Illinois may alter child support formula, By Bill Ruthhart, December 30, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “State officials for the first time in decades are pushing a major overhaul of a system that touches one of the most volatile of all family issues: how child support is calculated. The move aims at making the process fairer by considering both parents’ incomes and time spent with the child, but some advocates already are arguing to change - or scrap - the new proposal, which won’t be finalized until next spring. If Illinois switches the calculation, it would join 38 other states that already have adopted versions of what’s known as the ‘income shares’ formula…”

Judge allows thousands to join child support lawsuit, By Bill Rankin, January 3, 2012, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Thousands of parents facing possible jail time for failing to pay child support can join a lawsuit that says lawyers should be appointed to represent them if unable to afford counsel, a judge has ruled. In a Dec. 30 order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter granted class-action status to a suit filed last year against the state by five parents who had been jailed for child-support debt. Georgia is one of the few states nationwide that does not provide lawyers for indigent parents facing civil contempt in child-support proceedings. The state already struggles, because of budget shortfalls, to provide lawyers to indigent people charged with criminal offenses. The lawsuit contends Georgia is creating modern-day debtor’s prisons for those jailed when they have no ability to pay because they have lost jobs or are disabled and unable to find work…”

More custodial parents fall below poverty line as child support payment rates drop, By Marjorie Cortez, December 11, 2011, Deseret News: “A growing number of custodial parents fell below the poverty line in 2009 as fewer received the full amount of child support owed to them. A new Census Bureau report showed that nationwide, 41.2 percent of noncustodial parents received the full amount of child support owed them in 2009, down from 46.8 percent in 2007. The report, ‘Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Support: 2009,’ also found that the proportion of parents owed child support and received either full or partial payments fell from 76.3 percent to 70.8 percent over the same period…”

Fewer marriages, fewer jobs: what’s contributing to poverty?, By Katie Leslie, October 27, 2011, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Losing a job is a quick and certain path to economic distress, as all too many Georgians have learned in recent years. But new census data highlight another, deeper-seated trend with profound implications for the long-term prosperity of middle-class families: the disappearance of marriage as a norm, especially among those who have children. In Georgia, from 2008 to 2010, the poverty rate was higher among single women raising children than among the unemployed — 39 percent vs. 31 percent — according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of 3-year census estimates released Thursday…”

Unable to pay child support, poor parents land behind bars, By Mike Brunker, September 12, 2011, MSNBC.com: “It may not be a crime to be poor, but it can land you behind bars if you also are behind on your child-support payments. Thousands of so-called ‘deadbeat’ parents are jailed each year in the U.S. after failing to pay court-ordered child support - the vast majority of them for withholding or hiding money out of spite or a feeling that they’ve been unfairly gouged by the courts. But in what might seem like an un-American plot twist from a Charles Dickens’ novel, advocates for the poor say, some parents are wrongly being locked away without any regard for their ability to pay - sometimes without the benefit of legal representation…”

• Michigan’s sharp rise in births to unwed moms means ‘a lot more children growing up in poverty’, By Sue Thoms, July 7, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “A sharp increase in the number of unmarried women having babies means trouble ahead for mothers and children in Michigan, according to the Michigan League for Human Services. ‘We’re going to see a lot more children growing up in poverty,’ said Jane Zehnder-Merrill, director of a report released Wednesday on trends in maternal and infant health from 2000 to 2009. The study found 40 percent of births in Michigan in 2009 were to unmarried woman — a 20 percent rise since 2000. Two of every three births to women in their early 20s were to unwed mothers…”
• Study: Fewer teens, more singles giving birth in Michigan, By Chris Christoff, July 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The percentage of babies born in Michigan to unmarried mothers rose significantly during the last decade, but fewer teens are giving birth, a new study shows. About half of all births in 2000-09 were to low-income mothers eligible for Medicaid health insurance, according to the Kids Count in Michigan report by the Michigan League for Human Services. The trend is troubling because babies born to unmarried women are more likely to live in poverty and have health and learning problems, said Kids Count in Michigan Director Jane Zehnder-Merrell…”

