• Study: Homelessness up sharply in Minn., By Toni Randolph, March 31, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “The number of homeless people in Minnesota has risen sharply over the past three years, according to a study released Wednesday by the Wilder Foundation. The study counted 9,452 homeless people in Minnesota during a one-day survey conducted last October. That’s up 22 percent from 2006 levels. The uptick follows a six-year period of relative stability in the homeless numbers…”
• Ranks of homeless rising in Minnesota, By Warren Wolfe, March 30, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribunre: “Homelessness in Minnesota rose 22 percent in the past three years, reaching the highest level in at least two decades, according to initial findings from a statewide survey by Wilder Research of St. Paul. Analysts blamed the weak economy. There were 9,452 men, women and children in shelters, transitional housing and on the streets during the one-day survey conducted last October, up from 7,751 in 2006, according to findings being made public Wednesday…”

Recipients say Pawlenty’s welfare cuts would be disastrous, By Madeleine Baran, March 30, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “On a recent afternoon, Ja’Na Dickens held her three-year-old son on her hip, sliced up a pineapple for her three children, and expressed her determination to lift her family out of poverty. The 22-year-old mom has a lot to overcome. Her youngest son, Ira, was born with a rare genetic condition, and doctors said he had a year to live. In the last year, however, Dickens’ life began to change. Ira’s health improved. He started receiving 24-hour nursing care at the family’s Plymouth apartment. Dickens enrolled as a part-time student at North Central University in Minneapolis, with the hopes of getting her bachelor’s degree in social work. But Dickens’ plans could run headlong into Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s plan for balancing the state’s budget. Her family is one of 7,000 households with a disabled family member who would lose hundreds of dollars a month under Pawlenty’s budget fix…”

Should welfare recipients get drug testing?, By Alan Greenblatt, March 31, 2010, National Public Radio: “Kasha Kelley believes that people on welfare need to spend their money on things like diapers and detergent - not drugs. Kelley, who has served in the Kansas state House since 2005, sponsored legislation to require a large share of the state’s welfare recipients to be tested for drug use, or risk losing their benefits. ‘I get a lot of constituents who mention their frustrations with neighbors they know are receiving some sort of public assistance,’ she says. ‘They don’t feel the money’s being used right when they know that drugs are being used in the house, and I would concur with that.’ The Kansas House passed Kelley’s bill overwhelmingly last year, but it has not won Senate approval. She hasn’t given up, though - and neither have legislators in at least nine other states who have introduced similar measures…”

City will stop paying the poor for good behavior, By Julie Bosman, March 30, 2010, New York Times: “An unusual and much-heralded program that gave poor families cash to encourage good behavior and self-sufficiency has so far had only modest effects on their lives and economic situation, according to an analysis the Bloomberg administration released on Tuesday. The three-year-old pilot project, the first of its kind in the country, gave parents payments for things like going to the dentist ($100) or holding down a full-time job ($150 per month). Children were rewarded for attending school regularly ($25 to $50 per month) or passing a high school Regents exam ($600). When the mayor announced the program, he said it would begin with private money and, if it worked, could be transformed into an ambitious permanent government program…”

• Rebuilding Haiti, By Kenneth Kidd, March 28, 2010, Toronto Star: “The rows of mounded, soggy earth stand nearly a metre tall, all of them fashioned by hand and hoe. By one row, his knee braced against the side, a farm worker is plunging long green shoots into the soil, sweet potatoes in the making. He’ll toil like this for six days a week, six hours per, and take home the equivalent of roughly $14 (U.S.). Next week, or maybe the week after, he’ll tend to his own little plots of land, his other role in the complicated agricultural system that reigns in the Artibonite region, about halfway between Port-au-Prince and Cap Haïtien to the north. The Artibonite is laced with winding rivers and irrigation canals, like strands of leftover spagetti on a dinner plate. Sweet potatoes, bananas, mangoes, rice and corn all flourish, the rich soil yielding three full crops annually. But apart from a few mangoes, scarcely any of this horticultural largesse makes its way south along Rue nationale #1 to Port-au-Prince - a three-hour journey over a dusty, heavily potholed road whose hazards sometimes reduce speeds to 10 km/h. After such a trip, most Artibonite produce simply can’t compete with crops grown closer to the capital in poorer soil, much less against imported, subsidized food from the United States…”
• Quake accentuated chasm that has defined Haiti, By Simon Romero, March 27, 2010, New York Times: “The lights of the casino above this wrecked city beckoned as gamblers in freshly pressed clothes streamed to the roulette table and slot machines. In a restaurant nearby, diners quaffed Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Champagne and ate New Zealand lamb chops at prices rivaling those in Manhattan. A few yards away, hundreds of families displaced by the earthquake languished under tents and tarps, bathing themselves from buckets and relieving themselves in the street as barefoot children frolicked on pavement strewn with garbage. This is the Pétionville district of Port-au-Prince, a hillside bastion of Haiti’s well-heeled where a mangled sense of normalcy has taken hold after the earthquake in January. Business is bustling at the lavish boutiques, restaurants and nightclubs that have reopened in the breezy hills above the capital, while thousands of homeless and hungry people camp in the streets around them, sometimes literally on their doorstep…”

Poverty advocates decry loss of diet allowance, By Laurie Monsebraaten, March 25, 2010, Toronto Star: “Ontario is scrapping the Special Diet Allowance that helps people on social assistance pay extra food costs related to specific medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Confirming the pre-budget fears of anti-poverty advocates, the Liberal government cited last fall’s provincial auditor’s report, which found evidence of abuse in the welfare-based program. Instead, the budget is proposing a new nutritional supplement to be administered by the health ministry. The allowance program that provides up to $250 per month and helps about one in five people on social assistance ‘is not sustainable and is not achieving the intended results,’ budget documents say…”

State debt woes grow too big to camouflage, By Mary Williams Walsh, March 29, 2010, New York Times: “California, New York and other states are showing many of the same signs of debt overload that recently took Greece to the brink - budgets that will not balance, accounting that masks debt, the use of derivatives to plug holes, and armies of retired public workers who are counting on benefits that are proving harder and harder to pay. And states are responding in sometimes desperate ways, raising concerns that they, too, could face a debt crisis…”

