The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity. This week: A D.C. woman who couldn’t afford her electric bill got help ahead of last weekend’s heat wave. Why cutting preschool funding will hurt low-income, single, working mothers.
Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with the Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty. Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.
Here’s this week’s news:
· The Washington Post reports that an elderly, low-income woman had her power restored by the D.C. Department of the Environment’s Energy Office after some needy children who lived in her apartment rent free for nearly three years abandoned her with a $1,200 electric bill.
· The Associated Press discusses the challenges facing Christina Pooley, one of many foster children each year who turns 18 and is then evicted from his or her group home more prepared for a life on the street than in an apartment.
·Single mother Nadeah Rasheed tells the New York Times that she fears that she will return to homelessness since she does not earn enough to cover her family’s living expenses and the housing subsidies that she has been receiving from New York City since 2008 are about to expire.
· The St. Louis Post-Dispatch covers the latest set of budget proposals that will cause many districts to cut preschool funding for all but special-needs children, a move that will surely hurt low-income, single working mothers.
· The Trauma Recovery Center has helped hundreds of patients from impoverished neighborhoods deal with trauma, one of whom is Lenora McCall, who now cares for her six grandchildren after her daughter was killed, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
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The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team