PLEASE DO NOT LOOK THE OTHER WAY AT ATTACKS ON CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES JUST BECAUSE THEY ARE HAPPENING TO THE WORKING CLASS AND POOR-----THE MIDDLE-CLASS KNOWS IT TOO IS VICTIM AND THESE ASSAULTS BELOW WILL COME TO YOU AND I.
As a middle-class professional I try in my blogs to encourage the upper-middle and middle class to not be complacent with the loss of civil rights and liberties of the working class and poor in our country. Remember, neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism is about making all but a very few impoverished so you and/or your children and grandchildren will be facing this dismantling of public justice and Bill of Rights. Residents in cities may think its good to push out the poor but let's think how an injustice to one becomes an injustice for all.
There is a social media meme circulating that says----
the richest are telling the richer to tell the middle-class the problem is the poor.
Well, the problem is that the richest have stolen tens of trillions of dollars from the US economy and off-shored it to overseas accounts and our entire democracy and public justice and public sector works and services are being dismantled. This is causing poverty to soar and crime and violence with it. So, the problem is the richest have yet to have Rule of Law brings back the loot THEY STOLE FROM GOVERNMENT COFFERS AND INDIVIDUAL'S POCKETS.
The US is now in a state of propaganda as is found in second and third world countries. When corporations control data creation-----they will skew it to their benefit and not the public interest. Whether at the Federal level with Obama or the State level with O'Malley, or the city level with Rawlings-Blake-----ALL DATA BEING PRODUCED IS SKEWED. Below you see how corporate media now simply reports the propaganda as news. For people liking public radio, NPR in 2009 was doing a fine job holding power accountable. In 2010 NPR was reorganized to corporate control and the reporters made clear that they were being forced to report 'spin'------propaganda----and not journalism. This is what you see below. Maryland is king of spin.....Baltimore is supreme. The middle-class in Baltimore now have to watch as citizens are completely stripped of all rights as citizens-----they are stripped of any way to earn money and are reduced to crime to survive------and of course it is the small businesses and middle-class who become the targets of desperate attempts to get money. The violence of poverty is skyrocketing with the huge increase in poverty in Baltimore and will come to all communities as people lose hope and embrace retaliation. THAT IS WHAT THIRD WORLD SOCIETIES LOOK LIKE. This is Baltimore City today.
Gentrification is a natural process. It has happened throughout civilization. It can be done equitably and within Rule of Law. The State of Maryland and Baltimore lose billions of dollars each year to fraud and corruption that should be going to these communities to rebuild opportunity.
STOP THE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND SEND MONEY TO DEVELOP THESE UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES FOR THE UNDERSERVED.
That does not mean the poor cannot be moved or ratios of populations cannot change. It means that development will be fair in making sure people stay in the communities or areas they have lived all their lives. It means that development funded with Federal, State, and local tax money be held to the laws of equal opportunity and access in housing and education. You do not use Federal money from HUD to dismantle public housing buildings and then not provide public housing nearby. It may not need to be public housing if grants allowed low-income and homeless to occupy these thousands of blighted houses all through these neighborhoods.
Instead, public policy written by Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore Development Corporation are set on forcefully removing all working class and poor from city center and downtown and go so far as using city services to bankrupt low-income homeowners with deliberately inflated water bills and tax bill and fines----driving these homeowners into bankruptcy and foreclosure. As I have said----Johns Hopkins is the most neo-conservative institution in the world having Baltimore democrats pushing these undemocratic policies.
WE NEED TO REBUILD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AWAY FROM CORPORATE CONTROL AND BACK TO THAT OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.
When a society allows the deliberate targeting of communities with fraud and corruption in order to advance development----you have an autocratic society. Using police brutality and misconduct to scare people away and jailing people known not to have committed a crime is all intimidation tactics used in covert warfare folks. IT IS AUTOCRATIC AND IGNORES ALL RULE OF LAW----IT DOES NOT BELONG IN AMERICA.
If you do not care if the poor lose their rights as citizens think of what is happening to the middle-class with the attack on retirements, home equity, pensions, health care coverage and Medicare, and even our children's students loans----all losing wealth from corporate fraud and government corruption. So, this is not simply something hitting the lower class-----it pushes all of us into impoverishment and loss of rights as well.
WAKE UP======AN INJUSTICE FOR ONE WILL BECOME INJUSTICE FOR ALL!
Below you see martial law being implemented in Baltimore City because City Hall has defunded communities and community services, have put minority and women contractors and the people they hire out of business......they have eliminated the public sector and cleansed the school system of the city's middle-class killing all of the ability of families to provide support for extended family. City Hall allows people's homes to be stolen, police brutality to run wild, fraud and corruption to take a billion and more from city coffers each year -----money of which would help these youth. They are doing it because the goal is to make it impossible for the working class and poor to survive in the city. Two decades of these kinds of attacks on the poor with O'Malley and now Rawlings-Blake and the neo-conservative Baltimore City Hall has succeeded in pushing some of the poor out to the counties-----but you know what-----these people simply come back because there is no support mechanism for these families.
THE ENTIRE SOCIAL SERVICES AND SOCIAL WELFARE SYSTEM IN BALTIMORE IS BROKEN.
Mind you-----these children are living in homes torn with drug abuse and parents incarcerated on and off through life. This children have parents having to work 3 jobs because Baltimore has a system of enslavement in lieu of wages that allow citizens to actually support themselves-----all driven by Johns Hopkins. Closing community recreation centers where youth could go for support? REALLY??????? The use of national corporate/ church non-profits etc. to replace these public community centers takes the one avenue for social gathering and organizing, developing of leadership, for political discussion out of the communities.
YOU MUST NOT BRING POLITICS INTO THESE NON-PROFITS AND IF WE DO-----WE WILL DECIDE WHO TALKS AND ABOUT WHAT.
That is what Baltimore City Hall is creating in Baltimore. It is totalitarian in its exclusion of the public and in enforcement of law. Mind you-----Baltimore has some fine private non-profits and community groups doing good work-----they are fighting for funds and support and these connected groups receive the bulk of funding. The #1 institution receiving and then deciding how public policy as regards the working class and poor unfold-----JOHNS HOPKINS IS BALTIMORE'S PUBLIC SECTOR.
There's no doubt these children need to stay off the streets and especially at night. If they have no computers, cannot afford phones, have no real parks and amusement facilities.....and now, no rec centers-----WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THESE YOUTH TO DO?
An autocratic society crushes these families with more fines, penalties, and exposure to police action.
Council approves tough new curfew for city youths Some kids would be required to be inside by 9 p.m.
By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 8:24 p.m. EDT, May 12, 2014
A tough new curfew forcing kids off the streets as early as 9 p.m. was approved Monday by the Baltimore City Council over objections it will place too much stress on the Police Department and lead to conflicts between youths and officers.
The legislation requires one more vote for final passage, which is expected next month. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has said she'll sign it into law.
The bill's sponsor, Councilman Brandon Scott, said it is intended to keep small children from wandering the street, becoming victims of crime or suffering from neglect.
"We have to do something," Scott said. "Young children are out there. ... This bill is not about arresting kids. This bill is not about dropping crime. It's about connecting young people and their families with the services they need."
The legislation, approved 11-2, calls for youngsters under 14 to be indoors year-round by 9 p.m. Youths ages 14 through 16 could stay out until 10 on school nights and 11 on other nights.
