Homeless families, cloaked in normality, By Alan Feuer, February 3, 2012, New York Times: “On the sixth day she was homeless, Tonya Lewis overslept. She woke in the dark, in Room 6E at the 93rd Avenue Family Residence, a privately run shelter in Jamaica, Queens. It was 4:45 a.m. She was already running late. Rousting her children - Unique, 15, and Jacaery, 2 - from their beds, Ms. Lewis got them dressed and started shoving DVDs and diapers into two bulging tote bags. When the boys were ready - sleepy, sullen, hoodied, backpacked, in hats and winter jackets - she pushed them out the door (’Come on, we gotta go!’) to begin their daily routine…”

• Food stamp bills seek to restrict junk food, By Richard Fausset, January 29, 2012, Los Angeles Times: “Ronda Storms is a Republican state senator from Florida. She is also a mom who buys the groceries for her family of four. A few months ago, Storms, 46, started noticing that some fellow shoppers were using federal food stamp money to purchase a lot of unhealthful junk. And it galled her - at a time when Florida was cutting Medicaid reimbursement rates, public school funding and jobs - that people were indulging in sugary, fatty, highly-processed treats on the public dime. ‘If we’re going to be cutting services across the board,’ she said, ‘then people can live without potato chips, without store-bought cookies, without their sodas.’ That sense of unfairness, plus a concern about the health of needy children, is the motivation behind a bill Storms sponsored that would prohibit people from purchasing ‘nonstaple, unhealthy foods’ with funds provided by the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP…”
• No more treats with food stamps?, By Kathleen Haughney, January 31, 2012, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: “Should the state be able to prevent people from using food stamps to buy junk food at the grocery store? For Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, and Sen. Ronda Storms, R-Valrico, the answer is yes. The two lawmakers are sponsoring legislation - HB 1401 and SB 1658 - that would ban the use of food stamps to buy items such as soda and sweets like candy, cake or ice cream. ‘Should the taxpayer foot the bill for Mountain Dew?’ Storms asked the Senate Children, Families and Elder Affairs Committee last week. Said Plakon to the House Health and Human Services Access Subcommittee on Monday: ‘You can’t buy certain items in the grocery store right now with food stamps. We’re just talking about how big that list is.’ But the issue has ignited criticism, generating complaints even from Plakon’s and Storms’ GOP colleagues…”
• Brownback officials defend Kansas’ new food stamp policy, By Brad Cooper, January 31, 2012, Kansas City Star: “Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration on Monday fended off suggestions that it is trying to ferret out undocumented immigrants with a new Kansas policy that cuts food stamp benefits for anyone in the country illegally. Appearing before the House Appropriations Committee, a top official at the state social services agency said the new food stamp policy is only intended to level the playing field between U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants. Michelle Schroeder, the agency’s policy director, told the committee that the new food stamp policy is intended to eliminate discriminatory elements of the old policy. ‘We could have kept the previous policy,’ Schroeder told the committee. ‘We just thought it was better policy to equalize the way we treat income for all households.’ Under the new formula, the state uses the entire income of all members of a household in determining eligibility…”
• The clash over fingerprinting for food stamps, By Cindy Rodriguez, January 30, 2012, National Public Radio: “Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants New York City to stop requiring fingerprinting of its food stamp recipients, a stance that puts him at odds with the city’s mayor, who favors the practice. Cuomo says fingerprinting stigmatizes needy people and stops them from applying for help. In a recent State of the State speech, Cuomo pledged to stop fingerprinting food stamp recipients this year. But New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says without fingerprinting, fraud would escalate. Besides Arizona, New York is the only place where the policy still exists…”

With focus on income inequality, Albany bill will seek $8.50 minimum wage, By John Eligon, January 29, 2012, New York Times: “The Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park is no more, but the focus it brought to income inequality is having an impact in Albany and beyond. The Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, a Manhattan Democrat, plans to introduce a bill on Monday to raise the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour, a 17 percent increase. The bill also calls for the minimum wage to be adjusted each year for inflation. Mr. Silver’s action follows similar steps by lawmakers across the country: Delaware recently passed a minimum wage increase, and raises are being considered in California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri and New Jersey…”

