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Chicago West Side Women Seek to Narrow Wealth Gap

 

WBEZ

 

July 6, 2010

A group of mothers and grandmothers on Chicago’s West Side is tackling an entrenched community problem: too few have assets they can tap if they hit on hard times.

 

From WBEZ:

A group of mothers and grandmothers on Chicago’s West Side is tackling an entrenched community problem: too few have assets they can tap if they hit on hard times. That can mean the difference between surviving a lay off, or slipping into poverty. The women are learning financial literacy and how to put more savings in the pot. Policy advocates see it as one way to narrow the wealth gap among whites and black and Latinos.

A group of two dozen women has set aside their Saturday afternoon to gather here on the West Side and listen to Lynn Morton talk to them about money.

MORTON: When you actually sit down and write down what you’re spending every week, it will blow your mind because it blew my mind.

Morton is what’s called a “parent peer trainer.” She’s telling the women here at the Lawndale League of Extraordinary Women how she learned to save.

MORTON: Know where you spending your money. Even that quarter you give to kids to get that quarter juice – know how many times a week you’re doing that.

Morton emphasizes being a good steward of your money. She’s passionate about the topic because she knows that in some communities of color, a recession can actually be a depression.

According to the nonprofit Heartland Alliance, in Illinois, 51 percent of African Americans have asset poverty. For Latinos, it’s 48 percent compared with 19 percent for whites. Other national studies have echoed similar results.

Fifty-year-old Dorrie Myles is one of the women listening to Morton today. Myles got laid off in 2007 and hasn’t had any luck finding employment.

MYLES: Single parents who have small children were concerned about not being able to budget their money and handle money in their household. We started talking about budgeting and how to make our families strong financially and how to be stronger women in the household, to discipline our kids, handle our money.

Community Organizing and Family Issues, or COFI, is the nonprofit helping the Lawndale women. The women assessed what was going on in their neighborhood before they decided what to tackle.

CROWDER: Financial literacy and the financial crisis became an issue.

Tracy Occomy Crowder is with COFI. The group works with many other nonprofits on money issues in communities of color.

CROWDER: You have groups like Heartland Alliance and the Illinois Asset Building Group that have been working on different legislative initiatives around preventing foreclosures, payday loans, increasing the earned-income tax credit.

The coalition had a victory when Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law in June that caps the amount of interest that payday loan companies can charge. Those businesses tend to cluster in low-income communities of color.

Heartland Alliance’s Chris Giangreco helped lobby for the law.

GIANGRECO: Unemployment is so high – particularly in African-American and Latino communities. Asset poverty is high as well. We’re seeing that so many losing their jobs are falling right into poverty.

Giangreco has also been helping nonprofit COFI on the financial literacy piece in Lawndale.

GIANGRECO: We have a system that doesn’t necessarily support low-income people building their own safety nets. One of the biggest issues that we know from experience from being out in the community and talking to people, many of the public benefits require people to spend down their assets and in doing that they’re essentially depleting their own safety net to get a temporary benefit from the government.

He also works with the Illinois Asset Building Group. One of its goals is to mandate that the state provide every child with a savings account. Ideally, that will encourage saving early on in a child’s life.

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A Program’s Legacy in Jobs and Lives

 

Chicago News Cooperative

 

July 2, 2010

A profile of Put Illinois to Work, the statewide jobs program managed by Heartland Human Care Services.

 

From Chicago News Cooperative:

 

The private Daybridge School, which opens in Olympia Fields next month, may prove to be a testament to educational vision. For now, it’s an homage to serendipity, given the help afforded by President Obama’s economic stimulus package.

Beyond signs promoting the thousands of road projects nationwide that have come to symbolize the stimulus package in action, many smaller programs are financed without fanfare, giving careers — and livelihoods — a shot at making it through an unforgiving recession.

 

William Spencer, a businessman, will open Daybridge School, his private pre-kindergarten-through-third-grade institution in a 30,000-square-foot facility that used to be a racquetball club in an office park. Another group originally planned to turn the space into a school but went out of business, allowing Mr. Spencer to pick up the property at a foreclosure sale.

