Americans—including nearly 9 million children (36.4%) and 3 million seniors (10%)—annually. Since 2001, the number of clients the America’s Second Harvest Network serves annually has increased by 8 percent … 70% of client households served are food insecure, meaning they do not know where they will find their next meal. 33% of these households are experiencing hunger, meaning they are completely without a source of food.

In June 2002, the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University published “The Consequences of Hunger and Food Insecurity for Children: Evidence from Recent Scientific Studies.” The report (PDF) notes, among other things:

Even moderate nutritional vulnerability, the kind often seen among 13 million high-risk children in the U.S., can impede cognitive development and impair their capacities over a lifetime. For youngsters whose natural abilities and talents are diminished, the cost is obvious. But the cost also extends to our nation in terms of higher rates of school failure, poorer returns on our
educational investments, and weakened workforce productivity when children reach the age of employment.

How can libraries address hunger? Many sponsor “Food for Fines” drives (which a simple Google search will reveal). In 2001, Amy Ford detailed the Williamsburg (Va.) Regional Library’s efforts in “Food for Fines Drives: Positive PR That Works!”:

We made our Food for Fines system very simple: For each nonperishable food item a patron brings in, we waive the accrued fines on one overdue item, no matter whether it is 5 cents or $15 … We benefit by getting back some late and lost books. Plus we get our delinquent patrons to come back. Many of them feel bad about owing money to the library that they can’t pay back … they do come back, and they feel good about doing something meaningful for their community in the process. We also gain respect from other community entities, which are continually amazed at the countless ways that the library contributes to the public good. Our local nonprofits and charities are very grateful for the help they receive from us. Staff morale improves, and now circulation staff receive far fewer complaints about fines.

On September 9, the St. Paul Public Library celebrates the grand opening of its Rondo Community Outreach Library.

The unique facility, which features three floors of mixed-income housing, will serve an ethnically diverse population, including many recent immigrants and low-income families. Rondo’s collection includes

an expanded Black history collection with original Rondo Oral History recordings; a Southeast Asian history and culture area; more adult learner and language learning materials with over 500 titles in Spanish, a large selection of Somali music and in-depth resources for English Language Learners; [and more].

The name Rondo memorializes St. Paul’s Rondo Avenue and its legendary African-American neighborhood, displaced and destroyed by the construction of Interstate 94 in the 1960s.

In the 1930s, Rondo Avenue was at the heart of St. Paul’s largest Black neighborhood. African-Americans whose families had lived in Minnesota for decades and others who were just arriving from the South made up a vibrant, vital community that was in many ways independent of the white society around it.

Three Rondo resources worth noting:

• Voices of Rondo: Oral Histories of Saint Paul’s Historic Black Community, published by Hand in Hand Productions, won a 2006 Minnesota Book Award.

• A Rondo Days Celebration is held every year during the third week of July.

• Macalaster College’s Civic Engagement Center provides a “Rondo & Surroundings Self-Guided Tour” (PDF).

ALA Policy 61—Library Services for the Poor was adopted in 1990. It promotes, among other things, “the removal of all barriers to library and information services, particularly fees and overdue charges.”

This spring, The Christian Science Monitor published an article titled “Is the Lifting of Library Fines Long Overdue?”. Writer Marilyn Gardner observes,

As libraries face competition from the Internet, Amazon, and bookstores, some are looking for ways to be more customer-friendly. At the same time, book-lovers point to Netflix and Blockbuster, which have eliminated fines for overdue movie rentals, and suggest that libraries do the same. Yet tight municipal budgets are making many libraries more dependent than ever on revenue from fines—so dependent that some even hire collection agencies.

