Washington

How paid sick days can mean safe days for women.

Posted on by Mari Villaluna

“Get out of my room!” he screamed at me.

I said nothing, except for knocking down his video tapes.  It was at this point he charged me, and knocked me to the ground.  I used my will and all my strength to fight back while trying to escape his apartment.

I finally escaped and walked down what felt like the hallway of shame. It was one of the longest walks I ever took. Once at home, I closed the dark brown wooden door behind me, and walked towards my mirror.

I stared into the mirror but a different image was looking back.  It wasn’t me. 

I saw a young woman with hair out of her head and blood and bruises on her face. When I finally realized that image was me, I started to cry.  I cried about all the pain that was inside my past, and started to connect what had just happened to me with former abuse that was in my household.

Violence occurs in cycles, especially when it comes down to domestic violence.  Domestic violence will continue until we, as a society, stop expecting that the victims should be the only people stopping this violence. 

Children and youth who grow up in households facing domestic violence are more likely to emulate this violence.

Dating violence is more prevalent in Washington, D.C. than New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and San Diego. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, D.C. has the highest rate of teen dating violence in the country. Children who grow up in abusive households are more likely to repeat this pattern of abuse in their first dating relationships.

For me as well, the abuses in my household were interconnected to my domestic violence situation. 

I cried for what seemed like hours, maybe even days. When I finally I came to, I remembered I had a meeting for work. I was so embarrassed to call my work to tell them what had happened, and was planning on saying that I was sick. 

When I called a co-worker, an outpour of tears flooded my thoughts, and I couldn’t speak.  She listened to me, and I finally stated, “My boyfriend hit me.” The next thing I knew, she was knocking on my apartment door to make sure I was fine.

I cried with her, and told her what I could verbalize. She supported me in doing whatever I needed. In fact, she told me about one of her friends who ran a Protective Restraining Order Clinic.  She provided me resources and emotional support.  When I was asked to do a spoken word piece based on my experience with abuse and Intimate partner violence at V-day San Francisco 2002, she was there in the audience supporting me.

On that day, I learned that the V stood for Validation. That validation led me to call the cops and start filing my case. In 2006, the number of domestic-related crime calls in the United States was 29,000. In 2005, the Metropolitan Police Department received over 27,000 domestic-related crime calls – one every 19 minutes–an increase of 22 percent over the past three years.

Validation is very important to all domestic violence survivors and their experiences. Many times we are told by our police, workplaces, and families that our matters are ‘lovers quarrels’, and ‘that it’s our fault’.

When we choose to speak out and decide to escape our situations, the most important thing is to be validated by the people and institutions we tell our stories to. That validation is strong enough to lead to an abuse-free world.

Validation first starts with supporting our survivors’ ability to take paid time off from work to take care of their security. Often, survivors need to take time off to get a restraining order, go to court, attend counseling, and for their very safety.

Many survivors, frequently women, are not validated by their workplaces and have been fired by their jobs. In fact, 98 percent of employed victims of domestic violence encounter problems at work (including losing their jobs) as a result of the violence.  Most companies have no idea how to validate domestic violence survivors through their human resource polices. Less than 30 percent of businesses in the United States have a formal program or policy that addresses workplace violence, even though seventy-eight percent of human resource directors identified domestic violence as a substantial employee problem.

It is ironic that as a society we tell our survivors to leave their situations, but we don’t provide them with the tools in which to do so, and we condemn them as they take leave to care for their safety.

After experiencing domestic violence, I would have flashbacks of the violence, and would many times be scared to leave my apartment. I was not alone.  Thirty-one to 84 percent of domestic violence victims exhibit Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms across varied samples of clinical studies, shelter, hospitals, and community agencies. It was important for me to take the time off to mentally and physically recover as well as to look for a therapist.

In current proposed legislation, the Paid Sick and Safe Days Act of 2007, any employee in the District of Columbia would be able to take a paid sick and safe day.  A ‘safe’ day would apply to a victim that has experienced stalking, sexual assault, or intimate partner violence. A victim of domestic violence would be able to seek out shelter, file a restraining order, or receive counseling without losing employment.

The U.S. General Accounting Office found that 24 to 53 percent of domestic violence victims lose their jobs due to domestic violence. This bill would enable all survivors to seek services and resources to keep them safe while sustaining their employment. Maintaining steady employment for many survivors is what prevents many from going back to their abusers.

If it was not for the understanding of my two part-time jobs of allowing me to take time off when needed, I might have gone back to my abuser. I might have never fought for my domestic violence case to get picked up by the District Attorney. I might have struggled to find food to eat.

Paid sick and safe days are crucial to not only a victim’s health and our children’s health, but to our society’s health.

Mari Villaluna is the legal and policy associate for D.C. Employment Justice Center, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation

Thanks to The Women's Foundation for the experience of a lifetime!

Posted on by Sharon Wise

Dear Washington Area Women’s Foundation,

My name is Sharon Wise and I’m one of the students enrolled in the Female Property Management Certificate training at Southeastern University (a Stepping Stones Jobs Fund Grantee Partner).
 
I just wanted to let you know that everything is great!  I love my class and I am learning so much. I am in a communications class and the facilitators are so funny and smart.  I did not know there were so many ways to email, write letters and express oneself.

I thank you all 100 times over for allowing me to have an opportunity to be in this class!  My self esteem has increased because I feel I am part of something. 