He said that his encounter with “Put Illinois to Work,” a mostly temporary jobs program now financing 17,000 jobs, was a coincidence. “I ran into another employer with a kid coming here,” he said, “heard about the program and looked at the state Web site.”

Mr. Spencer met the stimulus program’s criteria, so the state will pick up the $10-an-hour cost for 15 positions for the previously unemployed, including teaching assistants, receptionists and clerks. That money runs out Oct. 1.

“I could not possibly have hired those 15 without this help,” said Mr. Spencer, who plans to charge tuition of $18,000 a year. He said more students have already enrolled than he can handle. When the federal subsidy runs out, he hopes that the ability to attract and accommodate more students — he’s aiming at the children of black professionals — will allow him to keep employing them.

Then there are projects like as the Rosa Parks Apartments in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. The development comprises 94 affordable housing units in eight buildings, and results from $10 million given to the nonprofit Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation. The private investor market in such housing has collapsed, said Joy Arguete, the company’s executive director.

Ms. Arguete created 109 jobs, including 55 in construction, with permanent spots remaining in the $35,000-to-$50,000 range. Those include a “green resident organizer,” Liz Andujar, who ensures that tenants understand the project’s green elements and, heeding the Obama administration push for sustainable communities, how best to use public transit and recycling.

 

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Changing Demographics Strain Refugee Services

 

OneWorld.net

 

June 24, 2010

Groups that resettle refugees are struggling with diminishing federal funds and an ever more variegated client base.

 

From OneWorld.net:

 

When Serestine Cizanye arrived in Chicago from Tanzania it was winter and she spent every day in her room.

 

“I was confused, didn’t know when it was day and when it was night. Through the settlement agency, I met other refugees and immigrants and I was able to communicate with others in (my language) Kirundi,” Cizanye said.

A native of Burundi, Cizanye fled to a refugee camp in Tanzania in 1972 when the Tutsi-dominated government systematically massacred Hutus after a rebellion. She worked as a farmer, married and had five children. Then she was widowed.

In 1986, Cizanye was arrested by the Tanzanian government, along with numerous other women, and held against her will for three days. The women were all raped. Cizanye still suffers from the trauma of this experience.

In February 2008, Cizanye, 53, arrived in Chicago with two of her children, Pangrasi and Sipriyano. The resettlement agency provided her with housing, a bus pass and food stamps because her health prevents her from working.

But she has chest and back pain. She needs help navigating medical appointments because of language. Her sons are struggling at school. “It’s hard,” said Pangrasi, 15. “I don’t understand algebra; only science and arts.” Sipriyano said reading is difficult but he likes mathematics and has friends.

“These kids lived in a refugee camp for 11 years. They came here and didn’t speak a word of English,” said Terrance Sinabajije, a translator who works at the International Children’s Center (ICC) at Heartland Alliance.

“They learned through ESL classes, regular school, after-school programs and tutors provided by the settlement agency. It’s understandable that they have problems with some classes, but it’s still amazing if you could go and see how they lived in that refugee camp,” Sinabajije said.

Groups that try to resettle refugees like Cizanye are struggling with diminishing federal funds and an ever more variegated client base. Golden Door Coalition, a group of refugee service providers and supporters from the Chicagoland area, formed in January of this year, is advocating for a change in policy that would modify the Refugee Act of 1980, so it would be more relevant to the realities they face today.

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Subsidized Jobs Programs Peaking as Expiration Looms

Subsidized Jobs Programs Peaking as Expiration Looms

Off the Charts Blog

 

June 23, 2010

Profile of the successes of subsidized employment programs such as Put Illinois to Work, administered by Heartland Human Care Services.

 

From Off the Charts Blog:

I’ve been calling the TANF Emergency Fund the Recovery Act’s best-kept secret, but the secret is out — just ask the nearly 200,000* adults and youth who will get jobs through one of the many subsidized jobs programs the fund supports across the country (see map). The Senate is considering jobs legislation that would extend the fund (which expires September 30) for a year and fully offset the cost. This may be the last chance for congressional action before both the fund and most of those jobs disappear.