Librarian.net’s Jessamyn West and readers of her site share anecdotes that illustrate the variety of issues at stake, not least of which is a patron’s ability to pay fines. West writes,

I did outreach for a public library and found that, almost without exception, the teens I met who did not come to the library stayed away because they believed they had huge fines and were, in some way, no longer welcome. Our library fines were steep—twenty cents per day for books with no grace period, one dollar per day for DVDs and videos—and once you hit five dollars you could no longer check out materials or use the library computers …

Members of the PUBLIB list have been discussing these matters of late, with a particular interest in how fees and fines—and the language used to describe them—impact a library’s public image.

Bill Crowley, a library-science professor at Dominican University, made explicit his concerns about low-income patrons in a post titled “Fines, Counterproductive Service, and Problematic PR.” His post is reprinted here with permission:

The cheerful march to raise fines may be well received in wealthy communities but have any of the libraries involved actually studied the potential impact on discouraging use by those on, near, or below the poverty line?

Before continuing the discussion I would suggest going to [www.laurabushfoundation.org] (which hosts the presentations from Laura Bush’s White House Conference on School Libraries) and clicking to “The Role of School Libraries in Elementary and Secondary Education” [PDF] by Dr. Susan Neuman (former) Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education United States Department of Education.

Do not let the title fool you. The presentation is actually devoted to comparing public library use by children in Philadelphia’s middle class and poor neighborhoods. The account of how the fear of fines and lost book charges affects borrowing in poor neighborhoods is discouraging. In-building use seems to be unaffected.

So, before one happily raises fines outside of wealthy communities, one might want to consider how poor kids or adults can “work off” the fines and keep both their self-respect and ability to borrow library books.

Here, I should note that prior to teaching in a graduate program I had 23 years of real life experience in public, state, and cooperative libraries, including stints in public relations.

Susan Neuman’s brief (six-page) paper, which Crowley cites, provides research findings that no doubt apply to many other cities—evidence that should prompt improved service to low-income populations.

Despite similarities in budget allocations, there were striking differences in the quality of school libraries in schools across [Philadelphia]. Children in poor areas had mediocre to poor libraries, no librarian on site; further the libraries were often closed during the week, compared to those in middle-class schools in the same city … School library funds were designated as discretionary to be used for computers if the instructional leader chose to do so. Thus, many of these schools in poor areas had no libraries, but computer labs, often empty of anything but the technology itself.

Finally, Martina Kominiarek at Bucks County (Penn.) Free Library contributed an equally well-informed PUBLIB post on fines, which you can read here.

Every two years, the Economic Policy Institute releases a Labor Day study that “sums up the problems and challenges facing American working families” and “examine[s] the impact of the economy on the living standards of the American people.” The State of Working America 2006/2007 is now available. A fact sheet sample:

The United States bills itself as the land of opportunity, where someone from the humblest roots can, with grit and determination, climb the economic ladder. Some even say that concern about growing inequality between the top and bottom of the income pyramid is misplaced because of our high income mobility. In a chapter new to this edition [EPI] finds that rags-to-riches stories, despite their wide appeal, are the exception, not the rule, and that for most people in America today, where you end up is increasingly a function of where you started out.

Our colleague AV forwarded Robert Reich’s biting commentary, “How to Reduce Urban Poverty Without Really Trying” (Aug. 30, 2006):

It’s an old story, really. Areas of any town or city where the infrastructure is most ignored—like [New Orleans’] Industrial Canal levee that burst on the morning of August 29 a year ago—have the lowest property values. So that’s where the poor live. When there’s a flood or a leak of toxic wastes or any other calamity, these places are the first to become uninhabitable. Which means, the poor often have to leave. Then the political and moral question is whether anyone cares enough to help them return and rebuild.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of “welfare reform,” enacted by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Robert Scheer, however, believes that “Clinton Ended Welfare, Not Poverty” (Aug. 30, 2006):

The ex-president gloats over the large decrease in the number of welfare recipients as if he is unaware of the five-year limit and other new restrictions which made it inevitable. Nor does he seem bothered that nobody … assess[es] how the families on Aid to Families with Dependent Children fared after they left welfare. The truth is we know very little about [their fate], 70% of whom are children, because there is no systematic monitoring program … The best estimates … indicate that at least a million welfare recipients have neither jobs nor benefits … For those who found jobs, a great many became mired in minimum-wage jobs—sometimes more than one—that barely cover the child-care and other costs they incurred by working outside the home.

