Well, now I understand….and it’s thanks to the folks at This American Life. Yesterday, I finally got around to listening to the podcast of this past weekend’s show, “The Giant Pool of Money.”

It was a truly enlightening hour of radio, wherein they talk with folks all along the mortgage chain — from the high-flying Wall Street execs to under-trained mortgage middle men to a Marine facing foreclosure on his East Flatbush, NY, home. Here’s how they describe it:

A special program about the housing crisis. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

Listen to the whole program here.

Asthma attacks -struggling to breathe, wheezing, gasping for air —are frightening events for children and their families. Asthma is the most prevalent chronic children’s disease in the US, affecting one in seven children nationwide and, in some communities, as many as one in every four kids. Low-income communities and communities of color are hit the hardest.

In the US, 19% of Puerto Rican children and 13% of black children have asthma. Compare that to just to 8% non-Hispanic white children.

What makes breathing hard for these children? The air they breathe in the places they live, learn and play.

Asthma triggers lurk in everyday environments. Children with asthma, and their families, live with the fear that their child’s asthma may be triggered in the most common places –their homes, schools and outdoors. Car and truck exhaust. Mold hidden in the walls of an apartment. Caustic chemicals used to clean school hallways. All of these triggers can bring on a sudden and dangerous asthma attack.

To allow children to breath easy, we need to give them clean air. Parents, environmental health and justice groups, housing organizations, and community-based organizations know that no single family can do this alone. That’s why they have forged important alliances and garnered the attention of the public and policymakers to capture important policy opportunities.

A new report by PolicyLink and The California Endowment, Breathing Easy from Home to School: Fighting the Environmental Triggers of Asthma sheds light on ways that community-based organizations and coalitions across the nation are working to address environmental triggers of asthma.

The report offers numerous policy recommendations that have already shown great promise for addressing this issue and critical lessons are lifted up from local, state, and regional efforts that can be replicated in other communities. Some of these diverse recommendations include: ensuring considerations for health impact assessments in land use planning decisions; promoting public transportation; advocating for systematic housing code enforcement; securing financial coverage for home remediation from health insurers; advocating for green cleaning products at schools; and creating pesticide-free zones near schools.

These approaches constitute an important platform for igniting a movement to alleviate—and reduce—childhood asthma. Policymakers and others can build upon these lessons to enact needed changes.

All children should be able to breathe easily—where they live, learn, and play.

Latinos especially gained ground in 2007 remaining the largest minority group at 45.5 million people. African Americans are close behind at 40.7 million.  Minority groups are pushing statewide demographic trends.  Four states and the District of Columbia have a larger share of minorities than non-minorities:  Hawaii (75 percent), District of Columbia (68 percent), New Mexico (58 percent), California (57 percent) and Texas (52 percent).  Close behind are Nevada, Maryland, and Georgia at 42 percent each.

Is America prepared to reap the benefits of diversity and embrace a bright future?

One issue that remains a stumbling block is the rate of incarceration for drug-related offenses.  A May 10 editorial in The New York Times highlights two new reports by The Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch  which show “large disparities in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, despite roughly equal rates of illegal drug use.”

The editorial concludes that “all is not gloomy,” pointing to an emerging shift in policy toward drug treatment as an alternative to prison and to a change in federal sentencing guidelines.

Last month, there was also positive news with the signing of the Second Chance Act, a bipartisan solution that authorizes $165 million in spending per year to help released prisoners reintegrate into society.

At a time when one in nine black men aged 20 to 34 are serving time, along with 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men, we need to take stock of what can be done to tap the abilities and potential of all Americans. We’re starting to move in the right direction but it will take all of our efforts to ensure continued progress toward that bright future.

Angela Glover Blackwell frames each installment from a public policy perspective, while respective experts offer insight and strategic solutions for the foreclosure crisis, living wage, inadequate health care, homelessness, transitional housing, and ex-offender re-entry, along with other issues faced by a growing number of Americans.

Now you can catch the entire series right here on EquityBlog:

Episode One
The series begins with Terreal Grant of Baltimore who is coming out of poverty and drug addiction with help from the Thompson Mobility Program [PDF].

[17 minutes | MP3]

Episode Two
The second installment features Cici Youngblood, a college graduate who describes her path to poverty as “riches to rags” and Jeff Page, a former DJ who went from fame to a downward spiral into homelessness after cancer. Both profiles illustrate how poverty is compounded by health and how successful programs (e.g. Rainbow Apartments) in Los Angeles’s Skid Row community work to meet these challenges.

