With Haiti starting to drop out of the news again (despite continued problems there for earthquake survivors, not least of which is the rain), it’s an apropos time for my article to appear on how the media covered the Haitian … Continue reading
My bad: Both my City Limits stories actually ran today. The other one is a more in-depth look at the mayor and governor’s proposed cuts to emergency food programs and job-training programs, which is just impeccable timing: As New York … Continue reading
My first article for the relaunched City Limits, about the doomsday budgets proposed for New York city and state, is up. (It’s actually the second article I wrote for them, but is running first — I blame the suits at … Continue reading
I’m very pleased to announced that, effective immediately, I am taking on the role of Contributing Editor for Safety Net and Workforce Development issues for the newly redesigned and expanded City Limits. I’m actually one of four new contributing editors … Continue reading
Sure, Brooklyn has become fashionable on Mayor Bloomberg’s watch, but can he make it livable? A few years back, when the New York real estate market still looked within reach of, say, itinerant op-ed writers, I got to spend some … Continue reading
So much for promises that the New York Times would soon diverge from the media’s obsession with the Nouveau Poor. The front page of today’s Times features a profile of foreclosed homeowners who are now living in homeless shelters that … Continue reading
Mostly lost in all the coverage of the new Census Bureau poverty stats (with unemployment skyrocketing, more people are poor!) is this tidbit from Emily Monea and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution: Using data from the Congressional Budget Office … Continue reading
More New Yorkers are struggling, but good luck getting info from the city on how to get help: When Judith Rubinstein was named NY1’s “New Yorker of the Week” recently, she was immediately deluged with 70 phone messages. They weren’t … Continue reading
There are some tentative signs that the recession may finally be able to do what Hurricane Katrina did not: Get the news media to pay attention to the 1 in 8 Americans — or more, depending on how you’re counting … Continue reading
A visit to a welfare-to-work program whose participants say it actually, like, works: Say one thing for the women packing an airless classroom in East Harlem: They’ve mastered call-and-response. “You have skills and education, what else do you need?” asks … Continue reading