NOT A GREAT WAY TO START THE 2013 NEW YEAR FOR STUDENTS & TEACHERS AT THE SAWYER CAREER INSTITUTE!

Denise Maldonado, my Lady, currently resides in Hartford, CT, and on the 3rd of January she received a letter in the mail with disappointing news from Sawyer Career Institute. The letter stated that the school informing her that Sawyer will be closed permanently.  

Not only the Students received the bad news, also the Teachers did not get a notice before the Holiday vacation. 

Miss Maldonado was majoring in Medical Terminology, and she was really looking forward to her bright future. It's pretty overt that Denise's 2013  New Year is not going well for her. By this sad news, it does not phase her at all. She has her chin up high, moving forward with motivation, dedication, and to find a new home  to continue her education.

Here is more information below on how the Sawyer Career Institute closed down.

Students and teachers gathered outside the Sawyer School in Hartford on Wednesday morning, angry over the school’s sudden closure during holiday break.

Students and teachers are frustrated with the lack of answers coming from Academic Enterprises, Inc., the Rhode Island company that runs the Sawyer Schools in both Hartford and Hamden, as well as the Butler Business School in Bridgeport, all of which have shut their doors, kicking a total of 1,200 students out of class. 

“I was ready to graduate and then they closed the school,” complained Charlene Brimage, who was trying to get her degree in business.

“I was three classes away from going out on externship and graduating in April,” Arelis Quinones said.

“Our schedules were already out.  We were already scheduled for classes,” Don Lanier, an instructor, said.

Some students received a letter telling them class was out permanently, while others heard through social media.

The instructors, including Lanier, received a call from their supervisor over the holidays reporting that classes would not resume this week as scheduled.

“We have no answers about anything,” Lanier said.

The Office of Higher Education addressed the abrupt closing in a statement saying they “received a brief email on December 30, 2012 from Academic Enterprises Inc., stating that the schools have 'suspended' operations.'"

The statement also urges students impacted by the closure to contact the Office of Higher Education for assistance.

"We encourage all impacted students to register with our office so that we may learn of their status and help answer their questions about finishing their coursework and obtaining potential tuition reimbursements,” said Jane A. Ciarlegio, executive director of the Office of Higher Education.

Connecticut General Statutes prescribe procedures for schools to follow in the event of closing.  Schools are required to notify the Office of Higher Education at least 60 days before closing.  The notification gives agency officials time to work with school representatives to assure an orderly transition and cessation of business.  Both Sawyer Schools and the Butler Business School allegedly violated this requirement.

How the schools will be punished, if at all, following the state’s investigation, remains to be seen.

By Todd Piro

|  Wednesday, Jan 2, 2013  |  Updated 12:38 PM EST

Ten Numbers the Rich Would Like Fudged

We don't usually reprint an article from another site in its entirety but this article has the kind of bullet points we should memorize.

AlterNet / By Paul Bucheit

16 COMMENTS

The numbers reveal the deadening effects of inequality in our country, and confirm that tax avoidance, rather than a lack of middle-class initiative, is the cause.

November 19, 2012 |

1. Only THREE PERCENT of the very rich are entrepreneurs.

According to both Marketwatch and economist Edward Wolff, over 90 percent of the assets owned by millionaires are held in a combination of low-risk investments (bonds and cash), personal business accounts, the stock market, and real estate. Only 3.6 percent of taxpayers in the top .1% were classified as entrepreneurs based on 2004 tax returns. A 2009 Kauffman Foundation study found that the great majority of entrepreneurs come from middle-class backgrounds, with less than 1 percent of all entrepreneurs coming from very rich or very poor backgrounds.

2. Only FOUR OUT OF 150 countries have more wealth inequality than us.

In a world listing compiled by a reputable research team (which nevertheless prompted double-checking), the U.S. has greater wealth inequality than every measured country in the world except for Namibia, Zimbabwe, Denmark, and Switzerland.

3. An amount equal to ONE-HALF the GDP is held untaxed overseas by rich Americans.

The Tax Justice Network estimated that between $21 and $32 trillion is hidden offshore, untaxed. With Americans making up 40% of the world's Ultra High Net Worth Individuals, that's $8 to $12 trillion in U.S. money stashed in far-off hiding places.

Based on a historical stock market return of 6%, up to $750 billion of income is lost to the U.S. every year, resulting in a tax loss of about $260 billion.

4. Corporations stopped paying HALF OF THEIR TAXES after the recession.

After paying an average of 22.5% from 1987 to 2008, corporations have paid an annual rate of 10% since. This represents a sudden $250 billion annual loss in taxes.

U.S. corporations have shown a pattern of tax reluctance for more than 50 years, despite building their businesses with American research and infrastructure. They've passed the responsibility on to their workers. For every dollar of workers' payroll tax paid in the 1950s, corporations paid three dollars. Now it's 22 cents.

5. Just TEN Americans made a total of FIFTY BILLION DOLLARS in one year.

That's enough to pay the salaries of over a million nurses or teachers or emergency responders.

That's enough, according to 2008 estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN's World Food Program, to feed the 870 million people in the world who are lacking sufficient food.

For the free-market advocates who say "they've earned it": Point #1 above makes it clear how the wealthy make their money.

6. Tax deductions for the rich could pay off 100 PERCENT of the deficit.

Another stat that required a double-check. Based on research by the Tax Policy Center, tax deferrals and deductions and other forms of tax expenditures (tax subsidies from special deductions, exemptions, exclusions, credits, capital gains, and loopholes), which largely benefit the rich, are worth about 7.4% of the GDP, or about $1.1 trillion.