Currently, all children and teens younger than 17 can stay out until 11 on weeknights and until midnight on weekends. Parents can be fined up to $300 if their children are caught outside after curfew.
TALK ABOUT IT: Should Baltimore enact an earlier curfew for city youths?
The legislation increases penalties to $500, though they could be waived if parents and children attend counseling sessions provided by the city.
"We all know that when children are on the streets late at night without proper supervision, they are more likely to either become the perpetrators or the victims of violent crime," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "I believe this legislation will be another much needed tool to help reduce the number of juveniles on the streets at night, while furthering a commitment my administration has made to provide more services for young people we know are vulnerable."
The bill was opposed the American Civil Liberties Union and criticized by the head of the city's police union. City Councilmen Carl Stokes and Warren Branch voted against it.
Branch, the chair of the council's public safety committee, said he worried the legislation would force yet another responsibility on police.
"There should be more agencies involved instead of putting the stress and pressure on our Police Department," he said.
Sonia Kumar, an attorney at the ACLU of Maryland, sent a letter to council members expressing concern about the "constitutionality and policy implications" of the curfew.
"The bill is a very significant expansion of Baltimore's curfew laws," she said. "Whatever the intention of the bill, there's no evidence that the bill will accomplish those goals. There are really significant reasons for not entangling young people and their families in the criminal justice system."
Kumar said she saw difficulties in enforcing the legislation fairly without police stopping kids and demanding they produce an ID card.
"The breadth of what is proposed is deeply troubling and a poor use of city resources," she said.
Rawlings-Blake has announced plans to expand the city's curfew center to become two year-round Youth Connection Centers for kids and teens who violate the curfew.
"We continue to invest in programs such as basketball leagues, jobs programs and rec center improvements that provide constructive alternatives for our young people," she said. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."
The legislation continues current exemptions from the curfew, including a provision for youths to be out late if they're with a parent, or going to or from a job, religious event, or school or recreational activity. The legislation eliminates an exception that has permitted young people to run errands for their parents.
Scott said those opposed to the bill have an outdated view of the curfew center.
_____________________________
The City of Baltimore loses a billion dollars and more to fraud and corruption, gives a billion more to subsidize global corporate wealth in development, and loses hundreds of millions more in waste and mismanagement of Federal and State funds----this is why it just cannot seem to find a million to fund strong public recreation centers for the citizens of all communities.
REMEMBER, THE GOAL IS TO PRIVATIZE ALL THAT IS PUBLIC INTO THE HANDS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
Keep in mind that these rec centers being closed are run by the communities themselves. The goal of tying the new recreation centers to charter schools-----which will be the new school buildings identified as where these new rec centers will be built----is that charter schools will be taken private and run by corporations----yet another end of public gatherings and freedom to discuss, organize, and implement policy as the community sees fit.
Lack of funding could close Baltimore City rec centers
11:26 PM, Oct 24, 2011 5:31 AM, Oct 25, 2011 BALTIMORE -
Advocates say the 55 recreation centers around Baltimore City give kids a safe place to play and learn after school. But now there's a controversial plan that could result in the closing of many of those rec centers.
The Cecil Kirk Recreation Center doesn't look like much from the outside. In fact, the sign on the wall is missing some letters. But "The neighborhood kids come here. We're packed all the time in there," said parent Russell Smith, who also coaches basketball at Cecil Kirk.
It's packed, he says, day after day -- with kids from this neighborhood near North Avenue. "If I wasn't here I would probably be at home, but being at home wouldn't be as much fun as being at the rec," said Alanna Jones, who visits the center every day after school.
They come after school to find a safe place to play, meet friends, and get help with homework.
"There are some of us who are still barely making it and we need places like Cecil Kirk," said Angelique Jones, Alanna's mother.
A plan proposed by City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake would shift the funding and operation of many of the city's 55 rec centers to private companies, or charities.
But a call for bids on running them brought only six viable entries. A spokesman for the mayor tells ABC-2 news that could mean many of the centers will be forced to close in just a couple months.
"If they're closing the recs where are we going to send our children to? What are we going to do?" Angelique Jones said.
Several members of city council say they have concerns with the mayor's plan.
Monday night, Councilman Bill Henry (D-4th) called for a public hearing on the issue. "This is not something that the city can step away from. We say all the time, the kids are our future. But if we mean that, we would spend money on them," he said.
Ian Brennan, a spokesman for Mayor Rawlings-Blake, said "The (privatization) plan is part of a larger effort to revitalize the rec center system. We need to stop doing things because that's the way we've always done things."
But parents outside Cecil Kirk say the old way, still works for them. "They're still serving their purpose because kids still come here," Smith said. "I could see if the kids weren't coming. That's a different story if the kids are not showing up. But the kids are here, and what are you going to do with them?"
The mayor's spokesman says they are looking for more companies and organizations to bid on running those rec centers.
The councilman's hearing, in which the head of the Rec and Parks Department is expected to come before council and explain how the plan would work, is expected to be on November 2nd. _____________________
This is just one example of the largesse sent to national corporations for no reason at all----this case was actually racketeering. Downtown has mortgaged tax collection for the richest of corporations and developments while the city residents send their tax revenue to maintain and build this infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Baltimore simply want small and small and regional businesses in their communities.....not corporations that are ground zero for massive fraud and corruption.
City Council votes on controversial Harbor Point tax plan $100M tax break is on the line for developer
UPDATED 7:07 AM EDT Aug 13, 2013
A $100 million tax break from Baltimore City is on the line for a developer who wants to rebuild a piece of land between Harbor East and Fells Point.
The most controversial part of the measure is the tax break. The city wants to use tax dollars to help finance the Harbor Point project.
The City Council took a preliminary vote on that strategy Monday night and passed it.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called this a once in a generation project that she and supporters said will eventually mean thousands of jobs and a much bigger tax base for the city.
Plans call for Harbor Point to house the new regional corporate headquarters for Exelon and other businesses. There's also supposed to be high-end living space and retail, along with a hotel.
The tax break from the city is supposed to help pay for infrastructure and other improvements to the site of the project.
But opponents of the tax break deal are skeptical about it and who it will actually benefit. Some said the developer, William Beatty, should give a portion of his tax break to the surrounding impoverished neighborhoods and city schools.
"It really doesn't contribute to uplifting the people who live in that community. This seems to be an intentional, direct benefit to a developer and all of the hangers-on of this developer, and I don't see that the residents or the surrounding community are going to benefit," concerned citizen Kim Trueheart said.
A final vote on the whole project is expected to happen Sept. 9.
_________________
The idea that we want Baltimore's youth coming into contact with a police force known nationally as being one of the most brutal in the country----the idea we want these working class and poor families ticketed and fined right into jail===where by the way they will find a job as private prison and jail contractors now work the incarcerated for $2 an hour doing formerly public sector work-----a middle-class job.
From stop and frisk to high speed police chases ending with citizens shown to have nothing but maybe a previous arrest record----to police deliberately planting drugs and guns to create the reason for apprehension.....we all know this is happening and using yet another assault on public justice and rights on youth----is a disgrace. It is a policy written by Johns Hopkins----the City Hall are neo-conservatives running as democrats!
Baltimore City Officer Suspended On Allegations Of Excessive Force
July 30, 2013 5:52 PM
Christie Ileto Christie Ileto joined WJZ's News Team in the fall of 2012.