[17 minutes | MP3]

Episode Three
Reporter James Mills shares the story of Abeba Adella of Minnesota. Originally from Ethiopia, Abeba left an abusive husband, raises two children alone, and works two jobs to barely avoid poverty.

[17 minutes | MP3]

Episode Four
From Augusta, Georgia, reporter Charles Edwards speaks with two residents who struggle with less than the federal minimum wage. Richard Sparrow suffered a back injury and was shunned by employers as an insurance liability. Unemployed since 1996, Richard lives on less than 700 dollars a month, over half of which goes to medicine. Sunny Johnson, a former Enron employee, describes the sacrifices she makes with her wages from her day and night jobs.

[17 minutes | MP3]

Episode Five
New Orleans producer Eve Abrams brings us the story of Vanessa Nevilles, who is struggling to find a job with health insurance, and Keith Carter who was shunned from employment after an arrest and a lengthy legal battle.

[17 minutes | MP3]

Episode Six
Executive Producer Cheryl Flowers visits Mississippi to find two stories of poverty in small rural communities. Mississippi is home to one of the highest concentrations of poverty in America.

[17 minutes | MP3]

Wrap Up
Dr. Cynthia Duncan, Founding Director of the Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire and Alan Jenkins, Executive Director of the Opportunity Agenda, joins Tavis Smiley and Angela Glover Blackwell for the series wrap up and analysis.

[53 minutes | MP3]

Audio courtesy of The Tavis Smiley Show from PRI. Check your local listings for more from Tavis Smiley.

An insightful piece in today’s NY Times (”Urban Farmers’ Crops Go from Vacant Lot to Market“) shows how innovative residents of low-income communities are using training from local nonprofits and even some funding from city coffers to help kick-start urban farms.

I know that these urban farms have really helped invigorate my neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn. In fact, a 60-person delegation from the UN Commission on Sustainable Development is coming this weekend to Bed-Stuy to visit a couple community gardens, like the Bed-Stuy Farm (photo from their site).

Also, it’s worth pointing out that the Times’ story was written by Tracie McMillan, one of the best and most tenacious reporters when it comes to issues of food access and low-income communities. Visit her site to check out some of her recent work.

Led by the bright and innovative folks at ColorofChange.org, the movement is gaining steam, influence and members every day. The movement has carved a niche for itself by rallying around traditionally overlooked issues like the Jena 6, the demolition of New Orleans public housing and even the relatively wonky concerns about a FEC commission nominee’s questionable stands on voter suppression issues.

Blogger Gina McCauley, 32, who is organizing the first conference of nonwhite bloggers this summer in Atlanta, said that what Jones and Rucker have started “can potentially become a new Niagara movement,” a reference to the small contingent of black intellectuals, including W.E.B. Du Bois, who met near Niagara Falls in 1905 to form an organization to oppose segregation. The organization eventually became the NAACP.

Others have another name for the new efforts by black bloggers: Civil Rights 2.0. Blogger L.N. Rock said that if abolitionist Frederick Douglass, former congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., civil rights organizer Bayard Rustin and “people like that were around today, they would have blogs.”

The organizing and policy potential of this movement is limitless. We’re already seeing real on-the-ground progress. By supporting and patronizing these sites, we can unleash another major force in the Equity Movement.

Now, more organizations are looking online for their fundraising efforts. According to Michael Hoffman, chief executive of See3, a Chicago consulting firm that specializes in nonprofit fund raising and communications, the old way of using direct mail to reach supporters is less effective (and relevant) than it was a few years ago. “Direct mail is on life support,” says Hoffman “New Rules of Attraction”, an article in the April 3rd issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Although the article stated that many charities still raise most of their contributions with the direct mail, it contends that it is losing its attractiveness with new donors. “In 2007, the number of new donors who responded to charity mailings dropped by a median of 6.2 percent in a study of 72 of the nation’s biggest charities, on top of another 10.4-percent median drop in 2006.”

So, what’s your organization’s online fundraising strategy?

Word has it that…

“nonprofits are testing online social networks to raise money through these networks, betting that the Internet’s viral nature will open fresh avenues for fundraising and marketing.” (This being the word in the article, How non-profits are using social networking to raise money and awareness, Chicago Tribune, April 30, 2008.)

It’s a brave new online world, and nonprofits are venturing down creative paths for raising funds. And if recent history speaks to the enormous possibilities…a 3 million dollar day could be merely a few clicks away.