Other sources have estimated that about two-thirds of the annual $850 billion in tax expenditures goes to the top quintile of taxpayers.

7. The average single black or Hispanic woman has about $100 IN NET WORTH.

The Insight Center for Community Economic Development reported that median wealth for black and Hispanic women is a little over $100. That's much less than one percent of the median wealth for single white women ($41,500).

Other studies confirm the racially-charged economic inequality in our country. For every dollar of NON-HOME wealth owned by white families, people of color have only one cent.

8. Elderly and disabled food stamp recipients get $4.30 A DAY FOR FOOD.

Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) has dropped significantly over the past 15 years, serving only about a quarter of the families in poverty, and paying less than $400 per month for a family of three for housing and other necessities. Ninety percent of the available benefits go to the elderly, the disabled, or working households.

Food stamp recipients get $4.30 a day.

9. Young adults have lost TWO-THIRDS OF THEIR NET WORTH since 1984.

21- to 35-year-olds: Your median net worth has dropped 68% since 1984. It's now less than $4,000.

That $4,000 has to pay for student loans that average $27,200. Or, if you're still in school, for $12,700 in credit card debt.

With an unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds of almost 50%, two out of every five recent college graduates are living with their parents. But your favorite company may be hiring. Apple, which makes a profit of $420,000 per employee, can pay you about $12 per hour.

10. The American public paid about FOUR TRILLION DOLLARS to bail out the banks.

That's about the same amount of money made by America's richest 10% in one year. But we all paid for the bailout. And because of it, we lost the opportunity for jobs, mortgage relief, and educational funding.

Bonus for the super-rich: A QUADRILLION DOLLARS in securities trading nets ZERO sales tax revenue for the U.S.

The world derivatives market is estimated to be worth over a quadrillion dollars (a thousand trillion). At least $200 trillion of that is in the United States. In 2011 the Chicago Mercantile Exchange reported a trading volume of over $1 quadrillion on 3.4 billion annual contracts.

A quadrillion dollars. A sales tax of ONE-TENTH OF A PENNY on a quadrillion dollars could pay off the deficit. But the total sales tax was ZERO.

It's not surprising that the very rich would like to fudge the numbers, as they have the nation.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/ten-numbers-rich-would-fudged?akid=9711.218510.wNfwlu&rd=1&src=newsletter748976&t=3&paging=off

What next for homeless families?

So after two public hearings, many phone calls and emails, and more than one protest here in Springfield, DHCD has made some changes in the regulations that govern homeless families' access to shelter.  So the situation facing homeless families is somewhat improved.  But the situation is still worse than I've ever seen it.

The gap between people's incomes and the cost of housing and other necessities of life is big enough to swallow the 35% of Springfield's residents who live below the poverty level.  TAFDC benefits-- welfare for families-- had a 10% increase twelve years ago and nothing since. In the last ten years, wages have grown at the slowest rate since the decade of the Great Depression. 

Families who become homeless are those pushed over the edge of the cliff by the backward movement of the working and middle class.The question is, of course, who's doing the pushing?  Who benefits from the misery of so many?

To: Interested Parties

From: Ruth Bourquin (MLRI) and Kelly Turley (Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless)

Date: November 20, 2012

Re: DHCD’s Proposed Changes to “Final” Emergency Assistance Regulations and Guidance

We received today from a third party a memorandum from DHCD outlining certain changes they intend to make to the emergency EA regulations and related pieces of Guidance before they become final.  Some of the planned changes are very important and meaningful, for which we thank the Administration.

But the proposal on the key issue of “imminent risk of having to stay in a place not meant for human habitation” and the requirements for proving “irregular housing” are unsatisfactory and will continue to leave too many children at risk. For this reason, we urge additional changes.

1.         “Imminent risk of staying in a place not meant for human habitation.”

In its memorandum entitled “Further Actions to Strengthen the Safety Net for Homeless Families” dated November 19, 2012, DHCD states on page 2 that it will provide eligibility for certain families at “imminent risk”. But the limitations on this “imminent risk” category are too extreme, e.g. it applies only to (a) those with a child under the age of 6 months, (b) households with a family member with a documented medical condition or diagnosed disability, and (c) those in double up situations in which the presence violates the lease and there is documentation that the landlord will take action to terminate the tenancy if the homeless family remains.

This leaves out most families with vulnerable children whose health and safety will of course be threatened by staying in a place not meant for human habitation, including those with a child over the age of 6 months.

Moreover, the proposed language about “imminent risk” is nowhere in the actual, enforceable regulations. It appears only in a sub-regulatory policy document, Housing Stabilization Notice 2012-06B, p. 7. And the language there does not require that eligibility be conferred in such situations. It only gives DHCD workers discretion to request a DCF health and safety assessment.

While we appreciate that the Administration has made some movement, this is not a satisfactory response with respect either to the substance of the policy or the failure to include the limited protection in the actual regulations.

2.         Irregular Housing Situation/Chronic Couch Surfing.

            On page 2 of its November 19 memorandum, DHCD says it has provided additional instruction on “irregular housing situation.” This additional instruction is also in Housing Stabilization Notice 2012-6B, pages 5- 6. Unfortunately, this additional instruction makes this category more, not less, restrictive than current practice,[1] and will relegate families to as much as a full month of bouncing from one place to another for very short periods of time in each place.