Child welfare systems working to get more dads into the equation of safe homes, By Karen Auge, June 20, 2011, Denver Post: “Richard Jama had been searching for his daughter for weeks when he discovered she was living with strangers, foster parents chosen for her by child welfare workers. When the social workers took the little girl, who had been abused by her mother’s boyfriend, they asked the child’s mother where the father was. ‘She said I had gone back to Africa,’ the Liberian immigrant said. In fact, Jama hadn’t gone anywhere - and he was still paying child support. Jama, who spent the past two years fighting to get his daughter back for good, doesn’t understand why social workers took the word of his child’s mother or why they didn’t check child-support records to find him. That is changing, social workers say…”

Census shows big jump in women-led families in Wisconsin, By Dan Simmons and Nick Heynen, May 12, 2011, Wisconsin State Journal: “When Ally Moll had her daughter three years ago, she felt isolated. Her family lives in Florida and New York, and the girl’s father was out of the picture. So the Madison woman took her plight to an online classifieds board: ‘I’m a new mom and I’m alone. Does anyone want to hang out?’ It led to connections with many other moms in her situation and monthly social gatherings that continue today, perhaps not surprising given that the last decade brought a dramatic increase in women-led families here and across Wisconsin. In the state, the number of families headed by women with children and no husband increased 13 percent from 2000 to 2010, according to Census figures released Thursday. In Dane County, they’re up 23 percent. In Madison, it’s 22 percent. The data show a further decline in the traditional nuclear family approach, with married couples with kids comprising 19 percent of total Wisconsin households in 2010, down from 24 percent in 2000…”

• 1 in 4 children in US raised by a single parent, By Christine Armario (AP), April 27, 2011, Miami Herald: “One in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent - a percentage that has been on the rise and is higher than other developed countries, according to a report released Wednesday. Of the 27 industrialized countries studied by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. had 25.8 percent of children being raised by a single parent, compared with an average of 14.9 percent across the other countries. Ireland was second (24.3 percent), followed by New Zealand (23.7 percent). Greece, Spain, Italy and Luxemborg had among the lowest percentages of children in single-parent homes. Experts point to a variety of factors to explain the high U.S. figure, including a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of single-parent child rearing. The U.S. also lacks policies to help support families, including childcare at work and national paid maternity leave, which are commonplace in other countries…”
• UK spends more on families than most OECD countries, By Karen McVeigh, April 27, 2011, The Guardian: “Britain is one of the biggest investors in families across all countries of the Organisation of Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD), according to a report looking at how governments support families. It spent 3.6% of its GDP on family benefits, compared to an OECD average of 2.2% over all benefits, in 2007. Only Denmark and France spent more, at 3.7% each. The OECD report into family life has found the UK spends more on each child than most other OECD countries, more than £138,000 from birth up to the age of 18, compared to an OECD average of £95,000. Most of it, 2.1% of GDP, spent on families was spent on cash benefits, such as child benefit and working tax credit. However, in terms of better outcomes for families, such as the ability to lift children out of poverty, gender equality and family employment, Britain lags behind countries which spend less…”
• More Irish children live in poverty than OECD average, By Joanne Hunt, April 29, 2011, Irish Times: “The Poorest in society are no longer pensioners but families with children, an OECD study has found. Doing Better for Families, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development’s report on family wellbeing, says families with children are more likely to be poor than in previous decades, when the poorest were more likely to be pensioners. The study finds that while poverty in households with children is rising in nearly all OECD countries, 16.3 per cent of Irish children now live in poverty, well above the OECD average of 12.7 per cent…”
• One child in four in single-parent home, By Bronwyn Torrie, April 30, 2011, Dominion Post: “New Zealand has the third-highest rate of children living in single-parent homes, an OECD study says. This means nearly one in four Kiwi children are growing up in single-parent homes as more marriages break up and single women choose to enter motherhood on their own. Of 27 industrialised countries, New Zealand ranked third in the Doing Better for Families study, with 23.7 per cent of children living in a one-parent household, compared with the 14.9 per cent average across all countries. The United States ranked first with 25.9 per cent and Ireland was second with 24.3 per cent…”

