The National Hunger Clearinghouse's online search directory contains information on thousands of organizations across the United States that are working on hunger, poverty, nutrition, agriculture and food issues.
Interested parties can search for food assistance, volunteer opportunities, places to donate food or other information from programs in their areas that are fighting hunger and poverty.
HHS Says TANF Participation Down Despite rise in child poverty, HHS' Horn callsdecline in welfare caseloads "encouraging"
The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program saw a continued decline in participation during 2002 and early 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This decline coincided with the increase in child poverty in 2002, as recorded by the Census Bureau.
Though there has been a rise in child poverty and an increase of unemployment among single mothers, HHS Assistant Secretary for Children and Families called the continued decline in welfare caseloads "encouraging," according to a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Center also presented other indicators should be seen as a cautionary sign in this economy, rather than as evidence of welfare reform’s success: the employment rate among families that have left public assistance declined from 50% in 1999 to 42% in 2002; the number of families with income below half of the poverty line increased by 400,000 between 200 and 2001; and 50% of the families eligible for TANF actually received it, compared to 80% in 1996.
1.4M Join Ranks of Poor Americans Families and individuals suffer alike
A new census report indicates that poverty levels are on the rise. According to the report, the total percentage of people in poverty increased to 12.4 percent from 12.1 percent in 2001 and totaled 34.8 million. The number of families living in poverty also rose to 7 million in 2002 from 6.6 million in 2001, a difference of more than 300,000.
The number of children in poverty rose by more than 600,000 during the same period to 12.2 million. The rate of increase in children under age 5 jumped a full percentage point to 19.8 percent living below the poverty line from 18.8 percent a year earlier, reported The New York Times.
Key quotes:
Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said, "Some people had drawn a Pollyanna-ish conclusion that somehow changes in the welfare system would insulate children from increases in poverty during economic slumps."
"These new data show that that assumption is flatly incorrect." Mr. Greenstein said. "It also underscores the mistake in federal tax policies that exclude the very families who are hurting the most."
Riverkeeper Clearwater Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition NYC Campaign to Close Indian Point and NYC Sierra Club
A joint membership meeting to discuss the effort to close the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant
Wednesday, September 17, at 6:30pm Washington Square United Methodist Church 135 West 4th Street (just east of 6th Ave)
The combined memberships of Riverkeeper, Clearwater, IPSEC, NYC CIP and NYC Sierra Club represent tens of thousands of New Yorkers. Over 20 million people live within 50 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. An accident or terrorist attack on this facility could put our entire region at risk of permanent radioactive contamination. The meeting on September 17 will be a public strategy session on the combined efforts of New York's environmental community to permanently shut down and decommission the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant.
In Unity there is Strength, and in Unity, the environmental community of NYS can act to protect our health and environment by shutting down Indian Point.
WHO: 1/2 of Africans Without Key Medicines Common diseases and HIV go untreated
According to a new study released by the World Health Organization, half of the population of Africa is without access to existing essential medicines and a large number of newer medicines for treating common diseases like malaria and HIV.
Key quotes:
"Only 50 000 of the 4,5-million people who need anti-retroviral therapy have access to treatment despite significant reductions in cost," states the annual report for 2002 of the regional director of the World Health Organisation. Only 6% have access to voluntary counselling and only 1% to services for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, it says.
About 29-million HIV-positive people, 70% of the global total, are in Africa, and an estimated 3-million died of Aids last year.
"For example, measles-related deaths are still extremely high at 445 000 annually; pertussis causes 106 000 to 190 000 deaths annually; yellow fever is still endemic in 34 countries, causing about 30 000 deaths annually; and mortality from neonatal tetanus is about 510 per 1 000 live births."
Save the Children Releases Report: Poorest UK kids worse off if parents go from welfare to work
The non-profit Save the Children has released a major study of 4,000 of the poorest British children during the 1990s. The study shows that one-fifth of the "worst-off" families were those with adults in work rather than on benefits, reports the BBC.
Save the Children has been urging the government to be more flexible in giving its benefits in order to cut child poverty in half by the year 2010 -- a goal the British government made a priority in 1999.
Key quote:
Sue Middleton, director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy and co-author of the report, said: "The government was right to take up child poverty as a major issue. But one of the main problems is where they experience change in their lives this can lead to severe poverty."