]]> http://www.equityblog.org/2008/05/05/raising-money-awareness-%e2%80%93-one-click-at-a-time/feed/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/05/05/hope-on-the-ground/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/05/05/hope-on-the-ground/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 19:40:25 +0000 Dan Lavoie http://www.equityblog.org/2008/05/05/hope-on-the-ground/ An intern for San Francisco’s Literacy for Environmental Justice wrote a heartrending and hopeful op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle last week. La Constance “Connie” Shahid has lived in SF’s Bayview-Hunters Point community all of her 21 years. Here she is describing what it’s like to grow up in a forgotten neighborhood:

Let me tell you what it’s like to live in the Bayview. In six square miles, we have hundreds of toxic sites and the highest pollution emissions in the city. Thirty percent of my community is under the age of 21, more than in any other part of the city. We are twice as likely to be hospitalized from asthma as other city residents; there are increased rates of diabetes, as well as breast and cervical cancer.

It seems like there is a liquor store on every corner, housing is rundown, drugs are everywhere, police sirens are constantly racing down the streets, and gang violence is nearly inescapable. Having to be cautious of which streets to walk on and which to avoid isn’t a way to live freely. It’s a way to live in fear.

Too many of my peers live and die with the fantasy of “ghetto life”; they dream of big homes, fast cars, and a multi-million dollar jewelry collection. We know that we’re not offered the best in life, but we make do with what we have, and some of us are fighting to make it better. A few of us, the ones hiding in dark corners, have dreams that take us to universities like Howard, Fisk, and Texas Southern. These young people are working hard to make their dreams come true, so that they won’t have to worry about living their lives in fear.

Please take the time to read the whole article. Also, the insightful and innovative folks at Think MTV did a short video feature on Connie and the rest of the youth at Literacy for Environmental Justice. Check it out:

]]> http://www.equityblog.org/2008/05/05/hope-on-the-ground/feed/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/30/the-food-environment-and-our-health-on-the-tv/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/30/the-food-environment-and-our-health-on-the-tv/#comments Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:16:56 +0000 Dan Lavoie http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/30/the-food-environment-and-our-health-on-the-tv/ The Kern County, California, NBC station has a great piece on the report PolicyLink released yesterday about the connection between your food environment and your risk for diabetes and obesity. The report, Designed for Disease (pdf), was a joint project from PolicyLink, the California Center for Public Health Advocacy and UCLA’s Center for Health Policy Research.

To see how other media outlets like the LA Times, PRI’s Marketplace and the Sacramento Bee covered the study, click here.

]]> http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/30/the-food-environment-and-our-health-on-the-tv/feed/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/29/more-burger-joints-more-diabetes/ http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/29/more-burger-joints-more-diabetes/#comments Tue, 29 Apr 2008 16:39:04 +0000 Dan Lavoie http://www.equityblog.org/2008/04/29/more-burger-joints-more-diabetes/ Are our food options making us sick? According to a new report released today by PolicyLink, the balance of healthy-versus-unhealthy retail food options in your neighborhood is directly tied to your risk for diabetes and obesity.

The groundbreaking study, Designed for Disease: the Link Between Local Food Environments and Obesity and Diabetes, was released jointly with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Center for Public Health Advocacy. It examines the correlation between the health of nearly 40,000 Californians and the mix of retail food outlets near their homes.

The key finding: people living in neighborhoods crowded with fast-food and convenience stores but relatively few grocery or produce outlets are at significantly higher risk of suffering from obesity and diabetes.

The findings are the latest in a growing batch of evidence that the obesity epidemic is at a crisis level. As PolicyLink Vice President of Research Victor Rubin said for the release of the new report:

“Clearly the obesity crisis in California can no longer be seen only as a fight over personal choices. Public policies drive the universe of food options from which we can choose. Families who live in communities with choices limited to high-calorie foods and beverages face substantially greater health risks. Policy makers at the state and local level can save lives by giving Californians healthier food options.”

The results lend even more weight to a recent USA Today lead editorial, which argued that the obesity epidemic is literally killing Americans at a younger and younger age — and disproportionately targeting poor Americans.

Everyone knows how to lose weight: exercise more and eat less, fatty foods in particular. But fast food, eaten on the run and in vast quantities, has too often replaced the leisurely sit-down dinners with healthier foods of years past. Further, obesity is increasing worldwide, and among the poor more than the affluent. Broad social changes underlie the trend, and so it will not be easily reversed. But where it is worst, among the poor, better access to preventive health care plainly is part of the answer.

A century ago, poorer Americans were more likely to have their lives shortened by hunger and malnutrition. It would be a tragic irony if the obesity epidemic has a similarly devastating and unequal impact.

The editorial builds off the stunning findings of this Harvard University report.

For more information on how to help build healthier communities, visit the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place. Also, check out a great blog about this subject from the Grassroots Leadership Network.

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