Poverty Law News

Attorneys/Legal Services

California Chief Justice Seeks Civil Counsel for Poor
Ronald George, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, will ask the governor to test a program that would provide lawyers to indigent clients in certain types of civil cases such as child custody disputes and evictions.

Civil Rights

Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse
Washington University School of Law has established the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, a collection of documents and information about civil rights cases in selected case categories across the United States. The site focuses on cases seeking injunctive relief rather than damages; for each category, the goal is to include a close-to-comprehensive catalog of the cases in which plaintiffs have actually been awarded or negotiated such change.

Consumer

Women Are Targets of Subprime Lending
A recent report from the Consumer Federation of America finds that women are more likely to receive subprime mortgages than men. The gap is especially pronounced for women of color. Patterns of subprime gender disparity exist for home purchase, refinance, and home improvement lending.

Family Law

Factors Influencing the Sequence of
Marriage and Childbirth Among Disadvantaged Americans
This policy brief from the Center for Law and Social Policy explores the attitudinal, experiential, economic, and social contexts in which disadvantaged parents have children and then decide to marry or not to marry. It also discusses the public policy research on this topic.

Food Programs

Food Stamp Participation in October 2006
The Food Research and Action Center reports that 26,294,464 persons participated in the Food Stamp Program in October 2006. Food Stamp Program growth in recent years reflects continuing wage stagnation, state actions to improve access, the effects of the 2002 food stamp reauthorization implementation, and disaster relief.

Health

Medicaid Home and Community-Based Waiver Programs
Developing home and community-based service (HCBS) alternatives to institutional care has been a priority for many state Medicaid programs over the last two decades and the focus of Medicaid policy debates recently. While the majority of Medicaid long-term care dollars go toward institutional care, the national percentage of Medicaid spending on HCBS has more than doubled from 1992 to 2003. This report from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured presents a summary of the main trends to emerge from the data for the three Medicaid HCBS programs, and findings from the survey of policies used on 1915(c) waivers in 2005.

Housing

Appeals Court Issues Partial Stay of Order
Requiring FEMA to Provide Housing Assistance to Evacuees
The D.C. Court of Appeals has granted in part and denied in part the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)'s motion to stay the district court's order in this suit challenging the termination of housing benefits to thousands of hurricane evacuees. The appeals court stayed those provisions of the lower court's order that required FEMA to immediately restore section 403 short-term housing assistance benefits to evacuees. However, the court declined to stay the notice provisions of the district court's order. Therefore, if notified evacuees can show that they have been wrongfully denied housing assistance, FEMA will be obligated to provide them with assistance.

Juveniles

Homeland Insecurity: Children at Risk
To help spark debate about the need for major new federal investments in children and families, the Every Child Matters Education Fund has published a book called Homeland Insecurity… American Children at Risk. Drawing mostly from official federal data, Homeland Insecurity shows the challenges families face in raising healthy children.

Mental Health

Missouri Supreme Court Reverses Termination of Parental Rights
The Supreme Court of Missouri has reversed the lower court's ruling terminating the parental rights of a disabled mother whose child was born with with a medical condition requiring special care and feeding. When the child was five days old, the state--concerned that Mother could not care adequately for her son, given his special needs and her bipolar disorder and mild cerebral palsy--removed the child from Mother's custody and placed him with the children's division.

Welfare

Best and Worst State Economies for Women
Women's economic status differs strongly by region and from state to state. This briefing paper from the Institute for Women's Policy Research examines the differences between the states in how women fare economically and ranks the states from best to worst on eight indicators gathered into two composite indices.

Workforce Investment Act
The Department of Labor has published a notice of proposed rulemaking to implement several policy changes to the Workforce Investment Act and Wagner-Peyser Act regulations. Through these regulations, the Department implements these two laws and provides guidance for statewide and local workforce investment systems. The changes set forth in this proposed rulemaking address problems associated with the large size of State and local Workforce Investment Boards; the sequence of core, intensive, and training services; the governor's authority over eligible training providers; and the availability of Individual Training Accounts to youth. Comments are due February 20, 2007.

Statistical Abstract of the United States
The Census Bureau has published the 2007 statistical abstract of the United States. The statistical abstract, published since 1878 and also known as the National Data Book, is the authoritative and comprehensive summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States.

Poverty Law News
January 12, 2007