"I should have taken the shortcut home from my bird-watching spot at the salt marsh, because then I wouldn't have to walk past Joey Morell, whipping rocks against the telephone pole in front of his house as the sun goes down." (p. 1) If you know anything about me, I am a sucker for a good first line, and this one has got the goods.
This is Chirp's (Naomi's) story. Well, her family's story really. Her mom is a dancer who has suddenly started to have some problems with her body. Her leg is dragging around and has been hurting her for a while, but Chirp's somewhat clinical and distant psychiatrist dad isn't really talking about it. Big sister Rachel is distancing herself as well as she tries on teendom for the first time.
When Chirp's mom is diagnosed with MS the family verily falls apart. Hannah's existence has always been that of a dancer, and she quickly falls into a deep depression and nobody in the family really knows how to cope. Chirp finds an ally in a very unexpected person - Joey Morell.
Joey's family is one that Chirp's family looks down on. They have a 3 sons who run amok, but their problems go deeper than that. Chirp and Joey find common ground, and as two kids who ultimately are scared and feeling abandoned, they cement their friendship as they slowly reveal the pain inside each of their houses.
I don't want to spoil the plot so I will leave it there, but will also say that Ehrlich is part poet and part magician as she weaves this tale together. "Ice-blue quiet smacks me when I open the front door after school." (p. 86) "A little square of my blouse is stuck to my upper arm, like the wrinkly paper on a temporary tattoo before you lift it off and leave a splotchy red heart or yellow smiley face behind." (p. 164) "The air's already thick and warm, even though the sun's still just a spritz of light in the pitch pines and the scrub oaks and not a hot, round ball bouncing on the top of my head, like it will be soon." (p. 12) Swoon.
For sure, this is a story filled with heavy and heady stuff. But it is through the eyes of Chirp, so while it is indeed sad, it is never too much. It is gorgeous, quiet and filled with hope. I fell in love with Chirp and Joey as I read. They simply became real, and I turned the pages late into the night because I could not leave their story unfinished.
By Eve E. Garrow
Does the government fund nonprofit human service organizations that serve and locate in the neighborhoods with the greatest needs? This is an important question, as much of the safety net now takes the form of human services delivered, for the most part, by nonprofit organizations. Access to government benefits therefore relies increasingly on the location of nonprofits that are awarded government funds to provide human services. While conventional wisdom holds that the partnership between government and the nonprofit sector does direct government benefits to poor areas, recent research finds an opposite effect in poor neighborhoods that are substantially African American.
The prevailing model of government-nonprofit relations argues that privatization of human services is a “win-win” partnership, because nonprofits need government support if they are to survive in resource-poor neighborhoods, and government fulfills its mandate to serve poor people by funding these organizations. Indeed, research shows heavy dependence on government funding among nonprofit human service organizations that serve poor populations and locate in poor neighborhoods.
Yet, this research does not take into consideration the influence of race on the distribution of government benefits. A recent study using data from a probability sample of nonprofit human service organizations in Los Angeles County examined the likelihood that organizations received government funding. It found that greater levels of neighborhood poverty improved the chances that nonprofit human services located in them received government funding — unless those neighborhoods were substantially African American.
As shown in the graph below, the analysis compared neighborhoods with small shares of African Americans to neighborhoods in which the share of African Americans exceeded 20 percent of all residents — the “tipping point” at which whites tend to view the neighborhood as being “too African American” and avoid it. In neighborhoods that are less than or equal to 20 percent African American, the likelihood that the organization will receive government support increases along with rising poverty, consistent with the partnership model of government-nonprofit relations. In neighborhoods that exceed 20 percent African American, however, the relationship between neighborhood poverty and government funding reverses. As neighborhood poverty increases, the likelihood that nonprofit human service organizations receive government funding decreases.
Interaction between percent living in poverty and percent African American residents in location
The analysis also examined the relationship between the poverty rate and receipt of government funding for organizations in census tracts with different percentages of Latina/os, another minority group in Los Angeles County that experiences high levels of poverty. As shown in the figure below, higher neighborhood poverty seems to encourage government to fund local nonprofit human services regardless of the percentage of Latina/os in the neighborhood.
Interaction between percent living in poverty and percent Latina/o residents in location
What accounts for the failure of the partnership model in poor African American neighborhoods? First, and consistent with research that demonstrates a pattern of systematic government disinvestment in programs for vulnerable minority populations, the findings suggest that the allocation of government funding to nonprofits is subject to discriminatory forces. It could be that policymakers and public officials are reluctant to channel funding to neighborhoods that are negatively constructed and widely viewed as undeserving of government largesse, and direct limited funding to neighborhoods that are viewed as more deserving. It could also be that supposedly “color-blind” grant and contract programs that rely on competition tend to shut out historically oppressed minority neighborhoods that lack competitive advantages.
