Author: Gwen Rubinstein

The 10 plagues, D.C. style.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

Tonight, Jews around the world (including me) will begin celebrating Passover.  During Passover, we retell the story of the exodus from Egypt – the journey from slavery to freedom.  It’s a story that resonates across the ages and is not a story for Jews alone.

The tradition is to tell the story as if it happened to you, adding your own experiences and reflections.  The story reminds us that, for all our modernity, slavery, oppression, injustice, fear and want are still with us today – in our communities, in our country and in our seemingly ever-smaller world.

In the spirit of the redemption that is a part of this season for Christians and Jews, I offer my version of the 10 plagues visited on Egyptians in the book of Exodus – updated for today’s Washington.

Let us not harden our hearts, as Pharaoh did, to the suffering of our neighbors.  Instead, let us pledge to act to make our community a better place for all, whether through philanthropy, political action or other ways that feel meaningful to us. 

Community-based organizations, like The Women’s Foundation and its Grantee Partners, need help to sustain their efforts to make our region live up to its promise for all of its residents.

Washington’s 10 Plagues

1.  Lack of voting representation in Congress.  D.C. citizens are disenfranchised; even worse, Senators and Representatives from other states impose policies they want on us, regardless of our views.

2.  High HIV/AIDS rate. At least three percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the one percent threshold that constitutes a "generalized and severe" epidemic, according to a 2009 report by the DC Department of Health.

3.  Over-reliance on incarceration and its devastating effects on communities of color.  Washington has the highest black-to-white ratio of incarceration (19.0 per 100,000 population) of any state. The collateral consequences of this level of incarceration – including on employment, education, housing and health – are significant.

4.  Extremely high housing and commuting costs.  Households in the Washington metropolitan area spend an average of about $23,000 per year on housing and $13,000 on transportation. Combined, these costs represent nearly 47percent of median household income.

5.  The legacy of continued racial segregation. D.C. has one of the highest rates of residential segregation among cities in the U.S.

6.  Lack of enforcement of laws that promote hiring of D.C. residents for taxpayer-funded economic development projects – and the continued lack of education and training opportunities for D.C. residents that contribute to developers not complying with the law and public officials looking the other way.

7.  Food insecurity. About 32,000 households (almost 12 percent of all households) in the District were food insecure in 2005-2007, up from 9 percent in 2001-2003. What’s more, D.C. has relatively few full-service grocery stores in poor neighborhoods: about one in five food stamp households have no supermarket within a half-mile radius of their home.

8.  High infant mortality. D.C. continues to have one of the highest infant mortality rates of large U.S. cities.

9.  High child poverty.  Nearly one-third (29.3%) of children in the District live below 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Line.

10.  Lack of health insurance.  A total of 11 percent of D.C. residents did not have health insurance (either private or public) in 2007. The majority of those individuals (more than 60 percent) were in families with at least one full-time worker.

So I ask you: How do you want to live and how will you give?

Best wishes for a sweet and meaningful Passover and Easter to those who are observing them.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation. 

D.C.'s HIV/AIDS report forgets women, but I haven't.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

Inspired – and alarmed – by my colleague Lisa Kays’s blog post earlier this week about off-the-charts HIV/AIDS rates in the District of Columbia, I read the Department of Health’s recent report.

The report is powerful for what it includes – and what it doesn’t.

What it does include: voluminous statistics about the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the District, including trends, clinical indicators, geography and its effects on several “selected subpopulations.”

What it does not include: any real or sustained focus on women or illumination of the differences in the disease between women and men and the related implications for prevention and treatment.