YouTube hosts a variety of videos featuring homeless people.

Some clips are sophomoric, exploitative, and cruel. Others represent earnest attempts to document life on the street and to capture first-person stories. (Note to well-meaning auteurs: please dispense with the saccharine background music.)

The site includes two clever, 30-second scenarios: “Box” and “Scaffold.” Original high-def versions are available on the New York Coalition for the Homeless homepage.

CFTH offers substantial information for anti-poverty advocates and publishes an annual Resource Guide for low-income New Yorkers, including a searchable electronic version. Check it out!

“Katrina: One Year Later” offers an archive of articles assembled by The Times- Picayune in New Orleans. The site features reporting from last year’s catastrophe, current analysis of rebuilding efforts, photos, and stories of the storm’s victims. A related site, Katrina’s Lives Lost, contains tributes and obituaries:

Joan died Aug. 31, the day after the floodwater rose. “It was probably about 105 degrees in the attic,” her sister Gerry said. “The man at St. Gabriel (morgue) said it appears that she died of hyperthermia. It got too hot; she was exhausted by it.” [Her husband] Don stayed in the house another three or four days, until he saw a neighbor’s son going by in a paddleboat, Gerry said. “Don came to the front door and said, ‘Get me some help. My wife is in here and she’s dead. Please get the Coast Guard to come get her.’” Workers lifted Joan’s body out of the attic on Sept. 17.

Adolph Reed Jr., whose many family members reside in New Orleans, writes a scathing critique of the disaster, “When Government Shrugs: Lessons of Katrina” via AlterNet:

The fetish of “efficient” government—code for public policy that is designed to serve the narrow interests of business and the affluent—is the ultimate cause of the city’s devastation. Remember that the city survived the hurricane. It flooded because the levees failed. The levees on the 17th Street and London Avenue canals failed because, in the words of the Independent Levee Investigation Team, “safety was exchanged for efficiency and reduced costs.” This was the result of federal underfunding, the Corps of Engineers’ skimping, state and local officials’ temporizing, and a lack of adequate government oversight—or, in neoliberal parlance, cutting government red tape.

Jill Leovy, of the LA Times, profiles the security staff at Los Angeles Central Library in “By the Book, With Footnotes” (Aug. 13, 2006). Like most mainstream reporting on homeless people in libraries, the article does not mention if the library is working in any capacity with local social-service agencies or advocating for day-shelter funding. One photo caption is particularly ironic: “Keeping up appearances is part of the unwritten code that lets different people mix comfortably in the library.”

“Some patrons will say, ‘Isn’t there any way to keep these homeless out of the building? They are so dirty,’ etc., etc.,” [Security Officer William] Morris said. In response to such queries, “I try not to be sarcastic,” he said. But he thinks, “I’d rather have them than you.” Many library staff have similar, complicated views. They complain about regulars—“a vortex of madness,” one called the situation—then defend them in the next breath. They are protective of the library atmosphere but even more protective of the principle of access. In fact, whatever the rules are on paper, it’s clear that library security officers essentially enforce what one librarian called “almost a compromise” between staff and the homeless.

Earlier this year, Springfield, Ill., city alderman Joe Bartolomucci proposed banning homeless people from the Lincoln Library plaza. Mayor Tim Davlin refused to support the proposal. The State Journal-Register interviewed some of the homeless individuals who use the library and sleep outside:

“People wonder how you end up in this situation and what can be done to help it,” [Tim Hawker] said last week … his back against the brick wall near the south doors of the main library, Seventh Street and Capitol Avenue. “People say ‘get a job’—but getting employment is more than just getting a job. To get employment, you have to have transportation, a phone number, somewhere to put your things … How do you get here? You’re single. You work minimum wage. You live at a poverty level, and you can’t save any money. So there’s no net to fall in when something happens. And down you fall again.” … Most of those who stay at the library actually are avid readers, Hawker said.

