The Voices Project

Governor for a Day

CWU recently convened a group of program participants and alumnae for an advocacy workshop. We asked each woman to finish the sentence “If I were Governor I would….” These were their responses:

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“Reverse the decision to put prayer in school. In middle school incorporate finance and life skills courses to foster conscious thinking in young people so they can help themselves and be a positive voice to others.” 

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“Provide free education; fund & assist with housing; and provide free health care. Fund programs like the Woman to Woman program to help women in society to achieve their goals and acquire necessary skills.”

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“Create a housing program that would enable every family to have, and stay in their home. Provide more rent to own and first time home buyers practical programs that allow home ownership.”

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“Let people that are on SSI work when they can. We need more jobs for people that are low-income. Also, I would bring the gas prices down.”

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“My goal is to finish my BA at Cambridge College. If I was Governor I would create a program for everyone to become educated by updating themselves with new technology. I would do a survey to find out what’s going on. I would make sure everyone can be able to support themselves by creating new jobs.”

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“Make sure to oversee the safety of the population. Make sure that proofs of safety are reported to me every month. After that I would make sure that money is available for needy people who want to educate themselves”

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“Look more into the housing & Section 8 situation our state is in, as well as the lack of available jobs in the State, and Boston city violence.”

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“Provide additional funding for the MRVP and Section 8 programs to assist in eliminating homelessness. Re-allocate funding into our schools & communities. Make state schools exceptionally affordable for low-income families.”

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“Make health care free for everyone. Make food available to all people who need it. I would create a way for life skills to be used and appreciated by employers. I would pass a law that would require a pay rate that is livable.”

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“Fund organizations and initiatives that give everyone the opportunity to advance themselves with the services they may need and that are free, readily accessible, and helpful.”

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“Come up with more programs like Crittenton Women’s Union to educate and uplift people who want to change their situations. Get the word out to more families who want to become more self-sufficient.”

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“Bring back subsidy housing. If I were Governor I would change pay wages for women, and equalize wages by a work strategy.”

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“Take women’s and children’s issues seriously. I would make sure women were paid well for the hard work that they all do. I would make sure childcare was in their work place. I would also allow money to be spent on their housing and educational needs. I would also make sure that no doors were ever closed on them or any help that they may need. I would see to it that their health, education, job, housing, and financial needs were being met to help themselves and their families.”

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“I would extend the TAFDC timeframe benefits to 5 years for individuals who are currently working at a higher education and the individuals must maintain a 3.0 GPA or higher.”

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“Provide free tuition and living expenses for low-income individuals to receive at least an AA or equivalent.”

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“I would mail information to everyone about programs like Woman to Woman. I would choose one day where women who have been through programs like this can say how their lives were changed. The women’s stories will be aired on national television, commercial free.”

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“Affordable housing; funds for programs for low-income people; education and jobs.”

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What would you do?

Flexible and Quality Childcare - a Tool to Succeed

Over the past few decades, women have achieved a rising equality and presence within the workforce. This phenomenon has prompted policymakers to drastically change their approach to creating and implementing the nation’s welfare programs. For instance, social welfare programs like the 1996 Temporary Assistance for Families with Children (TANF) have imposed work requirements for single mothers who apply for welfare and other forms of public aid. These prerequisites include an 8 week job search, followed by an assessment, and participation in an authorized activity or community service for a limited timeframe. (www.spdp.org) Logically, this amendment is proactive and fair because it makes welfare-recipients in some sense earn their publicly-provided benefits. However, they also fail to fully recognize and commit to the needs of their children. Young children, especially, need constant supervision and attention; but with the work requirement, single mothers are often unable to provide their children with constant care. Therefore, in addition to these public benefits, welfare policies should also provide flexible and quality childcare for their applicants.

Extended and formalized childcare gives single mothers the freedom to maintain higher-paying jobs for their families. Sometimes these jobs require one to work irregular hours, which could force some single parents to either give up the offer or find a babysitter willing to work at odd hours of the day. For instance, any single parent working the night shift as a pizza deliverer will most likely have no means of attaining quality childcare at such late hours of the night. He or she will probably have to depend on a neighbor or a family member if lucky; but these people can sometimes act abusive or negligent towards the child. Therefore, it is imperative that policies, which have work requirements, give parents more flexibility and formalized/professional childcare for their children. These policy amendments could include universal preschool for low-income children, increased access to high-quality out-of-school programs for youth, experimentation with longer school days or year, and paid-parental leave and at-home infant child-care programs for low-income parents during the first year of the child’s life.

One might wonder how a country, with an already staggering deficit, will be able to afford such transformational and “radical” public assistance programs. There is only one answer to that. It will pay for itself. By providing low-income, single mothers with flexible and quality childcare, their children will have exponentially better chances of succeeding and attaining stable lives. For instance, the Perry Preschool Project, the longest-running study on the effects of preschool, has shown that youngsters who undergo quality preschool turn out to be more law-abiding, earn high incomes, and have more stable lives than children who were not enrolled. This study took 123 children from poor, African-American families living below the poverty line and placed them into a preschool curriculum in order to see the short- and long-term effects of universal preschool. After approximately 36 years, these children, who are now 40-years-old have higher IQ’s, earn higher incomes, and have less incarceration rates. Furthermore, many economists show that the country will experience a $13 dollar economic return for every $1 spent on universal preschool and other youth-oriented programs. Also, studies have also shown that it is cheaper to pay single mothers to stay at home with their infants than to give them in-kind benefits while working. Because programs like the Perry Preschool Project create all-in-all better citizens, less tax dollars will be wasted on maintaining the nation’s corrupt prisons and fighting crime. Now, the nation’s money can be spent on education, health care, and the like.

Contrary to popular belief, creating a better society does not start with tax dollars or work requirements. It starts with our children. Fostering a more nurturing, challenging, and proactive environment for them is paramount to achieving this goal. As a country that prides itself on its freedom of opportunity, we should provide our citizens with exactly that. Imposing work requirements with insufficient childcare on low-income single mothers is unfair and unrealistic. We need to care for all our citizens, even the ones deemed at risk for failure. Providing more flexible and quality childcare to low-income single parents helps parents maintain their careers, benefits children and most importantly, builds a better country.

Jinyoung Chang
Advocacy Intern
Crittenton Women's Union