In fact, the program has been helping students from many area schools, including Niles, Brandywine, Buchanan and even Berrien Springs for 15 years and Friday (February 26) an open house will be held for interested parents and students who want to get a second chance at their education."
The full story may be found in the Niles Daily Star at:
www.nilesstar.com/2010/02/25/an-open-house-for-a-fresh-start/Economists fear that the nascent recovery will leave more people behind than in past recessions, failing to create jobs in sufficient numbers to absorb the record-setting ranks of the long-term unemployed.
Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.
Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.
This is why the timing is as important as ever to focus on poverty reduction in hand with economic growth and job creation. Improving and expanding educational initiatives could be a key factor in the upcoming years:
Some labor experts say the basic functioning of the American economy has changed in ways that make jobs scarce — particularly for older, less-educated people like Ms. Eisen, who has only a high school diploma.
Large companies are increasingly owned by institutional investors who crave swift profits, a feat often achieved by cutting payroll. The declining influence of unions has made it easier for employers to shift work to part-time and temporary employees. Factory work and even white-collar jobs have moved in recent years to low-cost countries in Asia and Latin America. Automation has helped manufacturing cut 5.6 million jobs since 2000 — the sort of jobs that once provided lower-skilled workers with middle-class paychecks.
It is important we focus on securing our social nets, making it possible for our citizens to build assets, retrain our workforce for modern jobs and make education more accessible for all. These issues, on top of blockbuster topics such as health care and energy, should make this a particularly challenging decade. During this time of rebuilding, it is important that we shed the "me-first" mentality and focus on values that encourage sustainability for entire communities.After the recessions in 1990 and in 2001, 31 and 46 months passed before employment returned to its previous peaks. The economy was growing, but companies remained conservative in their hiring.
Some 34 million people were hired into new and existing private-sector jobs in 2000, at the tail end of an expansion, according to Labor Department data. A year later, in the midst of recession, hiring had fallen off to 31.6 million. And as late as 2003, with the economy again growing, hiring in the private sector continued to slip, to 29.8 million.
It was a jobless recovery: Business was picking up, but it simply did not translate into more work. This time, hiring may be especially subdued, labor economists say.
The Battle Creek Enquirer is accepting nominations for the 2010 George Awards, continuing a 53-year tradition of honoring area residents who take it upon themselves to make positive changes in their communities.Read the full article:
The honorees, selected for good works done in 2009, will be recognized at a reception April 21 at the Battle Creek Country Club.Former Enquirer Publisher Robert B. Miller Sr. instituted the annual George Awards in 1957, recognizing people who "don't wait around for George to do it," but instead take the initiative and do things to benefit others in the community.
George recipients generally are people responsible for spearheading projects -- either one-time events or ongoing efforts -- that otherwise would not have existed. In order to qualify, the project also cannot be part of that person's regular job duties.
"The arts are an initial way of communicating," said Woodson Reid, who headed (Detroit Public Schools) fine arts until last year. "Little children explain everything with their images and creations."
Such creations foster eye-hand coordination. "But our kids can be in the third or fourth grade," she said, "and still don't know how to hold scissors."
Antonia Caretto, a Farmington Hills clinical psychologist, said it all boils down to mental development.
"The more we can develop both sides of the brain," she said, "the better the long-term implications for creative problem-solving," which might be key to keeping this country competitive in a globalized world,"
according to an article in today's Detroit News, school districts in Michigan may be considering cutting programs in the arts and music due to financial difficulties in school funding from the state.
The full article can be found at:
Eviction has devastating affects on both families and the communities who suffer them. To lose one's home is to lose the ultimate source of stability in life, making it extremely difficult maintain steady work. It creates a downward spiral which often can lead to depression and long-term government dependence.“Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women,” said Matthew Desmond, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin whose research on trends in Milwaukee since 2002 provides a rare portrait of gender patterns in inner-city rentals.
The study found that one of every 25 renter-occupied households in the city is evicted each year. In black neighborhoods, the rate is one in 14. These figures include only court-ordered evictions; the true toll, experts say, is greater because far more tenants, under threat of eviction, move in with relatives, into more run-down apartments or, sometimes, into homeless shelters.
Women from largely black neighborhoods in Milwaukee constitute 13 percent of the city’s population, but 40 percent of those evicted. Housing lawyers in Los Angeles and New York described a similar predominance of minority women, including Hispanic women, in eviction cases. (The figures do not include displaced renters from foreclosed properties.)
Even for working mothers, evictions and the ensuing damage to social ties, schooling and credit ratings can be an ever-hovering threat. Clarissa Adams, 38, a mother of three in Milwaukee, has been evicted four times in 10 years and is now trying desperately to break the pattern.
Since July she has shared a $570-a-month two-bedroom apartment with her daughters, ages 15, 18 and 23, and two small grandchildren. She is studying for a degree in social services and lost her job as a cashier in the fall after a dispute with her boss.
