Beyond Bread: Weekly Roundup (Beyond Bailout Edition)

~So let's start this off nice and easy... with a nod to the approaching 2009 Anti-Hunger Policy Conference! Could this be the most timely anti-hunger conference in recent memory? Seems likely but, :-O, this event costs some $$$. $310 for a ticket, and that's with the Early Bird Special which ends this Sunday. One would think that anti-hunger folks would be dollar-mindful... you know, at least a B.Y.O.Brown.Bag kind of deal? But what I really mean to say here is: does anyone out there want to sponsor a Bread for the City registration in return for what will surely be ace-to-the-minute anti-hunger blogging? Yes we can! Just tell us so in the donation-comment field.

~The bleakness: 100,000 jobs lost in a week. President Obama's +$800billion stimulus package passed the House and now heads to the Senate. While more tax cuts get built into the thing to appease intractable Republicans, word continues to percolate that, dollar-for-dollar, the best stimulus is food stamps (according to Moody's, $1 invested in food stamps results in $1.73 of trickling-up economic activity) and similar support for the lowest income Americans. The plan as it stands has $102 billion set aside for food stamps and unemployment insurance (and, remarkably, an unprecedented amount for education). The Poverty and Policy Blog points to the Coalition on Human Needs' summary review of the stimulus package. The gist is: there's good stuff in there, but it just might not be enough. In the meantime, aid is coming to the states (and District) to presumably help them shore up critical programs like Medicaid etc, but no one knows yet what it's going to look like.

~So what's the word for a victory that's undeniably a victory, not the pyrrhic kind but rather a seriously legit win that somehow still leaves one feeling cold in the shadow of the billowing clouds of war? In this instance, small beans would have an uncomfortable ring to it since the beans at stake are four million previously-uninsured children who will now be covered by SCHIP. For serious: it's good news (DC doesn't have an SCHIP program per se, but the funding does come to us via the DC Health Care Alliance, which ultimately reimburses the care we give in Bread for the City's medical clinic), though it's still a far cry from universal. And but so did anyone else notice Nancy Pelosi's stated mantra for her Congress -- "women and children first" -- and get even more unnerved? Right?

Bigger Bread Ahead: DCPCA grants us $1.35m for expansion

So... we're gonna need a bigger building!

Bread for the City's Northwest medical clinic currently serves 2700 patients, which puts us basically 'at capacity.' We do accept new patients, but our available slots are typically taken within minutes of opening the phone lines every morning. Our medical staff is great at running things as efficiently as possible, but there's no denying that the conditions in our clinic are cramped and not optimal for providing truly quality primary care.

Likewise, as all of our other programs have been growing at a fast clip ever since we moved into our building in 1994, every department suffers for space. Our social workers must have sensitive conversations with clients in small rooms off crowded hallways; our food pantry currently doubles as a storage closet; the less said about our legal clinic's desk-spaces the better; meanwhile, Bread for the City's humble accountants and bloggers and assorted pencil-pushers are out-housed up the street in an office that this humble blogger will gingerly describe as such: :-/

We need more space -- and fortunately, the DC Primary Care Association has stepped up to provide the hefty seed money for a major expansion of our facility. A new and nifty medical clinic is the centerpiece of the expansion: it will have twice as many visitation rooms, specially-equipped for specialty care and almost tripling our capacity to serve the community.

It was recently announced (press release PDF here!) that we'll receive $1.35 million for the expansion as part of the DCPCA's Medical Homes DC initiative, which is funded in part by the Government of the District of Columbia. Through Medical Homes DC, $30 million is being distributed to community health organizations like Bread for the City. We'd already received a commitment of $2.975m from the DCPCA; this additional funding puts us over the halfway mark of our capital campaign.

That's an $8.5 million dollar capital campaign; hefty to be sure, so expect to hear more about it on this blog. Right now, you can check out the plans for the new building (and images of our former centers). You can also jump right in and join our capital campaign with a donation today!

And looking ahead, you should note the groundbreaking for construction on the new center: March 25th at 8AM (rain or shine). We'd love to have you come join us! (RSVP @ rsvp@breadforthecity.org)

Many thanks to the DCPCA for making this possible. Along with the generous and compassionate support of our community, we're going to take a major step forward to meet the great need for health care and other critical services in DC.

What's going on with DC's DMH? (Part 1)

DC's Department of Mental Health is undergoing some big changes. Here at Beyond Bread, we will do our best to cover the changes and bring light to the effects that they're having on the District residents who need these services. (Through our Representative Payee program, we help 800 people receive their disability benefits -- many of whom will be affected by the DMH changes.)

But first, the basics...