Struggling families depend more on school lunches, By Heather Hollingsworth (AP), March 27, 2010, Washington Post: “For a couple tight weeks after taking in her sixth-grade stepson, Lisa Lewis fretted about how to pay for his school lunches. Unable to find a full-time job, the 37-year-old works part-time at a Kansas City, Kan., daycare, earning minimum wage. On that money alone, she supports herself, her unemployed husband, her stepson and her 11th-grade son. ‘I sometimes cry myself to sleep wondering how I am going to keep my family fed and things like that,’ Lewis said. ‘I’m making it but barely.’ Her worries were eased when she found out she could get government assistance to pay for the younger boy’s meals. Her older son already is part of the subsidized lunch program. In the midst of a blistering recession, more families are flocking to the federal program that gives students free or reduced-priced lunches. Schools are watching for who enrolls in the program because it gives teachers insight into life at home and officials consider it a barometer of poverty…”

A quarter of children in 3 counties at high risk level, By Meg Haskell, March 29, 2010, Bangor Daily News: “Children in Maine continue to live at unacceptable levels of poverty, according to the latest edition of Maine Kids Count, the annual survey of the physical, social, economic and educational well-being of the state’s youngsters. The report, now in its 16th year, is used to identify public policy issues and to guide change in matters affecting children. Other problems affecting Maine children and underscored in this year’s report are the state’s low median household income - $46,419 compared to $52,029 nationally - and a high incidence of juvenile mental and behavioral health problems…”

Foster parents would get less cash under proposed Indiana cuts, By Charles D. Wilson and Carly Everson, March 29, 2010, Zanesville Times Recorder: “Indiana is trying to shift hundreds of foster children with medical, emotional or behavioral problems into cheaper care for children without special needs, a move that cuts payments to families who care for the state’s most challenged children. The change would give foster families less money to pay for therapy, food and clothing and other costs. And some fear that fewer families could volunteer for the job in the future because they’d have to cover the bills themselves. Foster parents who provide homes for special-needs children are paid up to $100 a day. Under the state’s new plan, many would receive $25 or less…”

Pawlenty will sign health bill for poor, By Warren Wolfe and Baird Helgeson, March 24, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “With just a week to spare before thousands of low-income Minnesotans were scheduled to lose state-sponsored health coverage, the House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to approve a compromise measure that would extend the state’s General Assistance Medical Care program (GAMC). The 121-12 vote ended weeks of political battle that brought the program to the brink of death, after a veto by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and produced intense lobbying by the state’s hospitals, Catholic bishops and advocates for the poor. The measure, which passed the Senate last week, allows GAMC to survive in a pared-down form and continue serving about 30,000 of the state’s sickest and poorest residents…”

Unemployment benefits set to expire April 5, By Ben Pershing, March 26, 2010, Washington Post: “Unemployment benefits are set to expire for at least a week on April 5, as Congress plans to break for two weeks without agreeing on an extension of the program. Last week, the House approved a $9 billion measure containing one-month extensions of unemployment insurance, COBRA health benefits and federal flood insurance. Senate Democrats hoped to have their chamber approve the same bill Thursday. But Republicans refused, complaining that the bill is not offset with spending cuts elsewhere. They said the same thing in early March, when Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) brought the chamber to a halt for five days over another extension that wasn’t offset…”

• Healthcare reform fallout: Which states are the winners?, By Ron Scherer, March 26, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “Under the nation’s healthcare reform plan, the nation’s Medicaid system will grow as one of the main organizations to implement the goal of expanded medical coverage. But it appears that, from a financial standpoint, some states will be winners and some will be losers in this new arrangement. Here’s a look at why some states may stand to benefit. Later today, the Monitor will look at other states, which are complaining that it will cost their taxpayers a lot more money in the future. The biggest winners, state officials and Medicaid experts say, could be those states that have already taken an important step toward expanding their own Medicaid programs: covering childless adults…”
• Healthcare reform fallout: Which states could lose financially?, By Ron Scherer, March 26, 2010, Christian Science Monitor: “Under the new healthcare reform plan, 16 million more people are expected to join state Medicaid rolls. Recognizing the costs involved, lawmakers have tried to cushion the financial impact on states. But many governors believe the expansion of Medicaid will still be too costly for them. Medicaid is a key part of the plan to expand healthcare coverage in America. From a financial standpoint, some states stand to benefit from the Medicaid provisions - and other states believe they stand to lose. Eleven states, plus the District of Columbia, could come out as winners. They’re so-called expansion states, which already cover childless adults to some extent. They could gain because the federal government will absorb an increasing amount of their obligations…”
• S.C. Medicaid coverage to expand; cost to soar by $914 million, By John O’Connor, March 25, 2010, The State: “New federal health care legislation will cost the state of South Carolina and its taxpayers $914 million. That cost - the total of spending from July 1 to 2019 - will come as the state adds 480,000 low-income children and adults to a state health insurance program, as required by the new law, according to estimates by the state Department of Health and Human Services. The expansion represents a 4.4 percent increase in the $20.9 billion the state would have spent on Medicaid during that nine-year period, adding roughly $100 million a year to the state’s costs. With the state already facing a likely $1 billion budget shortfall next year, Republican lawmakers - who control the General Assembly - said the additional health care costs are one more reason they oppose implementing the law, which President Barack Obama signed Monday…”
• Medicaid cost to soar, state says, By Frank Gluck, March 2010, Fort Myers News-Press: “When state Attorney General Bill McCollum announced his lawsuit this week to block new federal health care legislation, he came armed with an intimidating figure for cash-strapped Florida - more than $1 billion. That is the projected annual cost of expanding the Medicaid rolls in 2019 and thereafter, according to the state agency that oversees the insurance program. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration’s number, which assumes mass increases in Medicaid rolls in the coming decade, would amount to a 6 percent annual increase in the state’s current Medicaid costs…”

