We are a group of MSW students who have taken on a cause to reverse policies that penalize the poor instead of helping them. Student's Aid to Children Project wants to bring awareness and gather support for Senate Bill 23.

YES, I AM VERY PERSONALLY AFFECTED BY THIS!! THE HOMELESS HAVE RIGHTS!! FIRST AND FOREMOST- HOUSING!!!! I lost my home by no fault of my own! I was NOT prepared for it. All the AGENCIES that I turned to for help said that I had to have children under the age of 18 or they have no funds, vouchers, no room, etc...It's been 11 weeks now. My son, daughter and myself living OUTSIDE, in our car. OUTSIDE LIKE UNWANTED DOGS!!! Even though I had a small income, it was not even enough to rent a 1 bedroom ANYTHING! We were disconnected from any of our so-called friends. We have no family to turn to. We are not drug addicts or drunks. We have no criminal charges or records. NOW MY CAR NO LONGER RUNS AND WE'RE STUCK UNDER A BRIDGE!! People everywhere are so detached and busy. They just look the other way. 47% of the State of Georgia has no HEALTH CARE. That's nearly half of our State folks! Wake up! I want people who want to help people in NEED!! It COULD happen to you!! No bed, no bathroom, no way to cook, no money and no help and SCARED OF MY SURROUNDINGS!! NO MORE RAPID REHOUSING!!! GIVE US YOUR EMPTY BUILDINGS FOR US TO REHAB!! WE WILL DO ALL THE WORK JUST TO HAVE HOMES!! Let's do something truly SEPARATE AND DISTINCT from all the REST!!! STOP THE HATE CRIMES!!! HELP ME NETWORK AND SERVE THOSE IN A CRISIS AND ELIMINATE TREATING PEOPLE AS JUST DISPOSABLE HUMANS!! ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS!!! DO AN ACT OF TANGIBLE KINDNESS, SIGN THE PETITION AND WRITE A HAND WRITTEN LETTER TO YOUR LEGISLATORS!! HELP ME STAY ON TOP OF THIS!! TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!!! YOU COULD BE NEXT!!!

The condition of our roads threatens our economy as well as the safety of the driving public. Doing nothing is irresponsible.

Child homelessness in San Francisco is the most severe it has been since the 1906 earthquake. Enough public schoolchildren are homeless to fill 70 classrooms. Throughout the city, there are children who live in cars with their parents, in residential hotels, crowded on mats in church basements, in shelters, or in tents. This MUST END! The change has been rapid and dramatic: A decade ago, waits for shelter were no more than a week, and a family could generally expect to find a place to live in San Francisco by the time their shelter stay ended. Today, not only are more San Franciscans losing their housing due to displacement, but also the likelihood of finding housing at the end of a shelter stay in San Francisco has faded to the vanishing point. In San Francisco, we are fortunate to have the resources and know-how to end this crisis. We are calling on the Mayor to address the housing needs of all those families with minor children who meet the City’s definition of homelessness including those in shelters, in cars, in residential hotels, doubled up and in garages. Each of these forms of existence have negative impacts on the development of children that can be addressed by ensuring dignified housing. Our goals are not modest, but they are achievable: • By housing all currently homeless children, we will halt an accumulated backlog that has been driving lengthy episodes of homelessness. • We will return our emergency system to the role it was designed to play, an emergency system that can quickly shelter families without waiting for a bed to open. • We will prevent homelessness through dynamic interventions that capture families before they lose their housing for those for which there is a remedy. For those instances there is no preventing, such as domestic violence or fires, we will be able to quickly shelter and rapidly re-house.

If Wisconsin's current Family Medical Leave Act was changed to federal law: • Individuals would NOT be able to care for parent-in-law or domestic partner • Part time employees working between 20-26 hours per week would NOT be covered • Employees of business under 50 spread out over the state would NOT be covered • Employees would NOT be able to choose whether they want to use their accrued time while on leave. Let's tell Wisconsin legislators that our FMLA law must be protected and kept in tact!

What is Group Residential Housing (GRH)? The Group Residential Housing (GRH) program is a state funded program that provides an income supplement to recipients each month to pay for rent and food. All of those supported by the program are at risk of institutional placement or homelessness. The amount of a GRH payment is based on a federal and state standard of what an individual would need, at a minimum, to live in the community. In addition, there are income and asset maximums. Counties administer the GRH program for the state and are responsible for determining eligibility. The GRH Housing Rate is a payment directly to the provider of housing on behalf of the eligible person. Many types of settings may enter into a GRH contract with their county, including adult foster care (family and corporate), board and lodging establishments, non-certified boarding care homes, and registered housing with services establishments. The Problem The current GRH base-rate, less $96.00 for the recipient’s personal needs, as of July 1, 2014, is $876.00 per month or $28.80 per day / per bed / per recipient. In addition to the base rate room & board paid to the facility, each person in the GRH program will receive for personal needs, clothing allowance, and prescription medication co - pays currently not less than $96 per month. In other words, the program takes all of the recipient’s money and only gives them $96 a month to live on for people’s personal needs money. Recipients are not allowed to work while living in GRH. They can’t pay other bills and they don’t have enough money to live on. Basically it’s a program that keeps people in poverty and doesn’t allow them to move out of poverty. When talking to a Minnesota State Senator about GRH housing, he said that the reason the government only gives people $96 to live on, is because that’s how GRH housing gets their funding. The Minnesota State Government doesn’t want to pay all of it, so they charge poor people an arm and a leg for it. The Solution When you think of everything you need to buy in a month to survive and all of the bills you have to pay, $96 barely covers it. No one can live on $96 a month and it is unfair to ask GRH recipients to do the same. No matter what people’s living situation is, they need to have money to properly live on and to be able to pay their bills. Most importantly, they need to be able to move out of poverty, which is why they also need to be allowed to work and go to school. By amending the GRH program to where the recipient only has to pay 1/3 of their income for rent, and where the Minnesota state government pay for the rest of the budget for GRH, will allow poor people to pay their bills, have enough money to live on, find a job or go back to school, and move out of poverty. Please sign the petition and contact Governor Mark Dayton, and your Minnesota State Senator and Representative and ask them to reform the funding for GRH.