• State scales back Medicaid shortfall by $300 million, By Jason Stein, January 3, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “In a bit of good news for the state’s strained budget, Gov. Scott Walker’s administration is scaling back by more than $300 million the two-year shortfall projected for state health programs for the poor. But a state health department spokeswoman said that to ensure the state health programs remain affordable, the Walker administration will still seek to proceed with a half-billion dollars in proposed cuts affecting tens of thousands of recipients. In a letter to lawmakers Tuesday, the head of the Department of Health Services said that the shortfall through June 2013 is now expected to be $232 million in state and federal money, down from the $554 million that was projected in September. The change in the projections amounts to about 2% of the funding in the program, Health Services Secretary Dennis Smith wrote in a letter to members of the Joint Finance Committee…”
• Medicaid payment backlog cripples supportive living centers, By Dean Olsen, January 3, 2012, State Journal-Register: “Medicaid payment delays of up to six months are causing fits for supportive living centers throughout Illinois, and some owners are worried they may have to close if the situation doesn’t improve soon. ‘It’s a crisis for us because reserves and lines of credit are being exhausted,’ Wayne Smallwood, executive director of the Springfield-based Affordable Assisted Living Coalition, said last week. ‘This is the worst we’ve seen, and there’s no relief in sight.’ Illinois’ festering budget problems, the sagging economy and the end of the federal economic stimulus program in June have contributed to growing payment delays that also hamstring nursing homes, hospitals, doctors and other medical providers…”
• Nowhere to go, patients linger in hospitals, at a high cost, By Sam Roberts, January 2, 2012, New York Times: “Hundreds of patients have been languishing for months or even years in New York City hospitals, despite being well enough to be sent home or to nursing centers for less-expensive care, because they are illegal immigrants or lack sufficient insurance or appropriate housing. As a result, hospitals are absorbing the bill for millions of dollars in unreimbursed expenses annually while the patients, trapped in bureaucratic limbo, are sometimes deprived of services that could be provided elsewhere at a small fraction of the cost…”

Taking pulse of Medicaid costs, By Cathleen F. Crowley, October 25, 2011, Albany Times-Union: “Guy Amisano’s soda company sold cases of Pepsi all over Western New York, but he never could put his finger on which sales were the most profitable or whether his price discounts paid off. So in the 1980s, Amisano hired some computer geeks to build a software program to track sales and costs in real time. ‘I was able to see precisely what and to whom I should sell and at what price to achieve optimal profitability without losing volume,’ Amisano said. His profits rose 20 percent and his company grew significantly. Over the next 14 years, Amisano ran Pepsi-Cola Elmira Bottling Co. while selling his computer program on the side. More than half of the beverage industry bought it. In 2000, his family sold the Horseheads-based bottling company to focus on the visual datamining software under a business called Salient Management Company. Now New York’s Medicaid system — the largest in the nation — uses Salient’s software to track the public health program’s $52 billion annual budget, 4.7 million recipients and 60,000 health care providers. Medicaid is the public health insurance program for low-income and disabled people. For the first time, top health officials say they can see where Medicaid dollars are going in real time…”

A deal to help foster youths find housing, By Mosi Secret, October 20, 2011, New York Times: “New York City has reached an agreement on a proposed settlement of a lawsuit that claims the city allows older children to leave foster care only to become immediately homeless. Each year, roughly 800 to 1,100 people age 18 to 21 are discharged from foster care to fend for themselves, the plaintiffs complained in the class-action suit. There is no current data on the youths’ housing after foster care, but previously the city’s Department of Homeless Services and the City Council estimated that more than a quarter of youths discharged from foster care because of their age end up homeless almost immediately, according to the complaint, which accuses the city of shirking its responsibilities to those youths…”