Four in 10 say marriage is becoming obsolete, By Hope Yen (AP), November 18, 2010, Washington Post: “Is marriage becoming obsolete? As families gather for Thanksgiving this year, nearly one in three American children is living with a parent who is divorced, separated or never-married. More people are accepting the view that wedding bells aren’t needed to have a family. A study by the Pew Research Center highlights rapidly changing notions of the American family. And the Census Bureau, too, is planning to incorporate broader definitions of family when measuring poverty, a shift caused partly by recent jumps in unmarried couples living together…”

• Census finds single mothers and live-in partners, By Tamar Lewin, November 5, 2010, New York Times: “More than a quarter of the unmarried women who gave birth in a recent year were living with a partner, according to a Census Bureau report that for the first time measured the percentage of unmarried mothers who were not living alone. ‘Everybody tends to think of single mothers as being alone with their child, and we wanted to look at whether that was true,’ said Jane Dye, the demographer who wrote the report, ‘Fertility of American Women: 2008.’ ‘We found that 28 percent of these women were living with an unmarried partner, whether opposite sex or same sex.’ While cohabitation has increased enormously over the last generation, the catchall category of ’single mother’ has often blurred the difference between those living alone and those living with a partner…”
• Facing 72 percent rate of unwed mothers, blacks explore reasons and answers, By Jesse Washington (AP), November 6, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “One recent day at Dr. Natalie Carroll’s OB-GYN practice, located inside a low-income apartment complex tucked between a gas station and a freeway, 12 pregnant black women come for consultations. Some bring their children or their mothers. Only one brings a husband. Things move slowly here. Women sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow waiting room, sometimes for more than an hour. Carroll does not rush her mothers in and out. She wants her babies born as healthy as possible, so Carroll spends time talking to the mothers about how they should care for themselves, what she expects them to do - and why they need to get married. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics. This number is inseparable from the work of Carroll, an obstetrician who has dedicated her 40-year career to helping black women…”

Welfare reform failing poor single mothers, By Melinda Burns, October 28, 2010, Miller-McCune: “The women at the bottom in America, single mothers on public assistance, are sometimes called ‘drawer people,’ the subjects of case files that stay in the welfare manager’s drawer, year after year. They are mothers who quit work or can’t work because they are ill or disabled, or illiterate, or victims of abuse, or the sole caregivers for an elderly parent or chronically sick child. These so-called hard-to-serve single mothers may include women who fail to apply for the 70 jobs in one month required to qualify for a federal cash grant. They may want to go to school full time, which is against welfare rules in some states. They may be approaching the five-year lifetime limit for cash assistance that most states impose. Or they may simply not own a car…”

• Highest teen birthrates are in the South, October 21, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The highest teenage birthrates in the U.S. are clustered in Southern states and the lowest in the Northeast and upper Midwest, government researchers said Wednesday. Birthrates fell to an average of 41.5 births per 1,000 female teens in 2008 from 42.5 in 2007, with 14 states seeing declines. That followed an increase from 2005 to 2007, according to the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The differences are important because teen parents are less likely to pursue higher education, their children are less likely to be healthy, and they earn less on average than people who have children later…”
• State’s lower teen-pregnancy rate doesn’t tell whole story, By Carol M. Ostrom, October 20, 2010, Seattle Times: “Teen pregnancy is associated with all sorts of bad things - physical risks to babies, interrupted education for moms, and lower lifetime incomes all around - so it’s good news that Washington, overall, has a significantly lower rate than the U.S. average. But the statistics released Wednesday morning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention don’t tell the whole story. Buried inside the big-picture statistics about Washington are numbers that reveal pockets of teen pregnancy, often in nearby high schools and middle schools…”
• Teen birth rate low, but racial disparities persist, By Elizabeth Dunbar, October 21, 2010, Minnesota Public Radio: “New numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Minnesota has the eighth-lowest teen birth rate in the nation, but the rates are much higher among teens of color. Nationally, the CDC found that the worst disparities between black teens and the general population occurred in the South and the Upper Midwest. Minnesota was among the 10 states with the highest teen birth rate among black teens…”

