Tag Archive for Colorado

| May 2, 2013
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Efforts Underway to Fight Student Homelessness in Nevada, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and the U.S. Congress

1.6 Million Homeless American Children

1.6 Million Homeless American Children (Photo credit: Occupy* Posters)

There were 1,065,794 homeless students in the U.S. in June 2011, The U.S. Education Department estimates. Recent data show that the number of homeless students rose in 44 states, and that 15 states saw increases of 20% or more. Kentucky had a 57% rise in homeless students over one year. The U.S. homeless student count rose 57% since the start of the recent recession, in 2007.

Prominent homelessness expert Diana Nilan (who once was homeless herself) says:

The government estimate of over a million homeless students is horrifyingly high, but it probably is half of what it would be if all the kids were counted. The count doesn’t include homeless infants, children not enrolled in school and homeless students that schools simply failed to identify.

Seventy-one percent of the kids identified as homeless by the Education Department listed the homes of family or friends as their primary residence, but these kids aren’t counted as homeless by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which means they can’t apply for subsidized housing. That’s bogus!

Many parents fear losing custody of their children who sleep on the street, so they seek alternative living situations (such as in motels, sleeping on friends’ couches and moving around a lot). Efforts are underway in Congress to pass HR 32, which would broaden HUD’s current very-narrow definition of homeless children (those on the streets and in shelters only) and permit more of them to receive government assistance.

A new report shows that only 52% of homeless students who took standardized tests were proficient in reading and only 51% were in math. In Virginia, 21.2% of students who are homeless at some point during their high school years drop out, compared with 14.8% of all poor children. In Colorado, the high school graduation rate is 72% for all students, 59% for poor students and 48% for homeless students,

“When “you don’t have a permanent place to stay, you have to change schools a lot,” said Barbara Duffield, policy director for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth. “It sets you far behind and is socially and emotionally disruptive.”

When Sherrie Gahn became principal of Whitney Elementary in Las Vegas, she was shocked to find students eating ketchup from packets and learned that 85% of them were homeless.
So she told parents:

Give me your children and let me teach them, and in turn I will give you food and clothes and we will take them to the eye doctor. I will pay your rent and your utilities, but you must keep your child here.

Funded by organizations and private donors, she meets a wide range of homeless student needs, from haircuts to financial assistance—and as a result those kids have doubled their standardized test scores. She is now working with Nevada’s First Lady, Kathleen Sandoval, to create an after-school program that will make the children feel productive. Gahn has also promised her homeless students that if they graduate from high school and cannot afford college, she will help pay their tuition.

In Minnesota, where 9% of students were homeless last year (and at least one was regularly sleeping in a public toilet), the legislature is considering a $50 million boost in homelessness programs, plus $50 million in bonding for affordable housing. Last year the state spent $8 million transporting homeless students.

In Pittsburgh, between 2005 and 2009, black homeless families made up 56.3% of residents in family homeless shelters, even though they only accounted for 12 %of the city’s population. Educational disparity is one major reason. So after-school programs are being introduced in homeless shelters.

 

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Category: Education, Homelessness, Humane Exposures, Shelter | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| March 11, 2013
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Youth Incarceration Down in U.S., Colorado

Map of USA with Colorado highlighted

Map of USA with Colorado highlighted (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U.S. juvenile detention has fallen to the lowest level in 35 years, due largely to the increase and growth of remediation programs. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, 44 states have reduced their confinement of juveniles rates between 1997 and 2010, with declines of 66% in Tennessee, 57% in Arizona, 48% in California and 44% in Texas. On the other hand, incarceration rates rose over the period In Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and South Dakota. Over the same period, youth violence dropped significantly.

Bart Lubow, director of The Annie E. Casey Foundation, whose recent study is titled “Youth Incarceration in the U.S” states:

The decline is very significant because America for a long time did nothing but build up its incarcerated young population. But in recent years, there has been a radical sea change. It is a highly important social development that has largely gone on under the radar.

The findings reflect a trend toward less harsh treatment of youthful infractions. Scientific research shows that youths can more easily control destructive impulses as their brains mature.

Most juveniles are confined for minor offenses—such as violating curfew or running away from home—offenses that would not be considered illegal if committed by those 18 and older.

