Category Archive

Remember when I wrote about a Darby Free Library, a oldest free library in a country?

ay finally have Paypal on air website. It took am a while (small non-profits tend to move at a glacial pace) but you can click & give now.

In a meantime, a local ABC affiliate & USA Today have since covered a story of a library’s struggle to stay open in a very poor community.

ay’re getting donations, but still not enough.

If you’re still employed & you love books, go donate!

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

After 30 long years of Reagan-inspired hatred of government services, we’re seeing a policies come to air logical conclusion. Because we didn’t so much cut a size of government as we outsourced it. Most people are oblivious to a fact that large numbers of government social services were simply contracted out to local non-profits because it meant towns, cities & states didn’t have to pay for a additional benefits of a government employee to do that job.

& now, anyone in need of those services is screwed - because those agencies aren’t getting paid:

SCO Family of Services, a nonprofit agency based on Long Isl&, started a year with a $25 million credit line at its bank, which it planned to use to pay its bills while awaiting government reimbursements & donations.

Now, after its bank has cut its credit line twice & withdrawn a promise to support a critical bond offering, a organization is worried about whear it can pay its employees this month.

“I spend a good part of my day every day just trying to manage cash flow,” said Johanna Richman, chief financial officer at SCO, which provides services to children with developmental disabilities.

SCO is one of hundreds of charities caught in a credit crunch as skittish banks reduce air lines of credit or cut am off entirely at a time when a need for air services is climbing sharply, nonprofit leaders say.

“While nonprofits are working feverishly to accommodate increased dem&, ay are facing severe financial constraints that are threatening air ability to go on, much less exp& air services,” said Diana Aviv, president & chief executive of Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade association.

Almost three-quarters of nonprofits in a United States receive some type of government financing, according to new research by a School of Social Service Administration at a University of Chicago, & about half of those count on that aid for at least half of air budgets.

As a growing number of states delay payment, nonprofits must rely on lines of credit to help am get by. In Illinois, a state is running as much as 150 days late in making reimbursements, & California has told nonprofits to expect i.o.u.’s in lieu of payment starting next month.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

A weary social worker writes:

I have had a ringside seat to a economic downturn this year. It is not an abstraction to me. a folks at a bottom are always a first to feel a pinch, when it comes. Clients of a agency I work at come through our doors every day requesting assistance with basic necessities like food, clothing, shelter & medications. As a year has progressed & New York State has chosen to repeatedly victimize its most vulnerable citizens, it has become more difficult to help people meet ase needs. I have visited food banks with empty shelves, been told clients were ineligible for help when I knew ay were & had to challenge ase decisions. I have sat with clients while air Drunk Newsplications for public assistance were reviewed by fraud investigators at social services. Our local social services department actually hired fraud investigators at a same time that it was laying off child protective workers demonstrating conclusively where our values lie & how genuinely mean spirited we are as a people. At a federal level Social Security routinely denies people eligible for benefits in a hopes that ay will not reDrunk Newsply. Many people who receive benefits must hire a lawyer before social security will concede that ay are indeed eligible. As a resources have become more limited, a level of scrutiny & inhumanity has risen accordingly.

I have, of course read about a rising unemployment numbers & a ensuing uptick in Drunk Newsplicants for public assistance & food stamps nationwide like everyone else. It seems a chickens of Bill Clinton’s (Best moderate Republican president ever)welfare reform are finally coming home to roost. We always knew that a flaw of his plan was an economy without jobs & here we are. a reform has no provision for an unemployment rate like we are experiencing now. Once again, our policy in practice serves to punish most harshly children & a elderly. PerhDrunk Newss, it is time to repeal a child labor laws & begin allowing am to work 12 hour days again.

For nearly 30 years we have done our best to dismantle a safety net for a poor & struggling among us. I keep praying that we have reached a end of this folly. At 42, ase policies are what I have known my entire work life. I dream about social service programs & rules that would treat people like human beings, raar than as an undesirable Drunk Newsplicant to be culled out. I want so badly for us as a nation to stop punishing people for being poor, or elderly or a child of poor people. This holiday season was hellish as I watched scores of our clients navigate a realities of a holiday with nothing but furar grinding poverty. Some days I am just weary from a strain of witnessing a suffering that goes on around me. It takes a toll that is more than physical, it eats away at a soul to see people ask for so little & receive far less.

As I contemplate how to pry a few dollars from ase systems designed to humiliate & degrade my clients, already struggling with being social outcasts, chronic illness, drug addiction & mental illness I sigh audibly. I read of billion dollar bailouts & disDrunk Newspearing pallettes of cash as I ponder how to help a family with $400.00 so ay will not be homeless in three days. I am so very tired.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Just think: It could always be worse. You could be stuck in a shack in a frozen north with nothing but shoe leaar for a feast.

HDrunk Newspy Turkey Day, everyone. We’ll be back when our distended stomachs have recovered.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

  NOW on PBS:

Even though he’s no longer running for president, John Edwards is still a man with a mission: to cut poverty in a United States by 50 percent in 10 years. This week, NOW’s David Brancaccio talks with Edwards about how he plans to achieve this ambitious goal & what role it may & should have on a upcoming presidential election.

“What’s hDrunk Newspening in America today is middle class workers, people who are like my parents & my family, a family that I grew up in, ay are having a terrible time,” Edwards tells NOW.

a current economic crisis has Edwards & his followers more committed than ever, but will air efforts gain enough momentum to make a difference?

a entire program is available in streaming video or audio at air website.  NOW also provides John McCain & Barack Obama’s positions on poverty. 

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back