Despite repeated e-mails to ALA staff members, a Web page titled “America’s Libraries and the Homeless” remains buried in the ALA site. We’d like to see this page included in the links list under “PIO Fact Sheets.” The document offers examples of how

[m]any librarians play a leadership role in addressing the problem of homelessness in their communities by working in cooperation with other agencies and by providing direct services such as special reading collections in shelters for the homeless, literacy programs and information and referral services.

The following list was first published on August 29, 2005. A second version, with an introduction, appeared in the Fall 2005 issue of Counterpoise (Vol. 9, No. 4). Today’s update includes new resources.

Homeless people who reside in urban areas are frequent targets of ordinances that restrict their use of public space. Such regulations—often approved by local governments in deference to commercial interests—contribute to what some describe as a “brutal public sphere.”

Without affordable housing and an adequate social safety net, low-income citizens who possess no private space must consequently live their lives in public. And they are criminalized for having to do so.

The control of public space, however and on whomever it is rendered, impacts constitutional rights. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and with the authority provided by the USA PATRIOT Act, law enforcement agencies at all levels have routinely exhibited aggressive and repressive actions in response to free expression in public places.

Among other absurdities, various city leaders have devised “designated free speech zones” that effectively “quarantine dissent.” As geographer Don Mitchell has noted,

Dissident speakers have to remain outside the mall that has become the new public space of the city; they must remain at a distance from the politicians and the delegates they seek to influence; they must picket only where they will have no chance of creating a meaningful picket line.

Below are selected resources that address the fight(s) for public space. They touch on different issues, forces, and people. They also speak to what you can do to support (and express) constitutional and human rights.

Transfer: The Anti-Sit Archives
www.usemenow.com/web-log/archives/the_antisit/
This photo archive features examples of anti-homeless measures rendered on New York City’s urban landscape. Property owners and city managers construct elaborate cages around sidewalk steam grates and affix spiked rails to window ledges, planter boxes, and fire hydrants with the express purpose of preventing citizens—homeless or not—from lingering.

“A Dream Denied: The Criminalization of Homelessness in U.S. Cities”
National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH)
www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport/index.html
“An unfortunate trend in cities around the country over the past 25 years has been to turn to the criminal justice system to respond to people living in public spaces. This trend includes measures that target homeless persons by making it illegal to perform life-sustaining activities in public. These measures prohibit activities such as sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and begging in public spaces, usually including criminal penalties for violation of these laws.” The study surveys laws and practices in 224 cities and features a Top 20 list of “meanest cities.”

“People Need Their Civil Rights Protected”
Bringing America Home: The Campaign
www.bringingamericahome.org/civilrights.html
This document maintains that people “should not be criminalized or face injustice as a result of their housing status” and “should have the right to vote regardless of housing status.” It forms part of a “national, broad-based initiative … dedicated to the goal of ending homelessness. The Campaign is founded on the principles … that people need affordable housing, livable incomes, health care, education, and protection of their civil rights.”

“Exposure to the Homeless Increases Sympathetic Public Attitudes”
American Sociological Association (ASA)
http://tinyurl.com/bgnw8
A February 2004 study “looked at exposure through four dimensions: third-party information, observation in public places, interaction with homeless people, and having been or knowing someone who is or has been homeless … all four forms of exposure promote sympathetic attitudes toward homelessness … Also, people who have more exposure to homelessness tend to attribute homelessness to structural causes as opposed to individual causes.”