Social safety net to be quicker by June, By Brent Jones, March 26, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “Baltimore social service offices are planning to install an online intake system by June that could make the processing of food stamps and medical benefits applications up to 10 times faster, according to state human resource officials. The program was introduced at the city’s Hilton Heights office two months ago and is to expand to the seven other city offices in the summer. With the system, the center in West Baltimore has improved its rate of compliance with a state law governing the delivery of food stamps by more than a third, says Molly McGrath, the city’s director of social services…”

Report finds rise in D.C. poverty to nearly 1 in 5 residents, By Tim Craig, March 25, 2010, Washington Post: “Nearly one out of five District residents lives at or below the poverty line, a statistic that helps expose a widening gap between the rich and the poor in the nation’s capital, according to a study released Tuesday by social justice organizations gearing up for the 2010 elections. The study, undertaken by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute on behalf of a coalition of more than 40 local organizations, concludes that last year the District experienced its biggest single-year increase in poverty since 1995. Based on unemployment rates and other data, the coalition estimates that the city has 106,500 residents — up 11,000 in a year — living at or below the poverty rate, which in 2009 was $21,800 for a family of four…”

Apartment rents cheaper than stays in homeless shelters, By Marisol Bello, March 25, 2010, USA Today: “Cities, states and the federal government pay more to provide the homeless with short-term shelter and services than what it would cost to rent permanent housing, the U.S. government reports. A study of 9,000 families and individuals being released today by the Department of Housing and Urban Development finds that costs to house the newly homeless vary widely, depending on the type of shelter and social services provided by the six cities in the report. Emergency shelter for families was the most costly. In Washington, D.C., the average bill for a month in an emergency shelter ranges from $2,500 to $3,700. In Houston, the average is $1,391…”

Study: Third of Americans use library computers, By Donna Gordon Blankinship (AP), March 25, 2010, Lincoln Journal Star: “A third of Americans 14 and older _ about 77 million people _ use public library computers to look for jobs, connect with friends, do their homework and improve their lives, according to a new study released Thursday. It confirms what public libraries have been saying as they compete for public dollars to expand their services and high-speed Internet access: library use by the general public is widespread and not just among poor people. But researchers found that those living below the federal poverty line _ families of four with a household income of $22,000 or less _ had the highest use of library computers. Among those households, 44 percent reported using public library computers and Internet access during the past year…”

School suspensions lead to legal challenge, By Erik Eckholm, March 18, 2010, New York Times: “As school let out one day in January 2008, students from rival towns faced off. Two girls flailed away for several seconds and clusters of boys pummeled each other until teachers pulled them apart. The fistfights at Southside High School involved no weapons and no serious injuries, and in some ways seemed as old-fashioned as the country roads here in eastern North Carolina. But the punishment was strictly up-to-date: Sheriff’s deputies handcuffed and briefly arrested a dozen students. The school suspended seven of them for a short period and six others from the melee, including the two girls, for the entire semester. As extra punishment, the girls were told they could not attend Beaufort County’s alternative school for troubled students and were denied aid to study at home…”

• Fewer doctors, longer ER waits are expected, By Ken Alltucker, March 24, 2010, Arizona Republic: “Arizona hospitals say the Legislature’s steep cuts to health-care programs may trigger more hospital cuts and layoffs, longer emergency-room waits and a deepening doctor shortage. The budget cuts will eliminate health insurance for nearly 350,000 low-income adults and children enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program, leaving them few options for care. Hospital executives worry that they will have to absorb the cost and burden of providing treatment for the low-income residents and children until the more generous federal subsidies arrive in 2014 as part of the federal health-reform bill. Hospitals are required to provide care regardless of a patient’s ability to pay…”
• Arizona non-profit clinics fear lost funds, flood of uninsured patients, By Ginger Rough, March 24, 2010, Arizona Republic: “Arizona’s community health centers, a vital safety net for the uninsured and the working poor, are bracing for an onslaught of new patients and preparing to roll back their services after two state health-care programs were killed and the state’s Medicaid spending was slashed. New patients cut off from government insurance programs could flood the centers, and the centers would not have reimbursements from those programs to cover the full cost of providing care. The 16 federally qualified centers, which are non-profits and operate more than 130 clinics in mostly rural and underserved areas, rely mainly on state and federal insurance and federal grants to operate…”

• Reading scores lagging compared with math, By Sam Dillon, March 24, 2010, New York Times: “The nation’s schoolchildren have made little or no progress in reading proficiency in recent years, according to results released Wednesday from the largest nationwide reading test. The trend of sluggish achievement contrasts with dramatic gains made in mathematics during the same period. ‘The nation has done a really good job improving math skills,’ said Mark Schneider, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research and a former official at the Education Department, which oversees the test, known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress. ‘In contrast, we have made only marginal improvements in reading skills…’”
• Reading scores stalled despite ‘No Child Left Behind,’ report finds, By Nick Anderson and Bill Turque, March 24, 2010, Washington Post: “The nation’s students are mired at a basic level of reading in fourth and eighth grades, their achievement in recent years largely stagnant, according to a federal report Wednesday that suggests a dwindling academic payoff from the landmark No Child Left Behind law. But reading performance has climbed in D.C. elementary schools, a significant counterpoint to the national trend, even though the city’s scores remain far below average. The report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that fourth-grade reading scores stalled after the law took effect in 2002, rose modestly in 2007, then stalled again in 2009. Eighth-grade scores showed a slight uptick since 2007 — 1 point on a scale of 500 — but no gain over the seven-year span when President George W. Bush’s program for school reform was in high gear. Only in Kentucky did reading scores rise significantly in both grades from 2007 to 2009…”
• State’s fourth-grade readers lose ground, By Amy Hetzner, March 24, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The latest scorecard gauging how well Wisconsin’s students read compared with their classmates in other states showed little change from previous years, but the rest of the nation’s fourth-graders have been catching up and Wisconsin’s black students now rank behind those in every other state. ‘Holding steady is not good enough,’ state schools Superintendent Tony Evers said about the results. ‘Despite increasing poverty that has a negative impact on student learning, we must do more to improve the reading achievement of all students in Wisconsin.’ Fourth-graders in Wisconsin posted an average score of 220 on the 500-point reading test administered in 2009 as part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the nation’s report card. That represented a three-point drop from two years before and translated to a 33% proficiency rate…”