Everyday when I walk down the street, I notice that there is at least one homeless person on the street. It hurts my heart whenever I walk by them. Also I personally have a friend who was homeless and is scared by what people told him when he was homeless. Our school is working with a program, Generation Citizen, and are trying to solve this issue.

Witnessing drug sales, deviance, criminal behavior, the breaking of laws and ordinances in the streets of Pennsgrove is a daily phenomenon for many of the residents who reside in this one square mile town. We, the community members wish to help our local Police Department fight the crime that is destroying this town. This petition is a part of a community action that would include a fundraising effort for the Bicycles for Our Pennsgrove Police Officers for the reasons listed above.

To qualify for SNAP in San Francisco, a family of one can make no more than $1,265 a month, and for that will only receive a maximum benefit of $194 in SNAP. To qualify you have to be considered in poverty, shouldn't SNAP be a preventative to poverty instead of a last resort? San Francisco has a very high cost of living and there are plenty of people who need public food assistance who earn more money than the maximum allowed a month to qualify for SNAP.

In some categories, it’s not good to be #1. It’s especially shameful to be #1 in school funding gaps. But it’s true that Pennsylvania has the most inequitable school funding in the country. Most of us know the problem already - school districts across the state have been underfunded for decades. More is being demanded of our children, but there are fewer and fewer resources to educate them. In some districts, we are losing arts, music, and reasonable class sizes. In other districts like Philadelphia, children have died during the school day without full-time nurses present. When we know there are enough resources to educate every child, our underfunded public school system indicates that Pennsylvania has a deep crisis of priorities. That’s why parents, students, teachers, and people of faith and conscience are standing up to say that enough is enough – our children can’t wait any longer for fully and fairly funding schools. Pennsylvanians are fed up with bare bones education spending. But after ousting former Governor Corbett and making promises to restore cuts, our newly elected Democratic Governor Tom Wolf is proposing just a small increase to school funding next year – only 15% of what experts say would fully fund our schools—and his plan perpetuates racial bias in the funding system from the previous administration. At the same time, he’s proposing major corporate tax cuts. Where, we ask, is Pennsylvania’s moral leadership? As the State Legislature deliberates about their own budget proposal, we are building a people-fueled movement that won’t settle for the myth of scarcity that there’s not enough money to fully fund schools. For decades in Pennsylvania, corporations have avoided paying billions in state taxes. We have one of the most regressive income tax systems in the country, with a corporate CEO paying the same income tax rate as a dishwasher. No – it’s not that there’s not enough money for schools. It’s that lawmakers across the aisle are catering to the greed and self-interest of the few instead of the needs of the many. Since March 23rd, clergy, parents, and whole faith communities across the state, across race, class, and religious lines, have been fasting to draw attention to the urgency of Pennsylvania’s ongoing school funding crisis. We’ll keep the fast up until June 30th, the deadline for the state budget. But we need your help too. Sign this petition to tell Governor Wolf and the Legislature to pass a moral budget that fully funds our schools, undoes racial inequities, and makes sure corporations pay their fair share. Let’s stop funding fund the 1% on the backs of our children. Our children and families are worth more.

Let's make America strong in the 21st century and improve the fortunes of the middle class. A strong middle class is a strong America.

Unexpected awesomeness happened last week: Gwyneth Paltrow, after ending her food stamp challenge, urged people to fight for fair pay & increased access to healthy food through.... MomsRising!!! [1] Gwyneth tried (and failed) to live on a $29 weekly food budget, the average per-person benefit level provided by SNAP (food stamps). Should she have bought seven limes? Probably not ... but the online discussions have created an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of protecting SNAP from further cuts. Thank you, Gwyneth. Help us channel coverage of the food stamp challenge into action on our "Hands Off SNAP” message to Congress. Sign on to MomsRising's petition and message below, which we'll deliver to Congress. _________________________________________ Dear Member of Congress, The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is one of the strongest tools our country has in combating hunger and poverty. I strongly urge you to reject current proposals to make massive funding cuts to SNAP. In addition, I ask that you vote against any measures that would restrict access to the program for qualifying individuals or change the successful structure of the program, including block granting and allowing states to shift funds away from food assistance to other purposes. Forty-six million people—including one in five children, the elderly, and people with disabilities—rely on SNAP to feed themselves each day. Cutting funding or changing the structure of SNAP puts millions of our children and families at serious risk. Moreover, a 2013 USDA study found that SNAP is a key public benefit program, which also serves as an economic stimulus, creating an economic boost that ripples through the economy when new SNAP benefits are redeemed. I hope you will stand up for our economy and families who are struggling to feed their children by protecting SNAP and rejecting any funding cuts or structural changes to the program. Sincerely, [1] Goop, My $29 Food Stamp Challenge—and the Recipes (& Brouhaha) That Ensued