• Lower Medicaid dispensing fees may pressure pharmacies, By Claire Cardona, October 14, 2011, New York Times: “In Rio Grande City, Rene Martinez’s Starr Pharmacy has one line for Medicaid patients and another for non-Medicaid patients. On some days, most of his clients can be found waiting on the Medicaid line, a testament to the importance of that federal-state health insurance program in this poor city along the Texas-Mexico border - and to Mr. Martinez’s bottom line. His store is one of a number of independent pharmacies in Texas that may have to lay off workers and cut services like free delivery to homebound patients because of looming lower dispensing fees. Beginning in March, a new managed-care plan goes into effect that reduces the amount pharmacies receive for filling Medicaid prescriptions…”
• Medicaid stand-in rebuffed by feds, By Niki Kelly, Journal Gazette, October 1, 2011, Fort Wayne Journal Gazette: “The federal government on Friday rejected Indiana’s proposal to use its Healthy Indiana insurance plan in place of a Medicaid expansion beginning in 2014. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a letter that the state’s request was premature because rules related to the expansion have not yet been finalized and encouraged Indiana to apply again in the future…”
• Medicaid overhaul saves $600M, By Casey Seiler, October 6, 2011, Albany Times-Union: “The first phase of the state’s attempt to overhaul its health insurance program for low-income residents has achieved almost $600 million in savings in its first six months, according to a progress report released Wednesday. Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team gathered at The Egg to hear team reports and receive a demonstration of the Medicaid Visual Data Mining system, which allows state officials and health care managers to track spending in a more targeted and quick-response fashion. ‘We are now live-managing the program,’ said Greg Allen of the state Department of Health, who demonstrated how the system could be used to track anomalies that could indicate possible fraud or other problems. State Health Commissioner Nirav Shah suggested the data tool could be used by hospitals to track re-admission rates due to infections or other phenomena…”

• Rise in full-time workers receiving food stamps, By Jere Downs, October 12, 2011, Louisville Courier-Journal: “On her day off from work one recent Friday, Angela Carter stopped at Shively Area Ministries to pick up four bags of free food. She figured the noodles, bratwurst, cereal, canned goods, milk and beef stew would see her, her husband and two sons through until $350 is deposited in her food stamp account. ‘I have a full time job and I’m still broke,’ said Carter, whose paycheck for her $8.57-an-hour job as a Rite-Aid clerk comes twice a month. ‘One paycheck goes to rent, the next one goes to bills. I always run out of money for food.’ Her husband, seeking assembly line work, has brought home only three paychecks in the last 3 months. As the 13 Kentucky and Southern Indiana counties in the Louisville area experitence the end of a third year of more than 9 percent unemployment and flat wages, the working poor like Carter figure prominently among a sharp rise in the number of households receiving food stamps, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture…”
• N.J. relaxes rules on food stamps, By Ken Serrano, October 8, 2011, Asbury Park Press: “Faced with an increasing number of people receiving food stamps, some states, like Kansas, have toughened eligibility requirements for their federally funded food assistance programs. But New Jersey has done the opposite. Gone is the requirement that people must list assets to apply. The annual gross income limit for a single person in New Jersey to be eligible to participate in its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was raised in April 2010 from $14,701.50 to $20,146.50. Deductions for things like utility bills figure into the limits. The maximum allowable income for a family of three to participate went from $23,803 per year to $34,281…”
• Fingerprinting those seeking food stamps is denounced, By Kate Taylor, October 11, 2011, New York Times: “Taking aim at a practice she called unnecessary, costly and punitive, the speaker of the City Council, Christine C. Quinn, is asking the Bloomberg administration to justify requiring applicants for food stamps to be electronically fingerprinted. New York City, where 1.8 million people receive food stamps, is one of only two jurisdictions in the country that require applicants to be fingerprinted, according to Ms. Quinn’s office. The other is Arizona. California and Texas recently lifted a similar requirement; New York stopped using fingerprinting for food-stamp recipients statewide in 2007, but kept it in New York City at the Bloomberg administration’s request…”

