Thursday, June 11, 2009

Are you paying attention?

** Following a newspaper report by the Columbus Dispatch, Democratic Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy (OH-15) has asked for a federal investigation into HUD.

Columbus Dispatch:

U.S. Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy has asked federal inspectors to investigate a housing program in the wake of a Dispatch series detailing millions of dollars in failed loans given to Columbus businessmen to buy and renovate apartments.....
....Kilroy, D-Columbus, asked the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's inspector general to launch a probe into the Federal Housing Authority program "that has lost billions of dollars because of lax oversight," she wrote in a letter....
...Kilroy wants to know whether HUD has enough resources to keep track of projects, and how it approves applicants for loans....

I hope that an investigation into this matter comes soon.

>>> Because of the economy, more and more children are getting those free school lunches, according to an article in USA Today:
Nearly 20 million children now receive free or reduced-price lunches in the nation's schools, an all-time high, federal data show, and many school districts are struggling to cover their share of the meals' rising costs.

Through February, nationwide enrollment in free school lunch programs was up 6.3% over the same time last year, to 16.5 million students, based on data from the U.S. Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), which subsidizes the programs. Participation in reduced-price lunch programs rose to 3.2 million students, the data show....

A map on the USA Today site, indicates that the demand for free lunches has increased 7.93% in Ohio since 2008. For many children, this is the only nutritious meal they have in a day. We need to insure that this program continues.

When I was a young teacher in the 1970's, I worked at a school where over 90% of the children participated in the free lunch program. I still remember the delight in the eyes of those children at seeing those lunches and their comments about how much they enjoyed the food. Since many of the children did not have breakfast, this was possibly their main meal. We need to continue this valuable program because hungry children cannot learn.