from Forbes New Jersey Governor recommitted to fighting poverty after a visit to a food bank on Wednesday. Gov. Jon S. Corzine said it is really important now with inflation problems in the state. - KaleBy ANGELA DELLI SANTI "This is crunch-time out on Main Street," Corzine said. "I encourage the citizens of New Jersey to stand up, stand strong together to make sure we do everything in a time of economic stress.""We can all make a difference by contributing," Corzine said while visiting the Community Food Bank of New Jersey in Hillside.The governor said despite the state's dire budget difficulties, the Food Purchase Program continued to be funded at last year's level: $4 million for staples to the state's six emergency feeding centers. The centers, in turn, distributed goods to 660 food...
from the North Jersey Record This shows that there actually benifit to going overseas and doing charity work. This article from the North Jersey Record profiles a man who has had enough of the rat race. - KaleBY JOHN CHADWICKDuring his days working in corporate America, Doug Garofalo may have seemed an unlikely candidate for the Franciscan religious order and its embrace of voluntary poverty.But even as Garofalo worked as an accountant for chains like Saks Fifth Avenue and Aeropostale, the River Edge native maintained a strong connection to his hometown church, St. Peter the Apostle, and kept a decidedly modest lifestyle."I had a very modest house in Hackensack," Garofalo, 46, said. "I was living as simple as possible in the retail world of Bergen County."His preference for simple,...
from the Jersey Journal By SUSAN K. LIVIOTRENTON - One of every five New Jersey families does not earn enough to afford the basic necessities - housing, food and child care - though most households have at least one breadwinner, according to a study released yesterday.The report by the Poverty Research Institute highlighted the characteristics of these 500,000 households to debunk stereotypes about the poor and encourage lawmakers to fund more effective programs. The study found 85 percent of these families had at least one person working, although not everyone held full-time or year-round employment. Only 6 percent of them received welfare. "Public policy is horribly out of touch with what real people have to face in terms of their economic reality," said Melville Miller, president of...
from the Ashbury Park PressBy Tom BaldwinTRENTON — The population of New Jersey's children who are growing up in poverty remained stable from 2002 to 2006, despite expanding state aid to kids' programs and general prosperity, according to a report unveiled Monday."Shocking" is the way Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey, described parts of her group's wide-ranging annual Kids Count report, especially that New Jersey has 255,000 poor children who lack health insurance."It's about income. We live in a state of great disparity," said Zalkind.A quarter of New Jersey's 8.7 million people are children under 18 years of age, and 244,000 of them are classified as poor, the report said."We are making progress," Zalkind said, noting the advocacy...
from NewsdayBy TOM HESTER Jr.The state human services commissioner Monday said it was a "valid concern" poor people would avoid medical care if Gov. Jon S. Corzine's proposal to charge them new fees for prescription drugs and some hospital visits is approved.Gov. Jon S. Corzine proposed co-payments for Medicaid recipients to raise $7.55 million for the cash-strapped state budget.Legislators fear the payments could prompt poor people to forego health care, especially senior citizens, the disabled and mentally ill."I do think it's a valid concern," Jennifer Velez, the state human services chief, told senators during a Monday hearing. "I couldn't tell you that it's not."New Jersey is among eight states that don't charge Medicaid co-payments for prescription drugs.Corzine proposes a $6...
from the Courier News
By LAURIE LEVOY
STAFF WRITER
SOMERVILLE — Social service agencies, nonprofits, businesses and philanthropic foundations were challenged Wednesday to think outside their comfort zones and perceptions about poverty in Somerset County, and work toward eradicating — and in the process not unwittingly sustaining — the plight of local families in poverty.
Participants at a forum called an "Invitation to End Poverty," heard Scott Miller, the national director of the Circles Initiative, speak on the philosophy behind and the elements of his Circles Campaign, which is headquartered in Ames, Iowa.