U.S. rejects mayor’s plan to ban use of food stamps to buy soda, By Patrick McGeehan, August 19, 2011, New York Times: “Federal officials on Friday rejected Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to bar New York City’s food stamp users from buying soda and other sugary drinks with them. The decision derailed one of the mayor’s big ideas to fight obesity and poor nutrition in the city. Mr. Bloomberg and the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, were quick to criticize the ruling by the United States Department of Agriculture as a disservice to low-income residents. Dr. Farley, who said he was ‘very upset’ by the decision, said that it ‘really calls into question how serious the U.S.D.A. is about addressing the nation’s most serious nutritional problem.’ In October, city and state officials proposed a two-year experiment to see if the prohibition would reduce obesity among people who buy their groceries with food stamps…”

• Bloomberg to use own funds in plan to aid minority youth, By Michael Barbaro and Fernanda Santos, August 3, 2011, New York Times: “The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances. The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed…”
• Can George Soros, Michael Bloomberg save New York’s troubled young men?, By Ron Scherer, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to improve the lives of young black and Hispanic males. On Thursday, Mr. Bloomberg announced that the city, combined with his own philanthropy and that of billionaire George Soros, would spend $127.5 million over three years to try to cut down on some of the factors that result in higher rates of poverty, incarceration, and unemployment among young minority men…”
• A hand up, not a handout, for young black and Latino men, Editorial, August 4, 2011, Christian Science Monitor: “Blacks and Latinos took the brunt of America’s Great Recession. Their wealth gap with whites is now at a record high. And with large cutbacks in government social programs, there’s a greater need than ever for private giving to help these two groups. That’s the reasoning behind a $130 million initiative in New York City by two billionaires, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and financier George Soros, to target young male minorities with innovative approaches to helping them succeed - as workers and as fathers. Each man is giving $30 million to the public-private project. (Mr. Soros already funds many such programs in other cities.) Known as the Young Men’s Initiative, the three-year project is just the latest of dozens of programs started in recent years to focus on young African-American and Latino males - groups with dreadful rates of poverty, education, and employment…”

NY charter school throws foster kids a safety net, By Larry Neumeister (AP), July 10, 2011, Seattle Times: “A Harvard-trained administrator thought she had heard it all as a gatekeeper in a city office responsible for supporting charter schools when Bill Baccaglini walked enthusiastically through the door with one more idea. ‘I thought, ‘Here we go, another big idea,” recalled Jessica Nauiokas. But she found herself liking his plans so much that she offered to be the Bronx school’s principal. ‘I walked out of the meeting and said, ‘Wow. That actually is a compelling idea.” Thus explains how Nauiokas became principal at the Haven Academy Charter School, where a third of students are in foster care. Another third are in families receiving preventive services to diminish the need for foster care. The rest are from the Mott Haven community, which is in a Congressional district where a soaring poverty rate keeps a third of residents on public assistance…”

Concern for vast social services database on the city’s neediest, By Anemona Hartocollis, June 16, 2011, New York Times: “New York City has spent the past 18 months developing a database on four million residents, most of them the city’s neediest, which officials say will enhance social services but which advocates for the poor say could put their privacy at risk. Using data-sharing concepts developed by the Department of Homeland Security and other law enforcement agencies, the database links together vast amounts of information gathered by city agencies that previously maintained their files separately. Now, workers in an array of city departments will have access to information about nearly half of the city’s residents, including welfare and food stamp payments, child care vouchers, and records of Medicaid enrollment and stays in public housing and shelters, among other kinds of social service records…”

