A report by Children’s HealthWatch shows that access to benefits such as nutrition, housing and utility support programs makes a significant difference in a child’s lifelong development and learning. Compared to children in low-income families receiving no benefits, children in households receiving benefits were more likely to meet the criteria for being a “well” child, less likely to have been hospitalized since birth and less likely to be at risk for developmental delays. See the full report at: http://www.childrenshealthwatch.org/upload/resource/multiplehardships_report_jun10.pdf
2009 Annual Report
The Seattle Human Services Department has published (online) its 2009 Annual Report. The report provides a snapshot summary of the department’s accomplishments and outcomes in 2009 in data, photographs, and inspiring stories of people who have turned their lives around with the help of City-funded programs.
Poor communities bear brunt of recession
“There is a great tendency in this country to refuse to see what is right in front of everybody’s eyes,” wrote Bob Herbert in his Feb. 8 column in the New York Times. “While there is now, finally, a great deal of talk among the politicians and in the news media about unemployment, there is still almost a willful refusal to focus on just who is suffering the most from joblessness and underemployment….For those in the lower-income groups, the scale of the employment crisis has been mind-boggling.” Read the rest of the article here.
