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"A $128,000 grant will provide emergency services to low-income residents in three Essex County towns. A $128,505.50 County Community Services Block grant has been awarded to the Montclair Neighborhood Development Corporation, an area nonprofit, to assist needy residents in Montclair, Bloomfield, and Belleville, Freeholder Brendan Gill announced in a release this week."

"And the idea was to narrow the achievement gap by removing barriers to early education for families that couldn't otherwise afford it. Like many policymakers and children's advocates, including President Obama, de Blasio had concluded that universal prekindergartena model known in education circles as UPKwould be key to solving the city's socioeconomic inequalities."

"Due to an unexpected federal policy reversal sought by advocates for nearly 10 years, schools could start billing Medicaid for health services such as asthma screenings, vaccinations and care for chronic diseases provided to some low-income students."

"ne in five Americans spends his or her days in our nation's 140,000 K-12 schools. Those schools spend close to $8 billion a year on energy costs, the second-largest line item in a school budget after personnel costs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 25 percent of the energy used in schools is wasted. In a world of shrinking budgets and resources, energy-efficiency savings in utility costs could be used for desperately needed funding for additional teachers and school resources."

"As America recovers from the recession, wealthy households are recovering faster than low-income ones, whose incomes have stagnated or declined since the crash. A new report says that this widening gap is sapping Social Security. Currently, two-thirds of seniors rely on the program for their retirement income. The wage gap may have cost Social Security$1 trillion over the last 30 years, according to a report last week from the Center for American Progress."

"Currently, two-thirds of seniors rely on the program for their retirement income. The wage gap may have cost Social Security $1 trillion over the last 30 years, according to a report last week from the Center for American Progress. And as more Americans reach retirement age, Social Security is set to eat through its funding by 2033, assuming that Congress took no action to bolster it. After that it would only be able to cover 77 percent of its claims."

"Most federal housing subsidies go to renters with average incomes of about $11,000 a year, but even those have become very difficult to find because production of low-income senior housing has dropped dramatically in the last few years, said Alayna Waldrum, housing legislative representative for LeadingAge, an association of not-for-profit aging service providers."

"The Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) released a study last week that analyzes how many students eat school breakfast nationwide by district and state. The findings show that through the 2103-2014 school year about 11.2 million low-income students ate their breakfast at school, a 320,000 child increase from FRAC's previous study for the 2012-2013 school year."

"Ottawa County was tied for first in a state ranking of child well-being, and Kent County came in 26th place. However, both counties saw dramatic increases in the number of children living in poverty, according to the Kids Count in Michigan report by the Michigan League for Public Policy."

"A University of North Carolina Board of Governors' working group issued a draft report on the university's institutes and centers this week that recommended shutting down three centers on university campuses, including Chapel Hill's Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. The center a non-partisan, interdisciplinary institute designed to study and advocate for proposals, policies and services to mitigate poverty does not receive funding directly from the state, operates on $120,000 a year and, if closed, will be forced to return private money that had been secured to keep functioning through 2016, its director, Gene Nichols, said in a statement."

"The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education now says instruction provided during the breakfast period can be included in structured learning time, and child nutrition advocates say the decision could turn things around when it comes to reaching low-income children with a healthy breakfast at school."