A village with the numbers, not the image, of the poorest place, By Sam Roberts, April 20, 2011, New York Times: “The poorest place in the United States is not a dusty Texas border town, a hollow in Appalachia, a remote Indian reservation or a blighted urban neighborhood. It has no slums or homeless people. No one who lives there is shabbily dressed or has to go hungry. Crime is virtually nonexistent. And, yet, officially, at least, none of the nation’s 3,700 villages, towns or cities with more than 10,000 people has a higher proportion of its population living in poverty than Kiryas Joel, N.Y., a community of mostly garden apartments and town houses 50 miles northwest of New York City in suburban Orange County. About 70 percent of the village’s 21,000 residents live in households whose income falls below the federal poverty threshold, according to the Census Bureau. Median family income ($17,929) and per capita income ($4,494) rank lower than any other comparable place in the country. Nearly half of the village’s households reported less than $15,000 in annual income. About half of the residents receive food stamps, and one-third receive Medicaid benefits and rely on federal vouchers to help pay their housing costs. Kiryas Joel’s unlikely ranking results largely from religious and cultural factors. Ultra-Orthodox Satmar Hasidic Jews predominate in the village; many of them moved there from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, beginning in the 1970s to accommodate a population that was growing geometrically…”

New York courts vow legal aid in housing, By David Streitfeld, February 15, 2011, New York Times: “New York court officials outlined procedures Tuesday aimed at assuring that all homeowners facing foreclosure were represented by a lawyer, a shift that could give tens of thousands of families a better chance at saving their homes. Criminal defendants are guaranteed a lawyer, but New York will be the first state to try to extend that pledge to foreclosures, which are civil matters. There are about 80,000 active foreclosure cases in New York courts. In more than half of them, only the banks have lawyers…”

For poor, bail system can be an obstacle to freedom, By John Eligon, January 9, 2011, New York Times: “Before George Zouvelos agrees to post someone’s bail, a customer must put up cash, sign a 20-page contract and initial 86 separate paragraphs. Those paragraphs are chock-full of fees: $250 if the defendant misses a weekly check-in; as much as $375 an hour for obscure tasks like bail consulting and research; and unspecified amounts if Mr. Zouvelos, a bail bondsman based in Manhattan, farms out tasks like obtaining court documents or delivering release papers to jail. Then there are the thousands of dollars that Mr. Zouvelos can charge if he decides to revoke a bond and return a defendant to jail, as he did 89 times during a four-month period last year. The common perception of how the bail-bond system operates is fairly straightforward: A bondsman bails a defendant out of jail. If that defendant misses a court appearance, the bondsman can ’surrender’ him - chase him down and haul him back to jail. The reality is more troubling…”

• Paterson’s no. 2 calls for Medicaid overhaul, By Anemona Hartocollis, September 19, 2010, New York Times: “Describing Medicaid as a ‘massive program’ whose growth threatens the state’s finances, Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch is calling for significant changes in New York’s health care benefits for the poor and disabled, lobbing a volatile issue in the midst of the campaign for a new governor. In a report to be released on Monday, Mr. Ravitch says the state should remove control of the rate-setting process for Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program for the poor, from the Legislature to reduce the influence of politics. He also calls for limits on medical malpractice awards and for the re-examination of rules that allow middle-class families to shelter assets so they can qualify for coverage. Although the report does not suggest a cut in benefits, it notes that New York has among the most liberal definitions of eligibility…”
• State’s Medicaid numbers hit record, By Bill Toland, September 21, 2010, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “More than 2.2 million Pennsylvanians are eligible for Medicaid, the federally mandated, state-managed program that provides health care for people and families who can’t afford care otherwise. It is the highest number on record, representing nearly 18 percent of the population — more than one in six Pennsylvanians — and underscoring the worrisome economic climate and continued difficulty many people have finding jobs and employer-provided insurance. But the swelling Medicaid roster is not just a sign of the economic times. It’s also reflective of growing dependence on state-sponsored health care and safety nets, as well as the increasing cost of health care and long-term care — trends showing few signs of immediate abatement. As a result, the state’s Department of Public Welfare budget, and the need to trim it, have been regular sources of political strife for Gov. Ed Rendell and the state Legislature. The same will remain true for future governors and lawmakers…”

