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As the country struggles with a faltering economy, we spend some time examining those people who were already having trouble making ends meet. We look at the challenges facing those in low paying jobs, who are worried about keeping their jobs, and paying the rent and heating bills.
Joining us in the program are:
1) Tiziana Dearing, the charismatic new president of Catholic Charities for the Boston Archdiocese.
2) John Drew, executive vice president and COO of Action for Boston Community Development, Inc. To learn more about their terrific heating assistance program and their new extended hours, CLICK HERE.
3) Noah Berger, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center a nonprofit group that offers analysis and research on state budget issues impacting low- and moderate-income people.
4) Dr. John Cook, research scientist and co-principal investigator for the Children’s Sentinel Nutrition Assessment Program at Boston Medical Center. He conducts research looking at the affect of housing, energy, and food insecurity on children’s health. Check out some of his reports HERE.
Very odd that you are interviewing and discussing folks who can’t buy groceries and then asking them to contribute to the station. Putting the fundraising in the middle of the program was almost funny.
The discussion is interesting, but pretty narrow in that the folks on the bus are not going to get relief from the Boston agencies such as ABCD. Around the state there are many agencies providing fuel assistance etc in each geographical area. It sounds as though ABCD can help everyone and I know it is only in the Boston area.
I liked David’s stories, but miss him on the air live.
Berni531–
I think this incident proves something that should be reassuring to you and the rest of our listeners: we (clearly!) do not consider fundraising when we make our programming decisions.
We’re not about to shy away from airing bad economic news just because we’re doing a fund drive. The economy is the story this week, so that’s the story we put on the air, end of discussion.
Point taken about ABCD, we should have made the limits of their service area a bit more clear (despite Boston being in their name). We only meant for them to be an example.
[...] the layoffs are increasing and the train cars have come uncoupled from the lead engine. momentum is increasing as it all rolls downhill in this failing economy. how are you faring? any suggestions for folks to get help? read here about one family trying to survive the bush-crash in missoula montana. an excellent report on the working poor out of Boston Public radio listen here. [...]
An excellent episode! Just to add to the discussion about child care — Massachusetts has a waiting list of over 18,000 kids to get the vouchers described on the show. Source: http://www.naccrra.org/randd/ccdbg_tanf/wait_for_cca.php