I have not missed one class and I am excited on Tuesday, for I know Wednesday is coming. 

We had a quiz yesterday and I know I Aced it!  Hurray!

I want to share my experiences so that you all will know that someone is benefiting and learning.  I love this class!

This is an experience of a lifetime.

I just want to thank you all so much for just doing the work that you all do to make it possible for women like myself to go through this fabulous program, and I just look forward to being one of your success stories.

Sharon Wise is one of thousands of women throughout our region benefiting from the power of giving together. 

Join us for our 2007 Leadership Luncheon to meet some of these women, the Grantee Partners who are serving them and to learn how YOU can become a part of the Washington area’s most powerful wave of women’s philanthropy that is changing lives, and our community, every day.

Ayuda: Fighting slavery in our own backyard.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Ayuda is deeply familiar with the struggles of low-income immigrants in the Washington, D.C. area. We have been at the forefront of providing multi-lingual social and legal services to immigrants for the past 34 years. Ayuda routinely helps immigrants reunite with their families, apply for citizenship or asylum and protect themselves and their children from domestic violence.

Several years ago, Ayuda began representing immigrants who had been illegally trafficked in the United States and forced to work under horrendous conditions for little or no pay. In 2003, Ayuda launched the Human Trafficking Project to serve this extremely vulnerable population. Five years and 100 cases later, our clients’ empowering stories continue to move us to action.

Human trafficking is a crime in the United States. An estimated 20,000 people are trafficked in the United States annually, according to the latest report by the U.S. Department of State. Trafficking victims come to the U.S. from their home countries in search of work, opportunity and a better future. Deceitful traffickers often prey on these dreams by promising safety and securing employment, while in reality they deliver victims into forced labor arrangements.

Ayuda serves a range of human trafficking cases each year. Recent clients include: a Latin American child forced to work as a prostitute by a man she believed to be her boyfriend, a South Asian woman forced to work as a domestic servant for a diplomat, and an African young woman forced to work in a beauty salon by a family member. As human trafficking activity increases worldwide, Ayuda has served clients from countries around the globe, including El Salvador, Bolivia, Brazil, Guatemala, Peru, Honduras, Thailand, Mexico, Ethiopia, India, Korea, and the Ukraine.

Victims of human trafficking face many difficulties in escaping from their slave-like conditions. Trafficked persons often don’t speak English, and are isolated from families, friends, and support networks. They are often completely dependent on their traffickers for food, shelter and clothing. Traffickers use coercion tactics that include physical restraint, beatings, rape, emotional and psychological abuse, and threats to family members to keep their victims in the trafficked situation.

The resulting trauma of human trafficking makes recovery difficult for survivors. Ayuda has found that it takes a great deal of time for clients to build trust with their attorney and social worker. It is important for survivors to know that reporting the crime will actually protect them from their trafficker and will not jeopardize their ability to remain legally in this country. Trust is also essential for clients to open up about their situation and give full details to our attorneys and law enforcement officials in the case against their trafficker.

Ayuda attorneys help victims navigate the complex legal system. Victims can gain legal relief through protection under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000. Relief under this law grants victims a T visa to allow them to legally live and work in the U.S. and eventually apply for legal permanent resident status. Ayuda attorneys maintain a remarkably high success rate for legal cases of human trafficking, a testament to the expertise of our legal staff.

In addition to legal representation, survivors of human trafficking also need help learning how to become self-sufficient. Survivors struggle with securing basic needs and services, such as a source of income, emergency housing, clothing, food and other immediate needs. They also work to recover from the emotional trauma of their abuse to build stability in their lives. Ayuda’s social workers also help clients enroll in job training programs, GED courses, and English classes and give referrals for affordable housing programs, daycare, medical care, and government programs.

Identifying the victims of human trafficking is a significant challenge of the Human Trafficking Project. Victims often do not seek assistance because they fear retaliation from their trafficker. Ayuda has seen many examples of traffickers threatening victims’ family members in their home countries, physically beating and emotionally abusing the victims, and using many other forms of control and intimidation. Ayuda’s social workers and community outreach staff work to educate immigrant communities about the law regarding human trafficking and encourage victims to speak out and seek help.

Recently, Ayuda launched a community outreach campaign with a grant from the D.C. Metropolitan Police. We are targeting the African and Latino immigrant communities with brochures in Spanish, French and Amharic. Ayuda will reach thousands of D.C. area residents through the dissemination of outreach material, radio commercials, bus ads, community presentations, and articles in ethnic newspapers.

Although we have served more than 100 clients since the Project started, much more needs to be done to reach local victims with information about human trafficking and direct assistance. More and more victims are trafficked to the D.C. area, one of the nation’s hotspots for this type of criminal activity. Ayuda needs the continued support from our partners to collaboratively address this tragic problem in our community.

September is Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and Ayuda is working with Washington Area Women’s Foundation to bring awareness to this issue.

If you are interested in learning more about human trafficking in the D.C. region and how Ayuda is responding to this crisis, call Estera Barbarasa at 202-243-7306.

Or, learn more about how you can join The Women’s Foundation in its support of local nonprofits and their work on issues, like human trafficking, that impact women and girls in our region every day.  Join us, and get involved with The Power of Giving Together, where we work together to bring change home.

(Also, join us for our Leadership Luncheon on October 10.  Come get inspired and connected to the work we’re doing, and see the change we’re making firsthand.)