BALTIMORE (WJZ)– A city police officer is suspended for allegedly using excessive force on a suspect in their custody.
Christie Ileto has more on the incident being investigated by top brass.
Sky Eye Chopper 13 caught the aftermath of a car crash Baltimore City police say started as a pursuit on Belair Road on Monday evening.
“During the course, the vehicle went off the road and collided,” said Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez.
Members of the regional auto theft task force were trying to stop a car they believed to be stolen.
“By the time I got the corner, a little young dude, a teenager, was laying on the ground,” said a witness.
Baltimore City police say it wasn’t the pursuit of the young driver, but what happened after he crashed into an auto car lot that had top brass concerned.
“They threw him on the ground, and it looked like the other police smacked him,” a witness said.
“The message is clear. We will not tolerate officers breaking the law in order to enforce the law,” Rodriguez said.
Police brass say the alleged assault occurred after the juvenile was on the ground.
And rather than a citizen filing a complaint, Rodriguez says police initiated the investigation themselves.
“While the age of the individual certainly gives us concern, we want everyone to be treated fairly and professionally,” Rodriguez said.
City police have policies that allow them to use force and instruct them when it’s appropriate to initiate a pursuit. But Rodriguez couldn’t tell us at this point if any rules had been broken.
This case is under investigation.
Police have not been able to confirm the age of the driver or his name.
The department says not only will they investigate the officer allegedly involved, but his supervisor’s actions as well.
__________________
Congress included in the Affordable Care Act that authorities can now sedate a citizen without their consent -----setting the stage for the kinds of imprisonment of political dissidents in third world countries. More importantly, our children are being subjected to high levels of drugging all in an effort to control behavior. Behavior problems in city youth often come from chemical exposures like lead----from parents with drug addiction and abuse at home. All of this is tied with poverty. So, to reverse these problems you end poverty......NOT SUPERSIZE IT. Are these youth reacting to dosing with anti-psychotics and hyperactivity drugs in a negative way-----? Wealth inequity is a myth. The rich at the top simply stole tens of trillions of dollars and left massive amounts of impoverishment at the lower levels.
SIMPLY REINSTATING RULE OF LAW AND RECOVERING THOSE FRAUDS WILL BRING RELIEF FROM POVERTY AND MANY OF THE SYMPTOMS.
If the middle-class cannot see how these policies will come to your neck of the woods----WAKE UP!!!!
Dosing children with drugs known to have serious side-effects and physical reactions is unethical and immoral. It is policy you would find in China and Soviet Russia to control citizens. We do not do this in America.
THINK WHO YOU ELECTED TO OFFICE IN BALTIMORE CITY HALL AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY TO SEE WHO IS ALLOWING THESE POLICIES TO ADVANCE. THEY ARE NOT DEMOCRATS.
Antipsychotic Use Skyrockets in America's Poorest Children
Fran Lowry
March 12, 2013
Investigators from the University of Maryland in Baltimore found that from 1997 to 2006, use of antipsychotic medications in this population increased 7- to 12-fold, with most of the increased use associated with treatment for behavioral problems.
"Awareness of the expanding use of antipsychotic medications in the emotional and behavioral treatment of children has been noted in several studies of community-based pediatric populations," lead author Julie Magno Zito, PhD, from the University of Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.
"But," she added, "additional information is needed on trends in our neediest youth, namely according to how antipsychotic users differ in terms of their eligibility for Medicaid insurance coverage and the reasons for use. Such information would help to characterize the 'who' and 'why' of expanded antipsychotic use."
The study is published in the March issue of Psychiatric Services.
Call to Action
In the current observational, cross-sectional study, Dr. Zito and colleagues analyzed claims data for 456,315 youths aged 2 to 17 years who were continuously enrolled in Medicaid in a mid-Atlantic state from 1997 to 2006.
They focused on the use of antipsychotic drugs in the following Medicaid-eligibility categories: foster care; State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), currently known as the Children's Health Insurance Program; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for children whose family income was at or below the federal poverty level; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
The researchers found that the prevalence of use of antipsychotic medications almost tripled, from 1.2% in 1997 to 3.2% in 2006.
This growth was greatest in youth enrolled in SCHIP (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 5.9), followed by those in foster care (AOR, 4.1) and TANF (AOR, 3.6), and least among children with SSI (AOR, 2.8).
"The children on SSI are the ones we would presume to be the sickest," Dr. Zito noted. "This 6-fold increase for near-poor or SCHIP children and the 3.6-fold increase among poor or TANF children in a decade means that there was increasing use among the vast majority of enrollees and not, as one would expect, among the small minority, approximately 10%, on SSI, who qualify as the most vulnerable."
During this decade, 9320 children received a prescription for an antipsychotic. The growth in prescribing was most pronounced for pediatric bipolar disorder (AOR, 3.77) and behavioral conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (AOR, 3.48).
The researchers also found that the proportion of children using antipsychotics from 1997 to 2006 increased significantly more among African Americans and Hispanics than among whites.
"These data support a call to action for outcomes research to better establish clinical appropriateness and to encourage system-wide oversight for quality assurance," Dr. Zito said.
Postmarketing surveillance studies are also needed to assess the outcomes of community-based psychiatric treatment, she added.
"This is particularly true when medications are used for off-label conditions that have minimal or no evidence of benefit relative to medications with FDA labeling for a particular diagnosis," she said.
Psychotherapy Undervalued
"This is a continuation of the important work by Dr. Zito and her group," R. Scott Benson, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in private practice in Pensacola, Florida, told Medscape Medical News.
In this article, the researchers acknowledge that there are many factors involved in the increased rate of prescriptions for antipsychotics in children, Dr. Benson pointed out.
"There is always the suggestion that these children are given a diagnosis without the benefit of the comprehensive assessment that these psychiatric conditions demand. And there is the suggestion that the reimbursement system undervalues effective psychotherapy interventions and overvalues prescribing medication," he said.
He added that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have developed guidelines for the evaluation of children and the use of evidence-based treatment.
"Florida and other states have developed consultation services for physicians who are providing care to these children, and we have seen a reduction in the prescription of these medications. Also, when they are prescribed, there is closer monitoring for safety and effectiveness," Dr. Benson said.
_____________________
SPEAKING OUT:
Baltimore’s Poverty Cleansing Program
by Brendan Walsh
REMEMBER the game of musical chairs? Players circle around assembled chairs until the music stops. Then everyone rushes for a chair. There are never enough chairs for each player. The object of the game is to gradually eliminate the players until one player grabs the last chair. During the game, stronger players often knock weaker ones off the chairs. It can be a fierce game if you want to win. And you can always assure victory if you control the music and own the chairs.
We are playing this game in Baltimore. It’s a “poverty-cleansing” game, and the poorest of the poor are gradually being eliminated. No one is assessing the ramifications of the policies that are causing people to lose life’s necessities--a home, a just living wage, a real chance at an education, and even basic food stamps.
According to “Plan Baltimore,” more than 156,000 Baltimoreans live in poverty. That’s 24% of the city’s population struggling to hold on to the “chairs” that sustain life.
To live a human life, to raise a family, to build a community, you need housing. You need meaningful work that pays a living wage. You need food, a sense of dignity, human recognition and respect, and hope in large doses. Poor people are being denied each of these necessities.
Keep a close eye on our housing programs, our jobs and wages, our incarceration rates, and our educational disasters. We are developing a “zero tolerance” for poor people. We are, intentionally or through neglect, cleansing Baltimore of poor people.
