The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and OpportunitySpotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with the Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.  

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.   

 For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.   

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit the Washington Area Women’s Foundation for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.    

 Here’s this week’s news: 

 ·         New York Newsday reveals that women lag behind men in saving for retirement, contributing to a high rate of poverty among unmarried women age 65 and older.

 ·         The Chicago Tribune reports that thousands of low-income Illinois women on waiting lists for mammograms will be aided by $4.7 million in new funding for the Illinois Breast and Cervical Cancer Program.

 ·         Public-health experts fear the continuing economic recession will take a toll on women as deeper cuts are made in public-health programs for low-income households, as reported in the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin.

 ·         The Vallejo Times Herald examines how older women who are divorced, separated, or widowed or who have never married are twice as likely to be uninsured as their married peers, and thus much more susceptible to financially crippling medical bills.

 To learn more about Spotlight visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org  

 To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.  

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team

– As the impact of the recession continues to be felt, local nonprofits are seeing a growing number of employers skipping out on workers’ wages.  Immigrants in construction, restaurant and janitorial work are most often underpaid.  Casa of Maryland (a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner) says even well-intentioned employers aren’t paying up when their construction projects run out of money.  The D.C. Employment Justice Center — another Grantee Partner — is currently representing dozens of workers who say they’re owed money.  Click here to read more.

– A new report from D.C. Hunger Solutions (a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner) and Social Compact notes disturbing trends when it comes to district residents and access to grocery stores.  When Healthy Food is Out of Reach found a significant grocery gap that leaves many neighborhoods without access to full-service grocers and healthy food options.  For example, Ward 3 has a grocery store for every 7,300 people, while Ward 8 — the ward with the lowest average income — has one grocery store for every 23,000 people.  The report also says that half of local grocery stores do not accept WIC vouchers.

Got something to say?  Leave a comment below, or join the conversation at www.Facebook.com/TheWomensFoundation.

– New HIV infections are on the rise among gays, drug users and prostitutes according to the U.N. AIDS agency.  The increase is being seen worldwide.  In the United States, there’s been a fast rise in new infections in people between the ages of 19 and 25.  A U.N. official said not having information, access to protection and complacency are all to blame.  Click here for more details.

– Last night, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty promised a crowd of people that the city will spend $10 – 20 million training unemployed residents to weatherize homes.  The city plans to hire the trainees for home weatherization projects, but so far no details about the training or hiring have been revealed.  Click here for more details.

– Maryland has fallen further behind when it comes to food stamp delivery.  In December, a judge ordered the state to catch up with a backlog of food stamp requests, but an increase in applications at the end of the year put the state even further behind.  The law requires that food stamp benefits be sent within 30 days of a request.  Click here for more information.

– Starting today, the D.C. Department of Human Services will expand eligibility for Food Stamp benefits.  With the change, District residents with a gross income up to 200% of the Federal Poverty Level qualify for benefits.  That means a couple may have up to $2,429 in gross income to be eligible.  A four person family can have up to $3,675 of monthly gross income.  For more details, please click here.

– A Home Rescue Fair in Manassas this afternoon will target Latino families facing foreclosure.  The fair was organized after a report revealed that more than one million Latino families will lose their homes by 2012.  The fair is open to anyone in the D.C. area, and Spanish-speaking translators will be there.  It starts at 4pm.  For more details, click here.

– A story in the Washington Post about a woman being named head coach of a local high school football team drew lots of criticism from online commenters.  In this column, Petula Dvorak wonders why people think it’s such a big deal.

– In a first-of-its-kind effort, Washington, D.C. will give away half-a-million female condoms.  City leaders hope the effort will combat the city’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.  In addition to free condoms, providers will also teach women how to use them.  Click here for more details.

– Today is National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.  To raise awareness and offer suggestions for prevention strategies, The Women’s Foundation’s Gwen Rubinstein wrote a blog post about the topic.  You can read what she has to say by clicking here.

– As Virginia’s legislative session comes to a close, some are concerned that too much has been cut from the state budget, and that local governments and private charities are going to have to step up to fill some serious gaps.  Some opponents to the budget cuts say the state’s poorest areas, particularly preschool programs in urban communities, will get hit hardest.  Click here for more details.

– In honor of National Women’s History Month, President Obama has issued a proclamation calling for balancing out gender inequalities in government representation, earnings, and science and engineering jobs, in particular.  You can read the entire proclamation by clicking here.

Are you aware that a woman tests positive for HIV every 35 minutes in the United States?

Are you aware that one in four Americans living with HIV is a woman?

