Summer should be a time for family vacations, summer camp, and relaxation. But for low-income families with children, summer is a time when child care, lunches, vaccinations, and back-to-school clothes add a strain to the budgets of barely surviving families. Those families turn to St. Anthony’s for help.

This summer, St. Anthony’s will provide services to over 1500 children in need. You can sponsor a “back to school” scholarship for a child. Make a donation to St. Anthony’s for a child to get vaccinations, school clothes, and more. We need to insure by July 25th that we can provide the necessary services for all the children who come to us throughout the summer. You can help low income children step into the new school year on the right foot.

Our Free Medical Clinic has the only free Pediatric care in the Tenderloin. We will see a 35% increase in children needing vaccinations and check-ups so they can attend school in the fall. Our Free Clothing Program will see a 38% increase in children needing back-to-school clothes. And our Free Dining Room has already seen a 33% increase in families with children who would otherwise receive their much needed meals at school.

Your donation of $20 can provide 2 weeks of lunches in the Dining Room during the summer months when a student is unable to rely on a school cafeteria.

Your donation of $50 can cover a medical check-up, back to school clothes, and a meal in the Dining Room.

Your donation of $100 can cover one child’s back-to-school support including vaccinations and a medical check-up; a trip to the clothing program; and a meal in the Dining Room.

Your donation of $1000 can provide a full day of back-to-school check-ups in the clinic, a full children’s service in the clothing program, and a day’s worth of children’s meals in the Dining Room.

We found a stack of beautiful hand-drawn cards for our guests in a recent clothing donation at St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program. A post-it note said they were done by second graders, but didn’t name the school.

Thanks for showing your love to our guests, with warm clothes for their outsides and warm thoughts and prayers for their insides.

It can be overwhelming to follow the ups and downs of the health care reform legislation debate: that’s why it is so important to find and share resources that make advocacy easier.

One facet of the health care reform debate that isn’t getting a lot of media attention is the CHIP (Childrens Health Insurance Program), a health coverage program for children in low-income families. The current version of the health care bill being debated in the Senate does not provide any funding for the CHIP program after 2013. This means that 10 million children nationwide (including 700,000 here in California) would be moved to a new, untested and more expensive Health Insurance Exchange where families will end up paying more for fewer benefits for their children.

At St. Anthony Foundation, we see the effects of the lack of adequate health coverage on low-income families every day.  Our free medical clinic serves 600 children every year; we provide the only free pediatric clinic in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood.

National child welfare organizations First Focus and the Children’s Defense Fund have more information about the CHIP program and health care reform issues related to children.  If you’d like to contact your Senator about children’s health insurance and the CHIP program, the United Way of America has a helpful resource on their website that makes it easy to phone your Senator and make your voice heard.

Venita is a senior in the Tenderloin who is raising her 6 year old grandson, who this year will start first grade. Tran, another Tenderloin resident and single parent, is helping his 9 year old son get ready for the new school year as well. While back-to-school time is exciting for both families, it is also a time when the added expenses of school clothes and supplies can create an added economic strain. A list of school supplies expected from students and parents including binder paper, notebooks, book covers and pencils, in addition to classroom supplies such as tissue paper, copy paper and Band-Aids, often come from the teacher weeks before school begins. Not having a second income to rely on in a tumbling economy, or enough from a primary income to cover basic necessities, the free backpacks offered to neighborhood children by St. Anthony Foundation come right on time. According to the last census (2000), single parents account for 27 percent of family households with children under 18; it is anticipated that number will increase in the 2010 census.

With one of the citys highest concentrations of children and some of the lowest income levels, Tenderloin children have many challenges to accessing basic needs such as education, healthy food, and school supplies. To help students and parents work together on building a successful school year, St. Anthony Foundation handed out free backpacks filled with dictionaries, notebooks, and school supplies to neighborhood children in St. Anthonys Green Services Building located at 150 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on August 27, 2009. Single parent families were on site to share their stories of single parenting in the Tenderloin, and how critical social services support is for filling in the gaps for their children.

The backpacks ranged in colors, sizes, and shapes, as did the students who received them. The backpacks were donated by groups or individuals through Family Giving Tree and Raft, and were filled with school supplies.

Venita is a senior in the Tenderloin who is raising her 6 year old grandson, who this year will start first grade. Tran, another Tenderloin resident and single parent, is helping his 9 year old son get ready for the new school year as well. While back-to-school time is exciting for both families, it is also a time when the added expenses of school clothes and supplies can create an added economic strain. A list of school supplies expected from students and parents including binder paper, notebooks, book covers and pencils, in addition to classroom supplies such as tissue paper, copy paper and Band-Aids, often come from the teacher weeks before school begins. Not having a second income to rely on in a tumbling economy, or enough from a primary income to cover basic necessities, the free backpacks offered to neighborhood children by St. Anthony Foundation come right on time. According to the last census (2000), single parents account for 27 percent of family households with children under 18; it is anticipated that number will increase in the 2010 census.