On July 3rd, when the Murphy Homes were demolished, there was rejoicing. Buildings designed to “teach the poor a lesson” were leveled in a controlled implosion. Bleak, sterile, cheap places of confinement were removed from the landscape. It also means the loss of 658 units, housing for 1,500 to 1,700 people.
One decade ago there were 18,162 public housing units, 18,526 “other subsidized” units, and 53,002 families “still in need” in Baltimore City. These numbers represent at least 90,000 families--more than 200,000 Baltimoreans, some of the poorest of the poor--all of them desperate for housing.
But, as we enter the new millennium, we learn that the federal government is getting out of the housing business. When they level places like the Murphy Homes, they do not build new units for the majority of those displaced. The major fact in Baltimore is demolition. Houses are bulldozed without rhyme or reason. There is no comprehensive plan. Of the 66,000 rowhouses in center city, the plan is to demolish 20% by the year 2004. Virtually all of these houses are in the poorest neighborhoods.
Think about it. We have a poverty rate of 24%. We are in the process of tearing down all public housing and 20% of the existing affordable rowhouses. So where will the poor go?
We are told that the private sector, through programs like Section 8, will take up the slack. It is suggested that the poor should just get themselves to the five surrounding counties and “things” will work out. The unbinding of Baltimore will save us all. Does anyone believe there is a welcome mat in Baltimore, Howard, Carroll, Anne Arundel and Harford counties?
The reality is that the poorest of the poor will just go wandering--a forced march to nowhere. Or they will “double up” with a relative or friend, or simply hide out in whatever abandoned building is still standing.
If you are one of our 50,000 addicts, you will not be considered “housing-ready.” Thus, you will not be eligible for any subsidized housing. If you have been arrested for some drug-related offense, you too will not be eligible for subsidized housing. The number of people not “housing-ready” grows daily.
Look at jobs and wages in the Baltimore metropolitan area. According to the recent report of the Job Opportunity Task Force, 62% of all jobs in the region are “low skill” jobs, and two out of three of these jobs are located outside the city. A “low-skill” job means a “low-wage” job--a poverty wage. The economic boom of the ’90’s has clearly created a sharp division between “high-skilled,” well-paid workers and “low-skilled” underpaid workers, and more and more unemployed. For every “low-skill” job, there are three “low-skill” job seekers.
Our response to this crisis is abominable. We continue to remove the necessary chairs. There are more cries for “quality of life” arrests and we build more and more prisons. We lock people up and add fuel to the fire. People get out of jail fully enraged and then return to poor neighborhoods with no skills, no hope.
One big result of our “welfare to work” program is that young children often have no adult parent or guardian at home when they return from school, or during the summer months. At our soup kitchen, more and more children are coming without an accompanying adult.
When we began Viva House 30 years ago, we only saw single men over the age of 50. Now women and children are 70% of our guests. By the year 2004, will it be only children coming to soup kitchens?
We are going in exactly the wrong direction.
It is time to end the game of musical chairs. We can’t eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor. The federal government can’t drop out of the housing business at precisely the moment people are in dire need of housing. We can’t permit 62% of our labor force to work “low-skill,” “low-wage” jobs, while a few people pile wealth on top of wealth. We need to invest in the poor. In their lives. In their schools. In their neighborhoods.
We can either change priorities, or that big bulldozer will level all of us.
Everyone is entitled to a chair at the table. ____________________
The same people creating the subprime fraud are now receiving all the foreclosures and state funding for affluent development using the subprime mortgage fraud while victims remain homeless. This article shows the plan to corner people forced into renting in a captured real estate market that will be predatory and criminal.
This is what Baltimore City Hall thinks is great! This is what has Baltimore youth disconnected and disenfranchised. These residents are what is replacing public housing and section 8-----
Last Updated: March 31, 2014
Delancey Closes on 3rd Baltimore Multifamily
By Erika Morphy | Baltimore
BALTIMORE—"We feel that Class B multifamily is the right place to invest due to the opportunity to buy properties below replacement cost that generate significant yield, and have a captive renter base," says CEO Daniel M. Kline.
___________________
WPC is a market-based policy group pushing privatization of public education. Baltimore is ground zero for ending public education and handing all education to corporations, creating schools as businesses and vocational tracking from K-college. Underserved children and schools are taken first because they have no advocates protecting public education. Once established in Baltimore---this privatized system will expand across Maryland.
Underserved schools are subjected to tiered funding---principles literally cannot afford toilet paper. Students are placed in front of computer terminals and online lessons that do not engage and have the students feeling negatively about education. This is what youth in Baltimore have to face as the one community source that should be positive. Making these youth travel by buses to reach schools that offer enriched programs means students will drop out or be truant more times than necessary. These are the public policies that create negative youth behavior. If you do not respect a person----that person will not respect the system.
As you see below, Baltimore is one of a few that subject its schools to tiered funding -----deliberately defunding schools for underserved and special needs creating a warehousing that ends democratic public education. These schools will simply become Wall Street charter chains---and this will expand to middle-class public schools as well.
Alonzo is a Bloomberg---Wall Street ax-man willing to dismantle American public education for corporate control and profit. Students drop out rates and truancy are soaring in Baltimore with Alonzo's and Wall Street's reforms. Remember, this is Johns Hopkins policy pushed by Baltimore City Hall and Maryland Governor O'Malley---formerly of Baltimore's neo-conservative pols running as democrats in Baltimore. Anyone in Baltimore can tell you this article below is pure propaganda.....schools are not doing well, the curricula is hated, the students are falling in performance and leaving school----ergo, the problems that extend to the streets.
What We Can Learn from Baltimore City Public Schools
By Liv Finne, Director, WPC’s Center for Education
, October, 2010 Forward-thinking school superintendents, like C.E.O. Andres A. Alonso of Baltimore City Public Schools, are reorganizing the way they run their schools, and achieving dramatic gains for students. They are implementing Fair Student Funding. This reform shifts control over school spending from central districts to individual school principals. Under Fair Student Funding, school principals are able to control the actual dollars in their school budgets, instead of having to manage a building already staffed by the district. Principals with budget power are then able to customize their programs to meet the individualized educational needs of their students. In return for this new flexibility and control, school principals are held accountable for student performance.
Thirteen other school districts across the nation have adopted Fair Student Funding, also known as Student-Centered Funding, student “backpacking,” or Weighted Student Formula. The idea is the same. Instead of providing funding based on staffing ratios or categorical program, the money follows and funds the child, weighted according to his educational needs. The districts employing this strategy for funding schools include the following: Belmont Pilot Schools in Los Angeles, Boston’s Pilot Schools, Renaissance 2010 Schools in Chicago, Cincinnati, Clark County (which includes Las Vegas), Denver, Hartford, State of Hawaii, Houston Independent School District, New York City, Oakland, Poudre School District in Colorado, St. Paul, and San Francisco.
The story of how Baltimore City Public Schools achieved this reform is well worth telling. It started with a visionary leader: Andrés A. Alonso. He was selected as Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Public Schools in the summer of 2007.
Elements of Fair Student Funding
As a middle-class professional I try in my blogs to encourage the upper-middle and middle class to not be complacent with the loss of civil rights and liberties of the working class and poor in our country. Remember, neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism is about making all but a very few impoverished so you and/or your children and grandchildren will be facing this dismantling of public justice and Bill of Rights. Residents in cities may think its good to push out the poor but let's think how an injustice to one becomes an injustice for all.
