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The Seattle City Council passed an ordinance that aggressively limits panhandling. The ordinance prevents the homeless from asking for money near ATMs or banks, it also claims to restrict aggressive or intimidating panhandling. Advocates for the homeless claim that the bill goes too far, and the language defining aggressive panhandling is to vague. The ordinance faces a certain legal challenge from the NAACP and ACLU. The city's mayor says he will veto the ordinance if his veto cannot be overridden.From KOMO, we find out more about the ordinance that Seattle's City council voted on last night. The idea behind the ordinance is to curb aggressive panhandling by regulating just how and where you can do it. In addition to steering clear of ATMs and pay parking stations, panhandlers also...

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This is a news story that George Carlin would have taken great interest in. A Washington state lawmaker wants to change state law wording in regards to poor children. Children used to be called "poor" but we decided that it was to harsh, then they lightened it up to "disadvantaged" but no, that is still to mean, so let change it to "at-risk." State Senator Rosa Franklin's idea it to further change the term to be "at-hope" From KSTU in Utah, this Associated Press story introduces us to the bill and what our linguist friends at Lake Superior State University think of it. Democratic State Sen. Rosa Franklin says negative labels are hurting kids' chances for success and she's not a bit concerned that people will be confused by her proposed rewrite of the 54 places in state law where words...

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New laws in Washington state have been put in place to limit the amount of money people can borrow from payday loan companies. The payday loans are very short term, very high interest loans that can be borrowed against your next pay check. The borrower often writes a post dated check to the lender that they cash on the date of the borrowers next paycheck. Some people get caught in a trap of going to these lenders repeatedly, or borrow such a large amount that their next paycheck cannot cover the high interest. So the news laws hope to ease these problems. From The Olympian, Associated Press writer Manuel Valdes interviews a payday loan business owner. The new law limits the size of a payday loan to 30 percent of a person's monthly income, or $700, whichever is less. It also bars people...

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The annual Kids Count survey for Washington state says that 40,000 children will into poverty by 2010. The numbers will wipe out any gains the state has made in fighting poverty since 1975. From The Spokesman Review, writer Shawn Vestal talks to a Kids Count director and also cites an additional survey. When Lori Pfingst considers the statistics that will tell the tale of this recession, she isn’t thinking about GDP or unemployment.She’s thinking about teen pregnancy. Low birthweight babies. WASL scores and college enrollments.As the recession swells the ranks of the impoverished, it takes a particular, long-term toll on children, experts say. In Washington state alone, nearly 40,000 children are expected to slip into poverty by 2010; nationwide, an additional 800,000 kids entered...

A homeless coalition for a small city of Washington state filled a City Council meeting. The Puyallup Homeless Coalition wanted to talk to the council about the "crime" of being poor. Homeless people have complained of police smashing their tents and telling them to leave city parks, and are increasingly running out of places to stay. A church allowed homeless people to park their cars in their driveway overnight, but that was even stopped due to complaints of neighbors. From Puyallup's The Herald, writer Neil Pierson attended the meeting. Scott was just one of numerous homeless persons who filled the Puyallup City Council chambers on Sept. 1. For more than an hour, the group besieged officials to help them find solutions. Many said they simply needed a roof over their heads while they...

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As a fundraiser for World Vision, students from Mariner High School in Everett, Washington created art to show faces of poverty. The students created chalk drawings that shows to fellow students the plight of children in the under developed world. From the Herald, writer Eric Stevick watched the students create the artwork.The images of children from Third World countries stare up from the concrete sidewalks in front of Mariner High School.Drawn in chalk in bright shades of yellow, red and blue, they will fade with the next rainfall.In some ways, the fleeting dust portraits are an apt medium to tell stories of children from Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia and other countries ravaged by conflict, hunger and subsistence living. Chances are they, too, will have short lives."We are trying to get...

Seattle Pacific University held a Microcredit conference last weekend. The event featured speakers from Kiva and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Microcredit lenders had booths to display some of the projects they funded, and there were small group sessions to discuss big topics concerning microcredit. From the Student newspaper at SPU The Falcon, writer Melissa Stefan will tell us more."Microcredit is a way to make loans and repayments, so it's more sustainable (than traditional charity)," said Kenman Wong, professor of business and economics, who helped plan the event. "I would even argue that it's more dignified, because people are actually participating, hopefully creating small businesses to help them earn their way out of poverty."Though the concept is relatively new, interest...

Here is a great showing of the Christmas spirit. A woman from Washington state bought gloves for all of the children who attend the poorest school in the area. We found the details from this Associated Press article found at KNDO.A woman who saw children Monday with no mittens bought 300 pairs of gloves and donated them Tuesday to Stanley Elementary School in Tacoma.Serena Smith told The Tacoma News Tribune she chose the school at the recommendation of grocery store bagger. Eighty percent of the students there meet federal poverty guidelines for free or reduced meals.The principal of the school on 17th Street, Cindy Tone-Johnson, called it the "Miracle on 17th Street."The 54-year-old Smith has two grown sons and works at the Frank Tobey Jones retirement community where co-workers helped...

A new homeless shelter has opened in Washington state. It's opening is just in time too, as the temperatures there are getting cold. Dan Schreiber of Lewis County Washington introduces the public to the new shelter.Ten people gathered at an impromptu homeless shelter on Tower Avenue in downtown Centralia Monday night at about 9 p.m., as temperatures were plummeting far below freezing.Carl Bohlin was the lone volunteer running the outreach center across the street from the Destiny Christian Center, which provided space starting earlier this month. As far as Bohlin knew, that was the only place available in town for homeless people to go.“There are people sleeping in garages and under bridges tonight. It’s hard to come here sometimes, and give up your pride,” Bohlin said. “We need...

I recently had the pleasure of shepherding a group of elementary school children around a Water Festival. The day’s myriad events focused on everything from salmon habitats to sea kayaking lessons. It was great to watch little kids get excited about nature in its most basic forms. I think it’s something that I, and maybe others, forget when we’re working on globe spanning issues like climate change. Remember that we were once little kids too, our minds being blown by the simplest joys nature could offer. To watch a room full of a hundred kids all imitating the sounds of a Killer Whale is pretty awesome. The day made me realize/remember how important it is to reach kids at this young age when a love of nature is still embedded deep within their inherent nature. Kids...

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from The ColumbianGREGG HERRINGTON Columbian staff writerThe odds seem to be against Josh Seim, a Clark College student who has only a few more months to achieve his goal of almost imperceptibly changing the lives of campus coffee drinkers in order to help end world poverty, hunger and social injustice.Given that goal, you'd think Josh is a bit naive, and perhaps he is. Then again, there's a fine line between naivete and idealism. I could be wrong, but I think he's on the idealism side of the line.Seim, a sociology major and member of the campus Club for Social Action, expects to transfer to Gonzaga University in Spokane or Western Washington University in Bellingham next fall. That doesn't give him much time to conduct and win a campaign to get Fair Trade Certified coffee in at least one...