With one of the city’s highest concentrations of children and some of the lowest income levels, Tenderloin children have many challenges to accessing basic needs such as education, healthy food, and school supplies. To help students and parents work together on building a successful school year, St. Anthony Foundation will hand out free backpacks filled with dictionaries, notebooks, and school supplies to neighborhood children in St. Anthony’s Green Services Building located at 150 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on August 27, 2009 at 5pm. Single parent families will be on site to share their story of single parenting in the Tenderloin, and how critical social services support is for filling in the gaps for their children.

The backpacks range in colors, sizes, and shapes, as will the students who receive them. The backpacks are donated by groups or individuals through Family Giving Tree and Raft, and are filled with school supplies.

The recent scare of Swine Flu, and it’s possible fatal consequences, has lead to a panic among office workers, food industry workers and many other occupations that put people in close contact with one another.  Workers have been advised to stay home, parents forced to find childcare for days and sometimes more than a week when confirmed cases are reported at their children’s schools.

For many however, calling in sick is not an option. Swine Flu serves as one broad example of the pervasive problem that so many low-income and underemployed workers face. For the 49% of workers without paid sick days calling in does not only mean losing income, but could mean losing their jobs. Additionally, for families who do not have the extra money to for childcare have to choose between leaving their children unsupervised or losing a day’s pay and possibly jeopardizing their jobs to stay home and look after them.

Swine Flu is just one example of this problem which manifests in many ways. Low-income families often have to make difficult decisions that affect their families health and stability: deciding what bills to pay when money is tight, what groceries to buy knowing that what is most nutritious is not usually what is most affordable, and even having to decide what medicines can and cannot be afforded.

St. Anthony Foundation’s network of programs provide services that help support families through unstable times and the educational tools and resources to help parents make the most beneficial choices possible when faced with these tough decisions.

As you may know, California’s recently adopted budget package calls for a May 19th special election.  Included on the ballot is Proposition 1E, which seeks to divert $460 million over two years from Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) revenues to the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) program.

The acronyms are a mouthful, but what they stand for is important: MHSA was established through Proposition 63 in 2004 to expand and reform county mental health service systems targeting uninsured, homeless and low-income residents; EPSDT is the child health component of Medicaid that ensures a range of pediatric care for low-income children.

Both of these sound like services worthy of promoting, right?  Which is why I have trouble with the proposition: it scapegoats one underserved community (low-income adults with mental illness) for another (low-income children), and belies that fact that what we are really dealing with is another drastic cut to vital social services in California.

Groups like the California Mental Health Directors Association agree, and in a recent report detail why the proposition is bad news.

Nearly five years after the Mayor Gavin Newsom’s release of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, the majority of San Francisco’s homeless population is still out in the rain. Mayor Newsom created a 33-member council of advocates, legislators and service providers to advise the most effective strategy to end chronic homelessness, and guide his policy-making in the areas of homelessness.

“The plan produced by the Ten-Year Planning Council is both a blueprint and a bold step toward a new and revolutionary way to break the cycle of chronic homelessness,” concluded Newsom, in his office’s press release following the release of the plan in June 2004.

It unfortunately appears this blueprint has been collecting dust, and lays the ground work for a home the homeless will never see.

The plan’s central strategy is a housing first model. The “Housing First” model emphasizes immediate placement of the individual in permanent housing, where they have access to services, on site, necessary to stabilize the individuals and keep them housed.

A few key statistics found in the Ten-Year Plan:

The cost to provide one chronically homeless person permanent, supportive housing, with treatment and care is nearly one-fourth of the cost to care for the same person using Emergency Room services and/or incarceration costs San Francisco. ($16,000/year versus $61,000/year.)

San Francisco has the highest per capita rate of homelessness of any major American city.

7,000 homeless people live in SF at a given time. Some estimates put the number as high as 15,000.

There are 1,623 homeless kids in the San Francisco school system.

Up to 20% of homeless people have full-time jobs; 30% of adults in homeless families have full-time jobs. (The National Coalition for the Homeless)

52% of Bay Area cities said more mental health services is the most effective way to reduce homelessness. (U.S. Conference of Mayors 2007 Status Report on Hunger and Homelessness)

With the looming budget crisis and drastic cuts threatening the already starved social service programs, many of the programs required for this plan to work are facing devastating funding reductions, if not complete elimination. The 2009 bi-annual city-wide homeless count was conducted January 27; the results of this count will perhaps shed light on what progress has been made.

Reuters reported yesterday on the growing number of homeless families in the United States. San Francisco’s four shelters are “beyond full,” with at least 450 families with 800 children living in single-room hotels in the city.

(Click here to read the entire article …)

Click here to read the inside of the card

A few weeks back we blogged about our Backpack Giveaway in San Francisco’s Tenderloin. Hundreds of kids in the neighborhood got their choice of a new backpack, loaded with school supplies, along with a few healthy snacks. This is event is many of our staff’s favorite day, many of us staying late to volunteer. Helping our youngest and most vulnerable neighbors prepare for a new school year is a reward unto itself. You can only begin to imagine our surprise when we were given these hand written and decorated cards from two of the children who received backpacks.  To Alan and Vanessa: You’re quite welcome! Make us proud, learn lots, and do your very best.