Ayuda is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  This blog was prepared by Estera Barbarasa, Ayuda’s fundraising and public affairs coordinator, in collaboration with Drake Hagner, Ayuda’s development and communications associate.

The revolution will begin with women.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation’s International Humanitarian Symposium and awards ceremony.  The event this year was themed, "The Changing Face of Philanthropy: Evolution or Revolution?"

I couldn’t help but be pleased to note that throughout the symposium and dinner discussions–formal and informal–that there was an important subtext. 

That it seems that practitioners of community development, of philanthropy, of effective giving and nonprofit work are coming around to the idea that yes, philanthropy and development are evolving, and that women are very much at the heart of this evolution.

And that they’re talking about it no longer like it’s new, or different or a maybe-this-is-something-to-think-about sort of idea on the margins.

That they’re talking about it like an accepted tenet, a truth, that has finally arrived. 

That the revolution will, most likely, begin with women.

Rock on.

Just  a few tidbits and examples to get hopeful about:

The winner of this year’s Hilton prize was Tostan, an NGO working throughout Africa to promote human rights, and by extension women’s rights, and is revolutionizing issues around early marriage and female genital mutilation and changing the way women, and people throughout Africa, think about themselves.

Dr. Helene Gayle, president and CEO of CARE, spoke earlier in the day about CARE’s new I am Powerful campaign, and its acknowledgement of the role of women in building stronger communities around the world.  And about how CARE has restructured its work to place women and girls front and center in their efforts.  Because they know that empowering women and girls works to empower entire communities.

The keynote speaker, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, addressed the role of women in development, citing them as a backbone of their communities, as the force of change.  His exact words will be available here, soon.

Indeed, the revolution–to reduce poverty and improve our communities and the lives of its children–will begin with women.

It already has.  

And this isn’t just true in Africa or Asia or the Middle East.  It’s true here, too.  To find out how we’re bringing the revolution home, just Ask Us How.  Because for nearly 10 years, we’ve been improving the Washington metropolitan area by investing in women and girls. 

Because whether in Angola or Anacostia, Sri Lanka or Silver Spring, the revolution, and true change, will, inevitably, begin with women.

Join us to help bring the revolution home.

SOME: Helping D.C.'s homeless access food, a new future.

Posted on by Nathania H. Dallas

On almost any street in D.C., you will probably encounter people sleeping on the sidewalk or asking for money, and the majority will probably be men.  Such encounters with homelessness have generated the idea that it primarily affects the male population.  (And, as was mentioned earlier on this blog, so have some films and the media.)

Although it is true that almost 85 percent of DC’s “chronically homeless” – those who are in and out of shelters or living on the streets – are men, there are countless homeless women and children who are “couch surfing” or doubled and tripled up, staying with friends and family.

Homeless women face a very different set of circumstances than homeless men. As detailed in the D.C. Women’s Agenda’s white paper, “Homeless young women are very likely to suffer from bad health, substance abuse, criminal activity, mental disorders, prostitution, and low levels of education.”

These obstacles make it all the more difficult for women to overcome homelessness.

In America, as in most cultures, women are presumed to be responsible for taking care of children and providing meals for their family. For homeless women who are facing the huge challenges that come with that condition, even these seemingly simple responsibilities of parenthood can be overwhelming.  The discontinuity of constantly having to find sources of food can have a damaging effect on children, and the inability of a parent to provide food for her children disrupts the family unit.

Regular access to healthy food can be the first step to helping one’s body recover from the harsh realities of homeless life and generates the energy needed to begin to overcome the obstacles of homelessness.

SOME (So Others Might Eat) is an inter-faith community-based organization that works to help the poor and homeless of Washington, D.C., and is a member of the D.C. Women’s Agenda (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation). 

Over the past year, volunteers at SOME have been gathering information on food providers for homeless people in the District.  Their research has been compiled in a brand-new Food Assistance for the Homeless Resource.

The Resource consists of Excel spreadsheets, beginning with a master sheet that lists all the providers, their location, contact information, and eligibility requirements. In the subsequent spreadsheets, the providers are listed according to the service they provide, either Food Pantry or Meals. Meals are then categorized by Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, days of the week and, finally, whom they serve: Men, Women, and Families.

This resource is intended to serve three purposes: to help those who are homeless find their next meal, to help service providers make referrals, and to help advocates identify unmet needs. In the near future, we hope to see the creation of a pocket version for people who are in need of food assistance and may have difficulty accessing the Internet.

Ultimately, we want to see a time when providers such as those listed in this resource no longer need to exist because everyone is able to provide their own food, for themselves and their families.

Until we can achieve this long-term goal, we hope that in creating an authoritative resource on food assistance for the homeless we can make it easier for homeless women to feed themselves and their families, and their energy can be used to begin improving their lives.

SOME began in 1970 when Father Horace McKenna started feeding sandwiches to the homeless of D.C. from the back of a church. As people were nourished and their bodies began to recover from life on the streets, SOME was able to extend its services. 

Today SOME helps break the cycle of homelessness by offering a continuum of services, such as affordable housing, job training, addiction treatment, medical and dental care, and counseling. We believe that access to healthy food is the first step in beginning this continuum of care and ending poverty.

Nathania H. Dallas was the summer advocacy and social justice intern in 2007 at So Others Might Eat (SOME, Inc.) in Washington, D.C.