Britain leads in war on poverty, according to US academic, By Randeep Ramesh, March 24, 2010, The Guardian: “Britain’s “war on poverty” has been one of the government’s success stories, eclipsing the achievements of the United States and European neighbours, according to a year-long study by a US academic. Despite claims that Britain is ‘broken’, a book released today in New York highlights that by most measures things have improved for more than a decade. Jane Waldfogel, professor of social work at Columbia University, spent a year examining Labour’s record and found it had turned the tide of child poverty in a way that was ‘larger and more sustained than in the United States’. Her book, Britain’s War on ­Poverty, shows that the number of children in ‘absolute poverty’ had fallen by 1.7 million since 1999. Latest figures show 13.4% of British children remained in ‘absolute poverty’ whereas in the US the figure was approaching 20%…”

California, in financial crisis, opens prison doors, By Randal C. Archibold, March 23, 2010, New York Times: “The California budget crisis has forced the state to address a problem that expert panels and judges have wrangled over for decades: how to reduce prison overcrowding. The state has begun in recent weeks the most significant changes since the 1970s to reduce overcrowding - and chip away at an astonishing 70 percent recidivism rate, the highest in the country - as the prison population becomes a major drag on the state’s crippled finances. Many in the state still advocate a tough approach, with long sentences served in full, and some early problems with released inmates have given critics reason to complain. But fiscal reality, coupled with a court-ordered reduction in the prison population, is pouring cold water on old solutions like building more prisons…”

• Health-care plan to cost state $7B a year unless lawmakers restore cuts, By Howard Fischer, March 23, 2010, Arizona Daily Star: “The new federal health-care plan could cost Arizona $7 billion a year if lawmakers here don’t restore the cuts they made to health-care programs, critics say. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, said the scheduled elimination of KidsCare on June 15 would put the state at odds with a provision in the new federal program requiring states to maintain their programs as they are when President Obama signs the bill. She said the threat isn’t simply losing the $3 of federal money for each dollar of state funds for the program that provides nearly free care for the children of the working poor…”
• Repeal of children’s program puts Arizona’s Medicaid funding at risk under health overhaul, By Paul Davenport (AP), March 22, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “A controversial decision by Arizona lawmakers to eliminate a health insurance program for poor children puts it at risk of losing billions of dollars in federal Medicaid funding under the historic health care bill approved by Congress. Arizona last week became the first state to eliminate its Children’s Health Insurance Program, removing an estimated 38,000 kids from the rolls starting in June in a budget-cutting move by Gov. Jan Brewer and the Republican-led Legislature…”
• Health care bill would bring higher state Medicaid costs, By Cy Ryan, March 22, 2010, Las Vegas Sun: “The health bill passed by the House of Representatives Sunday would cost Nevada taxpayers an extra $613 million from 2014-2019, to provide health care to the needy. According to early state estimates, the bill would make an additional 70,000 residents eligible for Medicaid. The state would be mandated to cover another 8,000 individuals who are now eligible but have not applied to be covered by the state health insurance program for the poor. About 209,000 Nevadans are currently covered by Medicaid…”
• Adding to Medicaid rolls won’t be easy, Texas officials say, By Corrie MacLaggan and Tim Eaton, March 22, 2010, Austin American Statesman: “As Texas considers how to add 2 million people to Medicaid and CHIP over 10 years as part of the federal health care legislation heading to President Barack Obama, state health officials say that won’t be easy. The same enrollment system that is already struggling to enroll Texans in food stamps as quickly as the federal government requires would need to be ramped up soon to prepare for additions to Medicaid and CHIP that would start in 2014. Health reform is a ‘hurricane heading our way in terms of what it would do’ to the enrollment system, said Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the Health and Human Services Commission…”

Deal provides vaccines to poor countries at lower prices, By Andrew Pollack, March 23, 2010, New York Times: “Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline will supply hundreds of millions of doses of their pneumonia vaccines to the world’s poorest countries at heavily discounted prices under a novel agreement announced Tuesday. The deal was announced by the GAVI Alliance, a nonprofit organization, which estimated the program could save 900,000 lives by 2015. The vaccines, Pfizer’s Prevnar 13 and GlaxoSmithKline’s Synflorix, prevent pneumococcal disease, which includes pneumonia and meningitis. Pneumococcal disease kills 1.6 million people a year throughout the world, including 800,000 children before their fifth birthday, according to GAVI…”

When doctor visits lead to legal help, By Erik Eckholm, March 23, 2010, New York Times: “It was not the normal stuff of a pediatric exam. As a doctor checked the growth of Davon Cade’s 2-month-old son, he also probed about conditions at home, and what he heard raised red flags. Ms. Cade’s apartment had leaky windows and plumbing and was infested with roaches and mold, but the city, she said, had not responded to her complaints. On top of that, the landlord was evicting her for falling behind on the rent. Help came through an unexpected route. The doctor referred Ms. Cade to the legal aid office right inside the pediatric clinic at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati. Within days, a paralegal had secured an inspection that finally forced the landlord to make repairs, and also got the rent reduced temporarily while Ms. Cade searched for less expensive housing. ‘It got done when the lawyers got involved,’ Ms. Cade said…”