DC DMH currently provides direct mental health services to about 4,000 severely mentally ill individuals from 4 different locations throughout the District. Typically you hear these locations referred to collectively as "the DC CSA" (Community Services Agency). These services are described as "wrap-around, community-based" services--assistance with daily living like making doctor appointments, day programs, case management, etc.

While the DC CSA has been doing a reasonably good job caring for the needs of the severely mentally ill, there is very little capacity for those who need less comprehensive care. Those who need to meet regularly with a therapist, those who suffer from mild depression or anxiety who could benefit from an anti-depressant, or those in need of group counseling are at a real disadvantage with our current system. There just isn't capacity for these types of basic (but important) office-based services.

Thankfully, DC realizes that this is a problem and is working to diversify the public mental health system. The centerpiece of their plan is to close the DC CSA and use the savings to expand capacity in the private sector so that DMH could go from being both provider and overseer to just being the overseer. See this recent Washington Post article on the matter, and Kathryn Baer's Poverty and Policy blog where she recently wrote about the history of the DC CSA and the implications of the proposed closure.

This redefinition is necessary to improve the quality of services provided in the District and to improve the efficiency of mental health funding. I think Kathryn's right that the restructuring will ultimately be for the better, expanding the access to these services to thousands of people who currently are underserved, but that doesn't mean it will be easy.

In the midst of the transition, thousands of people who need guidance and stability hang in the balance. It's going to take a lot of coordination and commitment to make sure nobody falls through the cracks.

DMH finally released its implementation plan for the transition - so stay tuned to this blog for a run-down of the plan and a look ahead to the coming year.

Mayor Fenty's Announces Stimulus Agenda

The City Paper reported Friday that Mayor Fenty has released a letter he wrote to Representative Norton outlining what he would like her to ask Congress to fund. As the City Paper notes, some of the news isn't surprising. Mr. Fenty's number one priority is "School Modernization," most of which would be for capital improvements. Also included are a couple bridge projects (Eleventh Street and Capitol South Street Bridges), a forensics lab for the DC police, and a big sewer.

All of those are good, logical things. Even more interesting is his last request: for Congress to temporarily raise Medicaid matching rates, something long overdue. Despite his rather meager stimulus agenda (by my calculation, the projects on his agenda don't cover DC's budget shortfall), I was a little surprised at how much was left out. Though Mr. Fenty makes a passing reference to UDC, there is no mention of money to train or retrain residents currently out of work. Also cited is HUD's Neighborhood Stabilization Project, under which DC does not get as much money as it could because Congress does not treat the District as a state, but equally important is increased funding for the almost dormant Housing First Initiative, which didn't make it into his request. There are a number of small things Mr. Fenty could have asked for that would have been significant to the one-fifth of his city's residents living below the poverty line. Asking for a moderate amount of funding to shore up all of the programs he cut would have been a good gesture. With crisis comes opportunity, and it would be a shame and a blunder to request a minor amount of assistance in the face of a major and prolonged economic downturn.

Dishin' on Nutrition Initiatives

In her great new Poverty and Policy blog, Kathryn Baer recently linked to a letter that Bread for the City Executive Director George Jones posted here about the need for nutrition initiatives to improve community health. Kathryn's post reaffirmed the importance of comprehensively addressing the matters of hunger, obesity, and other forms of malnutrition – and she notes the challenges involved in such a mission. How can we get people to eat healthier without dictating their diet, item for item?

I want to call attention to two programs that show lots of non-paternalistic promise:

• The People's Grocery, of Oakland, California. This non-profit organization engages community through their youth and adult outreach efforts, including working their 3 1/2-acre farm, holding regular cooking classes, peer education programs, and monthly community parties that feature health-focused guest chefs, poetry readings, a local DJ, and more. Their flagship program has been their popular Mobile Market, an affordable health food store on wheels that has served West Oakland for years. (West Oakland, like DC’s communities East of the River, is an area deprived of food markets but rich in liquor stores.) The Mobile Market is now on hold as The People's Grocery focuses their resources on opening a brick-and-mortar health-centered grocery store in West Oakland, the first supermarket there in more than 20 years, and the only in the four square miles of this neighborhood.

• Wholesome Wave's Double Value Coupon Initiative, which started in Connecticut and is expanding nationally. To complement the Food Stamp and the USDA Farmers Market Nutrition Programs, participants are able to receive twice the amount of produce at local farmer's markets. A $3 WIC voucher has a new worth of $6, and $5 in food stamps suddenly means $10 of fruits and vegetables. By encouraging the purchase of healthier foods in this way, private money is being used to augment governmental programs, government is not dictating what to purchase, sustainable agriculture is strengthened, and local economies are supported.

Both of these efforts started with small budgets and straightforward concepts. We'd love to hear of other programs you're acquainted with that are approaching this issue in innovative and holistic ways.