There is a social media meme circulating that says----
the richest are telling the richer to tell the middle-class the problem is the poor.
Well, the problem is that the richest have stolen tens of trillions of dollars from the US economy and off-shored it to overseas accounts and our entire democracy and public justice and public sector works and services are being dismantled. This is causing poverty to soar and crime and violence with it. So, the problem is the richest have yet to have Rule of Law brings back the loot THEY STOLE FROM GOVERNMENT COFFERS AND INDIVIDUAL'S POCKETS.
The US is now in a state of propaganda as is found in second and third world countries. When corporations control data creation-----they will skew it to their benefit and not the public interest. Whether at the Federal level with Obama or the State level with O'Malley, or the city level with Rawlings-Blake-----ALL DATA BEING PRODUCED IS SKEWED. Below you see how corporate media now simply reports the propaganda as news. For people liking public radio, NPR in 2009 was doing a fine job holding power accountable. In 2010 NPR was reorganized to corporate control and the reporters made clear that they were being forced to report 'spin'------propaganda----and not journalism. This is what you see below. Maryland is king of spin.....Baltimore is supreme. The middle-class in Baltimore now have to watch as citizens are completely stripped of all rights as citizens-----they are stripped of any way to earn money and are reduced to crime to survive------and of course it is the small businesses and middle-class who become the targets of desperate attempts to get money. The violence of poverty is skyrocketing with the huge increase in poverty in Baltimore and will come to all communities as people lose hope and embrace retaliation. THAT IS WHAT THIRD WORLD SOCIETIES LOOK LIKE. This is Baltimore City today.
Gentrification is a natural process. It has happened throughout civilization. It can be done equitably and within Rule of Law. The State of Maryland and Baltimore lose billions of dollars each year to fraud and corruption that should be going to these communities to rebuild opportunity.
STOP THE FRAUD AND CORRUPTION AND SEND MONEY TO DEVELOP THESE UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES FOR THE UNDERSERVED.
That does not mean the poor cannot be moved or ratios of populations cannot change. It means that development will be fair in making sure people stay in the communities or areas they have lived all their lives. It means that development funded with Federal, State, and local tax money be held to the laws of equal opportunity and access in housing and education. You do not use Federal money from HUD to dismantle public housing buildings and then not provide public housing nearby. It may not need to be public housing if grants allowed low-income and homeless to occupy these thousands of blighted houses all through these neighborhoods.
Instead, public policy written by Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore Development Corporation are set on forcefully removing all working class and poor from city center and downtown and go so far as using city services to bankrupt low-income homeowners with deliberately inflated water bills and tax bill and fines----driving these homeowners into bankruptcy and foreclosure. As I have said----Johns Hopkins is the most neo-conservative institution in the world having Baltimore democrats pushing these undemocratic policies.
WE NEED TO REBUILD THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AWAY FROM CORPORATE CONTROL AND BACK TO THAT OF PUBLIC INTEREST AND CIVIL RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES.
When a society allows the deliberate targeting of communities with fraud and corruption in order to advance development----you have an autocratic society. Using police brutality and misconduct to scare people away and jailing people known not to have committed a crime is all intimidation tactics used in covert warfare folks. IT IS AUTOCRATIC AND IGNORES ALL RULE OF LAW----IT DOES NOT BELONG IN AMERICA.
If you do not care if the poor lose their rights as citizens think of what is happening to the middle-class with the attack on retirements, home equity, pensions, health care coverage and Medicare, and even our children's students loans----all losing wealth from corporate fraud and government corruption. So, this is not simply something hitting the lower class-----it pushes all of us into impoverishment and loss of rights as well.
WAKE UP======AN INJUSTICE FOR ONE WILL BECOME INJUSTICE FOR ALL!
Below you see martial law being implemented in Baltimore City because City Hall has defunded communities and community services, have put minority and women contractors and the people they hire out of business......they have eliminated the public sector and cleansed the school system of the city's middle-class killing all of the ability of families to provide support for extended family. City Hall allows people's homes to be stolen, police brutality to run wild, fraud and corruption to take a billion and more from city coffers each year -----money of which would help these youth. They are doing it because the goal is to make it impossible for the working class and poor to survive in the city. Two decades of these kinds of attacks on the poor with O'Malley and now Rawlings-Blake and the neo-conservative Baltimore City Hall has succeeded in pushing some of the poor out to the counties-----but you know what-----these people simply come back because there is no support mechanism for these families.
THE ENTIRE SOCIAL SERVICES AND SOCIAL WELFARE SYSTEM IN BALTIMORE IS BROKEN.
Mind you-----these children are living in homes torn with drug abuse and parents incarcerated on and off through life. This children have parents having to work 3 jobs because Baltimore has a system of enslavement in lieu of wages that allow citizens to actually support themselves-----all driven by Johns Hopkins. Closing community recreation centers where youth could go for support? REALLY??????? The use of national corporate/ church non-profits etc. to replace these public community centers takes the one avenue for social gathering and organizing, developing of leadership, for political discussion out of the communities.
YOU MUST NOT BRING POLITICS INTO THESE NON-PROFITS AND IF WE DO-----WE WILL DECIDE WHO TALKS AND ABOUT WHAT.
That is what Baltimore City Hall is creating in Baltimore. It is totalitarian in its exclusion of the public and in enforcement of law. Mind you-----Baltimore has some fine private non-profits and community groups doing good work-----they are fighting for funds and support and these connected groups receive the bulk of funding. The #1 institution receiving and then deciding how public policy as regards the working class and poor unfold-----JOHNS HOPKINS IS BALTIMORE'S PUBLIC SECTOR.
There's no doubt these children need to stay off the streets and especially at night. If they have no computers, cannot afford phones, have no real parks and amusement facilities.....and now, no rec centers-----WHAT DO YOU EXPECT THESE YOUTH TO DO?
An autocratic society crushes these families with more fines, penalties, and exposure to police action.
Council approves tough new curfew for city youths Some kids would be required to be inside by 9 p.m.
By Luke Broadwater, The Baltimore Sun 8:24 p.m. EDT, May 12, 2014
A tough new curfew forcing kids off the streets as early as 9 p.m. was approved Monday by the Baltimore City Council over objections it will place too much stress on the Police Department and lead to conflicts between youths and officers.
The legislation requires one more vote for final passage, which is expected next month. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has said she'll sign it into law.
The bill's sponsor, Councilman Brandon Scott, said it is intended to keep small children from wandering the street, becoming victims of crime or suffering from neglect.
"We have to do something," Scott said. "Young children are out there. ... This bill is not about arresting kids. This bill is not about dropping crime. It's about connecting young people and their families with the services they need."
The legislation, approved 11-2, calls for youngsters under 14 to be indoors year-round by 9 p.m. Youths ages 14 through 16 could stay out until 10 on school nights and 11 on other nights.
Currently, all children and teens younger than 17 can stay out until 11 on weeknights and until midnight on weekends. Parents can be fined up to $300 if their children are caught outside after curfew.
TALK ABOUT IT: Should Baltimore enact an earlier curfew for city youths?
The legislation increases penalties to $500, though they could be waived if parents and children attend counseling sessions provided by the city.