If the Senate doesn’t pass a jobs bill with this provision, many states will begin to wind down their programs as early as next week and most programs will end altogether by September 30.

 

Here’s what’s at stake:

  • The program in Illinois — one of 30-odd states to use the Emergency Fund for temporary jobs programs — has placed 14,000 people in jobs paying $10 an hour since it started just a few months ago and is now placing more than 500 a day. The placements are in a mix of private businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies. It’s a win-win for people seeking jobs and employers seeking workers.

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State: ‘Put Illinois to Work’ Creates 3,886 Jobs

Pontiac Community Times

 

May 15, 2010

Put Illinois to Work is a collaborative effort of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), and Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS).

 

From Pontiac Community Times:

Governor Pat Quinn today visited the Peoria YWCA to announce that 577 employers across the state have agreed to hire more than 3,886 workers through the Put Illinois to Work (PIW) employment program. Peoria’s YWCA has signed on to participate in the anti-poverty program that is expected to create more than 15,000 jobs statewide.

“Put Illinois to Work will create more than 15,000 good-paying jobs in our state,” said Governor Quinn. “I applaud the hundreds of Illinois employers that have signed on to this program, and I encourage businesses and residents across the state to visit PutIllinoistoWork.Illinois.gov and fill out an application.”

Through Put Illinois to Work, eligible Illinois residents will be placed in subsidized employment positions with participating worksites for up to six months, learning valuable skills and supporting their families. The program is expected to create more than 15,000 jobs statewide and to help stimulate Illinois’ ailing economy. Put Illinois to Work will develop a healthy state workforce by providing meaningful work experiences for participants.

Private, public and non-profit businesses are encouraged to participate in Put Illinois to Work. Eligible participants are matched to subsidized employment opportunities with these worksites. The hope is that when the program concludes, many employers will permanently hire the workers they trained.

Put Illinois to Work is a collaborative effort of the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS), and Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS). Funding is provided through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Contingency Fund (ECF), which was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA).

Eligible worksites and participants must meet program criteria and agree to adhere to specific programmatic requirements. Participants must be age 18-21, or 18 and older and the parent (custodial or noncustodial) of a minor child. All participants must have a household income below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level ($2,428 per month for a family of two) and be legally present and authorized to work.

The Peoria YWCA serves around 150 children each day in their child care program and 100 children in health promotions activities. They house an average of 50 children each night either in the emergency shelter, transitional housing or permanent supportive housing. The YWCA also provides services to more than 10,000 different individuals annually and provides space to a local high school for their women’s sports and junior varsity athletic programs.

For eligibility criteria and additional information on Put Illinois to Work, visit PutIllinoistoWork.Illinois.gov.

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Marion County on “Poverty Warning List” According To New Study

WJBD

 

May 12, 2010

Heartland Alliance has released its 2010 Report on Poverty in Illinois, with Marion County on the group’s “Warning List.”

 

From WJBD:

 

Heartland Alliance has released their 2010 Report on Poverty in Illinois, with Marion County on the group’s “Warning List.”

Amy Rynell with Heartland Alliance says the report examines four factors that indicate or predict growing poverty by counties. “We look at high school graduation rates, teen birth rates, unemployment rates and poverty rates,” she says. “We measure counties on two things – whether those rates are getting better or worse over time and whether they are better or worse than the state average.”

According to the Heartland report, Marion County’s High School Graduation rate dropped 2.8 percent to 81.2 percent in the 2008-2009 year and Rynell says education is very closely tied to earnings potential. Meanwhile, the County also saw a 20 point increase in teen births with nearly 80 births of every thousand delivered by women between the ages of 15 to 19. Heartland officials say very few teen mothers do not fall into the poverty category. And much like the rest of Illinois, the unemployment rate in Marion County rose since last year, jumping 2.8 percent from the previous year.

The lone bright spot in the report indicated that the poverty rate decreased one percent from the year before to 14.6 percent. Rynell says although that number has improved, it still is far higher than most counties in the state of Illinois.