Juvenile justice systems still treat children of color much more punitively than Anglo kids—confining five times more African-American youngsters and two-to-three times more Latinos and Native Americans than Whites.

The Casey Foundation finds wholesale incarceration counterproductive and provides technical assistance to 200 jurisdictions attempting to reduce it.

According to Bartholomew Sullivan, writing in the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

 The Casey Report recommends five steps to accelerate the drop in youth detention, including restricting incarceration only to those “who pose a demonstrable risk to public safety” and upending the financial incentives for correctional placement.

The recent de-incarceration trend provides a unique opportunity to implement responses to delinquency that are more cost-effective and humane and that provide better outcomes for youth, their families and communities.

The number of juveniles committed to the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections has dropped by 44 percent in the past seven years, the result of programs that have put more focus on rehabilitation than detention. Declining populations at the facilities are a result of successfully combining front-end programs—designed to help adolescents before they enter the justice system—and efforts to stop released juveniles from returning.

Colorado Director of Youth Corrections John Gomez states:

Declining populations at our facilities are a result of successfully combining front-end programs—designed to help ad<olescents before they enter the justice system—and efforts to stop released juveniles from returning. We’ve continued to work at ensuring that we are providing the right services at the right time.

With fewer juveniles in detention, the Colorado Department of Human Services, which manages youth corrections, has asked lawmakers to move nearly $8 million from youth corrections to child-welfare services, including early-intervention programs for children and teens before they enter the juvenile justice system.

In the past year, Colorado has enjoyed a 13% drop in youth recidivism. And more juveniles being released from youth corrections are equipped with skill sets that will help them when they return home. While serving their commitments, juveniles can earn their GEDs or high school diplomas and work with their families before being released.

 

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Category: Juvenile Justice, Prison, Prison Reform | Tags: , , , , , , , ,
| October 1, 2010
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“Prison Valley”: The Town With 13 Prisons

PVlogoThere is a place in the U.S. where prison defines the culture of the area around it. That city is Canon City, Colorado, and it is described on the Prison Valley website as:

A town in the middle of nowhere with 36,000 souls and 13 prisons, one of which is Supermax, the new ‘Alcatraz’ of America. A prison town where even those living on the outside live on the inside. A journey into what the future might hold.

The idea boggles the mind. When you start to remember every news item you’ve seen over the decades about prison overcrowding — and realize that each year it’s getting worse — that boggle becomes a chill. Sixteen percent of Canon City’s population are prisoners.

Now you can visit Canon City as easily as you can fire up your web browser. Journalist David Dufresne and photographer Philippe Brault have created an interactive web documentary about the town. Once you start it, you get a narrated drive into the area telling you about the prisons and the settlement that grew up around them. Narrated sequences alternate with interactive experiences to allow you a very organic and in-depth view of the area.

Alison Herd, a writer for Radio France Internationale, comments on the interactive and the social-media-driven aspects of the project:

[…U]sers can check into a room at the motel with a personal Facebook or Twitter account, attend the Dead Warden ceremony run by the Correctional Peace Officers Foundation, visit the prison museum or find out more about the Supermax prison (known as the ‘Alcatraz of the Rockies’).

Above all, the work invites you to go beyond the film, to take part in online debates and exchange emails with people who appear in the documentary.

‘For me, web documentary needs interactivity,’ says photographer Philippe Brault.

‘In Prison Valley we tried to bring debate into the issue of locking people up. That was the ultimate goal: to set off from a small town in Colorado, surrounded by thirteen prisons, soon to be fourteen, and have that story generate debate.’

That is something we applaud. Our own offerings here at HUMANE EXPOSURES are also geared towards expanding the conversation around these topics and exploring possibilities for substantive change. (Just take a look at the items we cover daily on this blog.)

So, please watch Prison Valley. If the awards mean anything, you’re in for quite a ride! Just take a look at what the piece has garnered already in 2010:

Awards:

Official Selections:

It’s a fascinating use of technology and an important study of where the out-of-control penal system could lead if substantive changes are not made. To watch the film, click on this link: Watch Prison Valley Now.

