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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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- Maine (10)
- Affordable housing (3)
- Homeless shelters (2)
- Homelessness (2)
- Maine poverty (2)
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- Adolescent homelessness (1)
- Civic participation (1)
- Food assistance programs (1)
- Food insecurity (1)
- Food pantries (1)
- High school education (1)
- Hunger (1)
- Immigrants (1)
- Maine childhood hunger (1)
- Maine housing (1)
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- Nutrition education (1)
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- Poverty programs (1)
- Racial discrimination (1)
- Rental housing (1)
- SNAP-Ed (1)
- School size and academic achievement (1)
- Section 8 housing (1)
- Social inequalities (1)
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- Socioeconomic status and academic acheievement (1)
Articles 1 - 15 of 15
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Race And Public Policy In Maine: Past, Present, And Future, James Myall
Race And Public Policy In Maine: Past, Present, And Future, James Myall
Maine Policy Review
Maine’s bicentennial year is an appropriate moment to reflect on the historical legacy of public policy in Maine. In particular, the impact of historic policy decisions on people of color in the state is widely overlooked, perhaps because of Maine’s historical whiteness. This piece will show that, like the rest of the United States, Maine has a history of state-sanctioned discrimination, the consequences of which resonate today. Policymakers need to understand the harmful legacy of racist public policy in Maine if they are to avoid perpetuating those inequalities. Further, this piece will argue that it is not enough for lawmakers …
Policy Changes For A Nutrition Education Program In Maine: Issues And Implications, Alan Majka, Janet C. Fairman, Kathryn Yerxa
Policy Changes For A Nutrition Education Program In Maine: Issues And Implications, Alan Majka, Janet C. Fairman, Kathryn Yerxa
Maine Policy Review
Food insecurity and preventable chronic disease have profound impacts on quality of life and health care costs in Maine. Many government programs have been developed to address these issues; however, effectiveness has often been limited by restrictive policies and less than optimal coordination. In this paper the authors draw upon their research and experiences in Maine, research conducted by others, and state and national statistics to elucidate some of these programs, including their efficacy, limitations, potential and threats to their sustainability. The authors contend that recent federal rule changes allow for greater impact through implementation of evidence-based strategies at the …
Hunger In Maine, Donna Yellen, Mark Swann, Elena Schmidt
Hunger In Maine, Donna Yellen, Mark Swann, Elena Schmidt
Maine Policy Review
Hunger and food insecurity is on the rise in Maine. Mainers are experiencing a food emergency made graver by the economic recession and rising health costs. The authors of this article discuss hunger in Maine, focusing on private efforts to alleviate it.
When The Politics Of Food And Politics Of Immigration Collide— Who Wins?, Barbara Ginley
When The Politics Of Food And Politics Of Immigration Collide— Who Wins?, Barbara Ginley
Maine Policy Review
This commentary discusses how migrant workers play a key role in Maine and national agriculture, a key fact that is sometimes lost in the political rhetoric about “illegal immigrants.”
Family Economic Security, Ann Acheson
Family Economic Security, Ann Acheson
Maine Policy Review
Research shows that family economic insecurity when children are very young can have lifelong effects. Ann Acheson gives an overview of patterns of poverty and family economic insecurity in Maine, including the marked regional differences in poverty, income, and employment in the state. She describes some of the key benefits and programs to help support lower-income families and examines current policies and policy recommendations for addressing poverty and economic insecurity. Acheson notes that while Maine has been progressive in many of its policies that support family economic security, states can’t do it all, since much of the program and benefits …
High School Achievement In Maine: Where You Come From Matters More Than School Size And Expenditures, Fern Desjardins, Gordon A. Donaldson Jr.
High School Achievement In Maine: Where You Come From Matters More Than School Size And Expenditures, Fern Desjardins, Gordon A. Donaldson Jr.
Maine Policy Review
Fern Desjardins and Gordon Donaldson report on their research examining the relationship between academic achievement in Maine’s public high schools and school size, per-pupil operating costs, and socioeconomic status. Using aggregated Maine Educational Assessment (MEA) scores, their study confirmed previous research that socioeconomic status (using both family and community measures) is the most important factor associated with achievement, while school size is not a critical factor. Additionally, the authors found that per-pupil operating costs are higher in the state’s largest and smallest high schools. The authors suggest that the creation of larger districts and larger schools, as supported by recent …
Poverty In Maine, Ann Acheson
Poverty In Maine, Ann Acheson
Maine Policy Review
Despite decades of concerted federal, state, local and private effort, poverty persists in Maine and many parts of the nation. The face of poverty, however, differs across regions and states. Maine, for example, has a higher rate of working poor than in the nation as a whole. In this article, Ann Acheson updates the profile of poverty in Maine, examining recent trends and the nature of regional disparities. Some measures of economic distress have worsened over the last five years; others remain stagnant. Acheson concludes with a brief overview of current policies and programs that address poverty and calls for …
Closing The Class Gap In Civic Participation, Amy Fried
Closing The Class Gap In Civic Participation, Amy Fried
Maine Policy Review
In the Margaret Chase Smith essay, Amy Fried discusses the implications of increasing class stratification on civic participation in the United States. She suggests that public schools can play an important role in improving citizen engagement.