Walking the city in women’s shoes.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Wanna lose weight or get healthy in the cheapest, most easily accessible way possible?

Many sources will tell you to walk.  Roads are free, after all.  (Minus a small taxpayer contribution.)

But what if can’t walk in your neighborhood because the streets aren’t safe from harassment, or worse forms of violence?  What if they’re deteriorated or don’t have maintained sidewalks?

Then your best, low-cost avenue to a more active lifestyle just disappeared faster than you can say “speedwalk.”

I hadn’t thought much about this concrete correlation between neighborhood safety and women’s (or indeed, anyone’s) health until a recent conference call for Leadership Awards volunteers on women’s health in our region, where the speakers explained that a woman’s health (her ability to keep in shape and her weight down) can be greatly impacted by the safety of her streets.

The good news is that some of the greatest health risks for women in our area–diabetes, obesity and heart disease–are all diminished by a more active lifestyle.

The bad news?  That many of the women most at risk for these conditions are low-income women without access to safe streets on which to walk–the most economical form of exercise out there.  They’re also the least likely to be able to afford access to gyms or other types of sports or exercise that will enable them to maintain healthy hearts, weight and other benefits of being active.

This is what came to mind when I read an interesting post on Half Changed World, on Google’s latest attempt to tell us about our lives by measuring how walkable a neighborhood is.

According to WalkScore, the site “shows you a map of what’s nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the environment.”

This all seems to be measured by how close your home is to grocery stores, shopping, parks, etc.

I can’t help but do a little experiment.

I calculate the WalkScore for the office of The Women’s Foundation, downtown in northwest D.C.  We get a 98 out of 100.

This is good news, since I walk to work everyday.  Except today, when it’s a million degrees outside, but that’s besides the point.  I don’t think Google accounts for weather.  (Yet.)

Next, I try an address of one of our Grantee Partners, Ascensions, serving families southeast Washington, D.C., in Ward 7 and 8, a target area for Stepping Stones.

Their walk score?  46.  A pretty vast difference, even when you consider that Google isn’t measuring for safe streets, the condition of sidewalks or traffic flow, and that they’re just considering access to stuff.

I consider that not only are families in this area most likely not able to incorporate walking into their daily errands and lifestyle (the easiest way), but also how much harder it could be to access the services provided by Ascensions than it would be for me to find a similar service for myself in my neighborhood in northwest D.C.

Meaning that walkability could be impacting not only physical health, but mental health as well.  Or financial health.  Or any number of other aspects of one’s life that are improved through the involvement of practitioners and specialists to advise, examine and assist.

I can’t help but think that this situation would probably be repeated over and over if I tried WalkScores on our various Grantee Partners serving low-income areas, women and their families.

And how much lower they would be if Google incorporated factors like safety and sidewalks into their calculations.  (Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I was disappointed by Google Map’s accounting for economics.)

It definitely gives me perspective about my daily walks to work in the morning–which I will now stop taking for granted, even when crazy D.C. drivers almost kill me–and a new way of viewing our region and its development in terms of the perspective of the women who are–or aren’t–able to safely take a stroll on its streets.

And the potential for changes made in an effort to improve the walkability and safety of our region and its streets–in all neighborhoods–to improve the lives and health, not only of women and their children, but all of us.

After all, we should all be able to take Bono’s advice and, “Walk on.”

Ascensions: Talking families towards hope.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Imagine that you are are a single mother raising a little girl. Joy is what everyone wantshands you to feel, but you are depressed at best, angry most of the time. You know this situation has grown beyond your control and that you have to do something, but even if you had insurance for a doctor, everyone around you would call you weak or even crazy if you admitted to what you were feeling and fearing.

So you spin into increasing despair and hopelessness, until you learn of a parenting class that just might be of help.

In that parenting class you meet a psychologist who encourages you, and other women like you, to share your mutual experiences. With them, you find common ground and the strength to explore your own situation and how the adversity in your life—childhood sexual abuse, rape, teenage pregnancy or emotional abuse—can be used as the very turning point towards growth, rather than as a dead end.

Continuing in these sessions, and working individually with a therapist, you start to feel less depressed, gain control over your emotions and outlook and develop the motivation and resources to plan for—and eventually attain—higher paying, steady employment that enables you to care for your child in a more stable manner.

Your life no longer feels like a dead end. It feels like a beginning.

This is the work of Ascensions Community Services, Inc. in Washington, D.C.—a new Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation receiving the largest grant—$50,000—in the history of the African American Women’s Giving Circle.

Sandra Jibrell, a member of The Women’s Foundation’s board of directors and the African American Women’s Giving Circle, explains why the circle chose to invest so much in Ascensions. “It was the opportunity to make a grant that would really make a difference. Ascensions was started and run by a young African American woman with a deep commitment to delivering mental health services east of the Anacostia River, to women whose emotional and mental health needs have been overlooked as they struggle to keep their families safe and financially stable.”

Dr. Satira S. Streeter, licensed clinical psychologist and founder and Executive/Clinical Director of Ascensions, explains, “We’re dealing with families in Ward 7 and 8, and family is typically comprised of a mother and her children. About 85 percent of those we serve are women.”