Suit over legal aid advances in New York, By William Glaberson, May 6, 2010, New York Times: “New York’s highest court ruled Thursday that a broad class-action suit challenging the state’s system of providing public defenders can move forward because there are enough signs that the system is failing poor people. The 4-to-3 ruling by the State Court of Appeals came in a closely watched suit that civil liberties lawyers said could be a model for similar challenges across the country. It also set the stage for a sweeping battle in the courts and perhaps the Legislature…”

Comptroller: State overpays for Medicaid, By Cathleen F. Crowley, May 4, 2010, Albany Times Union: “The state Medicaid program overpaid hospitals $150 million, according to audits released Monday by the state comptroller’s office. Thomas P. DiNapoli blamed the payments on ‘pervasive problems’ with the state Department of Health’s billing system and policies. In one case, the state paid an Ohio hospital $1.5 million for a bone marrow transplant that should have cost $117,000, the audit said. Medicaid is the $45 billion public health insurance program for the poor and disabled. The state Department of Health, which oversees New York’s Medicaid, said many of the problems in the audit have already been fixed. The DOH also said that $53 million of the so-called overpayments identified are hypothetical because the figure is based on a proposed payment policy that would require legislative change…”

Why are more Monroe County kids in the juvenile justice system?, By Denise-Marie Santiago, May 2, 2010, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: “With his handcuffs off and a guard trailing him, Calvin didn’t look at the judge when he first walked into Monroe County Family Court. The lanky 17-year-old made a beeline to his mother that morning in March to kiss her, before standing with his attorney to hear how much more time he would serve in a juvenile facility for being caught a second time in a stolen car a year earlier. In Buffalo, he might still be at home and serving probation for the misdemeanor charge of unauthorized use of a vehicle. Syracuse officials may have diverted Calvin’s case to a program that keeps him with his family while providing services to get him back on track. In Monroe County, though, judges have long sent away more juvenile delinquents and persons in need of supervision, or PINS, to secure and nonsecure facilities than Buffalo’s Erie County and Syracuse’s Onondaga County combined. Monroe County is also more likely to keep them for a time in a local detention facility, rather than release them to their families, before their cases come to court. And among the 10 counties that place the most juvenile delinquents in state custody, according to a study of New York’s juvenile justice system, Monroe leads in disproportionately placing African-Americans…”

• 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…”

Working poor upset over cut in day care subsidies, By Matthew Spina, January 7, 2010, Buffalo News: “Jennifer Ward figures that Erie County’s cuts to a day care program will backfire among people like her, the working poor. ‘I am probably going to have to quit my job at the end of the month and join the welfare rolls,’ said Ward, a paralegal who earns about $28,000 a year and has never been on welfare. ‘The chaos that is going to occur in Buffalo, N. Y., is just mind-boggling to me.’ Under County Executive Chris Collins, county officials have grown tired of county taxpayers shouldering a larger share - as much as $10 million this year - of a county, state and federal program that subsidizes day care costs for lower-income families. So as a way to spend less, the county will make it more difficult for families to qualify. The county’s new eligibility rules will cut off day care subsidies for about 1,500 children, or four of every 10 recipients in and around the nation’s third-poorest major city…”

Courts seek more lawyers to help the poor, By William Glaberson, January 6, 2010, New York Times: “The recession has swelled the number of people showing up in New York State courts who cannot afford lawyers to 2.1 million annually, often turning eviction, foreclosure, debt collection and other civil cases into lopsided battles that raise questions about the fairness of the legal system. In response, the state court system is beginning an unusual new program this week to try to fill the gap with volunteer retired lawyers, hoping partly to attract Baby Boomer lawyers who may be ready to slow down but are not keen on full-time golf. New York’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, said in an interview that officials changed the state’s rules this week to add a new category of lawyer, attorney emeritus, that will free lawyers of some burdens of full-time practice, like paying for malpractice insurance, while channeling them to dozens of legal programs around the state that represent low-income people without charge. Until now, lawyers were required to register with the state as either active or retired…”

