December 24, 2014
$lort lattò (Observer
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Kids
Please do not
shut down this
resource
by L anetta
G arner
The Family Preservation Pro
gram, located in Oregon's Cof
fee Creek Women's Correctional
Facility, is scheduled to be shut
down at the end of the year. The
program is desperately needed
to help women and their chil
dren. The prison claims there
are other programs, but if you
look closely, you will find the
other programs serve very few
women or children and most of
them are annual events rather
than on-going programs. Not a
single woman who has been in
this program has reoffended
upon her release.
Please do not shut down this
program.
Four years ago I had a baby
when I was is in prison. I'd barely
had time to hold my little girl in
my arms before they took her
from me. For three years, I didn't
get to see her. I missed her first
smile, her first step, her first
three birthdays. I never got to
hold her little hand in mind, never
got a chance to dry her tears. I
could only hope and pray that
she was loved, that she was
cared for, that if she had bad
dreams at night, that somebody
would be there to comfort her.
Finally, I got into a program at
Coffee Creek prison that helps
families. The program, called The
Family Preservation Program,
has been in operation for 4.5
years and served more than 100
women and children in a number
of ways. Mothers learn parenting
skills, something many of us
never had a chance to learn
because our own parents were
unable to care for us or had
problems of their own that were
so enormous they didn't have
anything left for us.
The program made all the ar
rangement so our kids could visit
us twice a month. Unless you've
been separated from your chil
dren, you can't really imagine
how much that means. Not just
to us, but also to our kids. They
worry about us when we're in
prison. They're afraid we'll be
hurt or that we don't have enough
to eat or that we have to sleep on
cement floors. With all these
worries, kids are vulnerable to
emotional problems. They might
not do well at school. But when
they get to see us every other
week, and they can see that
we're doing okay, their worries
are lifted.
The time we spent with them is helping these children stay
is precious not just because of connected to their moms. It is
the emotional connection, but helping moms becom e good
because during this time, we have mothers, which will pay off for
activities together that build the mother, the child, and the
strong bonds.
community when she is released
In the life of the program, not from prison.
a single woman who has been
This program helped me im
re le a s e d fro m p riso n has measurably and it will continue
reoffended. And now the pro to help other women who have
gram is going to be shut down m ade serious m istakes and
because of funding issues.
ended up in prison. It has given
I'm out of prison now. I have many families a second chance.
a job. I'm in transitional housing It has helped children know they
now, but will soon have my own are loved and kept them con
place and my daughter and I will nected with their mothers.
live together at last.
Please help me keep this pro
The issues of children of in gram going by signing my petition
carcerated parents are w ell to ask the people who made the
documented and now 1 out of 8 decision to close it, to keep it open.
children in the United States has
Lanettta Gamer isfrom Port
a parent in prison. The problem land. You can sign her peti
is so huge that Sesame Street tion by visiting the website
now has a character on it whose p etitio n s.m o veo n .o rg /sig n /
parent is in prison. This program keep-a-prison-program.
Gap Between Rich and Poor is Too Big to Ignore
Even the Fed
Chair suggests
it’s un-
American
by
E mily S chwartz G reco
and
W illiam A. C ollins
T hree years after the O c
cupy m ovem ent first directed
long-overdue attention to the
s c o u rg e o f in e q u a lity in
A m erica, the g u lf betw een rich
and poor has gotten too big for
even the Federal Reserve to
ignore.
As Federal Reserve C hair
Janet Yellen recently pointed
out, h alf of us now own a m ere
1 percent of A m erica’s house
hold wealth.
On average, the low er h alf
of all U.S. households com
mand m erely $11,000 in net
w orth — th a t’s w h at’s left
when you subtract all form s of
debt from your hom e equity,
savings, and other investm ents other 95 percent inched up by
(if y o u ’ve got any).
less than 10 percent.
Put another way, h alf o f us
You m ight expect that com
possess next to nothing.
m unities o f color are suffering
How about at the top? F am i fro m m ore in e q u a lity than
lies in the top 5 percent on whites. Y ou’d be right.
average have $6.8 m illion to
D em ographers have docu
th eir nam e — nearly tw ice m ented a gaping racial wealth
what they possessed a quarter divide. A ccording to the Pew
o f a century ago.
Research Center, for exam ple,
W ith a contrast that stark b lack A m erican s are th ree
it ’s hard not to agree with tim es m ore likely than w hites
Y ellen’s suggestion that the to live in poverty, and Latinos
n atio n ’s inequality could be are 2.6 times more likely. T ypi
dow nright un-A m erican.
cal white and A sian-A m erican
“I think it is appropriate to households, m eanw hile, have
ask,” she said at a recent con m ore than 11 tim es the net
ference on econom ic opportu w orth o f m edian black and
nity and inequality at the Fed Latino households.
eral Reserve Bank o f Boston,
The num bers get even m ore
“w hether this trend is com pat ludicrous at the very top. The
ible with values rooted in our top 0.1 percent o f A m ericans
n atio n ’s history, am ong them now controls 22 percent o f the
the high value A m ericans have n a tio n ’s w ealth, econom ists
traditionally placed on equality Em m anuel Saez and G abriel
of opportunity.”
Z ucm an found. T h a t’s ju s t
Incom e, w hile not quite as about the same share as the
concentrated in the pockets of bottom 90 percent.
the few as w ealth, is also g et
Why should policymakers fo
ting more skewed.
cus on inequality? One answ er
A fter correcting for infla is that by crim ping consum p
tion, the Fed found that the tion, inequality is a key factor
incom e o f the w ealthiest 5 per behind the failure o f the U.S.
cent o f households soared by econom y to fully recover from
38 percent betw een 1989 and the G reat Recession.
2013, w hile the incom e o f the
That could explain why de
spite sunny forecasts and sink
ing gas prices, the shopping
frenzy at brick and m ortar
s to re s th a t now s ta rts on
Thanksgiving turned out to be
a bit of a dud this year.
Lackluster holiday spending
by the masses should surprise no
one. As Brendan V. Duke and
Ike Lee lamented in a recent
Center for American Progress
report: “When households do not
have money, retailers do not have
custom ers.”
Emily Schwartz Greco is the
managing
editor
of
OtherWords, a non-profit na
tional editorial service run by
the Institute fo r Policy Stud
ies. Otherwords columnist Wil
liam A. Collins is a form er
state representative and
fo rm er mayor o f Norwalk,
Conn.
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