            On page 6 of the Notice, DHCD says:

The determination of what constitutes “persistent irregular housing” in a particular case will vary dependent on a weighing of all the factors. The shorter the lengths of stay in particular places, the greater the number of total moves, the greater the number of different locations, and the longer the time since the family last had regular housing, the more likely that the family will be found to have had persistent irregular housing. In general, a family that has moved every 2–4 days, to at least 6 different locations, over a period of over one month, will be considered to face persistent irregular housing. For daily moves to a different place every night, the total time period might be somewhat shorter; for weekly moves among 6 different families, but without any regular pattern of rotation forming, the total time period should be considerably longer. (emphasis supplied)

This is not a reasonable policy for families with children most of whom are trying to maintain regular attendance at school and parents who are trying to retain employment. And this is a policy that will subject homeless families to additional serious stress and related health risks.

3.         Positive Changes.

            The regulations are being amended to provide:

a) that a family evicted for purely no fault reasons can be eligible for shelter without first staying in a place not meant for human habitation or engaging in irregular housing, 67.06(1)(a)3.e;

b) that a double-up housing situation will qualify as a significant threat to health and safety if it qualifies as “unfit for human habitation” pursuant to the State Sanitary Code, 67.06(1)(f)6.d.(iv); and

c) that the exhaustion of time limits in a time-limited emergency family homeless shelter not funded by EA qualifies as “irregular overnight sleeping situation.” This should cover the end of stays in motels paid for by Travelers Aid, regional networks, faith community groups and others, although clarification of that from DHCD would be helpful.

Certain sub-regulatory Guidance is also being amended as follows:

a) DHCD sub-regulatory Guidance on Domestic Violence is being amended to allow required third-party professional documentation to be dated close in time to the EA application even if the domestic violence that was fled occurred more than 60 days before the application. To avoid confusion, we would continue to suggest that DHCD simply remove the language about requiring documentation “dated close in time to the domestic violence incident” on page 7 of the Notice 2012-07A, instead of keeping that requirement and then creating a fiction that more recent documentation meets that standard. Most importantly, the DV Guidance has not yet been amended to allow crediting of a domestic violence survivor’s own declaration of the violence or of statements by family members, friends, neighbors or other third parties who do not meet the definition of a “professional” yet have knowledge of the violence.

b) A provision has been included in new Housing Stabilization Notice 2012-06B recognizing that a family is eligible for shelter if they are being kicked out of a double-up because their presence violates a lease and there is documentation confirming that the landlord will take action to enforce the lease. This change is positive, but too limited. Many host tenants will reasonably not want to tell their landlords that they have violated the lease by having guests. Proof that the presence of the EA applicant family violates the lease should be enough.

c)  Former homeowners who were foreclosed upon and then evicted may qualify under the “no fault” eviction provisions but only if their foreclosure was based on failure to make mortgage payments due to decreased income within the past 12 months or due to a disability or medical condition. No provision is made to confer eligibility on victims of predatory lending.

Conclusion

            We thank the Administration for making the positive changes and Legislators for helping to make them happen. But we look forward to continued dialogue and further, much-needed changes, particularly with respect to the issues of “imminent risk of staying in a housing situation not meant for human habitation” and requirements for proving an “irregular housing situation.” 

---

[1] The adoption of this more restrictive language without another 60 days advance notice to the legislature is arguably unlawful.

Free baby-- 1 1/2 yr old little girl-- any takers? and other tales from Arise

We've started monitoring DHCD at the Liberty St.welfare office in Springfield (and as the word is spreading, we're also hearing from families in Holyoke) and let me tell you-- if I had to put up with what many of these families are dealing with, I'd either be homicidal or suicidal.

We've been trying to help a single dad with eleven year old twins.  They've been living in a pop-up camper in a friend's back yard-- no running water, no electricity.  The first time the father went to DHCD, he was not given an application for shelter; he was told he was keeping his children in unsafe conditions and they were going to call the Dept. of Children and Families  and report him.  Of course he left, furious and terrified.  We told him to go back to DHCD the next day and insist on filling out an application.  I also called DCF in Boston to ask if they thought it was appropriate to be used as a threat against homeless families.  The father now has an appointment for Friday, but DHCD still had to include another threat, telling him he was just a heartbeat away from having a 51A (abuse and neglect) filed on him.

We finally got a mom and her three grandkids into shelter today, on the very day the sheriff was to physically remove them from their apartment. (I wrote about her in "The only thing we can do for you is walk you to the door." She and her grandkids, aged 2, 4 and 12, had gone back and forth between DHCD and the School Department four times, with DHCD insisting on a particular form they said the School Department had, and the School Dept. insisting they had no such form.  Finally, a call to the homeless liaison at the school dept. generated a screenshot of the child's enrollment which DHCD was willing to accept-- temporarily, until the grandmother proves she has legal custody. (Her daughter is incarcerated, and the notarized letter she'd given her mother had been good enough for the family to receive TAFDC benefits.)  When I asked my DHCD contact why the runaround, she said that without such strictness, anybody could walk into the welfare office and claim children as theirs when they really weren't.

"Yeah," I said, "but how often does that actually happen? Sounds like the kind of reasons used for tightening voter eligibility-- voter fraud-- when it scarcely exists."  She didn't disagree and gave me no examples that this kind of welfare fraud really happens..

Yesterday and today we've been hearing about-- and acting on behalf of-- a 26 year old mother and her four year old daughter who were found wandering in the middle of the night by the Holyoke Police.  The police were kind enough to let them stay at the station until morning, when they could drop her off at the Holyoke welfare office, where she was told by a worker,  "There are no shelters anymore."  She found her way to an ally (who shall remain nameless) and from there to the Mass Justice Dept.  They told her to go back to the office and ask for an application for shelter; she did, but DHCD refused to give her one.  So she was going to be sent back to the office once again, but now it was too late in the day and none of the advocates knew how to help her in time for tonight, so they suggested she spend the night in the Holyoke Hospital emergency room, and come back in the morning.  It was at that point that I put out a plea on our Facebook page, asking for mattresses and bedding.

