Guest Bloggers
Access Denied
Published May 27, 2009 @ 07:00AM PT
In a post from several weeks ago, Leigh helpfully reminded us all that “disablism” is an issue for anti-poverty advocates to keep front and center in our struggle for equal housing opportunities. Last week, my organization released the results of the first audit study on disability discrimination in New Orleans housing since Hurricane Katrina.
Access Denied: An Audit of Housing Accessibility for People with Physical Disabilities in the Greater New Orleans Rental Housing Market demonstrates that 100% of the twenty-two complexes investigated (all built within the past five years) were inaccessible to people with physical disabilities according to the standards set forth under the Fair Housing Act as amended in 1988. Violations included a lack of curb cuts that would allow access from a parking lot to units or common areas, bathroom walls that are not reinforced to allow for the installation of grab bars, and kitchens/bathrooms that are impossible for a wheelchair user to navigate.
These results amount to illegal discrimination against people with disabilities but are disturbing for several additional reasons when we consider context.
First, Principles
Published May 16, 2009 @ 09:00AM PT
Of all the lessons from our economic downturn, the first, most basic one has not really changed: unless and until we do something to solve the home lending and foreclosure mess, we can’t really hope to climb out of the hole we’re in.
Everybody knows that… right?
Of course, there’s knowing and there’s doing… and unfortunately, while the knowing we have a problem part seems a given, the doing is not so clear.
Report: One in Six Children in the U.S. Are Hungry
Published May 14, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
A new report (pdf) released last week by Feeding America claims that one in six young children (those who are five-years-old and younger) in 26 U.S. states face a constant threat of food insecurity. That adds up to 3.5 million young children in this country who do not have adequate access to healthy food.
The statistics in the report—Child Food Insecurity in the United States: 2005 – 2007—were compiled using data collected by USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS).
Perhaps an even more disturbing statistic is that the rate of food insecurity in young children is 33 percent higher than the rate experienced by U.S. adults, where only one in eight live at risk of hunger. I personally find it deeply troubling that there are so many hungry children in this country who don’t have the ability to provide for themselves.
Policies that Make People Disappear
Published May 13, 2009 @ 05:47AM PT
I visited Chicago for the first time ever last week to participate in a panel about affordable housing in Chicago and New Orleans. The comparisons are striking and frightening.
In 1998, the Chicago Housing Authority embarked on its “Plan for Transformation,” a HOPE VI funded, ten-year plan designed to demolish traditional public housing and replace it with “mixed income” housing. According to the CHA website, the Plan “will improve the appearance, quality and culture of public housing in Chicago.” From a starting point of 38,000 units, the Plan calls for the demolition of 22,000 units and the replacement of 9,000 units, with an end count of 25,000 units.
Not surprisingly, there was resistance to the Plan. HOPE VI developments are notorious for permanently displacing residents. But I was particularly struck by one community organizer’s testimony from an older public housing resident who opposed the Plan. This gentleman had experienced urban renewal decades ago. He said that he opposed the demolition of public housing buildings because the buildings themselves remind others that people like him exist.
This observation was striking, and I thought of many examples of how post-Katrina policies have literally made people disappear.
What If They Gave A Recovery And No One Came?
Published May 07, 2009 @ 12:00PM PT
Given the American short attention span, perhaps the fact that we’ve grown bored with “recession talk” is to be expected. Dealing with foreclosures, the end of debt-fueled excess, and the rest, is not fun and sits uneasily on our usual approach of endless growth and optimism.
That, I think is why the early bleating about “notes of recovery” or a “few small shoots” in the garden of future prosperity is so unsurprising. Businesses and Wall Street investors want an up story, and the idea of a turnaround is good for business, and by the media’s extension, good for all of us.
So what if the facts don’t fit the story?
The Rural Poor and Access To Health Care
Published May 07, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
Many times when we think of the word "poverty," images of urban slums, soup kitchen lines and the homeless are the first thoughts that pop into our heads.
But as many of you know, poverty has no geographical boundaries. There are many families living in rural America that struggle to survive with less access to poverty-support systems that are often based in cities. One of the most significant challenges these families often face is access to affordable health care.
A new report released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paints a grim picture of rural economies and health care access in communities across the county. Among the findings:
-Rates of poverty are higher in rural areas than in urban areas. While 12% of those in urban areas live in poverty, 15% of rural Americans live below the poverty line.
Mass Incarceration: An Unacceptable Strategy for Poverty Reduction
Published April 29, 2009 @ 05:00AM PT
One reason that people are so drawn to New Orleans post 2005 is that Hurricane Katrina and our ensuing struggle for reconstruction have laid bare the disparities that arise from social problems like racism and poverty. It’s always interesting to see post-Katrina volunteers making connections between what they observe here and the problems they witness back in their own communities all across the country. One area where this has become particularly clear to me is in our national policy of mass incarceration, which has been carried to an extreme in Louisiana and New Orleans.