Are you aware that HIV/AIDS is a growing problem for women and girls in our region, particularly African-American women and girls?  The District of Columbia and Maryland had the highest and second-highest women’s AIDS case rates in the country in 2007 (90.2 cases per 100,000 population for DC and 22.2 cases per 100,000 population for Maryland) (http://www.statehealthfacts.org/)?  For more on the specifics in D.C., you can read a previous blog of mine by clicking here.

Maybe you can you guess from my questions that today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

I hope that increased awareness leads us to recognize that we must act – for ourselves and for others – because lives are literally on the line.  I hope we can act together to improve:

• Prevention strategies that address the dominant ways women acquire HIV: sex with men who are infected and injection drug use (much more of an issue for women than for men).
• The availability of routine HIV testing in places women already go for health and other services for themselves and their children. (By the way: Do you know your HIV status?)
• Attention to treatment, including to AIDS drugs but also for the many health conditions that occur with HIV, such as alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness.
• Women’s empowerment.  In D.C. this has started with a new effort – the first in the nation – to make the newly re-designed female condom widely available for free (thanks to the hard work of the Washington AIDS Partnership and support from the MAC AIDS Fund — and The Women’s Foundation’s own Julie Leibee).
• Support for organizations that help individual women with HIV in our community, including The Women’s Collective and Our Place, DC (both Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation), as well as organizations that bring this issue and solutions to it to the attention of policy makers and the public, such as DC Appleseed (another Grantee Partner).

Wishing you act-ful awareness on March 10th – and every other day.

Gwen is a Program Officer at Washington Area Women’s Foundation.

The latest news, analysis and opinion on the state of low-income women and their families from Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity

Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity, a national foundation-led initiative, is excited to collaborate with the Women’s Foundation to bring you the latest news and analysis on women and poverty.

Spotlight is the go-to site for news and ideas about fighting poverty.

For daily updates and links to past articles, check out “Women and Poverty.” It’s a new section of our site with a comprehensive collection of recent news and analysis on women and poverty.

Along with these daily updates, continue to visit the Washington Area Women’s Foundation for our weekly rundown of the top news stories on women and poverty every Friday.

Here’s this week’s news:

· The Philadelphia Daily News describes the role of parental poverty in foster cases, including for a 19-year-old mom with trouble finding housing.

· The Oklahoman highlights a bill passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives that would prevent women from selling their eggs, a practice that can jeopardize the fertility and health of low-income women, who most often choose to undergo the procedure.

· In an opinion article for the Des Moines Register, Rekha Basu calls attention to abused women in Iowa, many of whom are raised in poverty.

· The Kansas City Star reports on the success of “Making Cent$ in the City,” a one-day financial education workshop sponsored by the Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City that aimed to teach financial responsibility to women and girls as a way to fight poverty.

To learn more about Spotlight visit www.spotlightonpoverty.org

To sign up for our weekly updates with the latest news, opinion and research from around the country, click here.

The Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity team

– A new study out this week illustrates the wealth gap faced by women of color in the U.S.  According to the study, black and Hispanic women own one penny for every dollar owned by black and Hispanic men and a fraction of a penny for every dollar owned by white women.  Click here for more details.

– An editorial in today’s Washington Post urges the Justice Department to offer more incentives to states to improve the quality of representation in court for indigent defendants.  Click here for more.

– Today, two D.C. women will be among the first gay couples to legally wed in The District.  Last week, Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend were the first to apply for a marriage license after D.C. legalized same-sex unions.  Today is the first day that couples can pick up their licenses and legally get married.  Click here for their story.

– Today is International Women’s Day — a day to celebrate the accomplishments of women all over the world.  In honor of the occasion, Huffington Post has profiled 11 women who are the voices of positive change.  Click here to see the list.  Who would you add to the list?  Comment below or go to www.Facebook.com/TheWomensFoundation.

– With more than five million American households behind in their mortgages right now, the Obama Administration is taking drastic measures to get homeowners out of their homes with a little extra cash in their pockets.  A new program will pay homeowners to short sell their houses at a loss.  Click here for details of the program.

– The effects of the recession are showing up in the field of candidates for this year’s census jobs.  During the last census, most of the temporary workers were retirees.  This time, however, the workers are more likely to be younger professionals who have been laid off.  According to the Washington Post, the Census Bureau will eventually hire about 4,500 people in The District, 19,000 in Maryland and 22,000 in Virginia.  Workers will make about $20/hour.  Click here for more information.

– A new study out today says Montgomery County renters are being priced out of their homes.  Tenants’ advocates are calling for rent control, but opponents say that will discourage apartment builders.  Click here for more details on both sides of the issue.

– Legislation that would impose more regulations on car title lenders in Virginia has advanced to the House with some changes to the bill.  The changes would allow lenders to continue to charge borrowers who try to hide their vehicle while they’re in default.  Currently, the industry is unregulated.  Some lenders charge more than 300 percent interest.  Click here for more information.