For example:

  • While more men are living with HIV/AIDS in the District, women still make up more than one-quarter of those infected. In addition, between 2003 and 2007, women’s share of new HIV/AIDS cases increased (from 28.9 percent to 30.1 percent), while men’s share decreased.
  • While sex is the main mode of transmission for both men and women, women’s infection is driven much more significantly by injection drug use. Among people living with HIV/AIDS in the District, injection drug use was the mode of transmission for more than one-third of the women (35 percent) but less than one-fifth (19.2 percent) for men.
  • HIV/AIDS among women in DC is almost totally an epidemic of people of color. Nearly all of the women living with HIV/AIDS here (94.2 percent) are African-American or Latina, compared to three-quarters (76.5 percent) of men.

The report does not contain a dedicated section focusing specifically on women, despite more than 4,000 women (adults and adolescents) living with HIV in the city in 2007. “Special populations” with about the same or (even) fewer members do have their own sections.

Other notable oversights:

  • The report avoids discussing the potential role of incarceration in the spread of HIV in the District, including among women. One study, for example, exploring such a link, concluded that higher incarceration rates among black men explained the lion’s share of the racial disparity in HIV/AIDS infection between black women and women of other racial and ethnic groups (based on data from 1980 to 1996). Notably, the District has the highest black-to-white ratio of incarceration of any state in the country, according to The Sentencing Project.
  • While the report touts syringe exchange, condom distribution, HIV/AIDS testing and its AIDS drug assistance programs as effective responses to the epidemic, it does not discuss other needed interventions. A shortage of community-based addiction treatment (waiting lists are common) and other basic health services and the financial and other challenges facing local AIDS-service organizations (such as Whitman-Walker Clinic) undoubtedly hamper access both to prevention and treatment for all DC residents, including women.

Please add my voice to those calling for immediate response to this public health emergency – and don’t forget the women.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

New Stepping Stones RFP focuses on increasing and preserving women's economic security in difficult times.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

These are hard times for many, but especially for women-headed families.

Much has been written about the overall U.S. unemployment rate, which rose to 8.1 percent in February 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But did you know that unemployment among women-headed families was even higher at 10.3 percent?

To help community-based organizations in our region respond to the very human challenges behind these numbers, The Women’s Foundation today released a Request for Proposals under the Stepping Stones Initiative.

We hope the work supported by the RFP – through the Financial Education and Wealth Creation Fund and Jobs Fund – will help low-income, women-headed families in our region weather the recession and emerge ready to take best advantage of an eventual recovery.

To respond to the recession, The Women’s Foundation has made several changes to expand the reach of Stepping Stones. Specifically, we:

  • Expanded the target population to women-headed families earning between $0-$40,000;
  • Widened the scope of work to include projects focused on work supports that help promote job retention (such as transportation) and public benefits that serve as a safety net (such as Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance);
  • Emphasized our intention to deepen our investment in advocacy; and,
  • Encouraged strategic collaborations among community-based organizations to work as long and as holistically as possible with the low-income, women-headed families they are serving.

Here at The Women’s Foundation, we are acutely aware that hard times require us to be wise in our investments. 

And that’s our commitment – to our donors, to our Grantee Partners, to Stepping Stones participants and to our community.

Click here to download the RFP.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Coverage of Rihanna fails to take advantage of an otherwise teachable moment.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

As a 40-something (and a late one at that), I never thought I’d be blogging, let alone blogging about the young pop star Rihanna. But the news is full of stories about her assault, allegedly at the hands of her boyfriend.

If only the stories were less gossipy and voyeuristic and more informative.

Unless the focus of the reporting changes suddenly, this will be a missed opportunity to shed needed light on the reality of violence against women in the United States, especially for her younger fans.

The hard truth is that violence against women is common, has known risk factors (including a pattern of when it escalates from injury to homicide), and carries significant emotional and economic costs.

All of us, including the media, have an obligation to do more to lead our society toward more effective strategies for preventing it.

Here are some of the facts, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
• Each year, women in the U.S. experience 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes;
• In 2004, these assaults resulted in 1,544 deaths, of which 75 percent of which were women; and,
• The annual cost of this violence has been estimated at $8.3 billion in 2003 dollars – not to mention the emotional costs to the women and children who experience and witness it.