The need for such services is well documented—particularly for women—who tend to experience mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety with far greater frequency than men, according to The Women’s Foundation’s Portrait Project. The report found that in Washington, D.C., 43 percent of women reported poor mental health days. Nationally, one-third of young women report feeling sad or hopeless. Further, depression tends to impact African American women at a rate almost 50 percent higher than it impacts white women.

Ascensions meets these needs by providing psychological and community interventions that assist clients to improve their self-concept, interpersonal relationships and make positive contributions to their communities. Services infuse psychological theories and research with culture, history, and spirituality to offer each client an individualized plan for growth.

Ascensions emerged from Streeter’s work in a school providing psychological services to students. “We would scratch our heads as to why the kids weren’t getting better,” she says. “It was because we were sending them back into a dysfunctional household that unraveled our work. The kids would come to Virginia from Southeast and Northeast D.C., and I wanted to do this in a way that would include the whole family and do so in the community.”

Ascensions’ clients—which number approximately 75 families—come for services voluntarily through walk-ins, referrals from community schools and outreach efforts such as parenting classes and groups for young women.

Streeter currently counsels eight families per day during the week, and 10 more on weekends, a full-time job that she has been doing without a salary for three years to get Ascensions off the ground.

The grant from The Women’s Foundation’s African American Women’s Giving Circle will play a significant role in that journey. The grant will enable Ascensions to increase the number of clients they serve by paying for greater staffing. Ascensions will expand their three part-time therapists’ hours so they can do more counseling, enabling Streeter to focus on group work and outreach. She also hopes to offer more training for her clinicians and for other budding clinicians to build the base of African American psychologists in Washington, D.C.

“It’s one thing to have the heart to do this work,” Streeter says. “But it’s another to be able to develop the fiscal systems, the program evaluations and the development work that will allow us to continue to work with these women and families on a daily basis.”

This is precisely what the members of the African American Women’s Giving Circle had in mind when they elected to support Ascensions. “It is our hope that our support and interactions with Ascensions will enable its young director to build and sustain the service organization that she envisions—addressing the unmet needs for therapeutic mental health services for the women, strengthening collective self help and support group activities and increasing their organizational capacity and partnerships,” Jibrell says.

The community outreach Streeter will focus on is crucial to Ascensions’ ability to provide services. It provides an entryway into psychological services that may not otherwise be available due to the stigma that often surrounds it. People are far more likely to attend a parenting class, Streeter says, than to make an appointment for counseling.

family

Her approach is working. As the community begins to understand the value of the services Ascensions offers, the related stigma is decreasing and people feel more comfortable seeking the help they need.

Streeter says clients are less guarded when they come in and that she frequently hears things like, “A couple of years ago, I would never have come to see a psychologist, but now that I know what you do, and I know that it’s not that I’m crazy…”

Just as so much of Ascensions’ work depends on strong community ties and outreach, so too does the African American Women’s Giving Circle define its success by the connections it makes to the organizations—and communities—it supports.

“This Grantee Partner provided the opportunity for the giving circle sisters to realize critical goals of their grant making,” Jibrell says, including, “helping stabilize a very promising, but under-resourced African American woman-led organization through significant grantmaking, but also through its connections to the resources, talents and networks of the giving circle members.”

Streeter is emboldened and optimistic about the power of this new partnership. “We haven’t had the challenge of getting people in and wanting services,” Streeter says. “It’s really been a challenge of getting the staff to support the need. You don’t know how huge this is, and how it takes Ascensions to a whole different level of what we’re trying to do. So many good things are going to come because of this.”

Ready to make more good things come as a result of working, together, to making our community stronger by investing in women and girls?  Get involved in the power of giving together.  Join us for our annual Leadership Luncheon on October 10!

Stepping Stones Research Update: August 2007

Posted on by Lisa Kays

As part of our ongoing commitment–in partnership with The Urban Institute–to providing information and resources related to the goals of Stepping Stones, please find below summary of recent research on issues of economic security and financial independence for women and their families.

This research is summarized and compiled for The Women’s Foundation by Kerstin Gentsch of The Urban Institute, NeighborhoodInfo DC.

Financial Education and Wealth Creation News

District of Columbia Housing Monitor: Spring 2007
By Peter A. Tatian
Urban Institute
June 28, 2007

Looks at the Washington, D.C., housing market, tracking home prices, real estate listings, new construction, and affordable housing; examines mortgage lending trends through 2005; and highlights the declining share of low income home buyers in neighborhoods throughout the city.

Key findings:

  • Housing demand continues to slow; median third quarter sales prices for single-family homes and condominiums are down from one year earlier.
  • Real estate listings of single-family homes and condominiums decreased between the third and fourth quarters of 2006, but the time houses spend on the market continued to increase.
  • Prices show definite signs of declining or flattening in all wards except Wards 7 and 8.
  • Home building slowed in the fourth quarter of 2006, and housing permits for the entire year were down for the first time since 2003.
  • Denial rates for home purchase loan applications rose again in 2005; almost one quarter of all loan applications in Wards 7 and 8 were denied.
  • Home buyers in Wards 5, 7, and 8 were more than 12 times more likely to take out a high interest rate loan than were buyers in Ward 3.
  • The share of home purchase loans for second home and investment properties continues to increase.
  • As housing prices have increased, the share of home purchasers who are very low income has dropped dramatically.

Abstract, introduction and key findings. 
Full issue.
 