Beyond Bread: The Weekly Roundup

~Special thanks to Kathryn at the Poverty & Policy blog for picking up George's open letter to the Washington Post. Ms. Baer always has insightful, well researched stuff, and we're happy to count her among our friends.

~Bread for the City got another mention (albeit brief) by Norman Ornstein in a lucid piece he wrote about how President Obama's administration should commit to getting nutritious food to all Americans.

~A former Bread for the City volunteer, Elizabeth Acevedo, won The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award this year for Diversity Education and Service!

~The House voted again, just before the inauguration, to expand health insurance for children. The State Children's Health Insurance Program is badly in need of expansion, but efforts to do so were twice vetoed by President Bush. Assuming the Senate can figure out what it's doing, we might see dramatic new legislation very soon!

Welcoming a New Era

[A similar version of this post appeared in Bread for the City’s most recent quarterly newsletter, City Helpings. To subscribe to our mailings, email info{at}breadforthecity{dot}org with the subject “newsletter”]

As I watched the inauguration of our country’s 44th President yesterday, I was overcome with the incredible energy in the air throughout our city. And considering the path ahead, I was struck by the force of the momentum of this occasion: President Barack H. Obama comes to office now amidst high hopes and incredible challenges of a breathtaking scale.

We welcome the new President, and call upon him to fulfill his campaign promises: among them to provide health care for all, to help businesses create jobs that pay living wages, and to support community initiatives that will combat poverty.

He has lots of work to do. We all do.

A year and a half ago, President Obama gave a major address on poverty in Anacostia, a few miles from our Southeast Center:

We stand not ten miles from the seat of power in the most affluent nation on Earth. Decisions are made on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue that shape lives and set the course of history. With the stroke of a pen, billions are spent on programs and policies; on tax breaks for those who didn't need them and a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged. Debates rage and accusations fly and at the end of each day, the petty sniping is what lights up the evening news.

And yet here, on the other side of the river, every other child in Anacostia lives below the poverty line. Too many do not graduate and too many more do not find work. Some join gangs, and others fall to their gunfire.

The streets here are close to our capital, but far from the people it represents. These Americans cannot hire lobbyists to roam the halls of Congress on their behalf, and they cannot write thousand-dollar campaign checks to make their voices heard. They suffer most from a politics that has been tipped in favor of those with the most money, and influence, and power.

How can a country like this allow it?

No matter how many times it's asked or what the circumstances are, the most American answer I can think of to that question is two words:

"We can't."

We can’t allow it. It’s not who we are. Americans are a diverse and proud people, working together to overcome adversity. We demand dignity and respect, and at the same time, we give generously of ourselves.

But for more than three decades, the American Dream has fallen increasingly out of the reach of so many. During that time, Bread for the City has served the tens of thousands of our neighbors who have slipped through the cracks. We’ve done it with the support of concerned, compassionate community members; proof positive that, yes, an inspired community can provide respectful, effective care for the most vulnerable among us.

I am proud of all we have accomplished, and all that our partners in the community have accomplished. But we can only catch people as they are falling. We cannot change the conditions that make it perilously easy for people to fall in the first place. True, sweeping change can come only through a dynamic balance of committed and determined leadership from above, and robust grassroots action from below.

And now we’ve come to the beginning of a new era. The coming year is a decisive moment, in which President Obama will set forth to realize this vision of America that we share. He has made great promises over the past two years – many of which, as he himself acknowledges, will not be easy to fulfill.

President Obama promised an expansion of health care to cover every American. He has promised to create programs that will increase access to affordable housing and increased access to food stamps. And he has called for a renewed societal commitment to service in all forms – service like that which is done by the volunteers who work hard every day right alongside me in Bread for the City’s offices.

Volunteers like Deanna Drake, who recently told her story about working with a homeless man on this blog. It’s her service, and the service and commitment of thousands of Bread for the City volunteers and donors, that compels me to believe President Obama when he says that we can and must take action to affect change, in spite of great difficulty. And it’s how I know that we can’t wait for President Obama to singlehandedly bring this change himself. We must work in partnership with him – citizens, community organizations, and government combining our efforts to overcome the great difficulties of our time.

At Bread for the City, we’re committed to this role. In the last several years, a faltering economy and decaying social infrastructure have caused an increase in demand for every one of our services, and we are rising to this challenge on all fronts. The size of our legal clinic has doubled in just a few years. Our food program has recently seen an annual increase of 20% in the number of bags we distribute. We’ve just hired our second full-time staff physician for our medical clinic, which has itself seen annual increase of 20% in the number of visits we receive. All of this growth was made possible by your support.

And we will only be able to maintain this increased service level with the continued—and increased—support from our community.