Stories questioning “why she doesn’t leave” miss the mark.

First of all, it assumes a feeling of power on the part of the victim that the violence against her was intended to – and undoubtedly did – undermine. 

Second, staying may actually be self-protective, at least in the short-term. A little known fact is that women are actually at higher risk for injury and homicide after they leave an abuser. According to U.S. Department of Justice data, separated women experience violence intimate partner violence at rates significantly higher than single or married women.

Just once, I would like to read a story that framed this incident (or, sadly, the next one) within the larger context of the reality of violence against women in our society and its epidemiology.

And just once, I would like to read a story that focused on how men have the power to stop this violence.

I hope you will tell me about the stories you want to read.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Focusing on not being able to afford a $15 martini? What about workers earning $15,000/year?

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

I have a few story ideas to pitch to the Washington Post, which has devoted scarce front-page inches in the last week to articles about how the recession is affecting the dating lives of men in their 20s and 30s who are active in the local bar scene and extreme text messaging among teenagers.

I think The Post needs help in understanding the true dimensions of what is happening in our region, particularly how the economy is affecting women and families who never had the resources to afford $15 specialty drinks and expensive cell phone plans.

Here is what keeps me up at night:

Our Grantee Partners are experiencing significant increases in demand for social and health services.
One of our Northern Virginia Grantee Partners reports that nonprofits there are seeing a 30 percent increase in requests for housing assistance and a 50 percent increase in requests for health assistance.  Of the overall increase in demand, about 25 percent of it is from people who have never asked for help before.

Another one of our Northern Virginia Grantee Partners notes that participants in its shelter program are needing to stay longer (up to two to four months longer) because of reductions in other local programs providing for next-step housing and basic needs.

Our Grantee Partners are facing increasing challenges in placing their graduates in good jobs.
One of our District of Columbia Grantee Partners preparing women for jobs in medical and office administration and building maintenance reports that graduates have lower job placement rates this year because, as a result of the economy, they are competing with higher-skilled individuals for the same entry-level positions.

Our Grantee Partners involved in preparing women for jobs in construction report that fewer jobs are available for their graduates because of layoffs and attrition. One program has told us that it is paying increasing attention to helping participants develop a “Plan B” for alternative employment until hiring picks up again.

Many of our Grantee Partners face serious challenges to raising the funds they need to provide their current levels of services – let alone expand them to meet growing need.
State and local government budget shortfalls are part of the problem. Fairfax County, for example, has a $650 million deficit this year.

Local (and national) foundations supporting these nonprofits have seen their endowments decline 30-50 percent.  Because many base their giving decisions on three-year-rolling averages, 2009 grant-making is down, but 2010 (and now also probably 2011) will be even worse because more bad years will be included in the averaging.

Local foundations, including The Women’s Foundation, have begun doing staff lay-offs. This is to do everything they can to maintain or increase their current level of grantmaking in a difficult environment.  But it may be a sign of more to come, if the economy does not turn around.

The unanswered question of what will happen to Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac’s charitable giving is an additional threat in our community.

There are many, many more stories – and many, many women, children and families who are part of these stories.

Washington Post: If you need any help learning more about these issues so you can cover them, please call The Women’s Foundation. We know these issues all too well and would love to connect you to them to increase their visibility in our community.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

What the stimulus package does for our region's women.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

President Obama signed the economic stimulus package into law yesterday afternoon.  Many people in the nation’s capital and state capitals around the country will be combing through it in the days and weeks ahead to understand the scope and breadth of what it does – and doesn’t – do.

At The Women’s Foundation, we wondered: What does this historic legislation do to help women and girls in our region preserve and even increase their economic security?

Nationally, according to the White House, the bill will create or save about 3.5 million jobs in the next year.  The President’s economic advisors estimated (before he was inaugurated) that that about half of those jobs would go to women.