I must say that everyone of these advocacies  has involved intense collaboration with the Mass Law Reform Institute, Mass Coalition for the Homeless and the Mass Justice Project.

Now to the free baby: yesterday was a long day but I was full of energy again after a meeting of our newest, two-month old committee, VOCAL-- Voicing Our Community Awareness Level.  We're dealing with criminal justice issues and the core group is fervent and strong.  However, I was definitely ready to go home when a friend of Arise, we'll call her Dorothy, stopped into the office.

Dorothy is not quite a member of Arise, because she is too busy completing her education in Early Childhood Education to take on the work, but we see her frequently during the school year, when she stops in to visit until it's time for her bus.

Dorothy is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.  Two months ago, she and her high school aged daughter  opened their home to an elderly man who became homeless after his apartment building was condemned.  It was going to be a temporary arrangement, but he fits in well, and contributes to the rent (which the landlord raised because there was an extra adult living in the apartment), so there's now a tinge of permanency in Dorothy's voice when she talks about him.

"I've got some new people at my house," she said.

"Really?  Who are they?"

"This 26 year old girl and her year and a half old baby-- a girl."

"Where did you find them?"

"I was in the bathroom at the bus station and the girl was in there-- she was crying hard-- and the baby was balanced on the edge of the sink, and I was worried about her, because her mother was crying so hard, and not paying attention, so we got talking, and she had nowhere to go, so I took them home."

"Wow, Dorothy, can I help?-- try to get her into shelter?"

"I don't know," she said.  "The girl may not stay-- she has a boyfriend in Alabama and she texts him all day.  But she might leave the baby behind with me...but I don't know how to take him and still finish school..." Her voice trails off.

"How did that come about?"

"The girl just said to me, 'Please take my baby.  Please.  I just can't take care of her anymore.'  We went down to court last week for me to get temporary custody and we have a court date in September....My school has daycare but she's too young."

"Maybe you can be his foster mother, get some financial help, pay for daycare; they do exist for chilrden that young."

"I took her-- the baby-- to church last week, just to see how she'd be, and she was good, quiet, and she waved at the other people and she waved at me....she's a sweet baby....my daughter says she'd like to have a sister..."

"You've fallen in love with the baby," I said.

"Yes.  I've fallen in love."

She told me more about the girl-- the mother-- which I won't write here, except to say that the girl has a dream that she will marry her boyfriend, and they will get a little house, and everything will be all right, and then she can come back for her baby.  (Want to count the broken hearts in this dream?) What I heard of her story answers at least part of this question: What could possibly make a woman so desperate that she would plead, to a person she scarcely knows, "Please take my baby.  I can't take care of her anymore?"

I haven't been able to get them out of my mind all day.  I left a message on Dorothy's phone tonight.

"Listen, I really want to talk to you about the girl and her baby.  Let me help.  Maybe we can all meet together.  Maybe there's something we can figure out.  Call me."

=================================================================

We had a training today for people willing to put in some time to monitor the DHCD offices.  We have another one scheduled for this Thursday at 5 pm. at our office, and will be scheduling more for next week.  We need more help if we and our communities are not to allow men, women and children to wander the streets.  Please call Arise at 413-734-4948 if you can give even an hour a week.  Thanks.

 Photo of Gari Melchers' Mother and Child from Who Wants to Know's photostream at Flickr.

A snarky response to an annoying facebook post about poverty

This is so good I just had to repost the entire thing-- it's from The Phoenix and Olive Branch.  Thanks for the tip, Cynthia Melcher!

August 10, 2012 By Sierra 7 Comments

So, I keep seeing this seriously problematic image circulating on facebook. It’s an ugly beige and red graphic with the following text: If you can afford beer, drugs, cigarettes, manicures and tattoos, you don’t need foodstamps or welfare.

If you can afford beer, drugs, cigarettes, manicures and tattoos, you don’t need foodstamps or welfare.

Now, first of all, let me critique this thing as quickly as possible:
1. What you’re basically saying is that you can take one quick look at somebody and decide that they don’t deserve to eat or have a roof over their head. Wow, who made you god when I wasn’t looking?
2. You are not an expert on anyone’s needs when you bump into them in 7-11 and notice them buying cigarettes with nicely painted nails. See #1.
3. Targeting the poor as though they are stealing from you is stupid when your employer and insurance company are more likely the ones stealing from you in much greater amounts.
4. The poor don’t owe you an explanation for why they’re poor or what they do with what little they have.
5. The reason we have welfare and food stamps is to prevent assholes like you from withholding charity from the starving because you don’t approve of their lifestyles.
6. Compare the following:
Case of beer: $9.
Carton of cigarettes: $50.
Manicure: $15.
Tattoo: $200.
Total: $274.
Rent (per month): $500.
Food (per month): $400.
Total: $900.
Foregoing all those things still leaves you $626 in the hole, and we haven’t even mentioned electricity or running water or a phone line.
As for drugs, I have three responses:

• Even if there were as many people abusing drugs and using welfare to survive as the Right seems to think, I’d rather pay an extra ten cents a year to have them not starve to death. Starvation is not a motivator. It’s a killer. If someone is so addicted to drugs that they can’t get it together enough not to be homeless, I doubt they’re in a position to stop doing drugs when their situation gets worse. What do you think got them started in the first place? A master’s degree and a new job at Google?
• If someone is so addicted to drugs that they can’t get it together enough to keep a roof over their heads, they probably aren’t all that successful keeping up with the onerous paperwork that is required to stay on welfare. They’re probably leaning on the charity of family or friends.
• If we had adequate, accessible psychiatric and health care for the poor, fewer people would turn to drugs in the first place.