Joining Marion County on the Warning List are Clay and Fayette counties. Jefferson, Washington and Wayne Counties are all on the Watch List. The report is compiled using figures from state agencies. The complete report can be viewed online at http://readi.test/povertyreport

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Study Shows Poverty Rising in Central Illinois

Study Shows Poverty Rising in Central Illinois

Peoria Journal Star

 

May 7, 2010

There’s a slew of anecdotes to go with the troubling, if not surprising, trends in poverty throughout the state, based on Heartland Alliance’s recently released report on poverty in Illinois.

 

From Peoria Journal Star:

In Lacon, the number of homes in foreclosure have started to level off, from 14 last year down to two currently. But unemployment still is high, and the food pantry still is busy.

That many foreclosures is pretty big in a town with about 800 households, says city utility clerk Connie Anderle, who began paying attention when she noticed more past due accounts on water and sewer bills.

“That’s how you know they’re getting ready to walk away from their homes,” Anderle said.

The Rev. Kay Harding, coordinator of the Lacon food pantry, can’t speak to foreclosures, but she knows the 35 percent increase in attendance at the local food pantry is because of unemployment and worse, underemployment.

“We’re seeing a lot of people whose hours have been cut,” she says. “Some of them would’ve been better off getting laid off. They’re making less than they would be on unemployment, but they can’t quit because they wouldn’t be able to get unemployment.”

There’s a slew of anecdotes to go with the troubling, if not surprising, trends in poverty throughout the state, based on Heartland Alliance’s recently released report on poverty in Illinois.

Marshall County, where Lacon is the county seat, along with Stark and Woodford counties made the group’s 2010 watch list of counties at risk for increasing poverty. Tazewell County entered on the warning list, while Peoria and Knox counties slid from the watch list to the warning list of counties headed for worsening poverty rates from 2009 to 2010. Mason and Fulton counties remained on the warning list for the second year in a row.

In total, 71 of Illinois’ 102 counties made either the watch or warning lists.

Almost all of the counties shared at least three key factors – rising unemployment and poverty rates, a gauge of current poverty, as well as increasing teen birth rates, an indicator of increasing poverty rates in the future. Researchers also used high school graduation rates to predict future poverty rates.

Though a county’s placement on the watch or warning list hinged on unemployment, poverty, high school graduation and teen pregnancy rates, researchers also compiled a wide range of other indicators, including median household incomes, foreclosures, bankruptcies, credit scores and the number of families receiving food stamps.

Marshall County, for instance, showed a 34 percent jump in the number of families receiving food stamps from 2007 to 2009, the highest in the area.

Four new counties on the list, compared to last year, and two counties dropping a notch, shows “things are getting worse in that area,” says Amy Rynell of the Heartland Alliance, a Chicago-based research and advocacy group.

The analysis found the state’s poorest were hit first and hardest by the recession, she says.

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Poverty in Chicago: Recession Hits Poor, Uneducated, Minorities Hardest

Huffington Post

 

May 6, 2010

A new report by the Heartland Alliance suggests that the poor, the uneducated, and minorities in Chicago and in Illinois are bearing the brunt of the Great Recession.

 

From Huffington Post:

No matter what multi-billion-dollar corporations might be responsible for the current recession, it is the poorest and most disadvantaged among us that are suffering the worst for it.

This according to a new report by the Heartland Alliance, an advocacy group for the rights of people living in poverty. The report suggests that the poor, the uneducated and minorities in Chicago and in Illinois are bearing the brunt of the Great Recession’s negative impact.

“Our lowest income workers were the most impacted,” said Amy Rynell, director of Heartland’s Social IMPACT Research Center, in an interview with WBEZ’s Eight Forty-Eight. “They have unemployment rates that are Depression Era-like; 27 percent of them are unemployed.”

The report also shows that black Illinoisans suffered a 17.1 percent unemployment rate, compared with a 10.0 percent rate state-wide.

For those who are employed, jobs are paying less, and meeting the cost of living is harder and harder. Since the year 2000, the state has lost over 200,000 manufacturing jobs. To the extent that these jobs have been replaced — many of them still haven’t been — the new jobs that were created have largely been low-wage service jobs.

As a result, Chicago-area families are struggling to earn the $50,000 or more each year that’s required to meet the high cost of living in the area.

