Public Policy Commons^™

The Older Population In Massachusetts, 1980-1990, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gerontology Institute Publications

Massachusetts and the nation are aging! People 65 and older are growing in numbers more rapidly than other younger segments of the population, and the unprecedented growth of this group has created new demands on and new opportunities for every major sector of American life. But if we are to make constructive plans for an aging society, we must have sound information on the major changes in the make-up of the population.

This report shows how the older populations in Massachusetts and in the United States have changed in the decade between 1980 and 1990. It is designed to serve …

Latinos In Massachusetts: Growth And Geographical Distribution, Ralph Rivera

New England Journal of Public Policy

Massachusetts has undergone radical changes in its racial/ethnic composition in the last ten years. The Latino population, owing to its extraordinary growth rate during the last two decades, is the largest racial/ethnic minority group in the state. Yet relatively little is known about this population because of the "information gap." Based on 1990 census data, this article focuses on the growth and geographical distribution of Latinos in Massachusetts. It considers the undercount of Latinos, the growth of Latinos in the commonwealth from a national perspective, and assesses the increase of Latinos in the New England states. It explores the growth …

The Kindred Bonds Of Mentally Ill Homeless Persons, Richard C. Tessler, Gail M. Gamache, Peter H. Rossi, Anthony F. Lehman, Howard H. Goldman

New England Journal of Public Policy

While the unraveling of the kinship bond has long been suspected to play a role in the epidemiology of homelessness, the connection between kinship and homelessness has been little studied. Based on a normative analysis of the role of family structure in response to adversity, this article explores the impact of the amount and quality of kinship ties on episodes of homelessness experienced by discharged psychiatric patients in Ohio. Survey data derived from personal interviews with both former patients and their kin indicate more strain in relations with kin of the homeless than the nonhomeless. The strain in the kinship …

Policy Shifts In The Massachusetts Response To Family Homelessness, Margaret A. Leonard, Stacy Randell

New England Journal of Public Policy

Massachusetts's response to the tragedy of family homelessness during a period of economic prosperity (1983-1987) is contrasted to a period of economic decline (1988-1992). The article describes the movement toward a structural response in the boom years and its dismantling with the emergence of a "blame the victim" response in the decline years. The roles of state government, advocacy groups, human service providers, private funding sources, academic institutions, and the media, as they influence these responses, are outlined. Interviews with key actors in these groups, group interviews with formerly homeless women, a review of the literature, and the authors' direct …

Tents Along The Merrimack: Homelessness And University-Community Cooperation, Mark D. Levine

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article presents historical, institutional, and ethical contexts for a university and an industrial, ethnic community's cooperative effort to address local hunger and homelessness. A large portion of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell's students are of working-class and local origin. Neighborhood social problems are in effect their own, and community service may be considered a variant of self-help. Attention is paid the special importance of developing a sense of community across traditional boundaries on and off campus and to the establishment of permanent mutually beneficial structures.

The Grassroots Home: How Local Communities Are Fighting Homelessness, Sheila Rauch Kennedy

New England Journal of Public Policy

In the 1980s federal policy combined with market forces to produce the American tragedy of homelessness. Since that time influential policymakers have debated every aspect of the issue, but avoided the large-scale commitment needed for solutions. Locally, however, grassroots efforts have made these commitments and forged the coalitions needed to address the issue. The solution to homelessness lies in harnessing these same successful public and private resources on the regional and national levels.

Counting The New York Homeless: An Ethnographic Perspective, Kim Hopper

New England Journal of Public Policy

Significant ambiguities inhere in the operational definitions of "site" and "selected components of the homeless population" used in the 1990 S-Night Count. Ethnographic methods offer a useful corrective. This article, covering research that was part of a larger project evaluating the S-Night count, describes a brief ethnographic inquiry into the ecology of public spaces occupied by the homeless poor in New York City. Problems in implementation, surprising ease of access, patterns of mobility and prevailing norms from site to site, and the tenuous character of the street sites are reviewed, as are implications for future enumeration efforts.

The Last Thing We Need Is Another Shelter, Jessica Segré

New England Journal of Public Policy

Segre suggests that family homelessness is merely the latest and most devastating example of America's lack of commitment to children and families. The history of human services for children is presented to show that, both at the community and at the policy levels, this population and its needs have been neglected, subjected to fragmentation, and consistently downgraded on our lists of priorities. The societal values that have led to this situation are discussed and revealed as still reflecting an individualistic, frontier outlook, which is, however, becoming an anachronism. The need for a child/family policy is stressed, as is the urgency …

Medicare Supplemental Insurance: Today's Crisis, Health Care For All, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gerontology Institute Publications

The purpose of health insurance is to spread risk. The system works under the assumption that, at any given point in time, only a percentage of the people in a given group will be sick. Regardless of health status, all members of the group will be paying premiums in order to cover the cost of care for those who need it.

As a group, however, seniors represent a high-risk population. They are more likely than younger people to need health care services and tend to require longer hospital stays. Yet, while their expenses are greater, their financial resources are generally …

Evaluation Of The Impact Of Wisconsin's Learnfare Experiment On The School Attendance Of Teenagers Receiving Afdc (1992), John Pawasarat, Lois M. Quinn, Frank Stetzer

ETI Publications

In June 1988 the Wisconsin legislature authorized that an independent evaluation of the state’s “Learnfare” experiment be conducted, and in July 1989 the Employment and Training Institute secured the contract for this evaluation after a competitive bidding process. This report meets the requirement of the contract to provide a report on the state’s activities during the first two years of the “Learnfare” federal waiver. The “Learnfare” evaluation design approved by the state and federal governments in December, 1989, for completion on June 30, 1993, is testing four main hypotheses: that “Learnfare” increases the total school attendance of teenage AFDC recipients, …

The Labor Market Experience Of Young African American Men From Low-Income Families In Wisconsin (1992), Harold M. Rose, Ronald S. Edari, John Pawasarat, Lois M. Quinn

ETI Publications

This research study provides empirical data on the employment experience of young African American men who entered the Wisconsin labor force in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Its goal was to examine the early labor force experience of 17,216 young men from poor families, matching state wage databases against individuals identified in the state income maintenance system (i.e., households applying for or receiving food stamps, AFDC or medical assistance, 1987-1989). The study analyzed 36,005 jobs held by the study population over five quarters. The vast majority of African American men in their early twenties who were employed were relegated …

The Employment Status Of Young Adult Black Males Residing In Poverty Households: Recent Milwaukee County Experience, Harold M. Rose

ETI Publications

Harold Rose, UWM professor of Geography and Urban Studies, examined the findings of the Employment and Training Institute analysis of employment held by 8,479 young African American males from Wisconsin families seeking or receiving public assistance (AFDC, food stamps, and/or medical assistance) in 1987-1989. Rose discusses the findings in light of a wide variety of perspectives by drawing on national literature addressing social and economic changes in the 1980s, welfare dependency, conditions in inner city Milwaukee, labor force participation rates, extended presence of young black males in parental households, employment sectors, subpopulations’ earnings history, attachment to the labor force, school …

The Labor Market Experience Of Young African American Men From Low-Income Households, Ronald S. Edari

ETI Publications

The target population for this study is 5,800 young African American males living in households where one or more members applied for public assistance. Their employment records are tracked for 39 months. The critical question was to examine what happened to these youths upon reaching maturity. Dr. Ronald Edari, UWM Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies, observes that while modest in scope, this paper is intended to counter-balance in some measure the recent voluminous literature on work and welfare, whose conservative thrust has tended to focus on the debilitating characteristics of individuals rather than industries. The paper examines employment, earnings …