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Workfare for Food Stamps?
Poor New Yorkers and advocates say the Bloomberg administration is, for the first time, forcing people receiving food stamps to fulfill work requirements.
Concerns Persist Over Child Welfare Cases Involving Mental Health
As many as one in five child welfare cases involves a parent with a mental health diagnosis, creating challenges for parents, children and caseworkers. Advocates say efforts to address those challenges haven't gone far enough.
Report: Young NYers Face Higher Barriers To Public Assistance
A study of low-income New Yorkers under the age of 24 indicates they have trouble getting welfare benefits to which they are entitled. City officials say the report—and others that raised similar questions—suffers from poor methodology.
Budget Cut Avoided, But Children's Services Still Show Strain
There are reports that some parents are having trouble getting child welfare services because a botched contract award and budget threats last year led providers to scale back.
For Low-Income Immigrants, Status Complicates Survival
C is like many students at Hunter College. She balances work and school, struggles to pay her tuition bill, wonders what the future will hold. Secretly, she also carries the burden of being an undocumented immigrant.
The Poor Have Numbers. Do They Count?
The number of low-income New Yorkers is a matter of statistics. Answering deeper questions about poverty demands drilling down deep into the lives of individual people, a few of whose stories are presented in this month's issue of City Limits.
Even Entrepreneurs Need Food Stamps
Tanya Fields is a college graduate starting her own business. She's also a welfare recipient trying to keep benefits in place until she can support herself. Can she do it all?
From Blue-Collar to the Welfare Line
Walter Greene worked for a living. Then the work disappeared. Now, like thousands of other low-income New Yorkers, he navigates homeless shelter rules and the welfare bureaucracy.
One Woman's Plan to Beat Poverty
Beverly Davis has a full-time job, a family she supports and a college course to complete. She has plans to become a police officer. Public benefits are essential to her move from low-wage work to economic independence.
Sharon's Homework: Self-Sufficiency
After raising a family and burying a husband, Sharon Jones is aiming for a college degree while still looking out for her kids and battling in housing court.
What Would Help Poor New Yorkers? Take Your Pick
Low-income city residents have a long list of suggestions for how to alleviate the causes and consequences of poverty.
From Welfare To Work—Until A Budget Cut Hits
Through the transitional jobs program, hundreds of former welfare recipients have performed actual city jobs—not workfare. But state budget reductions will force the program to scale back.
Human Factor Looms Large In ACS System
What Cuts Will Cost: Children's Learning, Parents' Work
As tabloids celebrate an on-time state budget, a look at what one budget cut at the city level will mean: fewer childcare slots, less school prep for kids and a tough choice for their working parents.
Senate, Assembly Resist Cuomo Cuts To Services
Legislators want to restore many human services that Gov. Cuomo proposed cutting. But the Senate and Assembly still differ by tens of millions of dollars on social funding, and some programs still face elimination.
Critics Of Homeless Program Fight To Save It
Advocates for the homeless have long criticized the Bloomberg administration's approach to getting people out of shelters. But with the state threatening to end funding for the program, most advocates have joined the city to oppose the cuts.
Controversy Over Alleged Muslim Radicalization Not New
In 2007, the NYPD released a report about "the homegrown threat" that troubled local Muslim leaders by labeling innocuous behavior, like displaying concern for "the greater good," as possible hallmarks of "jihadization."
Credits As Collateral: Schools Withhold Records If Debts Unpaid
Some students transferring to public school arrive with no educational records because a private or parochial school has withheld them until tuition debts are paid.
Cuomo's Cuts Could Hit The Poor
The tiff between Albany and City Hall over education aid isn't the only fight brewing over the governor's budget. His cuts to public assistance, homeless services and child welfare are also coming under fire.
Questions About Mayor's Plan To Run Youth Jails
Few would deny that state-run juvenile detention facilities are flawed. But a Bloomberg bid to take control of some of those sites has raised a new set of issues.
Welfare
Since 1996, each state has had control of the welfare system. The states offer basic assistance with health care, food stamps, childcare, and unemployment. Eligibility for welfare is dependent on income, size of family, and “crisis situations”. Each case has a caseworker to assess a family’s eligibility. In New York City, there are over 2,000 outlets for welfare resources. Still, with a lack of funding and a growing number of those in need, food pantries and other services struggle each day to keep their doors open.
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15 Years On, Still No Agreement on Welfare Reform's Impact - Neil deMause
The panel was charged with answering the question, "Welfare Reform at 15: Is It Working?"Their answer depended almost entirely on how each member defined "working."
MULTIMEDIA
Pledge Agreement for Palazzolo Associate
A complex set of corporate relationships (such as the one outlined in these documents, produced under subpoena for New York City;s housing department and obtained by FOIL request) linked Frank Palazzolo, a wealthy real estate operator, and several troubled properties.
2004 HPD subpoena to Bronx real estate figure
In 2004, New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development issued an unprecedented request for information to a real estate operator linked to dozens of troubled buildings.