To make matters worse, the state’s ever-compounding budget crisis has led to drastic cutbacks in human services at a time when more and more people need them.

“We really rely on a strong and responsive safety net” in times like these, said Rynell. But due to the budget crisis, “these services have seen budget cuts, and reductions, and layoffs.”

“We’ve seen skyrocketing need in things like food assistance,” Rynell continued. Many people, even those with part-time employment, “are not able to make ends meet, and they’re making untenable choices each day between food or paying rent, food or medicine.”

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Knox County Lands on Poverty Warning List

Galesburg Register-Mail

 

May 5, 2010

Heartland Alliance’s Social Impact Research Center released news for Illinois through its 2010 Report on Poverty.

 

From Galesburg Register-Mail:

Heartland Alliance’s Social Impact Research Center released some bad news for Illinois in the form of the 2010 Report on Poverty.

And the news for Knox County — released Tuesday on www.stage.heartlandalliance.org/povertyreport — wasn’t any better.

According to Amy Terpstra, associate director of the research center, Knox County was one of 29 counties placed on Heatland Alliance’s “Poverty Warning List” for 2010. The county was on the “Poverty Watch List” — ranking above the warning list — in 2009.

“Counties on the warning list fared very poorly in two areas: the high school graduation rate and the teen pregnancy rate,” Terpstra said. “Those are indicators of the poverty in the future. The main indicators we used to gauge present poverty was the unemployment rate and poverty rate.”

Knox County’s teen birth rate of 41 per 1,000 residents ranks just ahead of the state average of 42 per 1,000. The county’s graduation rate of 76 percent ranked below the average of 80 percent.

Knox County’s poverty rate is 16.5 percent. The unemployment rate reached 12.9 percent in January and dropped to 11.7 in March. Both are above the state averages in each category.

While Knox County has slipped from the watch list to the warning list, the Social Impact Research Center issued some more dire warnings about the lives of the state’s poorest residents. In a news release issued Tuesday, the center’s researchers said Illinois’ poorest residents — those who had the least to start with before the recession — were hit first and hardest by the economic downturn and will recover the slowest. According to the release “workers in the lowest income group in Illinois had a 1930s-like unemployment rate of 27 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 while Illinois’ overall unemployment rate was 10 percent.”

According to the 2010 Report on Poverty, more than 1.5 million Illinoisans — 12.2 percent of the state’s population — were living in poverty in 2008. An additional 16.2 percent — more than two million people — were on shaky financial ground with incomes between the poverty line and twice the poverty line.

“The goal of the poverty report is to educate people,” Terpstra said. “And we hope we will show some policy opportunities. Really, the report shows that we need to be thinking about the folks at the bottom as we work to build an economic recovery in this state.

“Social services are in danger of taking the hardest hit, in terms of the Illinois budget. If that happens, we will be hitting people the hardest when they need social services the most.”

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Put Illinois To Work Nets Nearly 3,000 Jobs

Chicagoist.com

 

May 4, 2010

 

 

From Chicagoist.com:

Yesterday, Governor Quinn’s office announced its “Put Illinois to Work” program will initially create more than 2,825 jobs, less than a week after its launch. The program provides subsidies for employers who hire unemployed workers that earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level ($2,428 a month for a household of two). Employers are encouraged to hire people for six months, where the goal is for an employee to learn marketable skills while supporting themselves and their families. If an employer keeps an employee longer, a tax credit will benefit the employer. Overall, the Governor hopes to create more than 15,000 jobs.

“The response by employers and workers has been tremendous, and the momentum is building toward creating more good-paying jobs that can support families and communities. Already, 349 employers across Illinois have signed on to Put Illinois to Work” Governor Quinn said via press release. In an interview with the New York Times, Joseph A. Antolin, vice president of the non-profit Heartland Alliance said “I’ve been in this field for 32 years, and this is unprecedented. There’s little bureaucracy and this gets people back to work quickly.”

Even though a full recovery from the recent economic crisis (and its ensuing job loss) is still a long way in coming, with an unemployment rate still in the double digits, even a temporary solution to get people working again is positive.

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