"We all know that when children are on the streets late at night without proper supervision, they are more likely to either become the perpetrators or the victims of violent crime," Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. "I believe this legislation will be another much needed tool to help reduce the number of juveniles on the streets at night, while furthering a commitment my administration has made to provide more services for young people we know are vulnerable."
The bill was opposed the American Civil Liberties Union and criticized by the head of the city's police union. City Councilmen Carl Stokes and Warren Branch voted against it.
Branch, the chair of the council's public safety committee, said he worried the legislation would force yet another responsibility on police.
"There should be more agencies involved instead of putting the stress and pressure on our Police Department," he said.
Sonia Kumar, an attorney at the ACLU of Maryland, sent a letter to council members expressing concern about the "constitutionality and policy implications" of the curfew.
"The bill is a very significant expansion of Baltimore's curfew laws," she said. "Whatever the intention of the bill, there's no evidence that the bill will accomplish those goals. There are really significant reasons for not entangling young people and their families in the criminal justice system."
Kumar said she saw difficulties in enforcing the legislation fairly without police stopping kids and demanding they produce an ID card.
"The breadth of what is proposed is deeply troubling and a poor use of city resources," she said.
Rawlings-Blake has announced plans to expand the city's curfew center to become two year-round Youth Connection Centers for kids and teens who violate the curfew.
"We continue to invest in programs such as basketball leagues, jobs programs and rec center improvements that provide constructive alternatives for our young people," she said. "We need an all-hands-on-deck approach."
The legislation continues current exemptions from the curfew, including a provision for youths to be out late if they're with a parent, or going to or from a job, religious event, or school or recreational activity. The legislation eliminates an exception that has permitted young people to run errands for their parents.
Scott said those opposed to the bill have an outdated view of the curfew center.
_____________________________
The City of Baltimore loses a billion dollars and more to fraud and corruption, gives a billion more to subsidize global corporate wealth in development, and loses hundreds of millions more in waste and mismanagement of Federal and State funds----this is why it just cannot seem to find a million to fund strong public recreation centers for the citizens of all communities.
REMEMBER, THE GOAL IS TO PRIVATIZE ALL THAT IS PUBLIC INTO THE HANDS OF GLOBAL CORPORATIONS.
Keep in mind that these rec centers being closed are run by the communities themselves. The goal of tying the new recreation centers to charter schools-----which will be the new school buildings identified as where these new rec centers will be built----is that charter schools will be taken private and run by corporations----yet another end of public gatherings and freedom to discuss, organize, and implement policy as the community sees fit.
Lack of funding could close Baltimore City rec centers
11:26 PM, Oct 24, 2011 5:31 AM, Oct 25, 2011 BALTIMORE -
Advocates say the 55 recreation centers around Baltimore City give kids a safe place to play and learn after school. But now there's a controversial plan that could result in the closing of many of those rec centers.
The Cecil Kirk Recreation Center doesn't look like much from the outside. In fact, the sign on the wall is missing some letters. But "The neighborhood kids come here. We're packed all the time in there," said parent Russell Smith, who also coaches basketball at Cecil Kirk.
It's packed, he says, day after day -- with kids from this neighborhood near North Avenue. "If I wasn't here I would probably be at home, but being at home wouldn't be as much fun as being at the rec," said Alanna Jones, who visits the center every day after school.
They come after school to find a safe place to play, meet friends, and get help with homework.
"There are some of us who are still barely making it and we need places like Cecil Kirk," said Angelique Jones, Alanna's mother.
A plan proposed by City Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake would shift the funding and operation of many of the city's 55 rec centers to private companies, or charities.
But a call for bids on running them brought only six viable entries. A spokesman for the mayor tells ABC-2 news that could mean many of the centers will be forced to close in just a couple months.
"If they're closing the recs where are we going to send our children to? What are we going to do?" Angelique Jones said.
Several members of city council say they have concerns with the mayor's plan.
Monday night, Councilman Bill Henry (D-4th) called for a public hearing on the issue. "This is not something that the city can step away from. We say all the time, the kids are our future. But if we mean that, we would spend money on them," he said.
Ian Brennan, a spokesman for Mayor Rawlings-Blake, said "The (privatization) plan is part of a larger effort to revitalize the rec center system. We need to stop doing things because that's the way we've always done things."
But parents outside Cecil Kirk say the old way, still works for them. "They're still serving their purpose because kids still come here," Smith said. "I could see if the kids weren't coming. That's a different story if the kids are not showing up. But the kids are here, and what are you going to do with them?"
The mayor's spokesman says they are looking for more companies and organizations to bid on running those rec centers.
The councilman's hearing, in which the head of the Rec and Parks Department is expected to come before council and explain how the plan would work, is expected to be on November 2nd. _____________________
This is just one example of the largesse sent to national corporations for no reason at all----this case was actually racketeering. Downtown has mortgaged tax collection for the richest of corporations and developments while the city residents send their tax revenue to maintain and build this infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Baltimore simply want small and small and regional businesses in their communities.....not corporations that are ground zero for massive fraud and corruption.
City Council votes on controversial Harbor Point tax plan $100M tax break is on the line for developer
UPDATED 7:07 AM EDT Aug 13, 2013
A $100 million tax break from Baltimore City is on the line for a developer who wants to rebuild a piece of land between Harbor East and Fells Point.
The most controversial part of the measure is the tax break. The city wants to use tax dollars to help finance the Harbor Point project.
The City Council took a preliminary vote on that strategy Monday night and passed it.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake called this a once in a generation project that she and supporters said will eventually mean thousands of jobs and a much bigger tax base for the city.
Plans call for Harbor Point to house the new regional corporate headquarters for Exelon and other businesses. There's also supposed to be high-end living space and retail, along with a hotel.
The tax break from the city is supposed to help pay for infrastructure and other improvements to the site of the project.
But opponents of the tax break deal are skeptical about it and who it will actually benefit. Some said the developer, William Beatty, should give a portion of his tax break to the surrounding impoverished neighborhoods and city schools.
"It really doesn't contribute to uplifting the people who live in that community. This seems to be an intentional, direct benefit to a developer and all of the hangers-on of this developer, and I don't see that the residents or the surrounding community are going to benefit," concerned citizen Kim Trueheart said.
A final vote on the whole project is expected to happen Sept. 9.
_________________
The idea that we want Baltimore's youth coming into contact with a police force known nationally as being one of the most brutal in the country----the idea we want these working class and poor families ticketed and fined right into jail===where by the way they will find a job as private prison and jail contractors now work the incarcerated for $2 an hour doing formerly public sector work-----a middle-class job.
From stop and frisk to high speed police chases ending with citizens shown to have nothing but maybe a previous arrest record----to police deliberately planting drugs and guns to create the reason for apprehension.....we all know this is happening and using yet another assault on public justice and rights on youth----is a disgrace. It is a policy written by Johns Hopkins----the City Hall are neo-conservatives running as democrats!
Baltimore City Officer Suspended On Allegations Of Excessive Force
July 30, 2013 5:52 PM
Christie Ileto Christie Ileto joined WJZ's News Team in the fall of 2012.
BALTIMORE (WJZ)– A city police officer is suspended for allegedly using excessive force on a suspect in their custody.
Christie Ileto has more on the incident being investigated by top brass.
Sky Eye Chopper 13 caught the aftermath of a car crash Baltimore City police say started as a pursuit on Belair Road on Monday evening.
“During the course, the vehicle went off the road and collided,” said Deputy Commissioner Jerry Rodriguez.