How Have Asset Policies for Cash Welfare and Food Stamps Changed since the 1990s?
By Signe-Mary McKernan and William Margrabe
Urban Institute
July 2007

Examines allowance changes for restricted and unrestricted accounts at the federal and state level and tracks the different allowances for IDAs, food stamps, and welfare programs from 1992 to 2003.

Cash welfare and food stamps are means tested: assets and income must fall below set limits for families to qualify. While this ensures that benefits go to the neediest families, asset limits may also discourage asset building. States can exempt all assets (unrestricted assets), or they can exempt assets held for a specific purpose, such as education, a home, or a business (restricted assets); a car; or an individual development account (IDA).

Since 1992, states have increasingly supported IDAs and have allowed specific classes of assets. States allowing IDAs went from none in 1992 to 26 in 2003. Similarly, states exempting restricted assets in their welfare programs went from none in 1992 to 30 in 2003.

Prior to 2002, the Food Stamp Program provided no exemptions for restricted accounts. But the 2002 Farm Bill provides states the option of exempting restricted assets, if doing so aligns their food stamp policy with their welfare or Medicaid policies.

In 1992, federal policy for cash welfare allowed families to exempt $1,500 in vehicle value from the asset limit. By 2003, 29 states allowed exemption for at least one vehicle. Only 3 states exempted the entire value of a vehicle from Food Stamp eligibility during the late 1990s, but by 2003, 34 did.

The growth in allowances for restricted assets contrasts with the erosion in limits on assets not set aside for a particular purpose. Average TANF unrestricted asset limits rose in real terms from $1,138 in 1993 to $2,779 in 1998 but have since been eroded by inflation, falling to $2,592 in 2003. The Food Stamp asset limit has eroded in real terms from $2,398 in 1991 to $1,895 in 2003.

It remains unclear how much disregarding certain assets from eligibility determinations will affect decisions to save.

Text-only version.
Full paper.

Jobs and Business Ownership News

Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?
By John Morton and Isabel Sawhill
The Brookings Institution
May 2007

Intends to provoke rigorous discussion about the role and strength of economic mobility in American society.

For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and the prospect of upward mobility have formed the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored — inspiring people in distant lands to seek our shores and sustaining the unwavering optimism of Americans at home. From the hopes of the earliest settlers to the aspirations of today’s diverse population, the American Dream unites us in a common quest for individual and national success. But new data suggest that this once solid ground may well be shifting. This raises provocative questions about the continuing ability of all Americans to move up the economic ladder and calls into question whether the American economic meritocracy is still alive and well.

Summary.
Full report. 

Child Care and Early Education News

Early Care and Education for Children in Low-Income Families: Patterns of Use, Quality, and Potential Policy Implications
By Gina Adams, Kathryn Tout, and Martha Zaslow
Urban Institute
May 2007

Assesses the patterns of early care and education (ECE) utilization by low-income families, the implications for children’s development of the extent and quality of ECE participation, the evidence on the quality of ECE that low-income children receive, and the policy context that shapes ECE.

Key findings include:

  • Patterns of early care and education differ for families with higher and lower incomes. Participation in early care and education settings is common for children from low income families.
  • The use of particular early care and education arrangements reflects access to different arrangements as well as family preferences and constraints. 
  • There is consistent evidence of a link between the quality of early care and education and children’s development. Recent studies find that the type of care and extent of care also are important for children’s development even after controlling for quality. 
  • While we lack nationally representative data on child care quality, large-scale studies in differing geographical regions suggest that overall (setting aside the issue of family income), much of the care in the United States falls below a rating of “good” on widely used observational measures.
  • We also lack a national picture of the quality of the market-based child care that children from low-income families receive.
  • Studies indicate that the quality of program-based early care and education settings such as Head Start and state pre kindergarten differs by program type.
  • Children from low-income families may be more likely to experience changes in early care and education arrangements.
  • Public policies that affect the quality of early care and education tend to focus primarily on one of three goals—supporting parental work, supporting children’s development through access to early care and education programs with specific quality standards, or supporting the quality or supply of market-based settings.

Abstract, summary, and key findings.
For full report. 

Health and Safety News

Food Insecurity and Overweight among Infants and Toddlers: New Insights into a Troubling Linkage
By Jacinta Bronte-Tinkew, Martha Zaslow, Randolph Capps, and Allison Horowitz
Child Trends
July 2007

Examines data on food insecurity, defined as limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, and links food insecurity with maternal depression, poor parenting, and—paradoxically—overweight toddlers.

  • One in eight U.S. households with infants (12.5 percent) reports being “food insecure”.
  • Among households with low-birthweight infants—infants born weighing less than 5.5 pounds—about one in seven (14.4 percent) is food insecure.
  • Among poor households with infants, nearly three in 10 (28.9 percent) report food insecurity.
  • Young children living in households with very low food security are 61 percent more likely to be overweight than are young children living in food-secure households.
  • Mothers living in food-insecure households are significantly more likely to report symptoms of depression than are mothers living in food-secure households.
  • Parents in food-insecure households have less positive interactions with their infant children, such as less responsiveness to infant distress and less behavior directed at fostering their babies’ social and emotional growth.

Press release.
Full brief. 

Survey Spotlight on Uninsured Parents: How a Lack of Coverage Affects Parents and Their Families
By Karyn Schwartz
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
June 2007

Spotlights how being uninsured affects not just a parent’s health, but also the well-being of the entire family.