Unwed moms far more likely to face poverty, By Rita Price, October 4, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “Among the nation’s social problems, few are as vexing as the rocky relationship between parenthood and matrimony. Marriage reduces the likelihood that families will live in poverty. Yet the poor are the least likely to wed when they’re expecting a baby. ‘There’s a lot of evidence of a real class divide in how families are formed,’ said Anastasia Snyder, an Ohio State University professor who studies family structure. ‘We have two different trajectories, and it’s worrisome,’ she said. ‘The rich are getting richer in terms of family behavior, too.’ Data released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week show both high rates of poverty and out-of-wedlock births. Although researchers note that causes and effects aren’t simple to connect - especially during a recession - there’s little doubt that growing numbers of so-called fragile families make life harder on children…”

• More children living in poverty in Kentucky, Indiana, annual survey shows, By Deborah Yetter, July 26, 2010, Louisville Courier-Journal: “The number of children living in poverty has increased in Kentucky and Indiana, following a national trend of high unemployment and growing poverty in families, according to the latest ‘Kid Count,’ an annual state-by-state survey of child well-being by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The numbers are alarming because of the adverse effect poverty has on children’s health and achievement, said Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, which contributed to the annual report…”
• Well-being of kids falters, By Robert King, July 27, 2010, Indianapolis Star: “There’s little doubt among experts that the Great Recession has been a blow to children, with their parents losing jobs, their families losing health insurance and cash-strapped governments cutting programs that serve children. But the latest statistical assessment of the well-being of children — the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2010 Kids Count report — shows Hoosier kids were struggling before the recession took hold…”
• More Ohio kids living with single parents, By Catherine Candisky, July 27, 2010, Columbus Dispatch: “Nearly three of every four black children in Ohio live with only one parent, usually their mother - a rate almost three times higher than that of white youngsters. In all, 34 percent of Ohio children, or 870,000 youngsters, reside in single-parent households. That’s a 10 percent increase from a decade ago; only 10 states, all in the South, are worse, according to a report released today…”
• Michigan kids’ well-being slips, U.S. report reveals, By Catherine Jun, July 27, 2010, Detroit News: “Job insecurity and infant mortality rates in Michigan hover above the national average, pushing Michigan’s ranking in child well-being to its lowest level in more than a decade, according to the national Kids Count report released today. The report, which ranked Michigan 21st-worst for child well-being in the nation, showed that 31 percent of children in 2008 lived in families where no parent had full-time, year-round employment, compared with the national rate of 27 percent…”
• Wisconsin 10th for child well-being, study shows, By Tia Ghose, July 27, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Wisconsin ranks 10th in the nation for child well-being, according to a study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation released Tuesday. The study, called Kids Count, combined data from the 2008 American Community Survey and several federal and local health statistics. Wisconsin has consistently placed between 10th and 14th for the last decade. The state stood out in its performance on education. Wisconsin ranked fourth in the percentage of teens who attend school or have graduated, and fifth in the percentage of teens who were either working or in school…”
• Child welfare improving in Missouri, holds steady in Illinois, By Nancy Cambria, July 28, 2010, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: “Missouri children gained slight ground in a national study ranking the quality of life of kids in all 50 states. The Annie E. Casey Foundation released on Tuesday its 2010 Kids Count, an annual analysis of child welfare statistics around the nation. Missouri ranked 31st among all states, an improvement from last year’s 33rd spot. Illinois ranked 24th, the same as last year…”
• Minnesota still No. 2 in kids’ health but…, By Jeremy Olson, July 25, 2010, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “For the sixth time in nine years, Minnesota was the second-healthiest state for children when evaluating rates of deaths, teen pregnancies, high school dropouts and child poverty, a new national ranking indicates. Still, the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count report, released Monday, was hardly celebrated by child advocates in the state, who fear Minnesota’s poverty rate — higher than a decade ago — could undermine its success…”