More locally, also according to the White House, the bill will create or save at least 12,000 jobs in the District of Columbia, 16,000 jobs in Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties (Maryland), and 8,300 in Arlington and Fairfax Counties and the City of Alexandria (Northern Virginia). 

If half of these jobs are held or filled by women, that means about 18,000 jobs saved or created for women in our region.

A quick look at some of the investments in economic security-related programs in the bill also gives us much to be hopeful about, including:

Investments in skills training. The new law adds nearly $3 billion to the Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which supports job training and other services, which, in our region, go primarily to women. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) estimates that $9.7 million of the funds will flow to the District of Columbia, $29 million to Maryland, and $32 million to Virginia.

Of the $3 billion, $500 million is for the WIA adult program, and the law requires states to give recipients of public assistance and other low-income individuals priority access to training. Many of those helped by this provision especially are likely to be women, particularly single women with children.

Increases for child care assistance.  The new law adds $2 billion to the Child Care and Development Block Grant.  The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) estimates that the District of Columbia will receive nearly $2.7 million of these funds, Maryland will receive $24 million, and Virginia will receive $37.9 million.

Improvements in the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program.  Changes in the UI program are likely to increase significantly the number of women workers (as well as part-time and low-wage workers) eligible for benefits.  The law also includes a $25 per week increase in UI benefits, which the National Employment Law Project (NELP) estimates will help more than 35,000 people in the District, 241,000 in Maryland and 247,000 in Virginia.

Expansion of programs to help trade-affected workers.  The stimulus expands eligibility for the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program to service sector and public sector workers who lose their jobs as a result of trade and doubles the program’s funding for training. This could significantly increase the number of women who receive income support, training and other benefits through the program.

Funding for training and other services for women in highway construction.  The law includes $20 million for training and related services to help women and minorities pursue careers in highway construction (through the US Department of Transportation).

Increase in funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formerly Food Stamps).  The law adds $20 billion to increase benefits through 2013. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that this will help about 99,000 in the District, 412,000 in Maryland, and 594,000 in Virginia.

Taken together, these investments in the stimulus package are a sign of hope. Not only will they channel much-needed dollars into our region, but also they are an acknowledgement that our nation’s leaders recognize what we have known all along: Investments in women and girls are the best, fastest, surest way to ensure the economic stability of a family, a community and a nation.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Call for presenters: 2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing!

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

The fourth annual Washington Area Women’s Foundation Stepping Stones Research Briefing will be held the morning of Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C.

The Women’s Foundation and The Urban Institute co-sponsor the annual research briefing.  This year’s will highlight research on issues relevant to low-income, women-headed families.

Stepping Stones is The Women’s Foundation’s multi-year initiative focused on increasing economic security and financial independence for low-income, women-headed families in the Washington metropolitan area. The Stepping Stones Research Briefing provides an opportunity for The Women’s Foundation and its partners to learn about the latest research that can inform their work supporting this population.

The first three research briefings each drew audiences of over 100, including representatives from community-based organizations, funders, government agencies, and research institutions.

Persons interested in participating in this year’s research briefing should submit an abstract of their research and findings (no more than 1,000 words) to Peter Tatian at The Urban Institute by 5:00 pm on Friday, March 13, 2009.  Abstracts should make clear how the research is relevant to issues facing low-income, women-headed families and those who are working to assist these women.

We are particularly interested in abstracts related to how best to protect women’s economic security in a recession, including submissions on:
• Changing Demographic and Economic Conditions for Women
• Increasing Income, Building and Preserving Assets
• Workforce Development and Emerging Employment Sectors
• Job Retention and Work Supports (including public benefits)
• Early Care and Education
• Health and Safety

Final selection of presenters will be made by March 31, 2009.

Copies of all presentations, as well as audio recordings of the entire event, will be posted on The Urban Institute’s Web site after the event.  Presentations from last year’s research briefing can be found here.  More information on the 2007 and 2008 research briefings is available at The Women’s Foundation.org.

