• 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…”