The Right to the City: Social Justice and the Fight for Public Space
Don Mitchell (The Guilford Press, 2003)
http://tinyurl.com/qg4mv
“This provocative work asserts that the right to public space is crucial to advancing the cause of justice. Complex yet comprehensible, the book balances the ideas of legal scholars, cultural theorists, and social scientists with Mitchell’s singular voice based on his extensive thinking and research in the area. Mitchell thoughtfully argues that the struggle for rights actually produces public space and thus insists that rights be taken seriously, especially by leftist scholars, as they are central to counteracting exclusionary practices and the pervasive power of the state.”

Street People and the Contested Realms of Public Space
Randall Amster (LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/lnd46
“This work explores the social and spatial implications of homelessness in America. Increasingly, commentators have lamented the erosion of public space, charting its decline along with the rise of commercialization and privatization … [T]he author explores patterns and interconnections among: the impetus of urban development and gentrification; the enactment of anti-homeless ordinances and regulations; the material and ideological erosion of public space; and emerging forces of resistance to these trends.”

“Keeping the ‘Public’ in Public Space”
Project for Public Spaces (PPS)
www.pps.org/info/placemakingtools/issuepapers/commercialize
“Public spaces have always gone hand in hand with commerce. Markets, vendors, and retailers are essential components of many a great place. But when does vibrant economic activity cross the line and become crass commercialization? Everywhere we look people who manage parks and squares are struggling with this question … ”

“Selling Out: Our Public Space, Universal Services Under Assault”
Ralph Nader
www.commondreams.org/views03/0810-07.htm
“The loss of free-standing library structures and their landscaping means families and individuals entering and leaving libraries must navigate between people with shopping bags and carts negotiating adjacent stores, parking, and all the noise. Commercial minds do not appreciate the sanctuaries of such public institutions. They do understand dependency, however, as well as the proverbial foot in the door toward privatization …”

Dismantling the Public Sphere: Situating and Sustaining Librarianship in the Age of the New Public Philosophy
John Buschman (Libraries Unlimited, 2003)
http://lu.com/showbook.cfm?isbn=9780313321993
“This work presents a thorough examination of librarianship and the social and economic contexts in which the profession and its institutions operate … Buschman asserts that a significant shift has occurred from the library as a contributor to the public good to a model where economic rationality directs policy. He challenges much of the current thinking and assumptions guiding libraries, exploring the circumstances in which librarians and libraries operate and linking the profession back to democratic and public purposes as the core essence of the field.”

“On Libraries and the Public Sphere”
John Buschman
www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/buschman.htm
“Thinkers as varied as the management guru Henry Mintzberg and the media critic Neil Postman have arrived at similar conclusions: we are a society out of balance. One system of thinking about society and its problems and one method of solving them—economics—has come to dominate as a public philosophy … The educational philosopher Maxine Greene writes reminding us that ‘nowhere is it written’ that we are required to organize ourselves ‘in response to the demands of the Pentagon or to those obsessed with exploiting markets overseas.’ To accede to that purpose robs the society we serve of an important, if ineffable, resource …”

“The Assault on Free Speech, Public Assembly, and Dissent: A National Lawyers Guild Report on Government Violations of First Amendment Rights in the United States (2004)” (PDF)
Heidi Boghosian
www.nlg.org/resources/DissentBookWeb.pdf
With a foreword by Lewis Lapham, this report cites ‘a long list of incidents in which various law enforcement agencies … have deployed one or another of increasingly sophisticated methods of intimidation (checkpoints, rush tactics, pop-up lines, containment pens, mass and false arrests, etc.) meant to negate the freedoms of speech and silence the voices of dissent” in the public sphere. The NLG finds that “rights of free assembly and free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution are simply no longer available to the citizens of this country.”