Sponsors of the program, United Way of Somerset County, Northwest New Jersey Community Action Program Inc. (better known as NORWESCAP) and the Somerset County Department of...
from The Daily RecordAdvocates push for boost to minimum wage, more education, tax reformBy MICHAEL RISPOLIGANNETT STATE BUREAUTRENTON -- One in five New Jerseyans aren't paid enough to afford bare-bone necessities without seeking outside help, as the gap between their earned income and cost of living widens, a report released by poverty advocacy groups Wednesday says.A one-adult, one-preschooler household would need to make between nearly $36,000 through more than $54,000 -- depending on the region -- to meet needs such as housing, health care, food and other costs, the report found. The average minimum wage for this family would have to be $26.56 per hour -- nearly four times New Jersey's minimum wage.This leads to tough choices and sacrifices, said the report's author, Diana Pearce,...
from the New Jersey Star LedgerPosted by LCravenNew Jersey is the nation's second wealthiest state, but 20 percent of its working families don't earn enough money to adequately support themselves, a report found.The analysis by the Rutgers Center for Women and Work and New Jersey Policy Perspective found 200,000 Garden State families with a working adult earn too little in pay and benefits to be self-sufficient at a time when proposed state budget cuts threaten to reduce services for the poor."New Jersey is a tale of two states," said Eileen Appelbaum, the director at the Rutgers center. "On the one hand, we have a large number of highly educated members of the work force who are doing well, but this report makes clear that there are also hundreds of thousands of working adults who lack...
from The Times of TrentonBY MICHELLE McGUINNESSTRENTON -- The Trenton Area Soup Kitchen provided the setting yesterday morning for a public forum about the causes of and solutions to poverty.TASK's policy forum brought together residents and experts in social issues to discuss poverty. TASK spokesman Irwin Stoolmacher said the group intentionally invited a wide range of panelists to the 8:30 a.m. forum to show that "one could be conservative or progressive or liberal and still care about the needs of those in poverty."He said the event was intended to inform the general public, something it seemed to accomplish since the question-and-answer session ran past the scheduled ending time of 12:30 p.m. due to the amount of questions and comments."In a time when the state of New Jersey is making...
from the New Jersey Star-Ledger BY SUSAN K. LIVIOStar-Ledger StaffNew Jersey may have the second-largest population of millionaires in the country, but the poverty rate hasn't budged in three years -- a signal that anti-poverty programs aren't working, according to a report released yesterday by Legal Services of New Jersey.Between 2004 and 2006, 9 percent of the state's 8.5 million citizens lived below the federal definition of poverty, earning no more than $16,000 a year for a family of three. Children fared even worse, making up nearly 12 percent of the poverty class. The state also has the 13th-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, according to the report, "Poverty Benchmarks 2008.""What is discouraging is that poverty rates have remained stagnant at all levels of poverty,...
from the Cherry Hill Courier PostBy TOM BALDWINGannett State BureauPoverty is worsening in New Jersey, an anti-poverty group said today, though it says Gov. Jon S. Corzine could help ease the pain without affecting his expected bare-bones budget due out next week."Not only are poverty rates failing to move down, the people counted in those percentages are facing a harder time," said Shivi Prasad, policy analyst for the Legal Services of New Jersey Poverty Research Institute, based in Edison.Serena Rice, the institute's managing director, joined Prasad and others in a news conference to highlight the Poverty Benchmarks 2008 report, which paints a broad-stroke picture of the poor in New Jersey, among the wealthiest of states, where nevertheless people cannot find housing, health care and...
from The New York TimesBy DIANA MARSZALEKYONKERSA SINGLE mother of two grown children, Deborah Smith puts in 46 hours a week as a home health aide — a job she has held for more than 20 years — yet barely makes ends meet.Earning $9.38 an hour for her union job, Ms. Smith, 47, said her pay is quickly consumed by rent, insurance and bus fare. The Yonkers resident lives in one of the city’s public housing projects, rounds out meals with help from local food pantries and regularly borrows a few dollars from her sister.With no money left for extras, Ms. Smith splurges only on cable TV. Her son-in-law, a barber, cuts her hair free.“It’s very hard living in the gracious City of Yonkers at $9.38 an hour,” said Ms. Smith, who is the treasurer of the Westchester-Putnam Working Families...
from The Asbury Park PressBy ERICA HARBATKINIdentifying giftedness in children who have grown up in low-income neighborhoods is more difficult than identifying giftedness in their middle-income peers, experts say.New Jersey law attempts to offset that disparity by requiring school districts to compare children to others in their own district, rather than comparing them to children throughout the state. But setting rules for identification often isn't enough to counterbalance the roadblocks born out of poverty."All of our evidence seems to indicate that when you take a child and put him in a poverty environment the result is to rob the child of his potential giftedness," said Dr. Michael Lewis, director of the Gifted Child Clinic at Robert Wood Johnson University Medical School.State law...