Maine’S Future Housing Needs: An Mpr Interview With David Lakari, David Lakari
Maine’S Future Housing Needs: An Mpr Interview With David Lakari, David Lakari
Maine Policy Review
Since 1994, David Lakari has been director and chair of the Maine State Housing Authority. The Maine State Housing Authority is an independent state agency and a $1.5 billion financial institution. Its mission is to help Maine’s low- and moderate-income citizens obtain and maintain decent, safe, and affordable housing and services suitable to their needs. In this interview, Lakari focuses on his concerns for the future, in particular, the need to find suitable housing options for one of Maine’s fastest-growing demographic groups—the middle-income elderly. While Maine has been doing a good job of building the capacity to house its wealthy …
Ten Years Of Affordable Housing Policy: Is Maine Making Progress-- A Symposium, Elizabeth H. Mitchell, Dennis P. King, James B. Hatch, Jay Hardy
Ten Years Of Affordable Housing Policy: Is Maine Making Progress-- A Symposium, Elizabeth H. Mitchell, Dennis P. King, James B. Hatch, Jay Hardy
Maine Policy Review
In December 1987 Governor McKernan appointed a 30-member, statewide task force to address the issue of affordable housing in Maine. The task force was charged with investigating the quality and cost of affordable housing for lower- and middle-income families, and recommending a set of actions to improve the quality of existing housing as well as to increase the supply of housing. In September 1998 the Task Force issued a report that prescribed a number of local and regional—as well as private and public—solutions to the problem of affordable housing. More than ten years later Maine housing advocates note that the …
A Challenge For The Next Decade: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing, Laura Burns
A Challenge For The Next Decade: Preserving Affordable Rental Housing, Laura Burns
Maine Policy Review
Many of Maine’s low-income families and elderly residents have been able to secure affordable housing with help from a Section 8 certificate, which allows residents to pay no more than 30 percent of their income toward rent and ensures the federal government will make up the difference. Over the years, much of the development of Section 8 housing projects has been assisted by financial incentives and agreements between private and non-profit owners and the federal government. Yet recent changes in federal legislation remove many of these incentives and the agreements that go with them. As a result, some of Maine’s …
Adolescent Homelessness: A Roundtable Discussion
Adolescent Homelessness: A Roundtable Discussion
Maine Policy Review
Where do homeless adolescents come from? Are there more homeless youth today than ten years ago? How do we help these youth? What do they need? In December 1998, these questions formed the core of a Maine Policy Review roundtable discussion featuring: State Representative Michael Quint; Dana Totman, deputy director of the Maine State Housing Authority; Christine O’Leary, coordinator of Portland’s Preble Street Resource Teen Center; Bob Rowe, executive director of New Beginnings in Lewiston; and Brad Coffey, chair of the board of Bangor’s Shaw House from 1994-1998. In their wide-ranging discussion, the participants focused on the varied circumstances that …
Homeless In Maine: Who Is? Who Might Be Tomorrow? What Do We Do About It?, Suzanne Guild
Homeless In Maine: Who Is? Who Might Be Tomorrow? What Do We Do About It?, Suzanne Guild
Maine Policy Review
The December 1998 denial by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to fund Maine’s applications for homeless assistance catapulted the needs of this vulnerable population to top priority status. As Suzanne Guild notes, Maine’s homeless population is comprised of two groups: those who are homeless for the first time and who, after a brief stay at a shelter, will regain stable housing, and those who cycle in and out of the state’s shelters on a more or less regular basis. Both groups tend to be young and undereducated; more than half are male; and many report problems with …
Maine’S Homeless Families: An Interview With Helen Hemminger, Helen Hemminger
Maine’S Homeless Families: An Interview With Helen Hemminger, Helen Hemminger
Maine Policy Review
Since 1991 Helen Hemminger has been director of The Tedford Shelter, a homeless shelter serving adults and families in the Brunswick, Maine area. In this interview, Hemminger provides a first- hand account of Maine’s changing homeless population. The good news, she reports, is that the percentage of people with mental illnesses staying at the shelter has gone down. The bad news is that since 1994 the shelter has experienced a steady increase in the number of homeless families. As Hemminger notes, there are more Maine families today working very hard to make ends meet. Living on a precarious edge, one …
Identifying Childhood Hunger In Maine, Deirdre Mageean
Identifying Childhood Hunger In Maine, Deirdre Mageean
Maine Policy Review
Recent political campaigns at the national and state levels have been filled with much rhetoric about the present and future of families and children. But effective public policy developed in response to many pressing financial and social needs of families and children has not followed from the rhetoric. The lack of adequate quantitative research on the needs of children is often cited as a reason to move cautiously in responding to "perceived needs." Deirdre Mageean discusses the nation’s public policy responses to poverty that have been attempted since the mid-1960s. Mageean, who served as co-director of a year-long childhood hunger …