• More children living in poverty in N.D. and Minnesota, By Ryan Johnson, July 28, 2010, Grand Forks Herald: “The number of children living in poverty rose in both Minnesota and North Dakota in recent years, according to a new report released this week. The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 21st annual Kids Count report tracks 10 categories of children’s health from 2000 to 2008, ranking states based on how well they did in those factors. New Hampshire took the No. 1 spot in the country, and Minnesota closely followed to get ranked No. 2 for the second consecutive year. North Dakota’s ranking slipped to No. 12 overall, down from No. 7 in 2009’s report…”
• Utah No. 4 in national child well-being report, By Jasen Lee, July 27, 2010, Deseret News: “Being a child in Utah is better than being a child in almost every other state in the country, a new report shows. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual Kids Count Data Book, a national and state-by-state report that includes key measures and statistical trends on the condition of America’s children and families, Utah ranked fourth overall this year - a drop from third in last year’s data book. However, the Beehive State saw improvements in several major indicators studied in the report…”
• Texas has 3rd-highest teen birthrate among states, study says, By Jan Jarvis, July 26, 2010, Fort Worth Star-Telegram: ” Texas has the third-highest teen birthrate in the nation, according to an annual study that ranked the state in the overall well-being of children. Sixty-four of 1,000 births were to teenage mothers, far higher than the national rate of 43 births per 1,000, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2010 Kids Count Data Book. The rate puts Texas 48th among the 50 states in teen births, better than only New Mexico and Mississippi. But it is an improvement over last year, when the state was the worst in the country…”
• Report: Well-being of state’s kids improves, but poverty rates soar, By Barbara Cotter, July 27, 2010, Colorado Springs Gazette: “Colorado has improved its standing as a place where children can thrive, according to a national study released Tuesday, but researchers note that data used to evaluate the 50 states on the well-being of their kids predate the economic downturn that began in 2008. According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a Baltimore-based organization focused on public policy that affects children and families, Colorado’s ranking improved from 22nd in the 2009 report to 20 in the 2010 report. The rankings are based on 10 key indicators that measure how each state’s children are faring…”
• N.J. ranks high in Kids Count survey for children’s health, education, By Susan K. Livio, July 27, 2010, Star-Ledger: “New Jersey is an expensive place to live, but with its competitive public school system and access to health programs for working poor families, it’s also a good place to raise and educate children, according to the latest Kids Count nationwide survey of child health, wealth and well-being. According to the annual survey, scheduled for release today, New Jersey ranks seventh overall in terms of child health, an improvement from the last year’s study when the state placed ninth…”
• Georgia still failing its kids, says report, By Craig Schneider, July 27, 2010, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Georgia once again stands among the 10 worst states for the care of its children, and some worry that the state has become complacent about its poor performance in such areas as infant mortality, child deaths and low birth-weight babies. The state lags behind the national average on every one of the 10 measures in the 2010 Kids Count data book, a compilation of state and federal information that will be released today…”
• Child health report uses pre-recession data, By Emily Bregel, July 27, 2010, Chattanooga Times Free Press: “Child advocates in Tennessee and Georgia say a recent ranking of states based on child well-being may be painting a too-rosy picture. The ranking is based on data collected before the economic recession unleashed a wave of unemployment and budget cuts, the advocates say…”
• Alabama still ranks low in Kids Count data, By Jeff Hansen, July 27, 2010, Birmingham News: “Alabama and much of the Southeast continue to lag the rest of the United States in measures of child well-being, according to today’s release of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2010 Kids Count data book. Alabama ranks 47th this year, according to 10 measures of childhood health, poverty, education and family issues. Alabama’s place near the bottom is no surprise: In the last nine rankings, the state has been 48th six times, 47th twice and 43rd once…”
• Md. remains middle of the pack in child well-being, By Brent Jones, July 27, 2010, Baltimore Sun: “As the state continues to struggle with a high infant mortality rate that undercuts its relative wealth, Maryland’s overall rank in child well-being remained in the middle of the pack nationally, according to an annual report released by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation. The 2010 Kids Count Databook released Tuesday placed Maryland 25th in overall child well-being, the same ranking as a year ago. Although Maryland has the second-lowest percentage of children living in poverty (10 percent), the state placed 42nd in infant mortality rate, a statistical discrepancy that puzzled the report’s authors…”

