stateunemployment.com

It just doesn’t pay to be jobless in Florida
6.16.08/Marcia Heroux Pounds, South Florida Sun-Sentinel.Com
 
The top unemployment benefit in Florida works out to just under $7 an hour, less than what most fast-food workers in the state make. And that’s for anyone who loses a job, whether they had been bringing home six figures or a middle-class paycheck. The state’s weekly maximum benefit of $275 hasn’t budged in 10 years and is making the current economic downtown all the more painful. Talk about it!

Family struggles as Richmond trailer park closes
6.16.08/Wesley P. Hester, Richmond Times Dispatch inRich.com
 
The Abt-Barnett family bought two mobile homes in Americana Trailer Park outside Richmond, Virginia, in an attempt to start anew. Days later, the money-strapped family learned the park would be closing at the end of the summer to make way for a new development. Now they, along with over 200 other low-income families, are facing displacement. Trailer parks, historically a staple part of Richmond’s affordable-housing market, are now a dying breed Talk about it!

Welfare
Pennsylvania wants nursing homes to do more
for the elderly
6.18.08/The Associated Press
via Pennlive.com
 
patients to introduce more programs for the elderly who wish to maintain an independent lifestyle. To do so, the department needs federal approval for an incentive package that reduces the number of beds in each nursing home. That will enable them to use the extra money to add independent living units, outpatient rehabilitation facilities and other services for senior citizens on Medicaid. Talk about it!

Homeless
Oregon homeless students graduate from high school
6.18.08/Anita Kissee Katu.com
Portland, Oregon
 
Thanks to a Portland organization dedicated to helping the city’s homeless youth, 37 homeless students graduated from high school this year. New Avenues for Youth provides homeless teens with opportunities to get education, job training and counseling. The program also helps them find housing. Seven hundred Portland youth benefit from New Avenues each year. Talk about it!

BUDGET
Rhode Island lawmakers may eliminate energy assistance program
6.18.08/The Associated Press via Turnto10.com

 
In Rhode Island, those living in poverty may not get the help they were expecting. State legislators are debating a spending plan that would eliminate programs intended to reduce high energy costs. The program was intended to help pay for renovations that would make the homes of the needy more energy-efficient. But due to the over $400 million spending shortfall, the state’s poor may never get to benefit from the program,Talk about it!

Featured

GUS CHAN/THE PLAIN DEALER

From the inside out:
The Mount Pleasant story

 

Cleveland, the one-time boomtown, has recently been called the country’s poorest big city, and Mount Pleasant -- known for its crime, poverty and substandard living -- is one of the neighborhoods that help the city earn its label. This week, we feature an award-winning multimedia series from The Cleveland Plain Dealer that looks at what Mount Pleasant, and by extension the city itself, was and what it has become.
Talk about it!

Can we save our neighborhoods?
July 2008/cleveland.com