7.  The poor do not have to perform for you by “looking poor” or foregoing things that you classify as luxuries to be deserving of basic human needs like food and shelter. Their survival should not depend on how much you like them, unless you want to return to the days of parents injuring their kids so they can receive more money begging on the street from pompous businessmen in fur coats. Read some Charles Dickens, for heaven’s sake.
8. If you’re academically minded, read this.
9. People turn to destructive creature comforts like cigarettes, alcohol and drugs to escape a life without real opportunity. How many poor kids have you sent to college lately?
10. Argh.
Okay, now that I’m done with that, here’s the snark I promised. Sometimes you can only fight a picture with another picture:

If you can afford to buy a senator, you don’t need a tax break.

Most Popular -

Another front in war on women

berkshireeagle.com,Posted:   04/19/2012 12:06:12 AM EDT, North Adams

The bumper sticker on our car reads "Stop the War Against Women." Maureen Dowd's April 11 column ("Many fronts in war on women") identified several "fronts" in this war, but not this one. 

I'm talking about the front where the government of Massachusetts takes aim, yet again, at poor women (and their children). The economic recovery has been sluggish and around the country, state governments are slashing budgets. And what a surprise! Programs that primarily serve poor women and their children are at the top of the hit list.

In Massachusetts, the House Committee on Ways and Means has released its budget proposal for the fiscal year that begins July 1. While there are a few modest increases in programs that benefit low income families, several other proposals are likely to cause thousands of families to sink deeper into poverty, to become homeless, and/or to become entrapped in (or forced back into) violent relationships they might otherwise leave.

One of the most dangerous proposals is that House Ways and Means (like the governor) proposes an eight month time limit on stays in emergency shelters for homeless families with children. The state verifies that these families have no other safe place to live and the families already have to comply with strict rules in order to remain in the program, but that will be irrelevant -- they will be evicted after eight months even though they have nowhere else to go. Funding for Emergency Assistance that covers these shelter costs will be cut by $14 million.

Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC, what most people think of as "welfare") is also cut in several ways. A long-standing rent allowance for people who do not live in subsidized housing ($40 per month) is eliminated. Another component of the House attack on poor women and children is their cutting of the clothing allowance for those on TAFDC.

This allowance, created in 1981, has stood at $150 per year since 1987! It has stayed the same for a quarter-century, while prices more than doubled (that $150 is now worth $72 in 1987 dollars). While the full allowance was clearly not enough to buy shoes and other necessities for growing children, the House has slashed it in half to $75. We challenge any legislator's family to try getting by on that!

Outside language of the budget (Section 35) would impose outrageous limitations on benefits paid through the electronic benefits transfer system (EBT). These limitations include that TAFDC recipients would not be able to use their benefits to help pay their rent, buy toothpaste or shampoo, or even pay for a child's haircut.
These are just a few examples from the House budget proposal illustrating how we continue to balance the budget on the backs of poor women and children. They reflect several disturbing, but persistent misperceptions. 1) We can't trust poor women with our hard-earned tax dollars. 2) People are poor because of their personal character defects and need to be punished and shamed more than they need to be helped.

Research shows that two out of three adult welfare recipients are currently or formerly battered women. Do we really mean to make it financially impossible for them to leave their abusers or to stay out once they have managed to leave?

If you are as outraged as we are by this particular "front" in the political and economic war on women, contact your state representatives today and ask him or her to support budget amendments #603, #664, and #842. And while you're talking to them, explain that we are tired of sticking it to the poor because we refuse to tax the rich!

The commonwealth needs to increase revenue and the most equitable strategy is to increase taxes on those best able to pay, our high-income residents and large corporations. Neither the governor nor the House has incorporated this tactic into their budget proposals.

Our two neighbors with the largest populations, New York and Connecticut, have graduated income taxes (which tax higher levels of income at higher rates). So do 33 other states and the District of Columbia. For a state that claims to care for equity -- to be a "commonwealth" -- it is long past time for Massachusetts to demand more from those who have benefited the most from our public investments.

Dr. Susan Birns is board president of the Elizabeth Freeman Center and professor of Sociology/Anthropology/Social Work at MCLA. Dr. Brent Kramer is an economist at the Borough of Manhattan Community College and the Fiscal Policy Institute.

The Right to Exist: Stand in solidarity with the most dispossessed on April 2

 Arise has been working with Fund Our Communities, Not War, and through them, all their connections with the Occupy Movement.  Yesterday, FOCNW sent out the following solidarity message, for which we are so grateful.  As we at Arise get more and more absorbed in the details of our rally, FOCNW took the time to step back and look at the big picture.  Thank you!

We have been inspired by the dramatic rise of the Occupy Wall Street
movement, and we are building this movement right here in Western
Massachusetts with the intention of overturning the grip of corporate
power on our lives.

The current economic crisis is affecting our region unevenly with the
city of Springfield one of the hardest hit. Among the most affected in
Springfield are people who either rent homes or who have been made
homeless. Springfield has been known as the "City of Homes" but
increasingly it is becoming the "City of the homeless" with the ongoing
economic crisis compounded by the loss of homes during the June 1, 2011
tornado.