Source: “SOS photojournalism: web docs to the rescue?” Radio France Internationale, 09/1/10
Source: “Prison Valley,” Prison Valley, 2010
Prison Valley Logo, used under Fair Use: Reporting.
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Category: Humane Exposures, Prison | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
| September 10, 2010
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How To Become Homeless

HomelessAs we watch the economy spiral seemingly out of control, the specter of homelessness looms disturbingly close for people of all socioeconomic strata. Add in the chaos in the American housing market, and the picture becomes starkly unpleasant.

It’s a simple fact that we are seeing the number of the homeless grow, and it is disturbingly easy to end up on the streets. Right now, in Colorado, thousands face this possibility as the wildfires ravage the state. I know that feeling well from personal experience. You see, I am a native of New Orleans.

Just over five years ago, hurricane Katrina hit the city, and then the next morning the levees failed, flooding New Orleans. My wife and I had just emptied our savings account to pay for our wedding and honeymoon, and the checking account was low because it was a few days before payday. We ended up evacuating across the country with a total of about $200 and no vehicle.

With our friends, family and support network also scattered across the U.S., things became scary in very short order. Thanks to a few friends in other states we did not lack for a roof, but, as the weeks dragged on, the situation became more and more uneasy. I had a broken hand at the time, and so most earning opportunities were not viable. I was able to pick up a few bucks here and there, but nothing resembling enough income for a fresh start.

It was weeks before we had any inkling of whether we would be able to return to the city, much less whether anything we owned had survived. My then fiancee and I had a backpack of clothes each, a laptop, and our five cats. Things looked bleak.

“What about those legendary FEMA checks for $2,000 that everyone got?” you might ask. Not everyone got assistance, I know I sure didn’t. The Red Cross in New York helped us out with some clothes and a few hundred dollars. Let me tell you, you’ve never seen just how little $300 really is until it is all you have.

I will never forget having to swallow my pride and extend my hand for aid. We made it through thanks to the generosity of friends and strangers in Indiana and New York, but the awareness of the precipice was never absent from my thoughts. A few days before, everything was great: the wedding expenses were paid, I had a great new job, and we had just moved into a new apartment. Then, suddenly, it was all gone, taking all of my social resources with it.

We were very lucky. We made it back to NOLA six weeks after the disaster had struck — to find that most of our stuff had survived. It could easily have gone the other way, leaving us homeless. For many, it did.  I will never forget the fear in my heart during those times.

Just about anyone is susceptible to the whims of Mother Nature, and she can take the roof from over your head in a heartbeat. Whether it is the levee failures in NOLA, wildfires in Colorado, or some other species of disaster — it can happen to you.

Of course, due to my experience, this is what I think of first, but there are many other causes of homelessness. The Walk For The Homeless website enumerates a number of factors, including job loss:

As someone who has been homeless, I can tell you that loss of employment is one reason people, even whole families, become homeless. This is more likely to occur when there is only one wage earner in the family, if employment is seasonal such as construction or lawn maintenance, or if you both work and each earns only minimum wage. While there is usually a combination of reasons why people become homeless a particular one often stands out: illness.  Injury, sickness, and even mental illness can lead to being fired, laid off or replaced. Most of the time if you’re not able to do the work, you are out of a job. When you live from paycheck to paycheck, sometimes all it takes is to miss one or two paychecks and you can end up homeless. This is especially true if you have no friends or family to turn to for help.

Drawing on this information, Drea Knufken at Business Pundit boils things down into the Five Ways to Become Homeless, a list of things and situations that can leave you living on the streets. She also makes a very apt cultural observation:

Homelessness in the United States has always struck me as particularly painful. Penury is not well tolerated in the Land of Opportunity. People think money is easy to come by here, giving extreme poverty an especially powerful stigma.

In some countries, the homeless are seen as being cursed. In America, we do the cursing ourselves, labeling homeless people as lazy — one of Calvinistic capitalism’s direst sins.

The truth is that most homeless people know how to work hard.

This cultural perception is often borne out by observing the way that the majority of people treat the homeless when they encounter them on the streets. Not always, thankfully, but quite often.

Illness, job loss, foreclosure, or natural disaster — all can be harbingers of an upcoming life on the streets. It is worth remembering that these faces could be your own, and it would not take as much as you might think to end up there.

Source: “Why Do People Become Homeless?,” Walk For The Homeless
Source: “5 Ways to Become Homeless,” Business Pundit, 08/15/08
Image by Franco Folini, used under its Creative Commons license.
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