Unable to pay the last three months rent, Ms. Adams received some emergency assistance through Community Advocates, a private group. To stave off eviction, she promised to pay the landlord $1,000 by Feb. 15, just as her tax refund arrived. She owes an additional $955 by March 1 and hopes to scrape the money together while she looks for a job.
Previous evictions sent her into a deep depression, she said, and had temporarily split up the family, with her children staying a relative who did not want her.
“We just need someplace where we can be a family,” Ms. Adams said.
LANSING — Gov. Jennifer Granholm's latest budget proposal would hire hundreds of caseworkers to deal with rising demand for food stamps and to boost child welfare services in Michigan.Understaffed Department of Human Service offices our a common theme across the state of Michigan. The situation has become so desperate in some areas, that leaders are searching for ways to prevent violence from occurring on behalf of frustrated workers at these offices. Hiring additional staff would be a beneficial way to support our needy population and delivery services more efficiently. The quicker we can send services to these people, the quicker they can stabilize their lives and actually depend less on others to support them.
It won't be easy to find the extra money needed to hire the workers given the state's budget problems. The state must hire more child welfare workers as the result of a federal lawsuit.
Lawmakers on Thursday began hearings on the proposed Department of Human Services budget. Granholm's proposal would increase DHS spending by more than $100 million from the state's general fund for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1.
The department's overall proposed budget of $7 billion is paid for mostly with federal money that covers a portion of welfare payments to children and families and other costs.
A new study suggests that Allegan County is the healthiest county in Southwest Michigan and that Kalamazoo County may be headed toward a healthier future.Allegan County ranked 14th on health outcomes and 15th on health factors. Kalamazoo County ranked 37th on outcomes but considerably higher on health factors, at 13th.
St. Joseph, Cass and Van Buren counties, however, rank in the bottom half of Michigan’s 82 counties in a new County Health Rankings report from the University of Wisconsin’s Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“I was pleased to find us in the top 20 in three of four categories of health factors,” she said. Those three categories were behaviors (smoking, diet and exercise, alcohol use and unsafe sex), clinical care (access to health care and quality of care) and social and economic factors (education, employment, income, family and social support, community safety).Read the full article:
Kalamazoo County ranked 63rd, however, in the category of physical environment, which includes factors such as air quality, access to healthy foods and density of liquor stores.
Buzas said one thing Kalamazoo County should do is look at ways it can improve access to fresh, healthy foods for the whole population.
She cited Louisville, Ky., as an example of what a community can do to boost access to healthy foods. Louisville made sure there were corner stores in downtown neighborhoods “without all the junk food and with lots of fresh food and produce,” she said.
Buzas also emphasized that the responsibility for improving a community’s health goes far beyond local health officials.
“It’s not just the health department. It’s all of us,” she said. “A lot of things play into the health of people. A whole lot of things create a healthy population or a not-so-healthy population.”
Social and economic factors play a big role in a community’s health, and the economic downturn has brought extra challenges, Buzas said. “Some people are worried about just having a roof over their heads and what their next meal will be on the table,” she said.
But Kalamazoo County is working to address those challenges, she said. “You’re seeing people dealing with issues of social equity — housing and poverty and transportation and access to healthy foods — and how those affect your health,” she said.
On a personal level, “the biggest thing we can do to improve overall health is what we eat and being active,” Buzas said. She cited the local Girls on the Run as a successful effort to encourage girls to be physically active.
"Michiganians struggling to just get by in this dismal economy are getting a helping hand from an unlikely source: the tax man.
Federal and state tax agencies have anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to give low-income workers and their families through the Earned Income Tax Credit.
Last year, more than 720,000 Michigan residents collected $1.5 billion from the federal credit, at an average of $2,047 apiece."
The full article is in Tuesday's Detroit News:
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kalamazoo is hosting a new program called Girls 2 Women, a program aimed at guiding middle-school girls in areas of education and career development.Read the full article:
The program will kick off at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Kazoo Books, 2413 Parkview Ave., in Kalamazoo with speaker Patti Criswell, American Girl author.
Criswell will speak about her career as a writer. Each girl will receive a copy of her book, which Criswell will be signing.
This event is the first of six “Girls Night Out” activities featuring a female career role model.
“I think this program helps girls look at their options, and see that there are opportunities out there to help make their dreams come true,” said Janene Weis, director of marketing and public relations with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Michigan.Over a span of nine to 12 months, the girls will tour Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Valley Community College and Van Buren Technology Center.
The girls also can participate in an overnight lock-in at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo and design a community service project.
At the end of the program, the girls will create a newsletter detailing their experiences.
“A lot of our girls come from lower-income families or at-risk situations. I just want them to see that there are options available to them to get an education — to get that dream job,” Weis said.
Girls and mentors interested in participating can contact Devan Bell at devanbell@bbbsmi.org or (269) 382-6800 ext. 138.
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