When Benny Lacayo was released from prison after two and a half years, he had a rough time transitioning. “To try to reconnect, and gain that humanity back, that’s very hard,” he reflected. Reentry was an emotionally overwhelming experience, and the myriad requirements of his parole — and lack of support from the state — made his transition more difficult. Probation and parole typically restrict where someone can live and work, who they can socialize with, where they can travel, and more. People must also regularly report to a supervising officer. “[Probation or parole officers] are trained to ..read more

Until very recently, the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives (MMIWR) has often been neglected by local police, the Department of Justice, and state institutions with the power to prevent further violence committed against Native and Indigenous women and girls. A new office in Minnesota seeks to address the MMIWR crisis by tackling a number of factors that create conditions of violence and precipitate the lack of institutional alarm, using a $1 million budget to collaborate with the state’s 11 tribes. The state joins New Mexico, Arizona, and Wisconsin where similar e ..read more

My pregnancy began with my feet dangling haphazardly over the top of my bathtub. I’d duct-taped a hand mirror to the side of the tub so that if I squinted, I could see my own open cervix just well enough to guide a catheter through it into my uterus. It was my own version of intrauterine insemination (IUI), which is typically performed in medical facilities. However, I am queer, single, disabled, and most of all low-income, and thus unable to afford sperm banks or clinic-based IUI. When you don’t have access to institutions, you make do, so I read about the process and watched patient educatio ..read more

Ericka Brewington’s youngest child, a boy, was born on August 27, 2017, and it should have been a day of joy for her and her family. But instead of receiving the rest and celebration all new parents deserve, she was separated from her newborn infant. It was not due to an act of abuse or neglect on her part — it was the result of a drug test performed on her infant without her knowledge. “I was given a stack of papers, and I remember on a couple pieces of paper the words were blurry, this is how much copying was going on. They just said, ‘it’s a normal consent form; if something happens to you ..read more

Since mid-2020, more than a thousand low-income families have brought their sick and suffering pets to the nonprofit Pet Support Space, housed in a tiny Los Angeles storefront. One 14-year-old dog had a tumor that a veterinarian had quoted $5,000 to remove. A four-year-old pit bull had been vomiting for days, a cat’s painful bladder stones required surgery, a pug limped from the foxtail embedded in its paw. Skin and ear infections abounded. Neither the animals’ problems nor their owners’ inability to afford help for them was a surprise. Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox A recent nationwide study ..read more

At the height of the pandemic, nearly 93 percent of U.S. households with children were involved in some form of distance learning from home, according to Census Bureau data. Yet even when there were few alternatives, lower-income families were much less likely to rely on online resources for schoolwork. That isn’t all that surprising, when you consider many of those families (especially in rural areas) lack adequate internet access they can afford. During the pandemic, reliable and affordable internet access was not a luxury, but an essential necessity. The FCC launched the Emergency Broadband ..read more

When Jennifer Brown left Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee on a work-release program, it had been six-and-a-half months since she had seen her son, Elijah. The last time they’d been together was when she gave birth to him, under the watch of two prison guards, in a hospital near the prison. Brown had forty-eight hours with her newborn before she had to hand him over to a family chosen by Together for Good, a religious nonprofit that places vulnerable children in foster care. When Brown and her son met for the second time, the baby cried and did not immediately warm to his mother. Brown ..read more

On Election Day 2020, 57 percent of voters in Mountain View, Calif., passed a ballot measure to address what many housed in the Silicon Valley town viewed as a growing civic issue: people living in RVs. A street count from July 2020 found 191 recreational vehicles [RVs] parked on city streets, with 68 parked in an approved city-run lot. With the measure’s approval, city staff could ban most RV residents from remaining in Mountain View via “no parking” signs. Nearly a year later, the measure’s future is unknown; soon after voters approved the ban, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation o ..read more

Our social safety net relies heavily on statistics. Number of kids returning to school this year: 48.1 million, all receiving free meals. Number of people housed with the help of federal rental assistance: 10.4 million, 23 percent of whom are disabled. Number of workers who lost their unemployment benefits on Labor Day: more than 8 million. To help people, we have to know how many people are in need, how many people receive benefits, and what the gap is between those two numbers. For the past 15 years, the American Community Survey (ACS), conducted annually by the Census Bureau, has been one s ..read more

In 2016, I was assigned to the state penitentiary in Walla Walla — six hours away by car from where my children live. I told the caseworker all about them and their mothers, and asked if there was any way I could be sent to a closer facility to increase the chances of them being able to visit. It wasn’t about me, I explained, but for my girls. He didn’t laugh. He didn’t rationalize why it was necessary to send me so far away, even though there were plenty of prisons on this side of the state. He didn’t tell me that the mental health of my daughters wasn’t worth protecting. I might as well have ..read more