Poverty Law News

Tools for Keeping Current While Avoiding Information Overload

Staying informed of legal developments and news is a challenge for most of us. In a sea of information sources, what are the best websites for poor people’s advocates seeking to stay informed on various topics? What technology tools are available to aggregate relevant information and serve it to you on demand?

Four articles recent posted to eJustice can help. Legal Research on the Internet is a guide to the best sources for substantive legal information of interest to poverty lawyers. An accompanying article describes the features of the Shriver Center website, which serves as an information hub for legal services advocates. Really Simple Ways to Keep Up with News and Information describes really simple syndication, or RSS, and how to use it to keep track of news that is of particular interest to you. A final article features links to particularly useful RSS feeds. Each article includes links to helpful screencasts that offer demonstrations of the topics discussed.

Civil Rights

Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina
There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina, edited by Chester Hartman, director of research at the Poverty and Race Research Action Council and adjunct professor of sociology at The George Washington University and Gregory D. Squires, professor and chair of the sociology department at GW, examines the central role of race and class on housing and redevelopment in the Gulf region prior to and after Katrina, in urban disasters throughout American history, and the implications for future community development in New Orleans and metropolitan areas throughout the U.S. The book includes articles by two dozen critical scholars and activists who present a multifaceted portrait of the social implications of the disaster.

Disability

Disability Advocates Challenge Confinement in Nursing Home
Residents of Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, California have filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge their unnecessary continuing confinement at Laguna Honda Hospital, a 1,000-bed nursing home owned and operated by the city. The complaint asserts that, according to the city’s own assessment, “the vast majority” of the residents are capable of—and prefer—living in their own homes or in supportive community programs, and asks the court to require the city to offer and provide services in alternative community setting.

Employment

Workers' Compensation Fails Injured Workers
A report released by the Center for Justice and Democracy finds that workers' compensation programs throughout the United States have been devastating for injured workers, leaving them to contend with an adversarial bureaucracy and inadequate benefits that render many destitute.

Government and Governmental Services

Federal Spending
OMB Watch has launched FedSpending.org, a free, searchable database of federal government spending. Users can search for data on federal contracts by contractor, place of performance, or contracting agency. Moreover, the grants tab allows users to search through all federal assistance spending by grant recipient, place of performance, or agency.

Health

Language Access in Hospitals
The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) has produced a webcast on helping patients and caregivers communicate and removing language access barriers in hospitals. NHeLP has also released five new reports on language services for patients.

Health Savings Accounts
This brief from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured finds that most low-income families would not benefit from health savings accounts or high-deductible health plans due to an already low level of tax liability and the amount of family income that the high-deductible health plan and potential cost-sharing would consume. In addition, greater cost-sharing potentially reduces the use of health care among those with low-incomes, particularly those who are not in good health.

Housing

Shortfalls in Public Housing Funding
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the amount of funding Congress has provided for public housing operating subsidies in recent years has been inadequate to bridge the gap between rents and operating costs, with the shortfalls increasing with each passing year. Rising utility rates are a major factor behind the growing shortfalls.

Juveniles

Child Care Out of Reach for Many Low-Income Families
Although research clearly demonstrates that investments in high-quality child care pay off for children, a recent report by the National Women’s Law Center shows that states continue to woefully under fund programs that help low-income families pay for child care. The problem is likely to get worse because new welfare work requirements imposed by Congress early this year increase the need for child care assistance.

Taxation

State Earned Income Tax Credits
States that enact Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs) can reduce child poverty, increase effective wages, and cut taxes for families struggling to make ends meet. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has released a report on the rising number of states that offer EITCs.

Welfare

Required Home Visit Does Not Violate Recipients' Rights
The Ninth Circuit has held that San Diego County's welfare eligibility program, Project 100%, which requires all welfare applicants to consent to a warrantless home search as a condition of eligibility, does not violate their rights under the U.S. or California constitutions. Plaintiffs in Sanchez v. County of San Diego had alleged that Project 100% violated their rights under the Fourth Amendment.