– 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.

Tags: washington, dc, hiv, aids, female, condoms, free, giveaway, virginia, budget, cuts, women's history month, obama, proclamation

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.

Tags: washington dc, maryland, national women and girls hiv/aids awareness day, hiv, aids, women, girls, district, female condom, prevention, healthcare

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

Tags: Washington Area Women's Foundation, poverty, Oklahoma House of Representatives, low income, abused women, educational workshops, Making Cent$ in the City, foster cases, parental poverty, eggs, Women’s Foundation of Greater Kansas City, financial, women, girls

– 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.

Tags: washington, dc, maryland, virginia, women, girls, assistance, wage, gap, women of color, african, american, hispanic, men, earnings, justice, attorney, public defender, same-sex, gay, union, marriage

– 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.

Tags: washington, maryland, virginia, recession, unemployment, foreclosure, homes, international women's day

– 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.

Tags: washington, dc, maryland, virginia, women, girls, low, income, poverty, car, title, lenders, rent, control, housing

– The federal government says it will start producing an experimental measurement of poverty next year.  This will be a step toward the first overhaul of the formula since it was developed about 50 years ago.  Click here to read more about how the new measure for poverty will be calculated.

– Residents in D.C.’s Ward 5 are frustrated that one of their neighborhood’s only grocery stores is closing this weekend.  They say the Safeway in the Rhode Island Shopping Center in Northeast is the only store within walking distance of the Edgewood and Brentwood communities.  They’re especially concerned about the senior citizens in the area.  Safeway says this store hasn’t made a profit in about a decade.  Click here for more details.

Tags: washington, dc, maryland, virginia, women, girls, assistance, poverty, low, income, domestic violence, laws, northeast dc, safeway, closing

The Obama Administration’s Middle Class Task Force released its first annual report last week.  Unfortunately, it missed an opportunity to address the issue of car ownership for middle class families – and for low-income families aspiring to become middle class.

The report contains a set of hypothetical budgets for two-parent families in the 25^th, 50^th and 75^th  percentiles in income.  For a look at these hypothetical budgets, click here and see Figure 6.  All of these budgets show a higher percentage of the family budget devoted to cars than to medical expenses or saving for college. 

In fact, for two-parent families at the 25^th and 50^th percentiles, car expenses appear to be higher than any category except housing and an “other expenses” category that includes the cost of necessities such as food, clothing and utilities.  The percentage for car ownership for households at the 25^th percentile was especially high.

Similar hypothetical budgets for low-income, single-parent families (mostly headed by women) by the U.S. Department of Commerce (click here to see these budgets) show the same results.  The costs of car ownership for these families outpace every other category except housing and other necessities.

Unfortunately, the Middle Class Task Force’s report did not offer any solutions to this transportation challenge.  Yet we know that for low-income (and minority) households, car ownership is positively correlated with improved access to jobs, higher household income and more weeks worked per year.  For example,  nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of participants in Vehicles for Change, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation, obtained a better job within six to 12 months of owning their car, and participants enjoyed an average increase in salary of more than $4,500.

While health care, college savings and other pressing expenses receive – and deserve – attention from media and policy makers, these figures show a real need to address the needs of working families for cars.

Let’s hope we can get the task force to look more closely at these issues in the future. If you want to encourage them to do so, you can leave a comment on their website at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/strongmiddleclass/.

John Van Alst is an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, Inc., in Boston

Tags: white house, middle class task force, transportation, car, ownership, low income, women, headed, families, middle class, budgets

– Maryland’s governor is calling for more training efforts to prepare residents to meet an expected surge in “middle-skill jobs.”  According to a new study, by 2016, the state will gain more than 430,000 jobs that require certification beyond a high school diploma, but don’t require a bachelor’s degree.  Only 37 percent of Maryland’s workforce currently has the credentials to fill middle-skill jobs.  Click here for more details.

– D.C.’s Department of Employment Services is now accepting applications for the Summer Youth Employment Program.  For details, including registration information, click here.

– Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement went to the General Assembly to ask for more state funding for dental care for low-income adults.  Virginia is one of a few states where the only dental care Medicaid covers is emergency care.  Click here to read more.

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

Tags: washington, dc, women, girls, virginia, maryland, jobs, employment, teen, mothers, education, middle skill jobs, healthcare, dental, low income, medicare

– Maryland and 15 other states want to make it illegal for employers to run credit checks on potential employees.  Maryland lawmakers say a job-seeker’s credit score has no bearing on that person’s ability to do the job.  Click here for details.

– Over the weekend, homeless teens from a D.C. shelter went on a tour of the White House, bowled on the president’s lanes and had lunch at a nearby restaurant.  Click here to read the details of their experience and why they say they can relate to President Obama.

Tags: washington, dc, women, girls, child, care, tuition, mothers, credit check, maryland, unemployment, homeless, teens