Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Poverty In Massachusetts For Families With Children, Randy Albelda, Ferry Cadet, Dinghong Mei

Center for Social Policy Publications

Massachusetts has lower poverty rates compared to the US average for all families with children. The poverty rates for female-headed families with children (single mother families) are 5.5 times higher than those of married couples with children in Massachusetts and the US.

Poverty rates for families with children differ considerably across Massachusetts’ ten largest cities, and are typically considerably higher than the Massachusetts average for all family types. Springfield has the highest poverty rates for each family type with children while Quincy has the lowest.

Characteristics Of Homeless Individuals Accessing Massachusetts Emergency Shelters, 1999-2001, Tatjana Meschede, Michelle Kahan, Michelle Hayes, Donna Friedman

Center for Social Policy Publications

The Center for Social Policy (CSP) at the McCormack Institute, University of Massachusetts Boston oversees the Connection, Service, and Partnership through Technology (CSPTech) project. CSPTech operates a homeless management information system being implemented throughout the Commonwealth. Founded in 1995, this project is a networked computerized record-keeping system that allows homeless service providers across Massachusetts to collect uniform client information over time. This information is aggregated in a database used by service providers, advocates, government officials, researchers, and people experiencing homelessness. Analysis of this information is critical to efforts to understand the extent of this problem in Massachusetts in an attempt …

Food Stamps: Available But Not Easily Accessible: A Study Conducted For Project Bread, Michelle Kahan, Elaine Werby, Jennifer Raymond

Center for Social Policy Publications

Concerned with growing hunger among Massachusetts families eligible for Food Stamps, and the paradoxical decline in the number of program enrollees, Project Bread asked the Center for Social Policy at the John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs, University of Massachusetts Boston (CSP) to study the process of securing and sustaining Food Stamp Benefits. Concurrent with the planning process for the study, the Massachusetts legislature, in an override of the Governor's veto in early December 2001, included language in the FY 2002 budget designed to expand access to the program. Among other requirements, the language requires the Department of Transitional …

A Policy Brief: Massachusetts (T)Afdc Case Closings, October 1993-August 1997, Donna Friedman, Emily Douglas, Michelle Hayes, Mary Ann Allard

Center for Social Policy Publications

When a DTA (Department of Transitional Assistance) worker assesses whether a family's (T)AFDC (Temporary Aid to Families with Dependent Children) case will be closed, s/he decides which one of 67 different codes best describes the reason cash benefits for the household will be stopped. To carry out the analyses, we sorted all of the 67 codes into clusters of codes that logically grouped together: Cluster I, Increased Income; Cluster H, Sanctions; Cluster III, Eligible Persons Moved; Cluster IV, Fraud; Cluster V, Client Request; Cluster VI, No Longer Eligible; Cluster VII, Other or Multiple Meanings. The Appendix displays a description of …

A Snapshot Of Individuals And Families Accessing Boston's Emergency Homeless Shelters, 1997, Donna Friedman, Michelle Hayes, John Mcgah, Anthony Roman

Center for Social Policy Publications

This document summarizes key findings from a survey conducted on March 19, 1997 with 338 homeless individuals and 94 families sheltered or served by 33 of 40 shelter programs in the City of Boston. The data presented in this report were collected at one point in time. Point in time data results in an overrepresentation of the "longer term" homeless, and offers limited insight regarding the structural dynamics underlying movement from homelessness to residential stability (Culhane, Lee, Wachter, 1996; White, 1996). However, it does provide a snapshot of the men, women, and children who were spending the night in a …