I find hope in this moment of crisis. As bleak as the economic outlook may be, we also find ourselves facing a great opportunity. For too long, the poor have been invisible to our media, and absent from our leaders’ agendas – even absent from their campaign speeches. Finally, people are thinking about those who are ground down to desperation by forces beyond their control. Our country is increasingly aware of the growing millions who need the kind of help we give here in Bread for the City every day. Now is the time to be bold in our commitment to change.

Bread for the City is determined to carry on, to meet the rising level of need in our community. We are determined to do as we have done for over thirty years: to expand, to grow, to do more. We are excited to engage in this new chapter alongside President Obama, and greatly hope to help him carry out his promises to reduce poverty and ensure viable, humane health care for all.

Our work is needed now more than ever – and, indeed, our hope for the future only grows stronger.

The unOfficial Inaugural Ball

So there are some things happening in DC in the next few days! As everyone braces themselves for an influx of what could be millions of people, note that at least one of the big Inaugural Balls is set to benefit Bread for the City.

Here's some information about the unOfficial Inaugural Ball from one of the planners:

In 1992 when Bill Clinton was elected to the White House, a group of enthusiastic, socially conscious twenty-somethings rented out Eastern Market and held the Inaugural Ball for the Not Well Connected. Sixteen years later, the election of Barack Obama has inspired some of the original ball planners and others like them to organize The 2009 UnOfficial Ball.

The UnOfficial Ball will be held at McLean Gardens Ballroom on January 20th. Proceeds will benefit Bread for the City. Our Deputy Director Jeannine Sanford (and her husband Charlie Parker) will represent us at the event, along with Rosalind Cohen, Esq., Vice President of Bread for the City's Board of Directors (accompanied by her husband Don).

Beyond Bread: A Glance at News Across the Nation

President-Elect Barack Obama will take office next week, and I suspect many, if not all, direct-service providers share my curiosity about whether poverty reduction efforts will make it into the new President's speech. How serious is Mr. Obama about housing, healthcare, and literacy efforts? Is he prepared to expand AmeriCorps, Volunteer Corps, and the host of other stipended programs that provide non-profits with crucial support? Many non-profits are in grave danger of shutting down completely. If the role of government isn't the single determining factor determining whether the safety net strengthens or depletes, it certainly makes the top five list. We'll be keeping a close watch during the first 100 days of Mr. Obama's presidency, and in the meantime we'll take our minds off it by following some links.

~West Coast: The Orange County Register has one of the best articulated arguments I've heard for communities taking responsibility for the issue of homelessness in their neighborhoods.

~Midwest: Stone Soup Station out of Nashville has another great entry about the way in which we conceive of the problem of homelessness (namely, that we never think to fully fund the effort).

~East Coast: The Washington Post reports that before the inauguration, all homeless residents within the security perimeter will be carted off to shelters on the outskirts of DC. The problem with that being that the few shelters remaining in DC don't have the capacity to hold all of the estimated homeless.

~National: Poverty in America has a great roundup of links to organizations producing data on poverty.

~Honorable Mention/Story I Feel Guilty for Missing: The Washington Informer has Mr. Obama's designate to HHS, Mr. Daschle, holding a discussion about healthcare with residents of the Congress Heights Senior Wellness Center.

Looking for Something to do on MLK Day?

One of our closest allies, The Capital Area Food Bank, is partnering with Feeding America for a rally outside the Martin Luther King Jr. Library located at 9th and G Streets NW. The rally starts at noon and will feature Martin Luther King III, John Arquette, and Herbie Hancock.

We Feed Our People, another non-profit, will then pass out meals to about 1,000 homeless people. If you go, don't forget to poke your neighbors and remind them that MLK Library (along with every other library in DC) is targeting homeless residents and kicking them out this winter season.

You can see more information about the event on CAFB's formal invitation.

The Fruits of Laboring Together

Our friends at the 7th Street Garden are continuing their transition to the bigger, better Gage-Eckington location, and they're getting lots of help along the way. Community members and volunteers helped prep the new site and relocate much of the garden, and a really cool group called Casey Trees recently awarded them a small grant to plant some fledgling trees at the new location. As they wait for the new trees to grow, they're eager to transplant the fruit trees that are located at the old site, adjacent to Bread for the City.

I recently took some time with Bread for the City's resident tree-whisperer, Kendra Sudano (who is currently on leave and dearly missed), to sit down among the trees and commune with them. Turns out there's a lot to say about trees! Here's an excerpt from what Kendra told me:

These trees aren't native and they're growing apart from their brethren--together only in these small groups, and that makes for a fragile habitat. At the same time, and I don't want to anthropomorphize the trees, but I'd like to believe that these trees are stronger for having grown in this environment. I feel like these trees are strengthened by this site, where humans themselves are more diverse. We know that biological and cultural and ecological diversity go hand in hand, so though these trees are growing alone in a habitat that's not natural for them, they're also growing as part of a community that is itself learning to celebrate its diversity and channel its manifold energies into something that is once again a productive, plentiful ecosystem. Maybe the trees themselves are free to grow stronger and better because the humans that have surrounded and tended to them are trying to learn how to communicate.