• House passes health-care reform bill without Republican votes, By Shailagh Murray and Lori Montgomery, March 22, 2010, Washington Post: “House Democrats scored a historic victory in the century-long battle to reform the nation’s health-care system late Sunday night, winning final approval of legislation that expands coverage to 32 million people and attempts to contain spiraling costs…”
• Republicans vow repeal effort against health bill, By David Herszenhorn, Robert Pear and Carl Hulse, March 22, 2010, New York Times: “As jubilant Democrats prepared for President Obama to sign their landmark health care legislation with a big ceremony at the White House, Republicans on Monday opened a campaign to repeal the legislation and to use it as a weapon in this year’s hotly contested midterm elections…”
• Legal and political fights loom, By Jeff Zeleny and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, March 22, 2010, New York Times: “The battle over health care is poised to move swiftly from Congress back to the country as Democrats, Republicans and a battery of interest groups race to define the legislation and dig in for long-term political and legal fights…”
• Texas: Most uninsured, most votes against bill, By Dave Michaels, March 22, 2010, Dallas Morning News: “The state with the most to gain from a health insurance overhaul was also the state with the most lawmakers who voted against the bill on Sunday. Twenty-one of 32 lawmakers from Texas, including 20 Republicans, voted against the measure. The opponents said the legislation was overwhelmingly unpopular in their districts, although it would offer insurance to more than half of Texas’ 6 million uninsured…”
• California stands to gain most from health bill, By Victoria Colliver, March 22, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle: “The stakes are high for Californians when it comes to the health care overhaul, mainly because the coverage problems in this vast state are so large. With a new UCLA study estimating that more than 8 million Californians, or nearly 25 percent of the population, lack health coverage, many health experts say California will be impacted more than other states by the reform legislation…”

• Number of people living on New York streets soars, By Julie Bosman, March 19, 2010, New York Times: “The Bloomberg administration said Friday that the number of people living on New York’s streets and subways soared 34 percent in a year, signaling a setback in one of the city’s most intractable problems. Appearing both startled and dismayed by the sharp increase, a year after a significant drop, administration officials attributed it to the recession, noting that city shelters for families and single adults had been inundated. Robert V. Hess, the commissioner of homeless services, said in a subdued news conference that the city began feeling the increase in its vast shelter system more than two years ago. ‘And now we’re seeing the devastating effect of this unprecedented poor economy on our streets as well,’ Mr. Hess said. The city’s annual tally indicated an additional 783 homeless people on the streets and in the subway system, for a total of 3,111, up from 2,328 last year. That is in addition to almost 38,000 people living in shelters, which is near the city’s high…”
• A shelter for families in need of a push, By Julie Bosman, March 21, 2010, New York Times: “Denise Benson runs a no-nonsense, no-frills homeless shelter for the city in Queens. There is no common room for lounging and watching television. Most homeless families meet with their caseworkers several times a week. Staff members escort residents to job interviews and to tour available apartments. ‘We are here to say, ‘Move it along,” she said in a recent interview at the shelter, swinging her arms forward for emphasis. Ms. Benson is on the front lines of the Bloomberg administration’s unsuccessful war against homelessness. During the eight years that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has been in office, the number of homeless people filling city shelters has sharply risen, currently approaching 38,000, including 8,600 families with children. The number of families entering shelters has increased by more than 50 percent in the past two years. In February, 1,152 families entered shelters. More than 400 had been in the shelter system before…”

Arizona drops children’s health program, By Kevin Sack, March 18, 2010, New York Times: “Arizona on Thursday became the first state to eliminate its Children’s Health Insurance Program when Gov. Jan Brewer signed an austere budget that will leave nearly 47,000 low-income children without coverage. The Arizona budget is a vivid reflection of how the fiscal crisis afflicting state governments is cutting deeply into health care. The state also will roll back Medicaid coverage for childless adults in a move that is expected to eventually drop 310,000 people from the rolls. State leaders said they were left with few choices because of a $2.6 billion projected shortfall next year. But hospital officials and advocates for low-income people said they were worried that emergency rooms would be overrun by patients who had few other options for care, and that children might suffer enduring developmental problems because of inadequate medical attention. The cuts also mean the state will forgo hundreds of millions of dollars in federal matching aid, and could lose far more if Congress passes a health bill that requires states to maintain eligibility levels for the two programs…”

Cuts to all-day kindergarten big problem for schools, parents, By Pat Kossan, March 19, 2010, Arizona Republic: “Arizona’s experiment with free full-day kindergarten is over. State lawmakers last week permanently cut the funding that made the programs possible in many schools, and now parents, public-school districts and charter schools around the state are struggling to find ways to keep them going. It’s likely some all-day kindergarten programs will close permanently, some will stay open with a bare-bones staff, and others will be available only to parents who are willing to pay out of pocket for the full-day curriculum. All-day kindergarten had a bumpy phased-in start that began in 2005; its demise came quickly last Friday when lawmakers cut the $218 million in program funding as part of their budget-balancing efforts. When classes start this fall, it means that once again the state will pay only for half-day kindergarten sessions; the extra cost of a full day will likely have to be borne by parents or property-tax payers…”

Bill proposes increased aid to the needy for college, By Tamar Lewin, March 18, 2010, New York Times: “The federal government would provide $36 billion in new financing for Pell grants to needy students over the next 10 years under legislation announced Thursday by Congressional Democrats. The maximum annual Pell grant would rise to $5,975 by 2017, from $5,350 this year. The new Pell initiative includes $13.5 billion to cover a shortfall caused by the sharp increase in the number of Americans enrolling in college during the recession. Congress would pay for the larger grants by ending subsidies to private banks that make student loans and shifting to direct federal lending. But the amount going to education spending and aid for college students is far less than the Obama administration had hoped, largely because the savings from the switch to direct federal lending is now estimated to be $61 billion, rather than $87 billion…”

Burden higher for nonprofit hospitals, Illinois Supreme Court says, By Bruce Japsen and Jason Grotto, March 19, 2010, Chicago Tribune: “An Illinois Supreme Court decision Thursday puts nonprofit hospitals on notice that they must provide an adequate amount of charity care to patients or risk losing significant tax exemptions. The decision, closely watched at a time when medical centers and the government are straining to cover health care costs for the poor, is a blow to the state’s hospital industry. It sets the stage for a potential debate about exactly how charitable hospitals must be, with some experts predicting that Springfield could seek to pass a law mandating the amounts. In the meantime, state officials indicated they could incorporate the court ruling into their assessments of whether to renew hospital tax exemptions. In its decision upholding a lower court ruling, the high court found that the Illinois Department of Revenue was correct in withdrawing Provena Covenant Medical Center’s property tax exemption in 2004 because the Urbana hospital failed to justify adequately the exemption through charitable giving…”