Members of the regional auto theft task force were trying to stop a car they believed to be stolen.
“By the time I got the corner, a little young dude, a teenager, was laying on the ground,” said a witness.
Baltimore City police say it wasn’t the pursuit of the young driver, but what happened after he crashed into an auto car lot that had top brass concerned.
“They threw him on the ground, and it looked like the other police smacked him,” a witness said.
“The message is clear. We will not tolerate officers breaking the law in order to enforce the law,” Rodriguez said.
Police brass say the alleged assault occurred after the juvenile was on the ground.
And rather than a citizen filing a complaint, Rodriguez says police initiated the investigation themselves.
“While the age of the individual certainly gives us concern, we want everyone to be treated fairly and professionally,” Rodriguez said.
City police have policies that allow them to use force and instruct them when it’s appropriate to initiate a pursuit. But Rodriguez couldn’t tell us at this point if any rules had been broken.
This case is under investigation.
Police have not been able to confirm the age of the driver or his name.
The department says not only will they investigate the officer allegedly involved, but his supervisor’s actions as well.
__________________
Congress included in the Affordable Care Act that authorities can now sedate a citizen without their consent -----setting the stage for the kinds of imprisonment of political dissidents in third world countries. More importantly, our children are being subjected to high levels of drugging all in an effort to control behavior. Behavior problems in city youth often come from chemical exposures like lead----from parents with drug addiction and abuse at home. All of this is tied with poverty. So, to reverse these problems you end poverty......NOT SUPERSIZE IT. Are these youth reacting to dosing with anti-psychotics and hyperactivity drugs in a negative way-----? Wealth inequity is a myth. The rich at the top simply stole tens of trillions of dollars and left massive amounts of impoverishment at the lower levels.
SIMPLY REINSTATING RULE OF LAW AND RECOVERING THOSE FRAUDS WILL BRING RELIEF FROM POVERTY AND MANY OF THE SYMPTOMS.
If the middle-class cannot see how these policies will come to your neck of the woods----WAKE UP!!!!
Dosing children with drugs known to have serious side-effects and physical reactions is unethical and immoral. It is policy you would find in China and Soviet Russia to control citizens. We do not do this in America.
THINK WHO YOU ELECTED TO OFFICE IN BALTIMORE CITY HALL AND MARYLAND ASSEMBLY TO SEE WHO IS ALLOWING THESE POLICIES TO ADVANCE. THEY ARE NOT DEMOCRATS.
Antipsychotic Use Skyrockets in America's Poorest Children
Fran Lowry
March 12, 2013
Investigators from the University of Maryland in Baltimore found that from 1997 to 2006, use of antipsychotic medications in this population increased 7- to 12-fold, with most of the increased use associated with treatment for behavioral problems.
"Awareness of the expanding use of antipsychotic medications in the emotional and behavioral treatment of children has been noted in several studies of community-based pediatric populations," lead author Julie Magno Zito, PhD, from the University of Maryland, told Medscape Medical News.
"But," she added, "additional information is needed on trends in our neediest youth, namely according to how antipsychotic users differ in terms of their eligibility for Medicaid insurance coverage and the reasons for use. Such information would help to characterize the 'who' and 'why' of expanded antipsychotic use."
The study is published in the March issue of Psychiatric Services.
Call to Action
In the current observational, cross-sectional study, Dr. Zito and colleagues analyzed claims data for 456,315 youths aged 2 to 17 years who were continuously enrolled in Medicaid in a mid-Atlantic state from 1997 to 2006.
They focused on the use of antipsychotic drugs in the following Medicaid-eligibility categories: foster care; State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), currently known as the Children's Health Insurance Program; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), for children whose family income was at or below the federal poverty level; and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
The researchers found that the prevalence of use of antipsychotic medications almost tripled, from 1.2% in 1997 to 3.2% in 2006.
This growth was greatest in youth enrolled in SCHIP (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 5.9), followed by those in foster care (AOR, 4.1) and TANF (AOR, 3.6), and least among children with SSI (AOR, 2.8).
"The children on SSI are the ones we would presume to be the sickest," Dr. Zito noted. "This 6-fold increase for near-poor or SCHIP children and the 3.6-fold increase among poor or TANF children in a decade means that there was increasing use among the vast majority of enrollees and not, as one would expect, among the small minority, approximately 10%, on SSI, who qualify as the most vulnerable."
During this decade, 9320 children received a prescription for an antipsychotic. The growth in prescribing was most pronounced for pediatric bipolar disorder (AOR, 3.77) and behavioral conditions such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and conduct disorder (AOR, 3.48).
The researchers also found that the proportion of children using antipsychotics from 1997 to 2006 increased significantly more among African Americans and Hispanics than among whites.
"These data support a call to action for outcomes research to better establish clinical appropriateness and to encourage system-wide oversight for quality assurance," Dr. Zito said.
Postmarketing surveillance studies are also needed to assess the outcomes of community-based psychiatric treatment, she added.
"This is particularly true when medications are used for off-label conditions that have minimal or no evidence of benefit relative to medications with FDA labeling for a particular diagnosis," she said.
Psychotherapy Undervalued
"This is a continuation of the important work by Dr. Zito and her group," R. Scott Benson, MD, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in private practice in Pensacola, Florida, told Medscape Medical News.
In this article, the researchers acknowledge that there are many factors involved in the increased rate of prescriptions for antipsychotics in children, Dr. Benson pointed out.
"There is always the suggestion that these children are given a diagnosis without the benefit of the comprehensive assessment that these psychiatric conditions demand. And there is the suggestion that the reimbursement system undervalues effective psychotherapy interventions and overvalues prescribing medication," he said.
He added that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry have developed guidelines for the evaluation of children and the use of evidence-based treatment.
"Florida and other states have developed consultation services for physicians who are providing care to these children, and we have seen a reduction in the prescription of these medications. Also, when they are prescribed, there is closer monitoring for safety and effectiveness," Dr. Benson said.
_____________________
SPEAKING OUT:
Baltimore’s Poverty Cleansing Program
by Brendan Walsh
REMEMBER the game of musical chairs? Players circle around assembled chairs until the music stops. Then everyone rushes for a chair. There are never enough chairs for each player. The object of the game is to gradually eliminate the players until one player grabs the last chair. During the game, stronger players often knock weaker ones off the chairs. It can be a fierce game if you want to win. And you can always assure victory if you control the music and own the chairs.
We are playing this game in Baltimore. It’s a “poverty-cleansing” game, and the poorest of the poor are gradually being eliminated. No one is assessing the ramifications of the policies that are causing people to lose life’s necessities--a home, a just living wage, a real chance at an education, and even basic food stamps.
According to “Plan Baltimore,” more than 156,000 Baltimoreans live in poverty. That’s 24% of the city’s population struggling to hold on to the “chairs” that sustain life.
To live a human life, to raise a family, to build a community, you need housing. You need meaningful work that pays a living wage. You need food, a sense of dignity, human recognition and respect, and hope in large doses. Poor people are being denied each of these necessities.
Keep a close eye on our housing programs, our jobs and wages, our incarceration rates, and our educational disasters. We are developing a “zero tolerance” for poor people. We are, intentionally or through neglect, cleansing Baltimore of poor people.
On July 3rd, when the Murphy Homes were demolished, there was rejoicing. Buildings designed to “teach the poor a lesson” were leveled in a controlled implosion. Bleak, sterile, cheap places of confinement were removed from the landscape. It also means the loss of 658 units, housing for 1,500 to 1,700 people.
