We learned about successful campaigns to increase benefit levels, create child support pass throughs, add a diaper or toiletries allowance, or end a flawed policy like the “family cap” in some states.Read More
Housing is the key to improving these children’s outcomes and also helps to lower their healthcare costs. Children’s Health Watch provided examples of case studies where healthcare costs decreased by 90% when children were provided with stable housing.Read More
The Disparate Impact rule says that, even if it seems to apply equally to everyone, if a policy impacts protected classes more than others, it is discriminatory. A new proposal from HUD would effectively dismantle this important and needed rule.Read More
The September Empowering You Newsletter can be downloaded by clicking on the thumbnail below, and you can explore it’s contents by clicking on any of the links under the thumbnail. Putting an SRO in every Missouri school won’t make them safer – but here’s what might – Conner Kerrigan “Missouri has failed it’s voters” – Voter...Read More
In August 2019, Empower Missouri’s Executive Director, Jeanette Mott Oxford, offered testimony in a special hearing on Criminal Justice. “I think sometimes we wish we had a magic mirror, and we could hold it up to people and it would say, ‘I see racism in you. I see racism in you. No racism in you.’...Read More
To my ear, “sequester” is a lovely word. Despite what the dictionary says about its synonyms like segregate, seclude and withdraw or its chemical meaning related to binding and absorbing carbon dioxide, it has a certain lyrical quality. I almost expect it to be a dessert wine (“I’ll take a glass of the Sequester, please”)...Read More
While some of Section 8 funding is still project based, much of that money is now distributed through what is called Housing Choice Vouchers (HCVs).Read More
In order to afford a modest, two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent in Missouri, full-time workers need to earn $16.00 per hour. This is Missouri’s 2019 Housing Wage, revealed in the national Out of Reach report, jointly released this week by the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) and Empower Missouri. Out of Reach 2019...Read More
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