Questions about the research briefing should be addressed to Peter Tatian or Gwen Rubinstein at The Women’s Foundation.

Please share this announcement with anyone who may be interested.

Think infrastructure jobs will only work for men? Think again.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

As the economic stimulus package inches closer to Congressional approval and President Obama’s signature, many have focused on who is in and who is out – especially men versus women.

While predictable, this is not particularly productive.

Yes, men’s unemployment is rising faster than women’s.  Losses in the manufacturing and construction sectors have hit men particularly hard.

Still, unemployment among women is also rising, just not as fast. 

As usual, the losses are falling particularly hard on women-headed families, many of whom were also struggling before the recession. 

In addition, if history is any guide, we know women’s unemployment is likely to increase later in the recession.

In the work of repairing the economy, our policymakers need to find the wisdom to focus on the totality of the challenge for all Americans and the courage to question their assumptions.

One assumption I nominate for the recycle bin is that infrastructure jobs (and, for that matter, “green” jobs) are not and cannot be jobs for women.

Here at The Women’s Foundation, through investments made in our Stepping Stones Initiative, we have generated a lot of learning about how to support women in training for non-traditional occupations, such as construction.  Women who have completed these programs have gone on to good jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits.

Here is one example from Washington Area Women in the Trades (a joint project of the Community Services Agency of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, Wider Opportunities for Women and the YWCA of the National Capital Area.

J. H. started in June 2008 as a ‘Transformer Tester Helper’ in general utility operations training at the PEPCO facility on Benning Road. The experiences she gained at the Washington Area Women in the Trades program helped her attain this very competitive job, which will put her on a solid career path, allowing her to help support her family and eventually to purchase a home. She starts at a great pay grade – double the minimum wage – and with a generous employee benefits package. After 12 months and after successfully completing the PEPCO exam, she will make even more.

Of course, this kind of success requires more than a physical program. To be successful, women need a rich and stable array of supports to sustain them during training and on the job, including child care, transportation, access to health care and access to financial education to help them reduce their debt, improve their credit and save for the future.

(I’m guessing men probably need some, if not all, of this, as well.)

Because Stepping Stones is a comprehensive and long-term initiative, it invests in all of these services to support low-income, women-headed families in our region.

Even in difficult economic times, we have continued to see our investments reap benefits for these women, their families and our community. I can only hope that our national leaders will look out of the windows of their Washington offices and into our greater Washington community for inspiration and help.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Transportation is key to getting low-income families to work and out of poverty.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

In the best of times, lack of transportation is a serious barrier to employment for low-income, single working mothers.

And now is not the best of times.

According to the congressional Joint Economic Committee, the current economic downturn threatens women’s employment more than ever, with women-headed families being particularly squeezed.

So whether an economic stimulus package focuses on creating jobs in infrastructure, public works or the “green economy,” it must include support for transportation–including for car ownership–for low-income workers to help them obtain and retain any new jobs created.

Consider:

  • Low-income workers are less likely to own an automobile than other Americans. Nationally, 7.8 percent of all U.S. residents did not have access to a car in 2000, compared to 20.4 percent of poor U.S. residents.
  • Many construction jobs are not accessible by public transportation, both because of hours (generally not the traditional 9-5 work day) and location.
  • Research has shown that for low-income (and minority households), car ownership is positively correlated with improved access to jobs, higher household incomes and more weeks worked per year.
  • Low-income single mothers are more likely to make sequential trips, such as to daycare and then to work, which are not easily supported on public transportation.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation released a documentary this year called Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America that looks at these issues in more depth.

Unfortunately, little public support is currently available for car ownership for low-income individuals, including women. What support is available can also be difficult for community-based organizations working with low-income, women-headed families to obtain.

Public programs, including the existing Job Access Reverse Commute (JARC) program, must be expanded – both financially and in their scope – to meet the full range of transportation needs of low-income, women-headed families.

Private programs —such as Vehicles for Change and Opportunity Cars – must be expanded through government funding and increased car donations from private citizens.