The 7th Street Garden did a great job of pulling groups of people together that are too often separated by class, race, and a number of other perceived differences. Gardens like these help bring neighborhoods together in a shared venture and spirit (plus, duh, grow food that will feed people who live right along or near the reclaimed land). In the Garden’s new site, which is spacious and otherwise would be abandoned, it is even better poised to be a {pun alert} growth center {end pun alert} for our community.
The story of the Garden’s transition was recently featured on NPR: you can listen to that piece here, as well as a nerdy-in-the-good-way piece about the trees of our nation’s capital (which is apparently known by some as the "City of Trees").

We want to help make sure that the trees from the old site can continue growing at the new site. But we'll need the right equipment, like a tree spade, and a truck w/ a bed that lowers to the ground. Contact me at gbloom {at} breadforthecity {dot} org if you can help us find the right tools for the job.

A Note from Gail

Gail, a Bread for the City client, is a cook at a senior assisted living facility, and also cooks for her church. She attends Bread for the City’s Fit for Fun cooking classes, and is using the recipes at work and at her church to provide more nutritious meals. “I’ve also signed up for the food pantry,” says Gail. “I used to eat most of my meals at work, but now I can have a home-cooked meal at my own home every so often.”

I have a job but no health insurance. I have high blood pressure and hypertension, and need medicine for both. My friend told me that Bread for the City’s medical clinic would be able to help me. So I came here to see what it was all about – and I found so much more.

Once I was here, I spoke with Sharon Gruber, and she invited me to come to the cooking classes. I’ve learned so much from these classes! And I already thought I knew about cooking – I cook for my church, and I work as a cook for a seniors’ assisted living center.

Usually there are about five of us in the class, and Sharon brings some food in and we try it, and talk about how it’s made, and talk about how we can make it on our own.

I learned all kinds of things in the class, like how sugar-free things aren’t always good for you. It’s weird. But Sharon helps us figure it all out. We learn to read the labels on food packages, which is not something I ever used to do because you’d go into a store to read labels and you wouldn’t be able to leave until it closes.

But I’m learning about what to watch out for. Like I’ve always figured that juice was good for you. But it turns out that juice can have a lot of sugar in it – you have to watch out.

I’m also learning how to flavor things without using all the salt. We learn about different seasonings, like a Japanese mixture called gomasio that’s good on vegetables.

I really never liked brown rice before, even though I’d tried to cook it. It doesn’t go with gravy! But I’m learning how to make it work (and gravy’s not so great for you, anyways). And another time we cooked sushi rice and added a drop of honey – it was delicious! And we’ve tried avocado, which I’m getting to like.

So now I’m taking the recipes to use at my job and at my church. They’ve had the same food there for so long, and I’m just doing things like reducing the amount of salt and cooking with better ingredients. Things that just make it healthier. For the most part nobody notices, but I now know how much healthier it is for everyone so it’s something I’m going to keep doing. And I’m going to keep coming to Bread for the City, because I’ve only just started learning.

Gail cooking for her family on Christmas Eve--looks good!

One Step at a Time

Several Bread for the City programs rely upon dedicated workers who come to us through faith-based Volunteer Corps. Similar to AmeriCorps, Volunteer Corps place recent graduates in jobs for up to two years of service in low-income areas. Volunteers live together in group houses, work full-time with us, and get paid what amounts to nutrient-enriched dirt. In exchange, they receive an invaluable experience.

Today, Westmoreland Volunteer Deanna Drake shares the story of her first day as a case manager in our Social Services program.

I arrived clean pressed to my first day of work as a social service case manager at Bread for the City. Crisp notebook, newly-hemmed trousers, and smart new pointy shoes. I thought I was ready.

My first lesson was unexpected: one should not break in new shoes on the first day of work. I had blisters on my feet by the start of our long orientation tour, and had to try hard to keep from grimacing as I was swept up in a blur of friendly faces and names, tricky office technology, confusing abbreviations and social policy lingo. And then we hit the stairs. My new pointy shoe caught on my newly-hemmed trousers, and down I went in front of everyone.

This, however, was not the most humbling moment to come that day. I hadn’t yet met my first client.

That would be Mr. D – a middle aged man who brought with him a bundle of belongings. We know clients like Mr. D to be “chronically homeless.” His hair was matted and his beard was scraggly; he slouched with his head in his hands, and when he spoke, he seemed tired and hopeless. But I could tell that he was kind.

After my supervisor made introductions, the three of us talked about Mr. D’s experiences. “It’s just overwhelming,” he said about his efforts to find housing. I was struck by his honesty and the complexity of it all: the nature of his struggle was both personal and systemic.