“The Liberalization of Free Speech: or, How Protest in Public Space Is Silenced”
Don Mitchell
http://agora.stanford.edu/agora/volume4/mitchell.shtml
”[C]ontemporary speech laws and policing effectively silence dissident speech in the name of its promotion and regulation. As the [Supreme] Court has moved away from a regime that penalizes what is said—in essence liberalizing free speech—it has simultaneously created a means to severely regulate where things may be said, and it has done so … in a way that more effectively silences speech than did the older regime of censorship and repression.”

“People in the Streets: The Promise of Democracy in Everyday Public Space”
Greg Smithsimon
www.columbia.edu/~gs228/writing/importanceps.htm
“A key prerequisite for a democratic society, [public] settings are where we take organized political action, and meet and learn about the society of which we are a part. One challenge, for planners and improvers from the 1890s to today, has been to translate that article of faith into a compelling argument that public space is the rich soil from which a democracy society grows. Explaining public space’s crucial role–both for organized political activity and through its everyday uses–is crucial to building popular support for the development and protection of vital space that many Americans aren’t even sure they want …”

“Sidewalk Democracy: Municipalities and the Regulation of Public Space”
A. Loukaitou-Sideris, Evelyn Blumenberg, and Renia Ehrenfeucht
http://communityartsadvocates.org/sidewalkdemocracy.html
“Today sidewalk democracy remains contested as design and regulatory strategies have serious constitutional implications for First Amendment speech and assembly rights …”

Brave New Neighborhoods: The Privatization of Public Space
Margaret Kohn (Routledge, 2004)
http://tinyurl.com/zan3d
According to reviewer Zachary Callen, “Kohn embarks on a historical/descriptive analysis of the changing form of public space in contemporary American society. Through this discussion, she interrogates the rise of ‘private spaces’ that are replacing ‘public’ venues. Kohn’s second preoccupation is more theoretical. In this voice, she focuses on the normative importance of public spaces for a thriving democracy. In both of these efforts, Kohn’s contribution is valuable, reinforcing the importance of public space for the production of healthy democratic citizens.”

The Politics of Public Space
Setha Low and Neil Smith, eds. (Routledge, 2005)
http://tinyurl.com/n73cm
“Public spaces are no longer democratic places where all people are embraced and tolerated, but instead centers of commerce and consumption. Increasing privatization through collaborative public/private partnerships between municipalities and local businesses has transformed such places as Bryant Park and Union Square in the center of New York City into environments maintained by video surveillance and police control … The linkage between public space and the globalizing political economy deserves closer scrutiny because societal mobilization about public space influences … democratic participation.”

The Kansas City Star highlights local pediatricians who give children books during their regular checkups. The effort is part of the national Reach Out and Read program:

Reach Out and Read, which provides more than 4 million books a year to 2.5 million children nationwide, got started in Kansas City in 1997 … “We reach over 20,000 kids each year with a special emphasis on children growing up in poverty,” said Jean Harty, a development pediatrician and executive director of Reach Out and Read Kansas City. Children in the program receive a book at every well-child checkup until they reach kindergarten [12 books total].

Via the Worcester (Mass.) Telegram.com, a local doctor shares her opinion of the Worcester Public Library’s borrowing restrictions for homeless people:

For 30 years, I have referred hundreds of patients to [WPL] to use these valuable public resources. I did not question whether they lived in shelters, they were readers and that is what counted. I imagine the humiliation of a child, teenager or adult, who brings a robust pile of books to the circulation desk only to find that because of the residential address, he or she would be limited to only two books. As with medical care, I believe that homeless individuals and families, i.e., the people who populate our shelters, share the same rights as other citizens.

According to The Record, 50% of schoolkids in San Joaquin County, Calif., qualify for free and reduced-price lunch programs. Hunger is just one of the challenges these kids face.

[Sara] Garfield directs Stockton’s Transitional Learning Center, a school for homeless children. Students from poor families often come to school with unmet needs their more affluent peers don’t share, Garfield said. They might not have a library card or books at home … They might never have visited a museum. “Then, if you put poor attendance on top of that, or health issues, or not having adequate clothing or feeling embarrassed, it greatly compounds the problem[s].”

