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 Dear Friends and Colleagues, It gives me great pleasure to share the Center's latest work with all of you. To start-off, we just released the latest poverty fact sheets for Massachusetts, for the period 2008-2012. As part of the ongoing dialogue with the Center team and community members, we hosted the "Shame and Poverty" conference that brought to bear the often hidden and under-discussed process experienced by economically vulnerable people accessing the social safety-net: shaming. Indeed, social safety-net policies have as their underlying assumption that individual deficiencies --not structural forces--cause poverty. As a result, the goal of these social policies is to change people's behavior and rehabilitate them by imposing strict and disempowering eligibility requirements. During the conference, Robert Walker, distinguished professor from Oxford University, presented his research on the shame and poverty nexus which was conducted in seven counties: Britain, China, India, Norway, Pakistan, South Korea, and Uganda. A particularly striking finding that connects all of the countries, and the United States , is that is that the economically vulnerable are burdened by the shame associated with being poor and are re-burdened by shame whenever they must interact with public policies. Please download his presentation here. This was a particularly exciting couple of months for our team! Our very own Julia Tripp participated in the United Nations panel ,"Participatory Monitoring and Accountability: Critical Components For The Post-2015 Development Agenda." I invite you to listen to her wonderful insight on the importance of participatory action research and creating a more inclusive world. The latest point of pride in our international engagement--Fran�oise Carr�, CSP's Research Director, provided consultation on the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) 2015 Human Development Report. I am especially pleased to tell you that the Center received funding from the Oak Foundation and the Boston Foundation for the Family Stability White Paper Project. This path-breaking research, undertaken with Mass Budget and Policy Center, the MGS Collins Center research partners and community partners led by CHAPA, will provide a blueprint for the public and for the next Massachusetts Governor, Legislative leaders and elected officials to make changes that will have real impacts for low-income families struggling to make ends meet. Lastly, it gives me great pleasure to welcome the second cohort of the Werby Public Service Interns to our team. Elizabeth Kernan is a student in the UMB 5 year joint BA/MA program in Applied Sociology. She is very concerned with poverty issues and looks forward to her CSP experience and improving her knowledge of and abilities to work towards the eradication of poverty. Joseli Alonzo is an anthropology major who expects to complete her BA in the spring of 2015. She recently joined the Latino Leadership Opportunity Program, which teaches Latinos how to analyze public policy issues through applied research. This summer, Ms. Alonzo is doing her internship on the evaluation of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership Family Self-Sufficiency (FSS) Program-part of the Center's five year evaluation work of the Boston Foundation's Fairmount Initiative. As you read on about projects and accomplishments related to our commitment to engaging diverse voices and viewpoints around the issues of poverty and inequality, I invite you to pass on this Digest and visit our Facebook page to engage with us more! Best wishes, 
Donna Haig Friedman, Director |
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CSP Intern Shares Reflections on Student Homelessness
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 What follows is a personal reflection from Lyden Marcellot, Master's Canditate in Applied Economics and an inaugural Werby Public Service Intern, sharing his insights from this summer's U-ACCESS conference held at UMass Boston. The conference highlighted the issue of student homeless and the best practices for supporting them. Mr. Marcellot, who is developing a policy brief on 30 years of homelessness policy, felt it was essential to highlight this issue as a student who has faced these issues himself. Right here at UMass Boston, there are homeless students facing tremendous personal hardships that affect their ability to focus on their coursework. These students are unaccompanied homeless youth---those below 25 who are not in the care of or receiving support from a parent or guardian. This invisible population typically lacks the resources to maintain housing and falls outside the purview of traditional social service provision. As a result, these youths end up "couch-surfing," living on the streets or in similarly inadequate shelter. In a given year, the number of "unaccompanied homeless youth" under the age of 18 can reach as high as 1.6 million, and of these 380,000 remain away from home for weeks or months. Further, as many as 200,000 youth may remain homeless for indefinite periods of time, even into adulthood. There are also students who have aged-out of foster care and those who have faced chronic