Over the course of the coming weeks, we laid out some goals for our work together: each individual goal was modest, but in the end it would add up to an opportunity for safety and stability. Out of an alphabet soup of acronyms – SSA? DDS? DHS? DMH? HUD? DCHA? – I learned about benefits that would provide him a steady income, and I found opportunities to receive stable and affordable housing. But each one entailed a different set of appointments and requirements, and I soon found that just because we identified the next step forward didn’t mean that Mr. D would actually take it.

I knew that he had come against very real barriers in his life, and could see how a pattern of failure had become self-reinforcing. He admitted to me that he was afraid of being disappointed again. In fact, it seemed difficult for him to imagine that his situation could ever be different. This made it hard for Mr. D to take positive steps, even small ones, in order to help himself. But I could tell it was possible.

And so I found a new challenge: How could I help someone rebuild a sense of hope?

Fortunately, I have the support of a diverse community here in Bread for the City. And now Mr. D is overcoming barriers step by step.

Among the requirements for affordable housing, Mr. D needed to be tested for tuberculosis. The hospital, however, had always seemed distant and impenetrable to him. So I made an appointment for him to be tested right here in our medical clinic. One step forward!

Mr. D also needed to have his record checked at the police station. His record was clear, but he was wary of the police. Plus there was a $7 fee, a significant amount of money to Mr. D. But Bread for the City – thanks to the generosity of a private donor – is able to issue money orders for record checks. So with a money order in hand, an appointment on the books, and a lot of assurance from me, Mr. D finally made it to the station and was cleared by the police.

When we passed these two hurdles, Mr. D had cause to celebrate for the first time in years. “I hope this makes you happy,” he said to me. He was earnest, but it sounded a bit odd, and I told him so. This was his progress, not mine; it should make him happy. Afterwards, I could see that he felt more confident in himself and more able to focus on the path ahead of him.

Mr. D has not yet attained housing, but he is several steps closer. And that’s how this whole thing works: as relationships are built, we take another step, and then another…just be sure to wear sensible shoes.

Beyond Bread: Let's Look at Our Friends

Happy Friday!

~A special thanks to a couple more groups that helped us out over the holiday season. Iota was kind enough to donate half the proceeds from the Tom McBride and the Whig Party show (picked up by First Person Plural), and KSG Strategic Consulting was one of many corporate partners that really came through for us with food drives during our busiest couple of months. We're only able to continue our work because we have such a great community to support us--thank you both!

~A shout-out to the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) for writing themselves into our friend list four different ways: 1) conducting a giant food drive to benefit our clients, 2) asking employees to please donate through the Combined Federal Campaign (open to all government employees!) 3) blogging about the great work that they did over the holiday season 4) being exceptionally nice and patient to their local Volunteer Coordinator (most important!). These are some exceptionally nice people to work with!

~Dr. Miller has an insightful post about healthcare reform on his Health Policy and Communications Blog. We'll be covering some of the points he raised in greater detail next week, but don't let that stop you from reading what he has to say.

~Bread for the City's medical clinic was featured in the GW Minute! For a while now, GW students have been volunteering to keep our clinic open to clients on Tuesday nights.

~I got to meet The City Mom this week! Rumors have been flying all over Bread for the City about this generous woman who comes in every so often to give us all sorts of toiletries and other commodities for the homeless. By chance I happened to stop by the food pantry to talk with Jenette (our Food Pantry Coordinator) just as she was dropping stuff off. She has a pretty cool blog, and one of the cutest kids I've ever seen. Wish I would have had a camera...

~Stone Soup Station (a blog advocating on behalf of the homeless residents of Nashville, TN) picked up the story of DC's libraries targeting the homeless population here. They had another good post this week about recent attacks on homeless veterans.

Valuable Online Resources: Finding Help

We attended an event on Wednesday, hosted by the DC Women's Agenda, about new online resources for direct service providers.

And despite the bad weather, the room in MLK Library (the subject of an unrelated and ongoing debate on this here blog) was pretty packed, to the pleasant surprise of the event organizers.

"Today's event would have been important two years ago," said Debbie Billet-Roumell, coordinator of the DC Women's Agenda, about the need for greater access to information about resources for low income communities. "Today, with the economic downturn, it's especially important."

The three tools on display included: an extensive listing of information about safe housing, a Google Maps mashup of local food resources, and a detailed budgeting tool for livable income planning.

Let's review each:

1) The Housing Resource Center is jam-packed with information about where and how to secure various kinds of housing for at-risk women. This resource is especially important because, as Suzanne Marcus, Director of Operations for the District Alliance for Safe Housing , told us, there are just not a lot of safe housing programs available in the District. (There are two - My Sister's Place and House of Ruth, and they're usually filled to capacity, "so you have to think creatively," said Suzanne.)