New York finds extreme crisis in youth prisons, By Nicholas Confessore, December 13, 2009, New York Times: “New York’s system of juvenile prisons is broken, with young people battling mental illness or addiction held alongside violent offenders in abysmal facilities where they receive little counseling, can be physically abused and rarely get even a basic education, according to a report by a state panel. The problems are so acute that the state agency overseeing the prisons has asked New York’s Family Court judges not to send youths to any of them unless they are a significant risk to public safety, recommending alternatives, like therapeutic foster care. ‘New York State’s current approach fails the young people who are drawn into the system, the public whose safety it is intended to protect, and the principles of good governance that demand effective use of scarce state resources,’ said the confidential draft report, which was obtained by The New York Times…”

• Despite recession, 26 states grew health coverage this year, By Phil Galewitz, December 8, 2009, Miami Herald: “Despite the economic downturn that’s busting state budgets from Sacramento to Tallahassee, 26 states this year made it easier for low-income children, parents or pregnant women to get health coverage, according to a report released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation. But the gains could be fleeting as most were made possible by new federal stimulus dollars, which run out at the end of 2010, along with a requirement that states maintain Medicaid eligibility levels. The report surveyed how states were handling Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). States also benefited from the federal reauthorization of the CHIP program last February, which gave them new options to expand eligibility and millions of dollars to find uninsured kids…”
• Most uninsured In Lower Hudson are working U.S. citizens, By Candice Ferrette and Tim Henderson, December 8, 2009, Journal News: “They are waiters, dental assistants, preschool teachers, hairdressers, small-business owners and recent college graduates. More than half of the uninsured people living in the Lower Hudson Valley are working U.S. citizens who stand to be affected by the national health-care reform debate. As more people become unemployed, this group of people still has jobs but no health insurance…”

• R.I. emergency food programs see a one-year 30-percent surge, By Paul Davis, November 23, 2009, Providence Journal: “Two years ago, Robin McDuffie and her family often spent $150 a night for five meals at a favorite Spanish restaurant. On the menu? Lobster, filet mignon and arroz con pollo. Then her husband lost his mortgage-company job. Now, McDuffie spends a little more for a week’s worth of groceries — with money from the state. ‘We went from making a hundred grand to making four grand,’ says McDuffie, who attends a class on how to prepare healthful meals with less money. She no longer eats meat. ‘I never thought I’d have to do this,’ says the 38-year-old mother of three. In Rhode Island, where the unemployment rate is among the worst in the nation, the number of people who go to bed hungry is at a 10-year high, according to a new report from the Rhode Island Community Food Bank. ‘Poverty and hunger are facts of life for too many Rhode Islanders,’ says the report, to be released Monday…”
• Suburban food pantries struggle with record demand, By Ernst Lamothe Jr., November 23, 2009, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: “Mary Ellen McDowell has gotten accustomed to seeing crowds of people arrive during the holidays at Webster Community Chest, a food cupboard for area residents in need. However, this year is unlike any she’s experienced in the past decade, with a record number coming in for help. The worst recession since the Great Depression forced local suburban food cupboards to become more resourceful to provide the same services. Those who run the food cupboards say the problem isn’t going away and they are leaning on the public and themselves like never before…”
• Miss. charities struggle amid need, By Gary Pettus, November 22, 2009, Jackson Clarion-Ledger: “For the first time in its history, the Mississippi Food Network won’t be able to buy turkeys and distribute them to thousands of needy Mississippians at Thanksgiving. ‘We aren’t able to provide the turkeys and hams and some of the special foods we usually have,’ said Walker Satterwhite, executive director of the 25-year-old food bank, which supplies more than 300 churches and nonprofits in the state. The reason: a malnourished economy has caused turkey costs to soar and charitable donations to sink…”

