The United States Conference of Mayors makes available its annual status report on hunger and homelessness in America's cities. "The survey, conducted in 25 cities, examined the causes of hunger and homelessness, the demographic groups that make up this population, demand for emergency food and housing-related assistance, model programs that respond to these problems, and the projected impact of...

Located in Cleveland, it makes sense that Case Western Reserve University would have a dedicated research agenda to address questions of both urban poverty and social change and their interactions. In their work, the staff members of the Center on Urban Poverty and Social Change use the city of Cleveland itself as a study area, both to illuminate context-specific issues and challenges, as a...

Microfinance programs harness Web to connect borrowers and lenders http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_13726179?nclick_check=1 Kiva is Not Quite What It Seems http://blogs.cgdev.org/open_book/2009/10/kiva-is-not-quite-what-it-seems.php Innocuous Changes vs. Grand Designs http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-whittle/innocuous-changes-vs-gran_b_350588.html Microfinance Gateway...

The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), based in Washington DC, is "working to improve public policies and public-private partnerships to eradicate hunger and under-nutrition in the US...[as it] works with hundreds of national, state and local nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and corporations to address hunger and its root cause, poverty." Visitors to the FRAC website will find that...

This 115-page report, released by Economic Policy Institute (EPI) at the end of July 2001, "is the most comprehensive study of family hardships ever published." The report examines the plight of the working poor by determining basic family budgets for communities across the nation -- the amount of money a family needs for food, housing, utilities, child care, transportation, and health care -- and...

Established in 1966 by the US Office of Economic Opportunity, the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), University of Wisconsin-Madison, investigates the "causes and consequences of poverty and social inequality" in the United States. Often a source of in-depth information on welfare reform, IRP research is available in full text via the quarterly publication Focus (Fall 1994 to present), IRP...

The Brookings Institution has a broad range of research interests, ranging from informed commentary on the Middle East to energy policy here in the United States. One of the organization's more recent pieces analyzed participation in the USDA's food stamp program, in conjunction with Census 2000 data. Their report revealed a few troubling situations, including the fact that only about one-half of...

While there is a great deal of scholarly and informed analysis of the various public policy issues within the city of New York, there is much less coverage of the area of upstate New York. Stepping into that literature gap is this recent report from the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy group. Released in September 2004, this 20-page report by Rolf Pendall and Susan Christopherson...

According to recent census statistics, the poverty level for families headed by single moms is 33%, while the poverty level for two parent families with children is only 6%. For this reason, many people feel the solution to poverty reduction is merely to marry off single moms. However, according to the report "Marriage, Poverty, and Public Policy," the solution to lessening this percentage gap is...

In August, the US Census Bureau released newly-compiled data on income and poverty as part of the Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates (SAIPE) program. The aim of the program is to provide more current estimates of selected income and poverty statistics than the most recent decennial census by using data from states, counties, and school districts. The newest data tables online from SAIPE are...