The Housing Resource Center includes listings and details for emergency, transitional, and permanent housing, and provides specialized information for individuals with disability, the elderly, LGBTQ, undocumented residents, and more. even includes listings for the Maryland and Virginia areas. Also of note is a Safety Plan checklist (at the back of the Resource Guide PDF), that can help guide through the process of finding a pathway to stability.

DASH has offered a very useful resource here, and they mentioned that they're currently seeking funding to translate everything into Spanish.
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2) SOME advocate (and Friend of Bread) Joni Podschun demoed the DC Food Finder. (Bread for the City helped lead up the Food Finder initiative, and Joni has discussed it on the blog before.)

As Joni noted, affording food is a challenge in and of itself to many DC residents -- but it's also not quite a sufficient condition to attaining food security. You also need to be able to get to the food, which isn't always easy in a city where many neighborhoods are over a mile from supermarkets, etc. The Food Finder offers multiple layers of information laid out on the map of the city, revealing an array of food resources, including not just pantries and emergency food supplies but also WIC centers and farmer's markets.

Some updates on the Foodfinder: it's been recently translated into Spanish (which, as Joni noted, makes the site somewhat cumbersome as currently laid out) and there's an RSS feed that will allow you to receive updates about changes and additions to the resource database. Lastly, assistance is also available through the Capital Area Food Bank Hunger Lifeline at 202-639-9770 -- and all users are encouraged to report changes and new resources as you find out about them.


3) The last tool of the day was the DC Metro Area Self Sufficiency Calculator. For service providers, the potential utility of this tool is impressive: it enables detailed and controlled down-to-the-dollar planning toward self-sufficiency. (Although as a non-direct-service-provider person, I confess my attention wandered and then I got caught by the presenter checking out Youtube clips-- sorry!) Camille Cormier, of Wider Opportunities for Women, introduced the Calculator with a quick primer on its central metric, the Self-Sufficiency Standard, (which is an accurate measure of the income needed by a family to make ends meet -- much more accurate than the highly-problematic Federal Poverty Level -- suffice to say that the SSS merits entire blog posts of its own).

The DCMASS Calculator asks for step-by-step information about income, family size, supplemental incomes and other variables. It calculates it all out and measures it against the Self-Sufficiency Standard and even allows you to adjust certain variables for the sake of comparison through multiple scenarios (i.e., if this income increased to x, and this expense decreased to y, you'd be z closer to a viable budget). It still has kinks (i.e. if a person receives Social Security Insurance, and you calculate a scenario in which their income increases, the calculator doesn't automatically recalculate SSI benefits, even though in real-life SSI is determined according to income levels) but overall this is a useful planning tool.

The calculator is the cool part, but the more valuable stuff offered by DCMASSC is the location-specific information on job market s (including neighboring communities in Maryland and Virginia). So the user can identify possible jobs that a) don't require degrees and b) pay enough to meet the Self-Sufficiency Standard, and even c) find job-training opportunities in case a) and b) don't yet quite match up up.

Taken together, the three sites reveal an array of possibilities: localized information, collectively generated, and made accessible to anyone with computer access. I can imagine further advances in the future that would facilitiate even more robust collaborative involvement - creating user-generated information, like a Yelp for social resources. We'll be covering these tools in more depth in the future on this blog.

MLK Library Shut to the Homeless

Marc Fisher and NBC Washington are both reporting that as of Feb. 1st, DC public libraries will no longer allow homeless residents to stay in the library during the day. As Fisher puts it:

D.C. libraries director Ginnie Cooper is courageously standing up against the advocates who fight for the homeless no matter what the impact of their behavior on other citizens. Cooper has announced new rules that, starting Feb. 1, will prohibit sleeping in the libraries or carrying more than two bags into any of the branches--rules obviously designed to discourage the homeless from camping out at tables where readers and researchers might want to work.

Yes. Beating up on a neglected section of the citizenry and the small troupe of advocates that attempt to help them takes Herculean courage. We have a lot of courageous people in this country.

Putting aside Fisher's juvenile rhetoric, we agree that a public library is not the ideal place for homeless residents to go. As former staff of a public library, I can say any person who comes into the library without the intent to research or learn is not using the resource for its intended purpose. I sympathize with the librarians who have the uncomfortable tasks of babysitter, hall monitor, and security guard to the swath of people who are shoved into libraries against their will (also including children and senior citizens). These are time-consuming tasks librarians have no formal training in that prevent them from doing the two things they're supposed to do: help patrons find materials and maintain the stacks.