Dads who don’t live with their kids find ways to be involved, By Sharon Jayson, June 16, 2010, USA Today: “Half of all U.S. children won’t live with their father for part of their childhood. But just because ‘non-resident’ dads don’t live with their kids doesn’t mean they’re not involved with them. ‘There are fathers that are very involved. There are some that are not. We have this image of the non-resident dad, and for some, that’s the deadbeat dad,’ says Valarie King, a sociologist and demographer at Pennsylvania State University who just completed work on a five-year grant studying non-resident fathers. Decades ago, non-resident fathers were largely divorced, but King and other researchers say many non-resident dads today were in a non-marital relationship that didn’t last. Divorced fathers have been shown to be more involved, on average, than those who were never married to the child’s mother, King says. Such research findings (some yet unpublished) - along with changing attitudes and custody laws - are creating a new picture of today’s non-resident dads…”

Consistent poverty more likely in lone parent homes, By Paul Cullen, June 2, 2010, Irish Times: “Lone Parent households are up to 10 times more likely to be living in consistent poverty than other households, according to a study presented to the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) today. Exclusion from the labour market through unemployment, retirement or ill-health also greatly increases a person’s chances of ending up in poverty, the research by Chris Whelan of the UCD sociology department and Bertrand Maitre of the ESRI shows. Poverty levels among those excluded from the labour market are over 25 times higher than among those at work, they found. Being a lone parent greatly increases an Irish person’s chances of ending up in poverty but the same is not the case in other European countries. In Finland, for example, the odds of a lone parent being in poverty are only slightly higher than for the wider population…”

Welfare change squeezes sole parents, By Adele Horn, May 5, 2010, Sydney Morning Herald: “Thousands of sole parents are worse off under rules that changed their child support entitlements and forced them to get a job or go on the dole, new research reveals. A typical sole parent with one child aged between six and 12 could be as much as $6700 a year worse off as a result of reforms initiated by the Howard government and introduced from 2006 to 2008. The study, by academics at Murdoch University in Perth, shows only when typical sole parents get a full-time job paying at least $45,000 can they be better off with the new arrangements. But this is unlikely for most as their youngest child is only seven or eight when they have to move off the Parenting Payment and into the workforce…”

• Lone parents to be offered better pay incentives to work, By Patrick Wintour, July 5, 2009, The Guardian: “Unemployed lone parents are to be offered increased pay incentives to work in a move which softens some of the most controversial measures in the welfare reform bill. It is one of a number of measures being taken by the work and pensions secretary, Yvette Cooper, that subtly change the emphasis pursued by her predecessor, James Purnell. She insists her changes are designed to protect the family. The government’s welfare reforms have created controversy, since they require lone parents with children as young as three to prepare for the world of work during the recession, or lose benefits…”
• Cutting benefits of single parents will increase number of kids in poverty, By Clinton Manning, July 8, 2009, The Daily Mirror: “Slashing benefits of single parents who don’t look for work will increase child poverty and family hardship, a report has warned.  Gingerbread, the charity that represents lone parents, wants ministers to abandon the “big stick” of benefit sanctions proposed in the Welfare Reform Bill…”

• Summer brings a wave of homeless families, By Julie Bosman, July 6, 2009, New York Times: “As the school year sailed to a close last month, Arielle Figueras crossed the stage in her cap and gown and proudly accepted her fifth-grade diploma.  The next day, she was homeless.  Arielle, a petite 11-year-old, and her parents, brother and sister packed their belongings and arrived at the intake center for homeless families in the South Bronx. Though they had been fighting with their landlord for months and their gas and electricity had long been shut off, they refused to leave their apartment while school was in session…”
• Homeless, and on a college path to independence, By Amanda M. Fairbanks, July 5, 2009, New York Times: “For many college students, survival means keeping up on assigned reading, maintaining an acceptable grade-point average and squeezing in extracurricular activities.  But for those at Advantage Academy, a program offered by the city’s Department of Homeless Services and St. John’s University to provide homeless and formerly homeless people with the chance to earn an associate’s degree, survival looks like something altogether different…”

More female veterans are winding up homeless, By Bryan Bender, July 6, 2009, Boston Globe: “The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.  As more women serve in combat zones, the share of female veterans who end up homeless, while still relatively small at an estimated 6,500, has nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs…”