 The housing crisis in Springfield is not only a local issue. Under the
present economic system there is a perverse incentive to push people
living in poverty out of cities by replacing their homes with housing
that they cannot afford. We see this happening in cities across the
country such as New York City, Washington D.C. and Chicago.

 One solution to the housing crisis is to transform vacant buildings
into homes, apartments and single room residences, but this is not what
is happening. Instead, we see priority given to attracting people from
the professional class and wealthy people to spur "economic development"
- a common code word for the drive to build expensive townhouses,
boutique shops, and office parks designed for short-term profit. This
approach ignores the immediate needs of current residents and long term
community needs.

 This inhumane economic system results in the uprooting of people,
overflowing shelters, and countless children, families and individuals
with no place to call home. Those in power make decisions based on what
will increase profits, ignoring people living in poverty because they
can't help further increase "the bottom line".

 Solving this housing crisis requires a movement to fight for decent
housing as a basic human right. Although some of us are affected much,
much more than others, the most strategic way to change this system,
which threatens all of us, is to stand alongside those hurt the most by
it. These dire times contain within them the possibility of having a
much greater positive impact than most people imagine, as more and more
of us are awakened to the need to change an economic and political
structure that only benefits the tiny few.



We think it is important to stand in solidarity with the people who have
been most dispossessed by this economic system in Springfield, and with
the organizations that are providing leadership in connecting struggles
over housing with broader demands for fundamental social change.

 Most prominent among these organizations are Arise for Social Justice,
which is calling for a mass rally and march in Springfield on April 2,
and Springfield No One Leaves, which has endorsed this action and which
fights for the rights of people who face losing their homes to the
unjust foreclosure practices of greedy banks.

We need each other in order to challenge the priorities and policies of
increasing corporate and military control and to create the world we
want to live in. We ask people to heed the call of our friends and
neighbors in Springfield to gather on April 2 at noon in Court Square in
Springfield to show solidarity with those leading the fight for housing
rights. Together we will take the next step toward the transformation we
need.

-       Ben Grosscup and Susan Theberge

DEMANDS ISSUED BY ARISE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE:

*       City: Replace the housing lost in the tornado!
*       State: Make shelters available to all in need!
*       Feds: Fund housing, not wars!

For more info, contact: Arise for Social Justice (413)734-4948

CARPOOLS BEING ORGANIZED FROM AMHERST AND FROM NORTHAMPTON TO
SPRINGFIELD. BRING YOUR CAR AND IF YOU CAN OFFER TO DRIVE, PLEASE DO.

Rides leaving from Amherst:

Meet at 10:45 AM; Depart at 11:00AM

LOCATION: Parking lot of First Congregational Church of Amherst on the
corner of Spring and Churchill Streets in Amherst
<http://maps.yahoo.com/#q=165+Main+St%2C+Amherst%2C+MA++01002-2333&conf=
1&start=1&lat=42.37521626833279&lon=-72.51652747392654&zoom=19&mvt=h&trf
=0> .

Contact: Susan at stheberg@keene.edu stheberg@keene.edu>

Rides leaving from Northampton:

Meet at 11:15 AM; Depart at 11:30AM

LOCATION: Parking lot of Daily Hampshire Gazette at 115 Conz Street,
Northampton
<http://maps.yahoo.com/#q=115+Conz+St%2C+Northampton%2C+MA++01060-4402&c
onf=1&start=1&lat=42.312294786750904&lon=-72.62720882892609&zoom=18&mvt=
h&trf=0>

Contact: Paki at pakiwieland@gmail.com pakiwieland@gmail.com>

Stop criminalizing poor people! Rally April 2

End the Criminalization of Homelessness & Poverty!  Join Us!

 Monday, April 2, 2012

In Solidarity with the

National Day of Action for the Right to Exist

 Court Square, Springfield

Noon: Gather; 12:30: Music, speakers, then MARCH to Governor’s Office, 436 Dwight St. & Mayor’s Office

      

Why are the shelters full, when everywhere we see empty homes and buildings?

Why is the City of Springfield ignoring the housing needs of half of its people?

OUR DEMANDS:

City: Replace the housing lost in the tornado!

State: Make shelters available to all in need!

Feds: Fund housing, not wars!

For more info, contact: Arise for Social Justice (413)734-4948

Cosponsors so far: Alliance for Peace and Justice, Anti-Racism Ministry Team of the First Congregational Church in Amherst, UCCWM American Friends Service Committee, PV Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Charles Hamilton Houston Inst. For Race & Justice , Community Labor Rebuilding Coalition, Craig’s Place, Fund Our Communities Not War, Grace Church Peace Fellowship, International Alliance of Inhabitants, Mass Alliance of HUD Tenants, Mass Coalition for the Homeless, Mass Law Reform Institute, Move On, Occupy Amherst, Occupy Western MA General Assembly, Out Now, Peace Pagoda, Picture the Homeless, Pioneer Valley Chapter of the Green/Rainbow Party, Springfield Bank Tenants Association, Springfield No One Leaves,Survivors Incorporated, UAW Local 2322, Unitarian Universalist Society of Amherst Social Justice Committee, Western Mass Jobs with Justice, WRAP

¡Poner fin a la penalización por falta de vivienda y por pobreza!

Día Nacional de Acción por el Derecho a Existir:

Lunes, 2 de abril en Court Square, Springfield

(fecha en caso de lluvia: 4 de abril)

Mediodía:      inicio de la recolección

12:30:   música, altavoces

Marchar a la Oficina del Gobernador

Marchar a la Oficina del Alcalde

¡Sin vivienda, todos vamos a ser criminales!

