December 2008  
Family Economic Success Newsletter
In this Issue

EVENTS

Documentary Screening Highlights Common Pitfalls for Affordable Car Purchase

Asset-Building Leaders Gather to Discuss Innovative Shared-Ownership Strategies

Mistakes Provide Valuable Guidance for Community Economic Developers


PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS AND OTHER RESOURCES

Meeting Basic Needs of Returning Prisoners Strengthens Chances of Successful Reentry

America’s Working Families Continue to Fall Behind
Workforce Intermediaries Must Manage Projects for Sustainability

Narrative Project Examines New Rationale and Approach for Workforce Development

Rural Poor are Often Segregated in High Poverty Areas

Cities Adopting “Bank On” Approach to Help Low-Income Residents Stabilize Finances and Build Assets

New Listserv Addresses Issues of Car Purchase and the Affordable Transportation Field

Financial Education Can Help Protect Latin American Consumers
The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s quarterly Family Economic Success (FES) Newsletter provides updates on activities, developments and resources in the three major areas of FES—workforce development, family economic supports and asset building. The goal of Casey's FES work is to promote specific strategies that enable parents to get jobs and advance in the workforce, increase their income, and build and protect a base of assets sufficient to secure a better future for their families.

Events
Pursuit of The Dream Documentary Screening Highlights Common Pitfalls for Affordable Car Purchase
The Casey Foundation and Job Opportunities Task Force (JOTF) co-sponsored a documentary screening of Pursuit of the Dream: Cars & Jobs in America in October in Baltimore. The documentary uses real-life stories to highlight the importance of affordable transportation to getting and keeping a job, accessing education and training, and building family economic success. The screening was followed by a panel discussion about the pitfalls of used car purchase, the increasing role played by community car programs, and new developments and trends in the affordable transportation field.
Learn about and order the documentary

Shared-Ownership Strategies Asset-Building Leaders Gather to Discuss Innovative Shared-Ownership Strategies
More than 60 leaders gathered at the Casey Foundation on December 2 to discuss expanding asset-building opportunities through shared ownership strategies. Co-sponsored by Casey and the Asset Funders Network, the day was focused on the opportunities and challenges of targeting shared ownership strategies to low-income families. The participants included practitioners, national intermediaries, and foundations representing the asset field, shared equity housing, worker cooperatives, employee stock ownership plans, and other strategies that have given individuals ownership stakes in businesses, housing, and real estate. The consultative session grew out of research conducted by Beadsie Woo and Heather McCulloch and summarized in Expanding Asset Building through Shared Ownership.
Read the paper

MDC Mistakes Provide Valuable Guidance for Community Economic Developers
Leaders in the community economic development field met in Baltimore in November to share stories about projects, programs and approaches that did not work—or did not succeed as expected or intended. The day-long meeting highlighted the valuable lessons that can be drawn from mistakes and failures. With a title of “Mistakes, Learning and Adaptation,” the meeting convened practitioners who are authoring a set of stories about constructive mistakes that address ideas or concerns related to community economic development. Constructive mistakes can call into question key assumptions about problems, strategic interventions, implementation, partners and evaluations, and can be invaluable in rethinking approaches and solutions. Draft papers are being posted by MDC Job Partners, and Round 2 of the papers are now available.
Read the draft papers

Publications, Presentations and Other Resources
Successful Reentry Report Meeting Basic Needs of Returning Prisoners Strengthens Chances of Successful Reentry
A new report by the Urban Institute, funded by Casey, identifies the eight most basic and immediate needs former prisoners have when they exit prison, recommends policies to meet those needs, and highlights the challenges practitioners face when developing release planning. “Release Planning for Successful Reentry: A Guide for Corrections, Service Providers and Community Groups,” is designed to help the corrections community, service providers and others prepare prisoners for the moment of release—a critical point of time that can make or break an inmate’s successful reintegration into society. The guide can help corrections agencies and their community partners improve the way prisoners are prepared for release, and raise awareness of both community and government resources for release planning. A survey of 43 departments of corrections illustrates what release planning procedures are currently being implemented across the country.
Read the report
WPFP Report America’s Working Families Continue to Fall Behind
A new report from the Working Poor Families Project, Still Working Hard, Still Falling Short, finds that one in four working families—a total of 42 million adults and children— are low-income, earning too little to meet their basic needs. A follow-up study to the 2004 report Working Hard, Falling Short, the new research shows that the number of working poor families has increased substantially—350,000 more families were low-income in 2006 compared with 2002. Income inequality also has increased, with a widening gap between the share of income the highest-earning families receive and that earned by the least affluent. And this increase in income disparity and in the number of low-income families took place during a period of economic expansion, long before the current economic distress.
Read the report
Shared Ownership Workforce Intermediaries Must Manage Projects for Sustainability
Complex workforce development projects managed by intermediaries—usually focused on one industry or sector—provide a wide range of education, training, and support services for low-income adults. But as the field matures, and their seed funding expires, a key question emerges: how can these projects be sustained so they can continue to meet both worker and employer needs? A new report from National Fund for Workforce Solutions and the Boston Health Care and Research Training Institute, and funded by the Casey Foundation, examines the sustainability challenge. According to “Sustaining the Promise,” the answer lies in the ability of these projects to manage complicated relationships and funding streams, meet multiple needs simultaneously, and stay ahead of the curve in their areas of expertise. The report concludes that projects must develop highly sophisticated infrastructures, identify and maintain diverse funding, and continually streamline and improve their operations.
Read an executive summary of the report
Read the full report

