Yikes! Why are my children coming back home to live with me?

An annual report released in September 2011 by the US Census documented their findings on the growth of poverty in the US. The report reveals a startling -- though somewhat expected because the information reflects a prior year -- rise in the poverty rate. What the report does not reveal are the local, even personal, impact of poverty.

Take Kansas City as an example.

Ken at a Midtown Kansas City food pantry mentioned that over the past year he's seen "larger families" show up for food assistance, meaning unemployed members of a family are moving in together. Younger, 20-something children are moving back in with their parents, Ken mentioned.

Perhaps predicting a future, even larger, decline in food assistance options, Ken mentioned some Missouri food pantries may be seeing funding cut for through the Community Service Block Grants.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Community Media: Serving More Than a Geographic Region

Community media outlets like KKFI 90.1 FM in Kansas City have thrived for decades, maintaining a well-established broadcast model: high-quality studio sound broadcast to a wide geographic area serving the "community." Non-profit community radio station like KKFI, along with college radio and small commercial radio stations keep costs low by renting small studios and operating with few paid employees. These stations attract small audiences but differentiate themselves by focusing on community issues, music and culture. This focus is what defines community media, along with -- in the case of community radio -- maintaining cooperative ownership, not corporate ownership. Community radio operators always knew that "community" was more than a geographic region; it was the various cultural, ethnic, social and artistic communities for which locally-produced radio shows target. KKFI has local radio shows by or directed to African-Americans, Mexican-Americans and immigrant
Read more

Quest for a new volunteer management system at KC area food bank

Image
Note: This document is an early draft of a business case to upgrade a volunteer management system. It is not intended to be a fully organized statement of requirements, but more of a collection of features and a document for discussion. Overview Harvesters, the Kansas City area food bank, would like to improve the capability of the Volunteer App, the volunteer management system used to schedule, track and recruit volunteers and groups.  The Volunteer Services department would also like to improve the efficiency and accuracy of volunteer management by adapting their processes with new features and functions from an updated application. The current, custom Microsoft Access-based system developed a few years ago provides a rich-featured, robust solution to track individuals and groups volunteering at Harvesters. The system tracks all volunteers working in the Volunteer Outreach Center, as well as those donating their time and skills for events and in departments throughout Ha
Read more

Lee's Summit Proposes the Sanity Approach to Waste Reduction

Image
Finally! The city of Lee's Summit, Missouri took a responsible approach to trash service by replacing an all-you-can-dump-with-no-free-recycling-option to a "volume-based" approach similar to the successful service used in Kansas City, Missouri. After the service is changed, then those residents who have paid $2.50 per month to trash companies like Deffenbaugh can rely on the new service for free recycling, plus get the satisfaction that waste will be reduced and recycling increased. ...the City Council directed city staff to issue the state-required two-year notice to all solid waste haulers providing services in the City that the City is considering implementation of a comprehensive, citywide, solid waste program.  The program currently proposed by city staff includes volume-based pricing for residential trash service with unlimited, curbside recycling at no additional fee .  Under this proposed program, residents would only pay for the amount of trash they discard ;
Read more