Por qué están llenos los refugios para desamparados, cuando en toda parte hay casas y edificios vacíos?

Por qué ignora la ciudade de Springfield las necesidades de la mitad de sus habitantes?

Nuestros exigencias:

La ciudad: Reponga las viviendas perdidas en el tornado!

El estado: Haga que los refugios para desamparados sean disponibles a todos los necesitados!

El gobierno federal: Financie las viviendas, no las guerras!

Contactar Arise for Social Justice (Levántate por la Justicia Social), 413-734-4948

Stand againsr racism-- and poverty-- right here in Springfield, MA

Yesterday afternoon I saw a post in Facebook that the Alliance of Black Professionals is planning a "1,000 Hoodies Walk for Trayvon Martin" at Springfield's Court Square  on Saturday, March 31, at 10 am.  YES! I thought, and started forwarding the post.


At 6:45 last night, Jim Kinney at the Republican picked up the story, and if you want to see just how alive and well racism is in Springfield,  check out the article on MassLive and read the accompanying posts.  You will also, fortunately, see a few signs of hope.  

Now Arise is also planning a rally and march against the criminalization of poverty and homelessness only two days later, on April 2nd, same place-- we'll start gathering at noon and kick of the rally at 12:30.  We still have a lot to do, and we're working hard.


But if there is ever a time for solidarity, this is it.

In a span of 48 hours, you can stand against racism and also stand against poverty.  Actions make a difference. 

Homeless: Throw Them Out With the Trash

We don't usually post entire articles on our blog, but the following article is so important, I wanted the whole thing.  So many people are homeless in Springfield, or about to be homeless, and, as Ehrenreich sums up, 70% of us are headed toward homelessness if our revolution does not succeed.

Throw Them Out With the Trash
Why Homelessness Is Becoming an Occupy Wall Street Issue
By Barbara Ehrenreich
As anyone knows who has ever had to set up a military encampment or build a village from the ground up, occupations pose staggering logistical problems. Large numbers of people must be fed and kept reasonably warm and dry. Trash has to be removed; medical care and rudimentary security provided -- to which ends a dozen or more committees may toil night and day. But for the individual occupier, one problem often overshadows everything else, including job loss, the destruction of the middle class, and the reign of the 1%. And that is the single question: Where am I going to pee?
Some of the Occupy Wall Street encampments now spreading across the U.S. have access to Port-o-Potties (Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C.) or, better yet, restrooms with sinks and running water (Fort Wayne, Indiana). Others require their residents to forage on their own. At Zuccotti Park, just blocks from Wall Street, this means long waits for the restroom at a nearby Burger King or somewhat shorter ones at a Starbucks a block away. At McPherson Square in D.C., a twenty-something occupier showed me the pizza parlor where she can cop a pee during the hours it’s open, as well as the alley where she crouches late at night. Anyone with restroom-related issues -- arising from age, pregnancy, prostate problems, or irritable bowel syndrome -- should prepare to join the revolution in diapers.

Of course, political protesters do not face the challenges of urban camping alone. Homeless people confront the same issues every day: how to scrape together meals, keep warm at night by covering themselves with cardboard or tarp, and relieve themselves without committing a crime. Public restrooms are sparse in American cities -- "as if the need to go to the bathroom does not exist," travel expert Arthur Frommer once observed.  And yet to yield to bladder pressure is to risk arrest. A report entitled “Criminalizing Crisis,” to be released later this month by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, recounts the following story from Wenatchee, Washington:

"Toward the end of 2010, a family of two parents and three children that had been experiencing homelessness for a year and a half applied for a 2-bedroom apartment. The day before a scheduled meeting with the apartment manager during the final stages of acquiring the lease, the father of the family was arrested for public urination. The arrest occurred at an hour when no public restrooms were available for use. Due to the arrest, the father was unable to make the appointment with the apartment manager and the property was rented out to another person. As of March 2011, the family was still homeless and searching for housing."

What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets -- not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping. While the laws vary from city to city, one of the harshest is in Sarasota, Florida, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that makes it illegal to “engage in digging or earth-breaking activities” -- that is, to build a latrine -- cook, make a fire, or be asleep and “when awakened state that he or she has no other place to live.”
It is illegal, in other words, to be homeless or live outdoors for any other reason. It should be noted, though, that there are no laws requiring cities to provide food, shelter, or restrooms for their indigent citizens.
The current prohibition on homelessness began to take shape in the 1980s, along with the ferocious growth of the financial industry (Wall Street and all its tributaries throughout the nation). That was also the era in which we stopped being a nation that manufactured much beyond weightless, invisible “financial products,” leaving the old industrial working class to carve out a livelihood at places like Wal-Mart.
As it turned out, the captains of the new “casino economy” -- the stock brokers and investment bankers -- were highly sensitive, one might say finicky, individuals, easily offended by having to step over the homeless in the streets or bypass them in commuter train stations. In an economy where a centimillionaire could turn into a billionaire overnight, the poor and unwashed were a major buzzkill. Starting with Mayor Rudy Giuliani in New York, city after city passed “broken windows” or “quality of life” ordinances making it dangerous for the homeless to loiter or, in some cases, even look “indigent,” in public spaces.
No one has yet tallied all the suffering occasioned by this crackdown -- the deaths from cold and exposure -- but “Criminalizing Crisis” offers this story about a homeless pregnant woman in Columbia, South Carolina:

"During daytime hours, when she could not be inside of a shelter, she attempted to spend time in a museum and was told to leave. She then attempted to sit on a bench outside the museum and was again told to relocate. In several other instances, still during her pregnancy, the woman was told that she could not sit in a local park during the day because she would be ‘squatting.’ In early 2011, about six months into her pregnancy, the homeless woman began to feel unwell, went to a hospital, and delivered a stillborn child."