or persistent poverty. What's more, many of these young people are in transition to post-secondary education. Recently, a UMass Boston student shared her family's history of financial insecurity and homelessness in a story in the Boston Globe. The story covered how easily it is to for many to find themselves in this situation, focusing primarily on the increased burden on the Massachusetts' emergency shelter system. Yet, though there are some public and private services supporting homeless adults and families (albeit woefully inadequate), rarely do these focus on the particular needs of college-aged unaccompanied youth. These students need help with tuition, housing, clothing, school supplies and meals as well as medical, mental and health-related services---resources that all students need. But these students have greater financial vulnerability. And these come on top of the new responsibilities, expectations and time-demands the transition to post-secondary education requires. Unfortunately, these vulnerable youth may be unaware of the resources available for them. This summer, the Office of Urban and Off Campus Support Services (U-ACCESS) held a conference to bring awareness to this issue and share best practices from the field. The June 3rd conference brought together post-secondary administrators, faculty and staff, legislators, state agency workers, service providers and other community stakeholders in order to build collaborative networks and promote awareness of post-secondary student homelessness. Of particular note was the highlighting of student's rights under existing legislation, such as the McKinney-Vento Education Assistance Improvements Act. Presenters also shared the findings of the latest research, proposals and initiatives. The conference's keynote address, panel discussions and open Q & A were all designed to empower the audience with the resources to help identify and support these youth. The most important lesson learned was the gaps that still exist for students with a long-term experience of poverty. A previously homeless UMass student articulated this insight with a challenge to the audience. She said, "We should measure success by how we help kids arrive at their destination, not [only] how we prepare them for the ride." The gaps in public-service provision exist because these typically aren't designed to take people through the life course and into maturity. This is precisely why these students slip through the cracks. Even I once found myself homeless and couch-surfing in my late-teens/early-20s. I faced the same difficulties then that these students face now, and know firsthand that these perspectives and issues need more attention. There are numerous ways that we can have these conversations. We just have to start them. |
 Marija Bingulac received the Early Researchers Programme Grant given by the EU/Council of Europe's European Academic Network on Romani Studies. The award contributed to Bingulac's fellowship at the Social Theory and Romany Studies program at the Central European Summer University in Budapest, Hungary, where she presented her dissertation research on labor-market discrimination of Romani people in Serbia. |
 CSP researchers held two presentations on workforce solutions to growing inequality at the Crittenton Women's Union "Disrupting the Poverty Cycle " conference. Fran�oise Carr� and Brandynn Holgate presented "Transforming Job Access into Durable Employment: The Role of Non-profit Staffing Services in Hiring." Randy Albelda and Michael Carr presented "At the Crossroads of Being Low-wage and Low-income: Policy Dilemmas and Solutions." Please read and share their presentations. |
 Heather MacIndoe, CSP Faculty Affiliate, is launching a new nonprofit policy survey this month in partnership with the Massachusetts Nonprofit Network . Over 30,000 nonprofits in MA employ 18% of the workforce and provide a diverse array of important programs and services. The Massachusetts Nonprofit Advocacy Survey will collect information about the various ways that nonprofit organizations communicate the needs of their organizations and constituents to public officials. Contact Dr. MacIndoe for additional information. |
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Recent Reports and Staff Publications
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Albelda, Randy, Fran�oise Carr�, Eugenia Cheah, and Lyden Marcellot. Fact Sheets on Poverty in Massachusetts, 2008-2012 ACS Estimates. Center for Social Policy, 2014
MacEwan, Arthur. "Does Raising the Minimum Wage Lead to Inflation?". Dollars & Sense, Issue 313. Economics Affair Bureau, August 2014
Carr�, Fran�oise and Joaqu�n Herranz, Jr., and Silvia Dorado. "Alternative Staffing Organizations as Innovations in Labor Market Intermediation: Lessons from the United States" In Baas Koene, Nathalie Galais, and Christina Garsten, Eds. Management and Organization of Temporary Agency Work. London, Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2014 Carr�, Fran�oise and Brandynn Holgate "Statistics on Developed Countries". In ILO-WIEGO, Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture. (second edition). Geneva: International Labor Office, 2013
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