The Half in Ten partners in Minnesota are focused on the immediate, as well as plans for the winter. The Affirmative Options Coalition has been working with its members to urge our state’s two senators to renew funding for the emergency TANF Emergency Fund. Minnesota has been able to invest $11 million from TANF into creating short-term, skill-building jobs for parents on the state’s welfare to work program. The coalition is working with nonprofit employment services agencies to identify participants and employers helped by the program who are willing to tell their individual stories to news media—and to Senator Al Franken and his staff.

A Minnesota Without Poverty is planning a major statewide convention for December 9th to once again draw attention to the need to tackle poverty in Minnesota. All three candidates for governor have been asked to commit to attending that event if they are elected. Two of the candidates have agreed to do so if elected. The event will also feature web-linked connections around the state.

August has been a very busy month in Arkansas with our fight to cut the poverty rate. We have concluded all of the town hall meetings that we helped facilitate and we began reporting back to the Arkansas Legislative Task Force on Reducing Poverty and Promoting Economic Opportunity. Members of the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families staff reported at the task force’s public hearing on recommendations from the town hall meetings. A common theme was the need for governments and community organizations to be visible and active in impoverished areas. The time for action is now!

AACF has also been in an active dialogue with both Sen. Blanche Lincoln and Sen. Mark Pryor’s offices to advocate on behalf of federal policy issues that help keep people out of poverty. Both senators have expressed interest in supporting the extension of the refundable Child Tax Credit, leaving the earning threshold at $3,000. Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has also partnered with local law enforcement and the national “Fight Crime: Invest in Kids” network, advocating the tax credit extension as a means of keeping children out of poverty and out of trouble with the law.

The Colorado Half in Ten campaign held a community meeting in August to discuss real solutions to reducing poverty in our community. The event attracted about 50 people from across the state, plus State Senator Evie Hudak. The diverse crowd discussed realistic and meaningful solutions to reducing poverty in specific ways. The group divided into five committees to find solutions to problems faced in education, job expansion, invisibility, oppressive systems, and housing.

The Colorado Half in Ten campaign is leading community meetings throughout the state—from Grand Junction to Alamosa to Boulder—to compile personal stories and solutions from those directly affected by poverty. It plans to then share the compiled information with the Economic Opportunity and Poverty Reduction Task Force, a body of the state legislature charged with cutting poverty in Colorado in half over the next decade. You can read stories and solutions from Colorado Half in Ten’s meetings on the Economic Opportunity Poverty Reduction Task Force blog.

Colorado has also doubled its individual Half in Ten supporters and expanded organizational endorsers to include homeless advocates, faith leaders, job training sites, and others directly working with ending poverty.

The first thought that comes to many peoples’ minds when they think of Colorado is the Rocky Mountains and ski resorts. It may be surprising to hear that in the same state where many escape for vacation, the child poverty rate is growing faster than anywhere else in the US.  The disadvantages which these children face make them more likely to perform poorly in school, have inadequate health, and struggle as adults.

Luckily, it does not have to be this way and there are people committed to the idea that no Coloradan should live in poverty. The Half in Ten Colorado coalition brings together people from a wide variety of backgrounds, from policymakers to faith leaders, to work towards the goal of cutting poverty in half by 2020.

Click here to read commentary on the Colorado Half in Ten Coalition by the Boulder Daily Camera.

Half in Ten’s state partner Arkansas Advocates for Children & Families announced last month that it would be organizing a town hall meeting to discuss issues surrounding poverty in Arkansas. AACF joined with the Legislative Task Force on Reducing Poverty and Promoting Economic Opportunity on a hot July day to welcome almost 50 people at the event. The group was split into two small groups with one focusing on public health and education issues, and the other focusing on business development and community organizing. AACF also participated in a similar event in Dumas, Arkansas, and will work with the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute on another town hall meeting later this month.

As Half in Ten’s partner, Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families is leading the effort to compile all of these findings from meetings statewide and deliver a report to the governor in November. AACF Executive Director Rich Huddleston serves as the co-chair of this taskforce along with state Sen. Joyce Elliott.

In other news, Rich Huddleston highlighted our Half in Ten campaign work during a panel discussion at the Clinton Presidential Center on July 15, 2010. The group addressed issues of childhood hunger, obesity, and poverty to more than 200 attendees.

The Colorado Half in Ten campaign is currently planning for the upcoming community meeting on real solutions to reducing poverty. The community meeting will present Half in Ten policy solutions and include a discussion on what solutions individuals think would be viable for reducing poverty in their own neighborhoods. This community meeting is planned to be the first of many across the state to get input from diverse communities. 

“What are Real Solutions to Reducing Poverty?” will be held on Monday, August 2 from 5:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Blair-Caldwell Library at 2401 Welton Street in Denver. Light refreshments will be provided and child care upon advanced request. To RSVP, contact Bridget Kaminetsky at 303-628-0925 or bridget@9to5.org.

Virginia’s Half in Ten campaign is building momentum. The Blank Street Project is filming roving documentaries of poverty featuring Virginians talking about jobs and homelessness. We started our legislative strategy this month by meeting with state Sen. John Watkins, chairman of the Unemployment Insurance Commission at the Virginia General Assembly, to talk about extending unemployment insurance. The Half in Ten coalition is forming and we have hosted conversations with major partners about collaboration and policy areas on which the Half in Ten coalition will focus.

Two of the lead partners in the Minnesota Half in Ten campaign effort brought their governing boards together this month to talk about how to ramp up efforts to engage Minnesota organizations and people in the Half in Ten campaign. This was a chance for leading nonprofit antipoverty organizations and faith-based social justice groups to talk about how the Half in Ten campaign fits into their state policy work, and how it might interact with their federal allies or parent organizations. We will be approaching those groups and others for their organizational endorsements.

A paralegal by training, Terry has been out of work for two years and his unemployment insurance benefits ran out in May.  He has not insisted on staying in the same field and has retrained in electronic health records.  He applies for jobs and the latest has been at a hardware store.

But like many workers in Minnesota, where the number of job seekers outnumbers job openings by 24 to 1 in some regions, there are no job offers.  He gets by on food stamps, depleting his retirement savings and what he calls a hodge podge of short-term assistance. 

He is 62, just old enough for Social Security and has already applied — although he would rather work.  Applying for Social Security early is not good for him:  he will receive lower benefits amounting to only 40 percent of what he was receiving through unemployment insurance. Nor does discontinuing temporary unemployment benefits to Mr. Hokenson and having him turn to permanent social security benefits save the federal government any money.

Here is a link to an interview in one of the local daily newspapers a couple of weeks featuring Mr. Hokenson: http://www.individual.com/story.php?story=118895697