Michigan to help migrant workers left without summer housing due to devastated fruit crop

As farmers deal with a severely damaged fruit crop this year, the migrant workers who rely on the harvest for a living are struggling to find summer housing.

Many migrant workers and their families stay on grower-provided housing facilities, or camps. Farmers often provide the lodging for free or low-cost. They allow workers to stay at the orchards even after they’ve moved on to harvest vegetables and other crops, because they want to attract workers when needed.

This year is different, with a level of fruit crop devastation not seen since the 1940s. Many growers aren’t opening their camps this season, leaving migrants in a difficult situation.

http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/07/devastated_fruit_crop_has_left.html#incart_river_default

Struggling Families Lift Themselves Out Of Poverty

A new program in California, created the Family Independence Initiative, a nonprofit .... Its purpose is to encourage low-income families to form small groups and help each other figure out how to get ahead.


The families meet monthly and keep journals, charting their progress on income, savings, education — all the signposts of a successful life. For this, each family gets a laptop computer and an average monthly stipend of $160. The key is that the families also get to set their own goals.

One group, which met on a recent Saturday morning in San Francisco, calls itself the Fitness Five — five lively, sometimes boisterous, women. Hospital worker Shanna Chaney says their main focus is getting healthy. After all, it's hard to get ahead if you're ill.

"We all care about health — spiritual heath, everything," she says.

"Especially me," chimes in fellow group member Yovanda Dixon, "because I'm a diabetic."

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/13/155103662/struggling-families-lift-themselves-out-of-poverty