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YouthRules!
Partnerships Will Ensure Safe, Rewarding Work Experiences For Young Workers
U.S. Department of Labor announced partners for its YouthRules!
initiative to educate young workers, parents and employers about the resources
and protections that exist to ensure teens have positive work experiences. The
Labor Department has launched a Web site to educate teens, parents, educators
and employers about the hours young people can work, the jobs they can do and
how to ensure safe work experiences.
http://www.youthrules.dol.gov/
HHS To Convene National Youth Summit June 26 To 28
Approximately 1,000 youth workers, researchers,
policymakers, state and local government staff and community representatives,
including approximately 300 youth, will convene at the first-ever National
Youth Summit. According to the Department of Health and Human Services three out
of four of America's youth are succeeding and making healthy choices. The other
25 percent are at-risk. And the age group of 15 to 24 is growing tremendously
-- between 2000 and 2009, this group of teens and young adults will surge by 11
percent. The National Youth Summit will explore the strategies and
interventions necessary to support the aspirations of these young people and to
help those who are at-risk.
http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/fysb/summit.html.
**Community Development
Low-income Communities Get
Boost from New Markets Tax Credit Program
The US Department of Treasury recently announced the first
competitive round for the allocation of tax credits under the New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC), a program
designed to stimulate private sector investment in the economic development of
low-income communities. NMTC’s will be allocated annually by the Treasury
Department's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund to CDE’s
under a competitive application process. During the first round, allocations of
up to an aggregate total of $2.5 billion in qualified equity investments in
CDE’s will be made
http://www.cdfifund.gov
Assessment of the Public Housing Redevelopment Program
The National Housing Law
Project, the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, Sherwood Research
Associates, and Everywhere and Now Public Housing Residents Organizing
Nationally Together (ENPHRONT) have released a study, "False HOPE: A
Critical Assessment of the HOPE VI Public Housing Redevelopment Program."
The report identifies and documents shortcomings and inconsistencies in the
HOPE VI program and proposes specific reforms to address those deficiencies.
http://www.nhlp.org/html/pubhsg/FalseHOPE.pdf
White House Minority Homeownership Initiative
The Bush administration announced a new goal to help
increase the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million before the
end of the decade. The President's aggressive housing agenda will help
dismantle the barriers to homeownership by providing down payment assistance,
increasing the supply of affordable homes, increasing support for self-help
homeownership programs, and simplifying the home buying process &
increasing education. The President also issued "America's Homeownership
Challenge" to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to join in
his effort to increase the number of minority homeowners by taking concrete
steps to tear down the barriers to homeownership that face minority families.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/06/20020617.html
The HOPE Awards are Available
The HOPE ("Home Ownership
Participation for Everyone") Awards, created by a partnership of real
estate associations, recognize organizations and individuals who help lower
barriers to minority home ownership. Each award winner will receive a $10,000
honorarium and have the opportunity to discuss his/her work with housing policy
makers at a symposium at the National Press Club. The application deadline is
Dec. 2
http://www.hopeawards.org/
**Education
City-by-City
Study Also Shows Racial Achievement Gap Reductions in Math and Reading Scores
A new study to be released next week by the Council of the
Great City Schools shows that the nation's big-city schools experienced gains
in state-mandated test scores in mathematics and reading, signaling a possible
upward trend. The Council's analysis of students in public inner-city schools
found a dramatic increase in math scores, and a considerable jump in reading
scores, which still lag behind math gains, from 2000 to 2001. The study also
found racially identifiable achievement gaps narrowing in math and reading in a
number of city schools.
http://www.cgcs.org/pressrelease/2002/6-21-02/6-21-02.html
**Health
Costs of the
Tax Cut and of a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit
A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
compares the cost of last year's tax cut, and the cost of that tax cut for the
top one percent of the population, with two general Medicare prescription drug
plans.
http://www.cbpp.org/6-14-02bud.htm
Health Insurance Status
Affects Access to Care for Minorities More than for Whites
A study from the Center for Study Health System Change finds
that the disparity in access to health care between "working-age"
uninsured minorities and uninsured whites in the United States "generally
is almost double" that between minorities with health insurance and whites
with health insurance. Researchers surveyed about 60,000 individuals in 33,000
families nationwide in 2001 to determine whether they had a regular health care
provider and had visited a doctor in the past year.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11837
HHS
Announces New Regulations Giving Medicaid Beneficiaries Protections Similar to
Those Proposed in Patients' Rights Bills
The Bush administration
issued new patients' rights protections for Medicaid beneficiaries in
managed-care plans, guaranteeing them a grievance process, access to a second
opinion and coverage for emergency care. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997,
which allowed Medicaid beneficiaries to join HMOs, mandated the new rules.
About 58% of Medicaid beneficiaries belong to managed care plans. The rules
would give Medicaid beneficiaries enrolled in managed care plans the same types
of protection that participants in private plans would receive under patients'
rights legislation being considered by Congress.