One decade ago there were 18,162 public housing units, 18,526 “other subsidized” units, and 53,002 families “still in need” in Baltimore City. These numbers represent at least 90,000 families--more than 200,000 Baltimoreans, some of the poorest of the poor--all of them desperate for housing.
But, as we enter the new millennium, we learn that the federal government is getting out of the housing business. When they level places like the Murphy Homes, they do not build new units for the majority of those displaced. The major fact in Baltimore is demolition. Houses are bulldozed without rhyme or reason. There is no comprehensive plan. Of the 66,000 rowhouses in center city, the plan is to demolish 20% by the year 2004. Virtually all of these houses are in the poorest neighborhoods.
Think about it. We have a poverty rate of 24%. We are in the process of tearing down all public housing and 20% of the existing affordable rowhouses. So where will the poor go?
We are told that the private sector, through programs like Section 8, will take up the slack. It is suggested that the poor should just get themselves to the five surrounding counties and “things” will work out. The unbinding of Baltimore will save us all. Does anyone believe there is a welcome mat in Baltimore, Howard, Carroll, Anne Arundel and Harford counties?
The reality is that the poorest of the poor will just go wandering--a forced march to nowhere. Or they will “double up” with a relative or friend, or simply hide out in whatever abandoned building is still standing.
If you are one of our 50,000 addicts, you will not be considered “housing-ready.” Thus, you will not be eligible for any subsidized housing. If you have been arrested for some drug-related offense, you too will not be eligible for subsidized housing. The number of people not “housing-ready” grows daily.
Look at jobs and wages in the Baltimore metropolitan area. According to the recent report of the Job Opportunity Task Force, 62% of all jobs in the region are “low skill” jobs, and two out of three of these jobs are located outside the city. A “low-skill” job means a “low-wage” job--a poverty wage. The economic boom of the ’90’s has clearly created a sharp division between “high-skilled,” well-paid workers and “low-skilled” underpaid workers, and more and more unemployed. For every “low-skill” job, there are three “low-skill” job seekers.
Our response to this crisis is abominable. We continue to remove the necessary chairs. There are more cries for “quality of life” arrests and we build more and more prisons. We lock people up and add fuel to the fire. People get out of jail fully enraged and then return to poor neighborhoods with no skills, no hope.
One big result of our “welfare to work” program is that young children often have no adult parent or guardian at home when they return from school, or during the summer months. At our soup kitchen, more and more children are coming without an accompanying adult.
When we began Viva House 30 years ago, we only saw single men over the age of 50. Now women and children are 70% of our guests. By the year 2004, will it be only children coming to soup kitchens?
We are going in exactly the wrong direction.
It is time to end the game of musical chairs. We can’t eliminate poverty by eliminating the poor. The federal government can’t drop out of the housing business at precisely the moment people are in dire need of housing. We can’t permit 62% of our labor force to work “low-skill,” “low-wage” jobs, while a few people pile wealth on top of wealth. We need to invest in the poor. In their lives. In their schools. In their neighborhoods.
We can either change priorities, or that big bulldozer will level all of us.
Everyone is entitled to a chair at the table. ____________________
The same people creating the subprime fraud are now receiving all the foreclosures and state funding for affluent development using the subprime mortgage fraud while victims remain homeless. This article shows the plan to corner people forced into renting in a captured real estate market that will be predatory and criminal.
This is what Baltimore City Hall thinks is great! This is what has Baltimore youth disconnected and disenfranchised. These residents are what is replacing public housing and section 8-----
Last Updated: March 31, 2014
Delancey Closes on 3rd Baltimore Multifamily
By Erika Morphy | Baltimore
BALTIMORE—"We feel that Class B multifamily is the right place to invest due to the opportunity to buy properties below replacement cost that generate significant yield, and have a captive renter base," says CEO Daniel M. Kline.
___________________
WPC is a market-based policy group pushing privatization of public education. Baltimore is ground zero for ending public education and handing all education to corporations, creating schools as businesses and vocational tracking from K-college. Underserved children and schools are taken first because they have no advocates protecting public education. Once established in Baltimore---this privatized system will expand across Maryland.
Underserved schools are subjected to tiered funding---principles literally cannot afford toilet paper. Students are placed in front of computer terminals and online lessons that do not engage and have the students feeling negatively about education. This is what youth in Baltimore have to face as the one community source that should be positive. Making these youth travel by buses to reach schools that offer enriched programs means students will drop out or be truant more times than necessary. These are the public policies that create negative youth behavior. If you do not respect a person----that person will not respect the system.
As you see below, Baltimore is one of a few that subject its schools to tiered funding -----deliberately defunding schools for underserved and special needs creating a warehousing that ends democratic public education. These schools will simply become Wall Street charter chains---and this will expand to middle-class public schools as well.
Alonzo is a Bloomberg---Wall Street ax-man willing to dismantle American public education for corporate control and profit. Students drop out rates and truancy are soaring in Baltimore with Alonzo's and Wall Street's reforms. Remember, this is Johns Hopkins policy pushed by Baltimore City Hall and Maryland Governor O'Malley---formerly of Baltimore's neo-conservative pols running as democrats in Baltimore. Anyone in Baltimore can tell you this article below is pure propaganda.....schools are not doing well, the curricula is hated, the students are falling in performance and leaving school----ergo, the problems that extend to the streets.
What We Can Learn from Baltimore City Public Schools
By Liv Finne, Director, WPC’s Center for Education
, October, 2010 Forward-thinking school superintendents, like C.E.O. Andres A. Alonso of Baltimore City Public Schools, are reorganizing the way they run their schools, and achieving dramatic gains for students. They are implementing Fair Student Funding. This reform shifts control over school spending from central districts to individual school principals. Under Fair Student Funding, school principals are able to control the actual dollars in their school budgets, instead of having to manage a building already staffed by the district. Principals with budget power are then able to customize their programs to meet the individualized educational needs of their students. In return for this new flexibility and control, school principals are held accountable for student performance.
Thirteen other school districts across the nation have adopted Fair Student Funding, also known as Student-Centered Funding, student “backpacking,” or Weighted Student Formula. The idea is the same. Instead of providing funding based on staffing ratios or categorical program, the money follows and funds the child, weighted according to his educational needs. The districts employing this strategy for funding schools include the following: Belmont Pilot Schools in Los Angeles, Boston’s Pilot Schools, Renaissance 2010 Schools in Chicago, Cincinnati, Clark County (which includes Las Vegas), Denver, Hartford, State of Hawaii, Houston Independent School District, New York City, Oakland, Poudre School District in Colorado, St. Paul, and San Francisco.
The story of how Baltimore City Public Schools achieved this reform is well worth telling. It started with a visionary leader: Andrés A. Alonso. He was selected as Chief Executive Officer of Baltimore City Public Schools in the summer of 2007.
Elements of Fair Student Funding
- Create a system of great schools led by great principals who have the authority, resources and responsibility to teach all students well.
- Engage those closest to the students in making key decisions that impact them.
- Empower schools, then hold them accountable for results.
- Ensure fair and transparent funding that schools can count on annually.
- Size the district appropriately -- schools and central office -- to address the realities of revenues and expenditures.
- Allow dollars to follow each student.
- Put the resources in the schools.
RSS Feed
