Welfare Warriors

Winter 2006

MW Voice FEATURE

Letters to the  Editor

War

Editor's Tidbits

Mothers news from around the world

Victories

  Winter 2006

TAKE ACTION

New Federal Grants Discriminate against Single Parents

As if single moms don’t face enough discrimination. Congress just gave the Capital Area Asset Building Corp. $1.5 million to legally deny low-income single moms access to funds for school or home ownership. The company will use the $1.5 million to administer a matched savings program for low-income people.  Participants will get $3 in federal funds for every $1 they save for school, home ownership or self employment—up to $9,000 for a couple or $4,500 for an individual.

All participants must live in Washington DC. Couples must have a combined income of less than $50,000. Individuals must have an income of less than $25,000. But eligibility is limited to married couples and single people age 16-22 who are not parents.

It is common knowledge that single mom families face great economic hardship as a result of our failed child support system, lack of family supporting jobs, and lack of affordable childcare. Now the federal government itself has targeted single moms with a blatantly biased economic assault. As a punishment for not having a husband, single moms who need the funds far more than two parent families, are ineligible.

            Legal Momentum, the nation’s oldest women’s rights legal organization, states that it is unconstitutional to promote marriage by excluding single parent families from public benefit programs. They are putting together a lawsuit on behalf of otherwise eligible single parents who want to challenge their exclusion from this program.

1) Let  your Congresspeople know how you feel about this outrage. 2) To join the lawsuit,  Contact Timothy Casey, (212)413-7556, tcasey@legalmomentum.org or Tracey Allen at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLp, (202)663-6856, Tracey.Allen@WilmerHale.com