Health insurance for low-income parents influences both their own health and access to care, as well as the well-being of their families. Without health insurance for parents, families are more likely to incur debt and cut back on other basic needs to pay for care. Uninsured parents face real health consequences when they delay care, and the entire family is affected when those delays cause a parent to remain ill or be unable to participate in daily activities.

Medicaid coverage for parents is limited, and many low-income parents are not eligible. Uninsured low-income parents who are working have very limited access to employer coverage, with about half working for firms with less than 25 employees and over 40% working in industries with the lowest rates of employer coverage. About 60% of uninsured low-income parents say that they are very concerned that they do not have enough savings to cover financial obligations. Without savings, they are unlikely to be able to pay for medical treatments out-of-pocket.

As documented earlier, when parents have insurance, children are more likely to be covered and have access to health care. Some states have taken steps to improve access to public coverage for parents recognizing the importance of making coverage available for the whole family.11 Children in homes where everyone has coverage also gain financial stability and other positive benefits when their parents are able to access care. As policy makers look to decrease the number of uninsured children, children’s health coverage may be more broadly and effectively addressed if their parents’ access to coverage and care is also improved.

Full brief.  

Other News and Research

Nonprofit Governance in the United States: Findings on Performance and Accountability from the First National Representative Study
By Francie Ostrower
June 25, 2007
Urban Institute

Presents survey findings from the first ever national representative survey of nonprofit governance.

  • Discusses relationships between public policy and governance, factors that promote or impede boards’ performance of basic stewardship responsibilities, board composition and factors associated with board diversity, and recruitment processes, including the difficulty experienced by many nonprofits in finding members.
  • Includes some data on the representation of women on nonprofit boards.
  • Our representative sample of organizations results in a radically different picture of representation by women.
  • Almost all nonprofit boards include women (94 percent) and as a whole they are almost equally balanced with respect to gender. On average, boards are composed of 46 percent women (the median is a close 44 percent).
  • The percentage of women on boards, however, is inversely related to organizational size. The average percentage of women is 50 percent among nonprofits with expenses under $100,000, but drops to a low of 29 percent among the largest nonprofits (over $40 million in expenses).
  • Conclusions about gender composition based on larger nonprofits will be quite different than those that include smaller ones. These findings are consistent with the contention that women are less likely to serve on boards of large and prestigious nonprofits.

Abstract and introduction. 
Full paper. 

In Marshall Heights, "biggest losers" shave debt, not fat.

Posted on by Coach Tate

The coaches on The Biggest Loser might help people burn fat and shed pounds.  I do something similar, only I help them shave off unnecessary, unhealthy debt.

This year, I’ve coached 234 women through the rough work of shaving off a total of $115,050 in debt through my work at the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, Inc. (MHCDO), which is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation’s Stepping Stones initiative. 

Stepping Stones brings together nonprofits–like MHCDO–with other organizations throughout our region to work collaboratively to build the economic security and financial independence of low-income, single mothers.

While providing job training is a huge part of this work, this has to be coupled with financial literacy to really be effective, so that women can learn how to manage the basics of bank accounts, budgeting, saving and all the pitfalls and benefits of credit.

A big part of that journey is often getting rid of debt and the limits it places on your life, opportunities and goals. 

This isn’t easy work.  Just like losing weight, it requires sacrifice, changing habits and a lot of hard work.  I help by providing the tools our clients need.   I provide the playbook and call the plays, but in the end, our clients are truly awesome, and they’re the ones who get the job done.

One client who did an amazing job with this work is Tracey Turner.  Her story of going from falling behind in rent to becoming a workforce development specialist working out of MCHDO’s office is on page 13 of The Women’s Foundation’s annual report.  As she tells her clients now, "I know what it’s like to be in the other chair.  I know about the sleepless nights. I know about the emotional breakdowns. I know what it’s like to go without a meal so your children have something to eat.”

She knows about the burden of carrying around excess debt. 

Now a coach in her own right, she works with me at MHCDO and knows the struggles, challenges and the power of transformation that emerge when women like her do the hard work of changing the game in their own lives! 

One client who embodies this change is a single parent divorcee that had accumulated excessive debt with her was-band (my slang term for former husband).  They had agreed as part of the divorce settlement that he would be responsible for a car repossession repayment of $8,250.

Needless to say, that repayment never occurred.

Through the credit and financial education offered by MHCDO through Stepping Stones, she found this debt showing up on her credit report.  She couldn’t locate the copy of the courthouse document confirming the agreement so I advised her to obtain another copy.

That certified copy was then forwarded to the Equifax, Experian and TransUnion credit bureaus to update her credit report to show that the ex was totally responsible for the debt. Their responses in writing permanently removed the $8,250 delinquency from her credit file, thus allowing her to continue with her mortgage pre-qualification.  I asked her to keep me informed with the process so we can celebrate.

Another example is a Stepping Stones participant–a single parent divorcee–whose credit report showed a $6,800 car repossession because she had co-signed a loan for her brother who didn’t hold up his end of the bargain.  This debt just recently appeared. Had her brother been honest with her, she would have known sooner and she could have made a more conscious decision that would not have become a detriment to her credit. 

She lives at Mayfair Mansions, a joint partnership with MHCDO and other investors to help preserve affordable housing east of the Anacostia River in Wards 7 and 8 by converting targeted apartment buildings in this historic development into affordable condos and giving first rights of refusal to current qualified residents.

