Poverty Law News

Attorneys/Legal Services

LSC Grants to Civil Legal Services Providers
The Legal Services Corporation has announced its intent to award grants and contracts to provide civil legal services to eligible low-income clients effective January 1, 2007.

Consumer

Predatory Lending Prevalent in Rural Communities
A recent report from the Carsey Institute finds that predatory lending is increasingly prevalent in rural communities. According to "Subprime and Predatory Lending in Rural America," 17 percent of the rural mortgage loan originations reported in 2004 were classified as high annual percentage rate loans.

Elections

Felony Disenfranchisement in Alabama
The Sentencing Project and the Alabama Alliance to Restore the Vote report that Alabama has the third highest disenfranchisement rate in the nation. One of every 14 Alabama residents is disenfranchised--a rate that is three times the national average. The ACLU of Mississipi has filed a lawsuit against the Mississippi Attorney General challenging that state's denial of voting rights to citizens with felony convictions. The suit requests that the voter registration deadline for the upcoming election be extended for persons with felony convictions who are uncertain about their voting qualifications.

Food Programs

Food Stamp Access in Urban America
More than $1.9 billion in food stamp benefits was left unclaimed by 24 of the largest U.S. cities and urban counties in 2004, according to Food Stamp Access in Urban America, the Food Research and Action Center’s latest survey of food stamp usage and hunger.

Immigration

Lawsuit Challenges Seizure of Wire Transfer Funds
Three legal immigrants and an immigrant advocacy group have filed suit in federal court challenging the Arizona Attorney General's practice of seizing "suspect" wire transfers of funds from individuals out of the State of Arizona. The attorney general has seized $17 million in recent years, targeting money transfers in excess of $500 on the suspicion that they are payment to smugglers transporting people or drugs into Arizona from Mexico. Plaintiffs wired money for legitimate purposes but could not satisfy Arizona authorities' demands for information on the wire transfers.

Health

Medicaid at a Turning Point
The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured's annual 50-state survey of Medicaid officials finds an improved economy combined with the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit has contributed to the lowest rate of Medicaid spending growth in a decade and the fourth consecutive year in which Medicaid spending growth has slowed.

Coverage of Parents Helps Children
A growing body of research demonstrates that one highly effective way of boosting health coverage among low-income children is to broaden health insurance programs so that the programs also cover their parents. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that states that have expanded Medicaid coverage for low-income parents have experienced significantly greater gains in enrollment among eligible children than states that did not expand parents’ coverage.

Medicare Privatization: Windfall for the Special Interests
Families USA reports that, three years after the passage of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, the move to privatize Medicare has resulted in windfalls for the drug and insurance industries and huge costs to taxpayers and beneficiaries.

Addressing HIV/AIDS in the Hispanic Community
Hispanics make up 14 percent of the U.S. population but account for one in every five people living with HIV/AIDS, including a disproportionate number of women and youth. The National Council of La Raza has released a report that discusses the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in the Latino community and outlines a new paradigm for addressing HIV/AIDS.

Housing

Shriver Center Attorney Wins 2006 Housing Justice Award
Katherine Walz of the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law won a 2006 Housing Justice Award last week at the Housing Justice Network conference of the National Housing Law Project. Walz received the award for her work on affordable housing and low-income housing rights. The award for Walz, who is a senior attorney at the Shriver Center, recognizes “an energetic and unstoppable activist … who is fearlessly and successfully tackling the systemic and often hostile obstacles that stand in the way of safe, decent and affordable housing for low-income and marginalized people.”

Advocates Challenge Conversion of Subsidized Housing into Dorms
Attorneys from the Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, the Housing Preservation Project, and pro bono lawyers from Sachnoff & Weaver Ltd. are challenging in a class action lawsuit filed last month the Moody Bible Institute’s unlawful conversion of project-based Section 8 housing into student dormitories. Moody Bible’s action unfortunately is a national trend: universities purchase subsidized housing and attempt to use it as housing for students.

Ordinance Bans Landlords from Renting to Undocumented Immigrants
The City of Escondido, California, has passed an ordinance that would prohibit landlords from renting property to undocumented immigrants.

Welfare

Climbing the Economic Ladder and Rising Out of Poverty
MDRC, which conducts research to identify effective strategies to help low-income youth and adults escape poverty by achieving success in the labor market, has collected papers focused on these issues.

Analysis of Fiscal Year 2005 TANF and MOE Spending
The Center for Law and Social Policy has published worksheets analyzing how the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the nation as a whole spent the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grants and state Maintenance of Effort (MOE) funds in fiscal year 2005. States reported this information to the Administration for Children and Families.

Poverty Law News
October 27, 2006