Poorer girls not getting HPV vaccine for cervical cancer, By Liz Szabo, March 18, 2010, USA Today: “A cervical cancer vaccine is not getting to many of the girls who need it the most, a new study shows. Mississippi and Arkansas, two of the nation’s poorest states, also have the highest death rates from cervical cancer - a result of poor access to basic screenings and health care for a large number of women, says Peter Bach of New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Yet in Mississippi, where the vaccine could perhaps save the greatest number of lives, only 16% of teen girls in 2008 received the shot, called Gardasil, according to Bach’s paper in Saturday’s The Lancet. About 22% of Arkansas girls ages 13 to 17 got the vaccine, which costs $390 for three shots…”

• In our cities, poverty may be your neighbor, By Paul Grondahl, March 18, 2010, Albany Times Union: “More than 25 percent of people in Albany live in poverty, as do more than 20 percent of people living in Schenectady and Troy, according to a report released Wednesday by the New York State Community Action Association. The 2010 New York State Poverty Report found that more than 2.6 million New Yorkers, including 852,000 children, live in poverty. The poverty level for a family of three is federally defined as a household earning less than $18,310 a year…”
• NY poverty rate tops national average, By Jessica M. Pasko, March 18, 2010, Troy Record: “Close to 14 percent of New Yorkers live in poverty, the highest rate among Northeastern states, according to a new report released by the New York State Community Action Association. More than 2.6 million New Yorkers live in poverty, including 852,000 children. That makes for a poverty rate of 13.8 percent, slightly higher than the national rate of 13.2 percent. The city of Buffalo was ranked as the third poorest city in the U.S., with close to 30 percent of the population there living in property. The poverty rate is defined as the percentage of the population living in households below or at the federal poverty line…”

• Report finds states holding fewer prisoners, By John Schwartz, March 16, 2010, New York Times: “State prison populations, which have grown for nearly four decades, have begun to dip, according to a new report, largely because of recent efforts to keep parolees out of prison and reduce prison time for nonviolent offenders. State prisons held 1,403,091 people as of Jan. 1, nearly four-tenths of a percent fewer than a year before, the report said. Prison populations have fallen in 27 states in that period, while they have risen in 23…”
• State prison population drops for 1st time since 1972; report suggests budget woes responsible, By David Crary (AP), March 17, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Spurred by budget crises, California and Michigan together reduced their prison populations by more than 7,500 last year, contributing to what a new report says is the first nationwide decline in the number of state inmates since 1972. The overall drop was slight, according to the Pew Center on the States - just 0.4 percent - but its report suggests there could be a sustained downward trend because of keen interest by state policymakers in curtailing corrections costs…”

Lawmakers say needs of rural schools are overlooked, By Sam Dillon, March 17, 2010, New York Times: “An Oklahoma senator complained that federal rules on teacher credentials had driven thousands of experienced educators out of rural schools. A North Carolina lawmaker complained that formulas for distributing federal education money favored big-city districts at the expense of poor students in small towns. And a senator from Alaska wanted to know how school-turnaround strategies based on firing ineffective instructors would work in a remote village on the Bering Sea that she said already had tremendous teacher turnover. Lawmakers who represent rural areas told Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in a hearing Wednesday that the No Child Left Behind law, as well as the Obama administration’s blueprint for overhauling it, failed to take sufficiently into account the problems of rural schools, and their nine million students…”

• Quarter of adults out of work, official figures show, March 17, 2010, The Telegraph: “A total of 10.6 million people either did not have a job, or have stopped looking for one, according to figures from the Office for National Statistics, which indicated that more people than ever before had abandoned the workplace - choosing instead to study, go on sick leave or just give up searching for a job. A record 149,000 left the workforce and became ‘economically inactive’, between November last year and January, the ONS said. These people more than offset the fall in the headline unemployment. Unemployment fell for the third month in a row, dropping by 33,000 to hit 2.45 million. It has yet to breach the symbolic 2.5 million mark, let alone the 3 million barrier that haunted the recessions of the early 1990s and 1980s…”
• UK unemployment records further fall, March 17, 2010, BBC News: “The number of people unemployed in the UK has fallen again, leaving the jobless rate at 7.8%, figures show. Total unemployment stood at 2.45 million for the three months to January, down 33,000 on the figure for the previous three months. But long-term unemployment, covering those out of work for more than a year, rose by 61,000 to 687,000. The number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance fell by 32,300 to 1.59 million in February. Unemployment among 18 to 24-year-olds fell by 34,000 to 715,000, but among the over-50s, joblessness rose by 14,000 to 398,000…”

Joblessness up in Virginia, but fewer get benefits, By David Ress, March 17, 2010, Richmond Times-Dispatch: “The number of Virginians getting state unemployment benefits fell from a year ago even as the number out of work rose by one-fifth, a Richmond Times-Dispatch review of state data found. Fewer than one in three unemployed Virginians gets state benefits, the data show. These days, when people find work, their searches are lasting an average of 33 percent longer. Thousands more people than normal are running out of benefits before they find work, which makes the total of those covered decline even as unemployment rises, said Christine Chmura, chief economist of Chmura Economics and Analytics. Meanwhile, people who depend on part-time work, and others who move from one temporary job to another, can’t meet Virginia’s tough qualification triggers to qualify for benefits…”