For long-term unemployed, payments near end, By Patrick McGeehan, October 11, 2009, New York Times: “Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have had the unfortunate distinction of collecting unemployment benefits longer than anyone in the state’s history. But last week, state officials began warning the long-term unemployed that Congress has not approved another extension of unemployment insurance payments. That lapse will leave about 37,000 residents of the state, like Robert C. Brannigan, without benefits this week, and will force others to contemplate applying for food stamps or other forms of welfare that they had never considered. Mr. Brannigan, a 26-year-old construction worker from Mastic, received his final weekly payment of $430 last week, but he still is No. 20 on a waiting list for jobs assigned by his union in Manhattan. When he checked the State Labor Department’s Facebook page for news about a pending extension, he found a video explaining how to apply for food stamps and other assistance from the state…”

Scattered in suburbs, and in need, By Julie Bosman, October 2, 2009, New York Times: “It is hard enough for the unemployed and others struggling financially to figure out how to obtain social services like food stamps, counseling and utility assistance for the first time. It can be even harder in the suburbs. There, many residents, including middle-class people unversed in the welfare system, have trouble making use of the shelters, government offices and nonprofit agencies that are less visible than in cities, spread out across a larger area and harder to reach using public transportation. So needy people are commonly sharing rides, walking and riding buses, often with small children in tow, in larger numbers than before the recession, officials said. And for advice on how to get help in the first place, they are seeking out priests, school nurses and small-town mayors, turning them into de facto social workers…”

• Reports predict increasing financial burden from health care, By Brian Tumulty, September 30, 2009, Elmira Star-Gazette: “New York’s Medicaid program will experience a financial crisis if Congress doesn’t enact health care legislation, according to two studies released Wednesday. Ten years from now, state officials could face a 93 percent rise in the cost of providing Medicaid services to adults and related health services to children from low-income families, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute predict in one report…”
• Medicaid crisis looms for state, By Jerry Zremski, October 1, 2009, Buffalo News: “New York, which has continued to expand Medicaid while other fiscally pressed states trimmed benefits, now faces a potential double whammy of federal-level changes that could cost the state health care program for the poor nearly $6 billion in 2011 alone. The state’s deficit, projected at $7 billion in the fiscal year beginning next April, is projected to grow to $13 billion a year later…”
• Nearly a quarter of Florida residents have no health insurance, By Drew Harwell and Andy Boyle, October 2, 2009, St. Petersburg Times: “Lawrence Rill, an out-of-work Clearwater tradesman, was preparing to donate plasma when a nurse gave him the news: His blood pressure was dangerously high and his body was in ’stroke mode.’ Rill, 50, needed prompt medical attention. But he hasn’t been able to afford health insurance for 15 years. Even when times were better, and he was working at Home Depot, the weekly $75 premium would have eaten up a fifth of his paycheck. Sound familiar? Florida has the second-lowest rate of health insurance for people younger than 65 in the country, trailing only Texas, a new U.S. Census survey shows. Excluding Medicare-eligible senior citizens, one in four Floridians lives without any form of medical coverage…”

• Facing backlogs, state boosts staff for food stamps, By Paul Davis, July 14, 2009, Providence Journal: Facing a growing backlog of hundreds of food stamp applicants, the state will use federal stimulus money to hire three workers and buy a new telephone system to deal with the problem.  Donalda Carlson, associate director of individual and family support services at the Department of Human Services, will also seek permission to hire more workers to help with the surge in applications…”
• No-cost error leads to a big penalty, By Jim Dwyer, July 14, 2009, New York Times: “Two months ago, Vanessa Hall got the kind of letter from the state that required several readings to appreciate the depth of its perversity. At first glance, the main point was plain enough: Her food stamp benefit was being cut. The reason also seemed straightforward. A city agency that administers food stamps, the Human Resources Administration, claimed that she had not told the truth about being married…”

Welfare checks to increase for first time in 19 years, By Julie Bosman, July 5, 2009, New York Times: “The last time welfare recipients in New York saw an increase in their basic cash allowance, Derek Jeter was in high school, a subway token cost $1.15 and David N. Dinkins had just been sworn in as mayor.  Nineteen years later, they will see another long-awaited increase beginning this month, bringing a subsidy for a typical family of three to $321 a month, from $291, city and state officials said…”