Well before Tahrir Square was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, and even before the recent recession, homeless Americans had begun to act in their own defense, creating organized encampments, usually tent cities, in vacant lots or wooded areas. These communities often feature various elementary forms of self-governance: food from local charities has to be distributed, latrines dug, rules -- such as no drugs, weapons, or violence -- enforced. With all due credit to the Egyptian democracy movement, the Spanish indignados, and rebels all over the world, tent cities are the domestic progenitors of the American occupation movement.
There is nothing “political” about these settlements of the homeless -- no signs denouncing greed or visits from leftwing luminaries -- but they have been treated with far less official forbearance than the occupation encampments of the “American autumn.” LA’s Skid Row endures constant police harassment, for example, but when it rained, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa had ponchos distributed to nearby Occupy LA.
All over the country, in the last few years, police have moved in on the tent cities of the homeless, one by one, from Seattle to Wooster, Sacramento to Providence, in raids that often leave the former occupants without even their minimal possessions. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, last summer, a charity outreach worker explained the forcible dispersion of a local tent city by saying, “The city will not tolerate a tent city. That’s been made very clear to us. The camps have to be out of sight.”
What occupiers from all walks of life are discovering, at least every time they contemplate taking a leak, is that to be homeless in America is to live like a fugitive. The destitute are our own native-born “illegals,” facing prohibitions on the most basic activities of survival. They are not supposed to soil public space with their urine, their feces, or their exhausted bodies. Nor are they supposed to spoil the landscape with their unusual wardrobe choices or body odors. They are, in fact, supposed to die, and preferably to do so without leaving a corpse for the dwindling public sector to transport, process, and burn.
But the occupiers are not from all walks of life, just from those walks that slope downwards -- from debt, joblessness, and foreclosure -- leading eventually to pauperism and the streets. Some of the present occupiers were homeless to start with, attracted to the occupation encampments by the prospect of free food and at least temporary shelter from police harassment. Many others are drawn from the borderline-homeless “nouveau poor,” and normally encamp on friends’ couches or parents’ folding beds.
In Portland, Austin, and Philadelphia, the Occupy Wall Street movement is taking up the cause of the homeless as its own, which of course it is. Homelessness is not a side issue unconnected to plutocracy and greed. It’s where we’re all eventually headed -- the 99%, or at least the 70%, of us, every debt-loaded college grad, out-of-work school teacher, and impoverished senior -- unless this revolution succeeds.
Barbara Ehrenreich, TomDispatch regular, is the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (now in a 10th anniversary edition with a new afterword).

Emergency Arise Membership Meeting - Weds, 26th, 5:30 pm.

homeless kids

Where to start?

We've had a huge crisis in housing and homelessness for years, exacerbated by the recession, unemployment and the June 1 tornado.

Now,.unless we fight back HARD and IMMEDIATELY, thousands of families balancing precariously on the edge of homelessness will find themselves on the streets, and their children will be snatched away by DCF. But of course there are thousands of families already homeless, and single people too many to count, sleeping on the library steps, under the bridge and in abandoned buildings..

Emergency Arise Membership Meeting

Wednesday, October 26, 5:30 pm.

Arise, 467 State St., Spfld

Background: For months, we at Arise and other allies across the state have been fighting to improve regulations for a new program, HomeBase, which is supposed to help prevent family homelessness, bring homelessness to an end more quickly, and improve the chances for families to keep from becoming homeless again.  I've written about it here and here, and we've done trainings for members and gotten folks down to the welfare office as often as possible, to let homeless and nearly-homeless families know about the program. The program finally went into effect August 1st.  

 Last week, reading minutes from the Family Services Committee meeting, I saw that the Dept. of Housing and Community Development, which oversees the HomeBase program, was saying that the eligibility and need for HomeBase was three to four times what was expected across the state.  Well, we could have told them that-- doesn't imbue me with confidence in their statistical data and ability to plan.

TODAY, got an email from Mass. Law Reform Institute saying that as of end of day tomorrow, DHCD is not accepting any new applicants for the HomeBase program-- AND, even worse,  they are proposing families' access to emergency shelter through the Emergency Assistance program (which DHCD alaso runs) be limited to three, narrow categories: families under 21, families displaced by natural disaster, and families fleeing domestic abuse. In fact, this policy change was due to begin today, but advocates' phone calls and discussions with legislators and the Governor's office has held the change off temporarily.  (Written into the HomeBase law is that DHCD must give 60 days' notice to the Legislature before changing Homebase or EA regulations.  But DHCD plans to beat that in the short-term by still approving people-- not changing the regs-- but just not actually providing them with shelter.  What a cynical game.)

At the end of this post are phone numbers for the Governor and legislators for you to call and say that the Governor MUST not allow families to be homeless on the street.

But the real question, for all Arise members and our allies, is, What are we going to do about this?

Come to the Emergency Membership meeting, put out your ideas, and take up your responsibility.  

Bring some food if you can.

The Governor's office can be reached by phone at 1-888-870-7770 or 617-725-4005.

Legislators can be reached through the State House switchboard: 617-722-2000, or directly through the numbers listed here: Directory of Representatives and Directory of Senators. To search for your legislator based on your address, please go to www.wheredoivotema.com.

Photo from Hmmlargeart's photostream at Flickr.