Workforce Narrative Project Narrative Project Examines New Rationale and Approach for Workforce Development

The Casey Foundation recently undertook a two-year initiative to examine new ways of thinking about workforce development and the challenges presented by decreased attention from policymakers to this critical system. The 15 resulting papers frame and examine the problem, offer new ways of looking at workforce development, and provide ideas and insights for strengthening federal, state, local, private and philanthropic investments.
Read the papers:


Carsey Institute Rural Poor are Often Segregated in High Poverty Areas
One-half of rural poor people are segregated in high-poverty areas, according to a new policy brief co-published by the Carsey Institute and Rural Realities, a publication of the Rural Sociological Society. The brief, “Concentrated Rural Poverty and the Geography of Exclusion,” highlights the challenges faced by America’s rural poor, in light of their physical and social isolation from middle-class communities that might offer economic opportunities. The brief is one in a series of Reports on Rural America from the Carsey Institute that are funded by the Casey Foundation, the Ford Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Other recent, new briefs include: “Rural Children Now Less Likely to Live in Married Couple Families,” “Measures and Methods: Four Tenets for Rural Economic Development in the New Economy,” and “Population Growth in New Hispanic Destinations.”
Read the brief
Read other Reports on Rural America briefs
Bank on San Francisco Cities Adopting “Bank On” Approach to Help Low-Income Residents Stabilize Finances and Build Assets
The Casey Foundation and partners like the National League of Cities (NLC) are supporting a growing national movement to connect low-income families to the financial mainstream. Patterned after a model begun in San Francisco, more than 30 cities and the state of California have replicated the “Bank On” model, which allows city governments to partner with local, mainstream financial institutions to promote wealth creation among lower to middle-income residents. According to NLC, 28 million people in the U.S. are “unbanked” (no checking or saving account), and 44 million are “underbanked” (have an account, but use non-mainstream providers for other financial products and services). NLC reports that these Americans lose $11 billion per year to check cashers, payday loan outlets and pawn shops. The goal of Bank On is to help families access free or low-cost bank accounts and loan products in their own communities. Led by the cities of New York and San Francisco, a coalition has been launched to also support innovative citywide financial education. The Cities for Financial Empowerment Coalition currently includes New York City, San Francisco, Miami, San Antonio, Savannah and Seattle.
Learn more about Bank On
National Consumer Law Center New Listserv Addresses Issues of Car Purchase and the Affordable Transportation Field
A new email discussion listserv on issues affecting car finance, sales, and ownership for low-income families has been launched by the National Consumer Law Center with funding from the Casey Foundation. Discussions will focus on car ownership programs, policy changes to bring fairness to car buying and financing, and alternative financing products for car purchases by low-income families. The listserv also will address the broader issues that affect access to transportation for working families (e.g., insurance, driver's licenses, maintenance, etc.). To join please go to http://lists.nclc.org/subscribe/ and check the Auto Ownership, Finance, and Policy list.

Inter-American Dialogues Financial Education Can Help Protect Latin American Consumers
A recent issue of the Inter-American Dialogue’s Latin America Advisor (Sept. 25-Oct. 8 issue) addressed the question “Are Latin American Financial Companies Lending Responsibly?” The article examined what Latin American consumers can learn from the current U.S. financial crisis. In a guest commentary, Irene Lee, a senior associate with the FES unit at Casey, emphasized the importance of financial empowerment, saying “Getting more transnational families banked, creditworthy, financially educated and asset conscious is a shared responsibility of government, financial institutions and philanthropy.”
Read the newsletter

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