But punishing homeless residents is absolutely wrong. Without providing any other solution or recourse, I wonder where the DC government expected people to go. What other space could homeless people use? DC has decided to close homeless shelters without a corresponding decrease in the homeless population. The remaining shelters push people out early in the morning despite inclement weather. DC has decided not to invest in day centers that would responsibly provide an alternative to libraries or park benches. DC has decided to continue to cut safety net services like housing that would also humanely get people off the streets (along with solving a number of other problems).

Instead of creating more obstacles for homeless people, and more arbitrary, incendiary rules to harass them, why not do the whole city a favor and fully fund the housing programs that have been set up and neglected? Blaming the homeless for using the library is like blaming a driver for using a broken parking meter. It makes no sense. The governing body that allows those situations to arise needs to be held responsible.

Internship opportunity: Come work for us!

Bread for the City's Development office is looking for some quality intern-type people to do Really Important Work with considerable personal benefits to both resume and psyche. Please read below and pass this along to your young whippersnapper friends.

Development and Communications Intern

Description: As an intern at Bread for the City, the successful candidate will help shape an innovative communications platform through which we will tell critical stories about the dynamics of poverty, public policy, and Washington DC. This is a great opportunity to learn about non-profit communications, new media, social justice advocacy, and a wide range of urban policy matters.

Responsibilities:

• Daily analysis of major and local newspapers, blogs, and select magazines.
• Work with BFC staff and volunteers to identify clients and community members with compelling stories to tell. Conduct interviews of BFC staff, clients and community members in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. Transcribe interviews and compose for publication.
• Write posts for Bread for the City’s “Beyond Bread” blog. Outreach to local blogs.
• Mild to moderate Facebooking.
• Other tasks as assigned by development staff.

Characteristics and skills:

Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to communicate and work with a wide variety of people are a must, as well as a working knowledge of media – both mainstream and online. Experience with photography and/or journalism, HTML-literacy, proficiency in Spanish, and an ear for stories are all helpful but not required. The position requires excellent communication skills; willingness to take direction and also to work independently; confidence, flexibility, and, above all, a commitment to social justice.

About Bread for the City:

Bread for the City is a nonprofit organization that provides free, comprehensive services to low-income residents of Washington, DC. Our services include food and clothing distribution, medical care, legal and social services.

Thanks to the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and the contributions of thousands in the community, Bread for the City helps more than 10,000 people each month.

Credit: We will support your initiative to receive college credit for this internship.

Please send cover letter, resume, and two examples of recent work to: Greg Bloom, gbloom{at}breadforthecity{dot}org. Fax (202) 386-7618

Video: Bread for the City, Medical Home

If you don't have your health, it's hard to get anything else done.

Last year, the non-profit documentary outfit Stone Soup Films produced a series of videos about Bread for the City and our programs. Stone Soup now has one of the pieces about the medical clinic (which contains a sneak peak at our upcoming expansion of our NW center) posted on YouTube. So now I can embed it into this blog!

Letter to the Editor: Hunger and Obesity

To the editors,

In the article “Targeting Obesity Alongside Hunger,” (December 24, 2008), Jane Black reported on a disturbing paradox: the direct link between hunger and obesity. As the Executive Director of Bread for the City, a private non-profit that both provides primary medical care and distributes groceries (among many other services) to over one hundred thousand DC residents, I can speak to the truth of the supposed contradiction. Every day, I see overweight people who have empty cupboards at home. It’s not hard to explain: the poor must eat whatever food they can access and afford; cheap, easily available food often makes for a very unhealthy diet high in carbohydrates and trans-fats. As a result, diabetes and hypertension are common illnesses that we treat in our medical clinic.

This reaffirms our belief that it’s not enough to merely help people eat; we must help them eat well. This past March, Bread for the City hired a nutritionist who now offers one-on-one nutrition counseling and healthy cooking classes free to the community. With consultation from our medical clinic, we’ve eliminated foods with high sodium, high fructose corn syrup, and trans-fats from our food pantry, replacing them with fruits canned in their own juices, whole grains, and fresh produce.

Such change is necessary, but not easy. We are committed to staying on this new healthy path, but as economic turmoil pushes millions more into poverty, we’ll need help. We call upon President-Elect Barack Obama to fulfill his promise to expand access to food assistance programs, and to do so in a way that prioritizes nutrition for the sake of the health of our whole community.

Yours in service,

George A. Jones
Executive Director, Bread for the City

Beyond Bread: The New Year is Upon Us

Happy New Year, Readers!!

~First, thanks to BrightestYoungThings for their recent write-up about Bread for the City on their food blog.

~The Bureau of Labor reports that the Greater Washington Area's unemployment rate is currently 8%--the highest since the mid-90's.

~Whitman-Walker is making cuts to staff this holiday season, laying off a number of senior officials.

~As the housing crisis continues to unfold and the economy declines, the face of homelessness is changing.