• Jobs program lost its way - and tax money, By Todd Wallack, March 14, 2010, Boston Globe: “The blue sign on the building says Nortel Networks, but it might as well be ‘Your tax dollars at work.’ In exchange for more than $2 million in state and local tax breaks, the Canadian telecommunications equipment maker promised a decade ago to expand its campus in Billerica, keeping 2,200 existing jobs and adding as many as 800 more. But instead of adding jobs, the struggling company has steadily slashed its operations for years. Today, it has 145 employees. It also still has those tax breaks, set to continue through 2014. And Nortel, amazingly, is by no means an isolated case. Over the past 16 years, Massachusetts has given away hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax breaks for more than 1,300 development projects under its Economic Development Incentive Program, which aims to encourage companies to invest here and create jobs. Often the incentives work and new jobs result. But far too often taxpayers have not come close to getting their money’s worth, a Globe review has found…”
• Rich towns get ‘distressed’ status, By Todd Wallack, March 15, 2010, Boston Globe: “Hingham boasts million-dollar estates along its scenic shoreline, stately antique houses on Main Street, and boutique shops around the town square. The median household income is nearly $113,000 a year, well above the state and national average, while unemployment is well below the statewide rate. Yet Massachusetts has long classified Hingham as ‘economically distressed.’ The South Shore town is on the state’s list of economic target areas, allowing several companies, including a six-screen movie theater and a clothing store, to qualify for special tax breaks in exchange for a promise to open there. And Hingham is not the only unlikely-seeming hard luck case. Over the last 16 years, the state has designated ‘economic target areas’ in 209 of the state’s 351 cities and towns, making companies eligible for tax breaks if they expand there. Among them are such other comfortable suburbs as Hopkinton, Bedford, Lexington, and Westwood. Though lawmakers originally created the Economic Development Incentive Program in 1993 to nudge businesses to invest in decaying cities and other areas scarred by poverty and unemployment, such as Fall River and Lawrence, the state has, over time, expanded the program to include almost any municipality that applies…”

• Rural Haiti struggles to absorb displaced, By Deborah Sontag, March 16, 2010, New York Times: “Before the earthquake that changed everything, Chlotilde Pelteau and her husband lived a supremely urban existence. A cosmetics vendor and a mechanic, they both enjoyed a steady clientele and a hectic daily routine, serenaded by the beeping cars and general hubbub of Port-au-Prince. Now, as roosters crow and goats bleat, Ms. Pelteau, 29, toils by day on a craggy hillside in the isolated hamlet of Nan Roc (In the Rocks), which she had abandoned at 14 for a life of greater opportunity. At night, she, her husband and their two children sleep cheek-to-jowl with a dozen relatives in the small mud house where she grew up. ‘With everything destroyed, what could I do but come back?’ said Ms. Pelteau, wearing a floral skirt as she poked corn seeds deep into arid soil unlikely to yield enough food to sustain her rail-thin parents, much less those who fled the shattered capital city to rejoin them…”
• Haitians who fled capital strain impoverished towns in countryside, By William Booth, March 15, 2010, Washington Post: “The earthquake that struck Haiti’s capital city has also jarred the impoverished countryside, sending 600,000 people into the provinces — where locals are now overwhelmed with the task of feeding and sheltering desperate newcomers. Haitian and international aid officials describe the migration as one of the largest and most wrenching in the hemisphere, as internally displaced people stream out of Port-au-Prince and head to struggling provincial towns in the aftermath of the earthquake like civilians fleeing war zones in places such as Rwanda, Kosovo and the Swat Valley in Pakistan. ‘They are everywhere. They are in the town, and they are sleeping in the fields,’ said Gerald Joseph, mayor of Lascahobas, a farming and trading town about three hours north of the capital. ‘Our schools are beyond full now. Our hospital is full. All our houses are full of people. We don’t have an empty house. Where four people were sleeping before, there are now 14…’”

The obesity-hunger paradox, By Sam Dolnick, March 12, 2010, New York Times: “When most people think of hunger in America, the images that leap to mind are of ragged toddlers in Appalachia or rail-thin children in dingy apartments reaching for empty bottles of milk. Once, maybe. But a recent survey found that the most severe hunger-related problems in the nation are in the South Bronx, long one of the country’s capitals of obesity. Experts say these are not parallel problems persisting in side-by-side neighborhoods, but plagues often seen in the same households, even the same person: the hungriest people in America today, statistically speaking, may well be not sickly skinny, but excessively fat. Call it the Bronx Paradox. ‘Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,’ said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. ‘Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.’ The Bronx has the city’s highest rate of obesity, with residents facing an estimated 85 percent higher risk of being obese than people in Manhattan, according to Andrew G. Rundle, an epidemiologist at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University…”

Broken fixes: Inspectors find shoddy work in weatherization program, By Doug Caruso, March 14, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “When low-income Ohioans receive help to improve their insulation and furnace, the quality of the work - including the potential for deadly mistakes - appears to depend on where they live. State records show that 12 of the 58 nonprofit agencies in Ohio’s Home Weatherization Assistance Program passed all of their state inspections in the past three years. That includes two of the agencies that serve Franklin County: the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and Ground Level Solutions. But 20 other agencies failed more than half of their state inspections, and five of those failed all of them. And that’s just among the houses that were inspected. Federal rules call for examining the work in one of every 20 houses. Overall, nearly 40 percent of the houses that state inspectors checked failed…”

In hard times, lured into trade school and debt, By Peter S. Goodman, March 13, 2010, New York Times: “One fast-growing American industry has become a conspicuous beneficiary of the recession: for-profit colleges and trade schools. At institutions that train students for careers in areas like health care, computers and food service, enrollments are soaring as people anxious about weak job prospects borrow aggressively to pay tuition that can exceed $30,000 a year. But the profits have come at substantial taxpayer expense while often delivering dubious benefits to students, according to academics and advocates for greater oversight of financial aid. Critics say many schools exaggerate the value of their degree programs, selling young people on dreams of middle-class wages while setting them up for default on untenable debts, low-wage work and a struggle to avoid poverty. And the schools are harvesting growing federal student aid dollars, including Pell grants awarded to low-income students…”