from MSNBCBy ANGELA DELLI SANTITRENTON, N.J. - Though the challenges of alleviating poverty in costly New Jersey are many, and money is tight, advocates for the poor, homeless and disabled hope to push lawmakers to direct limited state funds to programs that do the most good.The advocates, known collectively as the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey, paint a grim picture of low-income families fighting to stay solvent in a state where affordable housing is scarce, health insurance is hard to come by, and minimum-wage workers seldom break out of their low-wage rut.Advocates say even limited state aid can make a big difference to the poor if directed to the right programs, like one that lowers the tax liability.During its annual conference Wednesday, APN urged its members to pressure...
from The Houston ChronicleBy ANGELA DELLI SANTI TRENTON, N.J. — Though the challenges of alleviating poverty in costly New Jersey are many, and money is tight, advocates for the poor, homeless and disabled hope to push lawmakers to direct limited state funds to programs that do the most good.The advocates, known collectively as the Anti-Poverty Network of New Jersey, paint a grim picture of low-income families fighting to stay solvent in a state where affordable housing is scarce, health insurance is hard to come by, and minimum-wage workers seldom break out of their low-wage rut.Advocates say even limited state aid can make a big difference to the poor if directed to the right programs, like one that lowers the tax liability.During its annual conference Wednesday, APN urged its members...
from North Jersey MediaBy GEOFF MULVIHILLASSOCIATED PRESSMOUNT LAUREL -- Advocates for poor children are bashing the Corzine administration's plan to overhaul New Jersey's formula for giving aid to schools even before many of the details have been released.The administration sought to quell early criticism, briefing more than 60 education experts, followed by members of the media on Friday. But it left the biggest question hanging by failing to provide a district-by-district breakdown of new aid amounts."We can't tell that yet because we don't have it finished," said Education Commissioner Lucille Davy. Those numbers will be available "probably within a week to 10 days," she said.The administration says its proposal simplifies the state aid system and provides more stability to...
This is a follow up story to a 20/20 report a couple years ago about children who were stuck in poverty in New Jersey. Catching Up with Camdens Superman via Google Video - Video Search [poverty news] by ABC News on 11/6/07 Catching Up with Camdens SupermanABC News4 min - Nov 6, 2007One little boy's struggle to escape poverty....
from The New York TimesBy ELIZABETH DWOSKINNEWARK, — Tasha Solomon opened the grimy plastic blinds of her first floor-apartment in the Millard E. Terrell Homes, a housing project hard by the Passaic River.She need not have bothered.Although the river is only 100 yards from her apartment, Ms. Solomon, a 25-year-old mother of two, cannot see it from her window. Her view is a wall of rusty shipping containers that rises more than four stories, taller than any of the 12 buildings in the rundown housing complex.“Is there a river over there?” she asked one recent afternoon.Like drugs and gangs and poverty, the containers have simply become another unavoidable fact of life here, residents say.For decades the project, operated by the Newark Housing Authority, has been flanked by storage...
from The Daily TargumBy skipping meals sunrise to sunset, participants give funds for humanitarian aid in Darfur, SudanBy: Esther Liu / Contributing WriterNon-Muslims at the University will fast for a cause Oct. 9 during Fast-A-Thon, a charity event seeking to raise funds for the people in Darfur, Sudan.The event - whose tagline is "Skip a Meal, Save a Life" - coincides with Ramadan, an Islamic religious holiday where Muslims all over the world are required to fast from sunrise until sunset for an entire month."We select a charity every year and we raise money for that charity by asking members of the Rutgers community here - students, faculty and staff - to pledge to fast for a day from dawn to dusk, sunrise to sunset," said Usker Naqvi, head of public relations for SALAM, the Muslim...
from The Philadelphia Inquirer By Tom Hester Jr.Associated PressTRENTON - A state appellate court yesterday ordered the state to reconsider a plan by a wealthy Monmouth County community to pay a poverty-laden nearby town to take on its affordable housing obligation, a decision hailed as crucial by affordable housing advocates.The court ordered the state to reconsider a regional contribution agreement (RCA) it approved under which Colts Neck, N.J., was to pay Long Branch $2.83 million to repair and develop 107 homes for low-income residents.Under a historic 1975 state Supreme Court ruling, each New Jersey municipality has a constitutional obligation to provide housing for poor residents. The Fair Share Housing Center, which sued the state to annul the agreement, said the decision is the...
