Beyond Bread: Healthcare, Hate Crimes, and Housing

~A couple weeks ago we ran a story about Audra, a woman who lost her job and had her savings ravaged by the costs of medication when her employee-provided health insurance ran out. The National Women’s Law Center saw this story as a lightning rod for the healthcare debate, and with our permission used it as the foundation for a story that was picked up by the Huffington Post. The NWLC is a great policy organization, and they share a number of our values. One of our next steps in advocacy is TANF legislation, an issues that NWLC cares about a great deal.

~The Washington Post is reporting that Maryland is on the verge of adding “the homeless” to the groups protected by hate crimes legislation. Senator Mooney said he started taking the issue seriously when he saw a video clip of a group of homeless individuals beaten to death with baseball bats. Indeed, just a few months ago there was some media attention when a homeless man was beaten to death in Columbia Heights and no one stopped to help him. The DC Council is said to be considering similar hate crimes legislation.

~DCFPI’s blog reports that DC is cutting funding for affordable housing by a third for FY10, despite the rising demand (right now there are almost 26,000 people on the housing wait list).

~A big “hey, thanks!” to our friends at FART in DC, a group of young professionals dedicated to the art of faux athletics. All of the proceeds from their events are given to local charities, and recently they chose Bread for the City to be one of their beneficiaries. Their next conquest: blow up float racing!!