Budget cuts could hit low-income NJ residents, By Geoff Mulvihill (AP), March 15, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “New Jersey’s days as a place where the government is unusually generous to the needy may be numbered as a new governor pushes wide-ranging spending cuts to solve a deep budget crisis. Gov. Chris Christie is set to unveil his first spending plan Tuesday after months of preaching shared sacrifice. From what he’s done so far, it’s clear that applies to lower-income people, too, in a state that’s among the most generous in the nation when it comes to unemployment benefits and taxpayer-funded health care for the working poor. Already, he has cut the state’s mass-transit subsidy and stopped enrolling some lower-income adults in a subsidized health insurance program. He’s also proposed reducing weekly unemployment checks and, even before he was sworn in, hinted that food banks could see their state aid cut and told hospitals their reimbursements for treating the indigent will be cut in June…”

• With Medicaid cuts, doctors and patients drop out, By Kevin Sack, March 15, 2010, New York Times: “Carol Y. Vliet’s cancer returned with a fury last summer, the tumors metastasizing to her brain, liver, kidneys and throat. As she began a punishing regimen of chemotherapy and radiation, Mrs. Vliet found a measure of comfort in her monthly appointments with her primary care physician, Dr. Saed J. Sahouri, who had been monitoring her health for nearly two years. She was devastated, therefore, when Dr. Sahouri informed her a few months later that he could no longer see her because, like a growing number of doctors, he had stopped taking patients with Medicaid. Dr. Sahouri said that his reimbursements from Medicaid were so low - often no more than $25 per office visit - that he was losing money every time a patient walked in his exam room. The final insult, he said, came when Michigan cut those payments by 8 percent last year to help close a gaping budget shortfall…”
• Medicaid puts Missouri governor in a bind, By Virginia Young, March 15, 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “‘Don’t cut care,’ pleaded the sign held by a group of people whose wheelchairs lined a Capitol hearing room. It looked like 2005, when then-Gov. Matt Blunt and the Republican-controlled Legislature cut 100,000 people from Medicaid, the government’s health care program for the poor. But this protest was held last month. The target: Gov. Jay Nixon. Yes, Nixon, the Democrat who promised to expand Medicaid, is seeking $120 million in health care cuts to buoy the sagging state budget. And in a role reversal that illustrates the political quagmire that Medicaid poses for Nixon, it’s the Republican Legislature that is balking…”
• Cuts might be avoided with Medicaid bailout funds, Associated Press, March 16, 2010, Augusta Chronicle: “South Carolina lawmakers on Monday approved plans that would avoid all cuts in health and medical programs by using federal Medicaid bailout cash. With a 96-6 vote, the House approved a measure that uses $173.6 million in federal Medicaid money to eliminate planned reductions for the Department of Disabilities and Special Needs, prescription drugs and other programs. But if the federal money — which has yet to win final approval in Washington — doesn’t materialize, the spending reductions would take effect, said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont…”

Sometimes, good legal help is the best medicine, By Anna Gorman, March 12, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Maria Perez’s fever had climbed to 103, her body ached and she had trouble breathing. After being told in the emergency room that she had pneumonia, Perez went to a clinic in South Los Angeles for a follow-up appointment. The doctor asked Perez about her housing situation. Her apartment had cockroaches and mice, Perez said, and rain came through a broken window and filled the walls with mold. The doctor wrote prescriptions to treat the pneumonia and an asthma flare-up and then did something that he hoped would prevent her from getting even sicker: He sent her down the hall to talk to a lawyer. The attorney, Dennis Hsieh, contacted both the landlord and the Los Angeles Housing Department. The living conditions improved, and so did Perez’s health…”

About 1 in 4 in California lack health insurance, a UCLA study finds, By Duke Helfand, March 16, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “Nearly 1 in 4 Californians under age 65 had no health insurance last year, according to a new report, as soaring unemployment propelled vast numbers of once-covered workers into the ranks of the uninsured. The state’s uninsured population jumped to 8.2 million in 2009, up from 6.4 million in 2007, marking the highest number over the last decade, investigators from UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research said. People who were uninsured for part or all of 2009 accounted for 24.3% of California’s population under age 65 — a dramatic increase from 2007 driven largely by Californians who lost employer-sponsored health insurance, particularly over the last year…”

Jobless benefits put Wisconsin in hole, By Jason Stein, March 15, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “The state’s struggling insurance fund for jobless workers has already borrowed $1.2 billion from the federal government to pay record claims, but the Legislature won’t try to stanch the bleeding until next year at the earliest, officials said. Cutting benefits to the unemployed now or raising taxes that are already on the increase would threaten the state’s battered economy, labor and business leaders agree. But delaying repairs to the state’s unemployment reserve fund could lead to more borrowing and higher interest payments to the federal government to repay the debt later. Like 31 other states around the country, Wisconsin has had to borrow money from the federal government to help it keep making payments to some 250,000 out-of-work state residents…”

State further behind handling food stamps, medical benefits, By Brent Jones, March 15, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “Three months after a judge ordered the state to speed up delivery of food stamps and medical benefits to low-income Maryland residents, the problem has worsened, court filings show. At the end of January, the state’s Department of Human Resources was operating at an 81 percent compliance rate processing those requests, down 2.5 percentage points from the previous month, according to papers filed in Baltimore Circuit Court…”

What kids in poverty really need, By Jerry Large, March 14, 2010, Seattle Times: “People who wind up in Washington’s child- welfare system are often beset by ‘profound deprivation.’ Mark Courtney, whose organization conducted a study of the system, told me the depth of poverty has been a surprise even to people who regularly deal with child welfare. Data from a new study shows half of those families had problems securing housing, some were homeless, and two-thirds were so broke they needed food stamps. The study is part of an effort to transform the way this state helps its most endangered children, and it underscores the need to address poverty as a core part of that effort…”

Ohio joining push to insure kids, By Catherine Candisky, March 12, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “Two of three uninsured kids in Ohio - 77,000 youngsters - don’t have to go without health care. Their modest family incomes qualify them for tax-funded coverage, but they aren’t enrolled. Ohio will become the first state to join a challenge by the Obama administration to eliminate the ranks of so-called uninsured eligibles within five years, Gov. Ted Strickland announced yesterday. To meet that goal, Ohio will adopt three initiatives to make it easier for families to enroll in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and keep them covered longer…”