from North JerseyBy DIANE HAINESHERALD NEWSAseel Najib promotes religious understanding. That's one of the qualities that resulted in her being picked as one of 25 future world leaders.It means she sends e-cards for Hanukkah to her Jewish friends and gets remembrances from them during Ramadan.Unusual? No, that's what Youth for Charity is all about. It teaches mutual understanding among young women of different ethnic backgrounds while at the same time working to end poverty and homelessness.Youth for Charity, based in North Bergen, is just one of the charitable pursuits that figure into Najib's crowded schedule."It's so important for people of different religions to reach out and build bridges, not burn them. When you work together good comes out of it," says Najib, 17, of Clifton about...
from North Jersey ComBy HERB JACKSONNew Jersey's generous health insurance subsidies for low- and moderate-income families put Governor Corzine on the defensive Sunday at a gathering of the nation's governors in Washington.Tight federal funding has some states and the Bush administration questioning whether more generous states should get the same amount of federal support as those that are more stringent.But advocates for universal health care such as Corzine see the joint state-federal subsidy program as a vehicle to cover more of the uninsured, and they want the states to have maximum flexibility in setting the rules."The cost of living is significantly different in Bergen County than other states around the country," Corzine told reporters at the annual winter meeting of the National...
from North Jersey Media GroupBy LAURA FASBACHThe number of New Jersey's young children living in poverty increased over the first half of this decade, signifying a growing divide between the state's poorest and wealthiest families, a new report shows.Other grim numbers emerged in the New Jersey Kids Count, a statistical portrait of the state of the state's children released Wednesday: More single mothers are living below the federal poverty line, many young children still lack health insurance, and thousands of low-income families are paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing."Our very youngest children are most at risk when their developmental needs are the greatest," said Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the Association for Children of New Jersey, which publishes the...
from The Courier Post onlineThe number of young children living in poverty in New Jersey is continuing to rise, but the state is doing better at helping them -- at least on some fronts -- according to a report released today by the Association for Children of New Jersey.This year's edition of the annual Kids Count report, which is sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, focuses largely on issues affecting children younger than 6.Across the state, 93,000 children in that age group were living in poverty in 2005, up from 69,000 four years earlier.The authors of the study found that better outreach for some programs has helped. For instance, the number of uninsured children dropped by 10 percent between 2004 and 2005. But there were still fewer children with health insurance in 2005 than...
from The Courier PostBy LEO STRUPCZEWSKICourier-Post StaffCAMDENThe food was gone when Glen Ross arrived Saturday.The door at Leavenhouse, a food kitchen near the corner of 7th and State streets, was locked. The windows were, too.A woman began to pound on the door. Another man rode up on a bike.It was just after 4 p.m. and the kitchen, scheduled to serve dinner between 3:30 p.m. and 5, was already out of food."They just locked up," Ross, 56, told fellow latecomers as he tied his boot laces.Ross, wearing three layers of jackets, was lucky enough to have a few dollars in food stamps. He was headed to a nearby corner market before waiting in line for a spot at the homeless shelter.When Legal Services of New Jersey released its Poverty Benchmark Report today, its statistics quantified Ross'...
from North Jersey HeraldBy DANIELLE SHAPIROPASSAIC -- To inform their peers about global poverty and human rights, some Lincoln Middle School students are using a mix of pictures, posters and writings to illustrate the issue.And for these youngsters, seventh-and eighth-grade members of the Quality of Life after-school program, as well as Sandy Shevack, the program's site coordinator, it is an opportunity to show that children can indeed contribute to eradicating some of the world's most intractable social problems.Students say they are excited about the project and the prospect of teaching other children what they have learned about how pervasive poverty is in the world.Anastasia McBurse, 12, a seventh-grader, said learning about poverty has made her grateful for what she has and hopes...
from the Ashbury Park PressBY MICHAEL RISPOLITRENTON — Affordable housing and health care were the major issues addressed Tuesday as Gov. Corzine gave the keynote speech before the Anti-Poverty Network's 7th annual conference.Following a presentation given by a panel of low-income families and single mothers, Corzine told the audience he has made construction of more affordable housing in the state a priority, and wants to meet the goal of 100,000 housing units sooner than the 10-year timetable he touted during his 2005 campaign."Affordable housing is on top of the list; it is an issue on the minds of everyone in New Jersey," said Corzine.The network, formed by nearly 300 organizations, laid out steps for greater health care coverage for people with limited incomes. The organization...