It is time for all of us to stop overlooking this important barrier to work for low-income women with children.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

From Afghanistan to Bank of America, thanks to a Goodwill training program.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

Goodwill of Greater Washington offers numerous programs in addition to the Women in Construction program that The Women’s Foundation supports.

Last Friday, I had the privilege of attending a graduation ceremony for the most recent learners in Goodwill’s Bank Skills Training Program.  I left so inspired by all of the graduates and how far they had come. 

Especially moving were remarks by one student in particular, Susan Jelanizada, who told the story of her path to Goodwill and a new job in banking, which began in Afghanistan.

I share her remarks here because I think they can also inspire other women and girls and demonstrate the power of the programs that support their journeys to financial independence and economic security–whether those journeys begin in Arlington or Afghanistan.

Susan says:
 
“… Only a few years ago, women in my homeland of Afghanistan were denied any access to education or a meaningful role in society. Women and, to some extent, men, were barred from any meaningful education or professional pursuits. Girls were not allowed to continue any form of formal education beyond age 13.  Boys could only study at the ultra-conservative and extremist madrasas. My family and I were fortunate enough to have left Afghanistan and avoided the brutal realities of daily life under the extremist regime. Nonetheless, living in Pakistan was no picnic, either.

We faced many challenges living in Pakistan, including a language and some cultural barriers. However, life there offered us something that we could not get back home: access to basic education. We worked hard, and we took advantage of whatever opportunities were available.

While I count myself as one of the lucky few who has had the privilege of migrating to the United States, starting life anew has not been easy.

First, there is the culture shock.  America is a place where people enjoy freedoms unheard of in my homeland.  It is also a much different environment as far as the culture and norms are concerned. It was especially difficult for me as the oldest child in the family to leave my family and live all by myself for the first time. And this was not just a few miles away from home, but thousands of miles away. We value our family greatly in my culture and visit one another pretty often. Social life in Afghanistan tends to be more intimate and families tend to have close relations with one another.  Furthermore, it is quite untraditional for an Afghan woman to live by herself and away from her family in Afghanistan. 

However, I believe living away from my family has made me stronger and given me opportunities as well as challenges to grow and succeed in ways impossible back home.

My experiences have helped me develop a certain level of interest and appreciation for education and yearn for a brighter future; however, it was very hard for me to find the way how to do it.  I was not sure how to start the new life in the United States, how to pursue my career and my goals.  I didn’t know anything about the culture and environment.

I tried to apply for jobs online, but somehow I did not get a positive response. Maybe it is because I did not have work experience in the U.S., or maybe I didn’t know how to make my resume according to the job opening.

Finally, feeling disappointed and exhausted, I asked my employee specialist at the Department of Social Services of Fairfax County to let me know if there were training programs to prepare me for a job.

I had never thought about banking before coming to Goodwill, but after sharing my work experience with David, the Bank Skills Trainer, I found out that I had done all the jobs and had the skills that are needed in a bank for a teller.

I was so impressed by the service and training I received from Goodwill.

It has helped me to achieve my goals and start my new career in banking.  At Goodwill, we have learned about banking terminology and jargon.

Besides this, David helped us in making our resumes and prepared us for interviews.

I personally really liked the practice interview part where we really received constructive feedback from the recruiters. The practice prepared me to pass the real interview at the job fair and, luckily, I received an offer to work with Bank of America on the day of the job fair.

I count myself a successful person because I have never given up in life, despite all the ups and downs. I always believed in myself and knew that ‘I can do it.’  I am happy and proud to have been part of this class where I got to know all the wonderful people who are graduating today, as well as the volunteers from so many banks.

In closing, I would like to thank Goodwill for providing such training programs that help people start their careers. Thank you to David for being so nice and helpful with all of us and thanks to Valerie for helping us and providing us extra support.

Thanks to all of the Goodwill team for giving us a chance to achieve our career goals.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.