Yet, this does not explain why government is relatively responsive to poor neighborhoods with a high percentage of Latina/os. After all, Latina/os, like African Americans, are subject to discrimination in the American stratification system. The difference may lie in the relative electoral power of blacks and Latina/os in Los Angeles County. Political representation should influence allocation decisions, because groups with political power cannot be ignored even if they are negatively constructed. In Los Angeles County, African Americans represent a small percentage of the electorate — about 8 percent in 2010 — and their numbers have been shrinking in recent decades. By comparison, the percentage of Latina/os in the county, which stood at about 48 percent in 2010, is relatively large and increasing. Given their diminished electoral clout, poor African American neighborhoods may be more disadvantaged than poor Latina/o neighborhoods when it comes to attracting government funds.
The findings are particularly disturbing given that African American are more likely than other minority groups to live in neighborhoods that are both poor and highly segregated from whites. Indeed, the racial dynamics uncovered in this study suggests that the privatized welfare state may underserve neighborhoods where the need is greatest.
Eve E. Garrow is Assistant Professor of Social Work at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the implications of privatization of human services for poor and marginalized groups, especially racial minorities, and the commercialization of human services. She has published and presented works on government funding of human services, the role of nonprofit advocacy in promoting social rights, and the risk of client exploitation in nonprofit social enterprises that use clients as labor. Her most recent article, “Does Race Matter in Government Funding of Nonprofit Human Service Organizations? The Interaction of Neighborhood Poverty and Race,” was published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
The Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory serves as a bridge between public administration and public management scholarship on the one hand and public policy studies on the other. Its multidisciplinary aim is to advance the organizational, administrative, and policy sciences as they apply to government and governance. The journal is committed to diverse and rigorous scholarship and serves as an outlet for the best conceptual and theory-based empirical work in the field.
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Our modern-day suburban sprawl is much more than bad architecture and sloppy planning, yet there might be a simple solution. Benjamin Ross, author of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism, argues that the expansion of rail transit would help us to create better places to live. In the interview clips below, Ross explains how the federal government’s regulation of mass transit lay down the roots for the suburban sprawl we see today, and defines two new terms that are key to understanding the future of urban and suburban planning.
The rise and decline of suburbanism
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“Not-in-my-backyard” politics
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The “New Urbanist Movement”
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Benjamin Ross is the author of Dead End: Suburban Sprawl and the Rebirth of American Urbanism. He served as the president of Maryland’s Action Committee for Transit for 15 years, which grew under his leadership into the nation’s largest grass-roots transit advocacy group. Ross is a consultant on environmental problems and served on committees of the National Academy of Sciences and EPA Science Advisory Board. He writes frequently on political and social topics in Dissent Magazine and is the author of The Polluters: The Making of Our Chemically Altered Environment.
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(My review of The Cat with Seven Names, as it appeared in the April, 2014, edition of School Library Journal.)
Johnson, Tony. The Cat with Seven Names. 1 CD. 15 min. Recorded
Books. 2014. $15.75. ISBN 9781490602479. digital
download.
PreS-Gr 2— A plump, seemingly stray cat wanders occasionally into the home of an older librarian. She names her visitor Stuart Little. At an elderly neighbor's home, he receives the moniker Kitty-boy, while a lonely Mexican man names him Placido for his "singing" voice. A homeless vet calls him Dove, for the peace he brings. Only the cat is lacking his own voice in this heartwarming story of a busy neighborhood, full of unconnected adults. Each character has his or her own first-person narrator, each distinctly different. The Hispanic man peppers his speech with Spanish words, as he first meets "Placido" on a day when it rains gatos y perros. Humorous wordplay abounds throughout, in which the cat is the common fixture in the lives of seven adults and a young girl. When the cat has a near accident, the full cast calls out seven different names, as each rushes to save the feline that has befriended them all; and through the cat, they befriend each other. The Cat with Seven Names will be sold with and without its corresponding picture book. Consider purchasing the set. Absent illustrations, the steady stream of elderly and adult voices may not be enough to hold a child's attention.
Copyright © 2014 Library Journals, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.
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5 Stars When circumstances necessitate starting over, a mother and daughter purchase a falling-down house, which the mother believes is perfect because they can afford it. But soon they find themselves feeling isolated and defeated. Longing for their old neighborhood and friends, and overwhelmed by the repairs their new house needs, they finally realize they [...]