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=11741
The third issue of "Trends and Analysis of
Medicare" from the California HealthCare Foundation explores some of the
key characteristics of Medicare+Choice plans in California and compares them to
Medicare+Choice benefits across the United States. The characteristics examined
include premiums, coverage for prescription drugs, co-payments for
hospitalization, and co-payments for physician office visits. This analysis
finds that while California Medicare managed care plans tend to offer broader
coverage, they are adding and increasing co-payments to equal or exceed those
in other parts of the country.
http://www.chcf.org/topics/view.cfm?itemID=19791
**Hunger
3.2 Million Needy Children Get Nutritional Boost from
Federal Summer Meals Programs
Only one in five (21.1 per 100) of the 15.3 million children
who receive free or reduced priced school lunches on a typical day during the
regular school year are served by federal nutrition programs during the summer,
according to the new report "Hunger Doesn't Take A Vacation" from the
Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). The analysis reviews national and
state-by-state utilization of the federal Summer Food Service Program (SFSP)
and the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) during the summer of 2001 - - the
latest available data
PDF: http://www.frac.org/html/publications/SFSPJune19.PDF
States Have
Significant Flexibility in the Food Stamp Program,
A new report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
finds that the current food stamp program provides states with significant
flexibility and broader waiver authority than many people realize. The paper
examines that flexibility and argues that the federal standards that do exist
in the current food stamp program waiver authority are reasonable and should be
maintained.
http://www.cbpp.org/6-17-02fs.htm
**Philanthropy and Nonprofit
Management
Creativity and Fund Raising
Principles
The inaugural issue of
“Strategic Creativity” has an article that posits that fund raising is about
far more than asking for money. It is about engaging someone in your
cause and giving him or her the opportunity to do good. It is also about
organizational credibility. The very process exposes the soul of your
organization as you ask others to join you in the journey to do good.
http://www.glocalvantage.com/scissues/page5.html
**Technology
Technology Funding - Community Technology Fund (CTF) of Ohio
The CTF strives to build the capacity of low income urban
and rural communities to understand, design and use basic and advanced
telecommunication and information technologies to ensure that the benefits of
technology advance the quality of life for individuals and communities.
Approximately $600,000 is available for eight service grants at $50,000 each
and 20 project grants at $10,000 each. Organizations may reside inside or
outside of Ameritech Ohio’s Service territory, but the project beneficiaries
should primarily be those who reside inside of Ameritech Ohio’s service
territory. Publicly funded entities working in collaboration with
community-based, non-profit organizations in low-income communities also are
eligible. Applications are due September 20, 2002.
http://www.ctfohio.org/grants.htm
Technology Funding - Verizon Foundation
Verizon Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Verizon
Communications, is seeking grant applications from nonprofit and educational
organizations in Washington for community technology development projects. The
foundation will award more than $143,000 in grants to qualifying programs in
the state. Verizon will announce the winners in September. The application
deadline is July 12, 2002. More information is available at: http://foundation.verizon.com/index.shtml
**Welfare Reform
Citing Poverty in U.S., Cities Urge Renewal of TANF
Citing the need to reduce poverty, the National League of
Cities (NLC) sent a letter today to the United States Senate urging
reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Block Grants
(TANF) this year. NLC offered specific approaches to the TANF reauthorization,
including: changing the focus to poverty reduction rather than welfare caseload
reduction, making prevention of teen pregnancy a national priority and giving
working parents access to safe, affordable, high-quality childcare.
http://www.nlc.org/nlc_org/site/newsroom/nations_cities_weekly/display.cfm?id=123BE336-1491-4156-86F70881CF914AAC
Forty States Likely to Cut Access to Postsecondary
Training and Education Under House Welfare Bill.
A new survey from the Center for Law and Social Policy
(CLASP) of state TANF policies shows that at least 40 states currently allow
more access to postsecondary training or education services than would be
countable under the welfare reauthorization bill passed by the House in May.
If the House bill were to become law, these states would likely have to reduce
access to these services for welfare recipients in order to avoid penalties. A
recent review by CLASP of research on welfare-to-work strategies shows that
access to training is an essential component if programs are to have a lasting
impact for welfare recipients.
PDF: http://www.clasp.org/pubs/jobseducation/Postsec_survey_061902.pdf
New Data Show
Most States Had TANF Caseload Increases in Last Year.
CLASP has collected new data on the TANF caseloads through
March 2002 for 49 states and the District of Columbia. While caseloads in 41
states had increased between October and December 2001, the picture is less
clear for the most recent quarter (January to March 2002), as 22 states
reported increases and 28 states reported declines. When looking back at the
year ending in March 2002, most states (34) reported caseload increases, a
trend which CLASP began documenting nine months ago. More recently, however,
states appear to be heading in different directions, with some reporting large increases,
a few continuing to report large decreases, and many states reporting
fluctuations over time.
PDF: http://www.clasp.org/pubs/TANF/2002_Q1_Caseload_061702.pdf
Reforming Welfare
Reform
A new Article by Mark Greenberg from the Center for Law and
Social Policy describes how the welfare reform debate has been transformed in
ways few people envisioned even recently. Early this year, many people
believed that reauthorization of the PRWORA of 1996 provided an opportunity to
help low-income working families and the hardest-to-employ, and to reduce
poverty. Instead, the debate is now mired in disputes of who can appear
tougher in requiring more welfare recipients to work more hours more quickly.
http://www.prospect.org/print/V13/13/greenberg-m.html
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