WebJunction has named the Carvers Bay Library in South Carolina its “Library of the Month.” Betha Gutsche profiles the library’s use of gaming in literacy initiatives:

If asked which US library is pushing the envelope on introducing interactive computer gaming in public libraries, how many would look to the most rural, poor, and isolated corner of a county in South Carolina? And if informed that this corner of the library world has a 30% illiteracy rate, a 15% unemployment rate, a poverty level exceeding 30% with up to 90% of school kids eligible for free or reduced-rate lunches … what odds would you give that it can even keep its doors open?

The East Grand Forks Campbell Library in Minnesota is currently hosting a photography exhibition titled “Portraits of Home: Families in Search of Shelter in Greater Minnesota.” The exhibit is sponsored by the Greater Minnesota Housing Fund and is available for display elsewhere.

“There’s a preconceived notion that homelessness is an urban problem,” [exhibition coordinator Julie] Delliquanti said. “Rural folks struggle with the same issues on housing. They’re isolated, and they don’t have that same sense of community and resources” … Because of the visibility of homelessness, more people are aware of it, she said. People who live in poverty are harder to identify … “How many people don’t know their neighbors are struggling or their children’s teacher is struggling? … Our service workers, teachers, fire departments, police officers, all the people we depend on … They’re working, raising children and still falling through the cracks. Somewhere, we’re failing them.”

Beginning August 29, PBS is broadcasting the documentary Waging a Living by filmmaker Roger Weisberg.

Shot over a three-year period in the Northeast and California, this observational documentary captures the dreams, frustrations, and accomplishments of a diverse group of people who struggle to live from paycheck to paycheck. By presenting an unvarnished look at the barriers that these workers must overcome to lift their families out of poverty, Waging a Living offers a sobering view of the elusive American Dream.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) has published a study titled “When Work Doesn’t Pay: What Every Policymaker Should Know,” which includes a Family Resource Simulator.

Here is the dilemma: although our nation highly values work, parents working full-time cannot always provide adequately for their families. Nearly 30 million Americans—a quarter of the U.S. labor force—work in jobs that pay poverty-level wages and provide few prospects for advancement and wage growth. Some 24 million children live in low-income families despite having at least one parent who works … In other words, this is no small problem.

America’s Second Harvest has published the Hunger Almanac 2006, featuring analysis and statistics keyed to each of the 50 states.

More than 25 million Americans rely on charitable food assistance to make ends meet. An estimated 9 million children live in families where getting food from food pantries, soup kitchen lines or homeless shelters is as commonplace as getting food from grocery stores. Nearly 3 million seniors are spending their golden years relying on the generosity of others for a meal. The Almanac contains these and more difficult truths …

The American Psychological Association (APA) adopted a detailed “Resolution on Poverty and Socioeconomic Status” in 2000. The document is supported by a bibliography and chock-full of interesting data:

WHEREAS, perceptions of the poor and of welfare—by those not in those circumstances—tend to reflect attitudes and stereotypes that attribute poverty to personal failings rather than socioeconomic structures and systems and that ignore strengths and competencies in these groups (Ehrenreich, 1987; Katz, 1989; Quadagno, 1994), and public policy and anti-poverty programs continue to reflect these stereotypes (Bullock, 1995; Furnham, 1993; Furnham & Gunter, 1984; Rubin & Peplau, 1975);

A report from Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), “Katrina’s Vanishing Victims,” takes the media to task for ignoring the “rediscovered poor” in New Orleans and elsewhere:

What Slate’s Jack Shafer had written during the height of the storm (8/31/05) remained true months later: “I don’t recall any reporter exploring the class issue directly by getting a paycheck-to-paycheck victim to explain that he couldn’t risk leaving because if he lost his furniture and appliances, his pots and pans, his bedding and clothes, to Katrina or looters, he’d have no way to replace them …”