She felt it was hard enough having to juggle bills before becoming a Stepping Stones participant, and now she had to deal with this new burden of debt.  Under our advice, she got her brother to sign a notarized statement that he was solely responsible for the car payment, forwarded a payoff letter from the collection agency showing this and sent copies of it to all three credit bureaus.  This cleared the debt from her credit, and enabled her to successfully secure a credit union loan for the full amount to buy into her condo–a tremendous leap in financial security! 

These were just samplings of the 234 Stepping Stones participants that have been able to successfully reduce debt and improve their financial situation.  Most of them are still working on reducing their household debt and continuing to effectively manage their budgets to be able to make intelligent financial decisions in the future, thus developing self-sufficiency and goals towards wealth-building.

To become part of the power of giving together and to support the hard work of nonprofits like MHCDO and low-income, single mothers working to gain financial literacy, shed debt and become homeowners, join us!  We’re changing women’s lives, and our community, together.

Coach Geoffrey Tate is a certified credit counselor with Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, Inc., a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

Stop sex trafficking across a border near you.

Posted on by Sherell

As program assistant here at The Women’s Foundation, I get the opportunity to take in grant and award applications such as those for Leadership Awards, where I get a glimpse of what different issues nonprofits are tackling these days.

A good sprinkling address sex trafficking and other forms of human trafficking, bringing home for me how this problem is impacting our community. 

Law enforcement officials in Maryland report that one of the state’s fastest growing crimes is labor and sex trafficking.  WTOP reports about the extent of trafficking in Montgomery County, Maryland   In 2006, police uncovered a possible human trafficking ring in Loudon County, Virginia.  And in Washington, D.C., officials are working with local nonprofits to reduce the amount of sex trafficking.

Human trafficking, defined by Ayuda, a Grantee Partner, is "the recruitment, harboring, transporting, providing or obtaining, by any means, of any person for forced labor, slavery, peonage or servitude in any industry or site such as agriculture, construction, prostitution, manufacturing, begging, domestic service or marriage."

As defined by a number of nonprofit groups, human trafficking is modern day slavery. 

And a form of slavery we often think of as occurring outside of our country–let alone our region. 

Ms. Magazine just ran an article on this issue, and it is documented at the Tunnel of Oppression exhibit at the University of Maryland. 

It was at this exhibit that I became aware of the issue of trafficking, even though it has been going on for such a long time.

Polaris Project, another Grantee Partner, provides an estimate of more than 100,000 trafficking victims enslaved in the U.S.

It is sex trafficking specifically that interests me, largely because of its implications for women and girls.

The California nonprofit Captive Daughters offers a daunting estimated figure of two million women and children held in sex trafficking worldwide.

The sex trafficking industry, and I use the word industry because of its pervasiveness, seems to permeate in some way, shape or form all parts of the world. Daunting and astonishing are the only words I can use to describe my reaction to the research I find on this.

Captive Daughters talks about the Philippine’s tour packages. They are all inclusive, including one’s option to purchase sex from a female prostitute working as an entertainer.

PBS’s Frontline has a story on how five women, from Moldova, Ukraine, Turkey, and Hungary, were tricked (in some cases by their friends) into this abusive industry (in exchange for money), and finally managed to escape. The interviews with the women, available online, are saddening and disturbing.

What makes me really angry about all this, besides the pervasiveness and inhumane feeling the process must induce in its victims, is why it’s so prevalent.

It speaks to the priority of the almighty dollar, and the level of sexism, and devaluation of women and children that people still hold worldwide. Not that having more male or female victims makes sex trafficking better or worse, but the industry is disproportionately made up of women and children.

And isn’t this a theme?  Don’t women and children still disproportionately suffer from issues that help make them more vulnerable to trafficking such as poverty, hunger, and physical abuse locally as well as abroad?

Many of the women who get tricked into the sex trade are lied to and promised a new job in the new area they are being taken to. Deborah Finding, team leader of The POPPY Project, talks about what her project does to help female victims of sex trafficking, and steps we can take to reduce in the number of women trafficked.

For one thing, she says there should be greater public awareness. 

I agree, and find a perfect example of how U.S. media has a role to do this but doesn’t.  This week, I learned from CNN and MSNBC more about Lindsay Lohan’s arrest than anything else.

What about the grave issues that are eating away at the life and quality of life of women worldwide?  Why can’t we talk about these more? Why can’t the stories of those five women from the Frontline special be the hot topic of the news for two days in a row?

So, until the media does a better job of raising the voices and issues of women and girls, we can all start by learning more about how we can prevent and report human trafficking in the U.S.

There are individuals, groups, and great nonprofits in the U.S. and abroad educating on and working with victims of sex trafficking, but they need more support and recognition–and I’m left wondering how this will come about when there is so little information circulating about these realities.

My sense is that if this isn’t going to be a regular national media story, it falls upon us to continue to learn what we can, to act individually and support the local nonprofits tackling this issue, and to continue to support–together–the local organizations working to prevent and combat this phenomenon.

In our region, The Women’s Foundation is supporting Grantee Partners that are tackling human trafficking occurring right in our backyard.  They include:  Ayuda, Polaris Project (through their Greater DC Trafficking Intervention Program), CASA of Maryland and Tahirih Justice Center.