If you have a smart phone, getting prepared for disaster has never been easier. Over on Mashable, they have a great list of resources that either use Web 2.0 tools like Facebook , or can be integrated with any current generation smart phone.
Though it sounds rather fancy and complicated, it is really just another way of organizing the same principles and information we’ve recommended: Things like creating a plan, establishing meeting places for your family, and making sure you have your emergency contact information updated and available.
If you have a smart phone, it may be also be good idea to install social media apps like Facebook and Twitter because the 3G network could still be functioning after a disaster, even as phone lines may be busy or unavailable. A quick status update could be a useful way to let a lot of people know you’re okay, or your location, or anything else worth communicating.
Use these tools in combination with other, low-tech, steps and you’ll be quite prepared.
My Maps which lets you plan a route using landmarks, lines, and shapes, and lets you easily share that route or access it on your mobile browser.You can also print out a copy of the map you’ve created and add to your “Go Bag” or your child’s backpack.
For iPhone users (I’m sure there will soon be an Android equivalent) they also mentioned the ICE App (99 cents in App Store). The app creates one central location to conveniently store information about your medical conditions and allergies as well as emergency contacts. You can even enter insurance information and contact details for your specific doctors. Mashable also links to other iPhone apps that can help you out in case of emergency.
But my favorite is theEmergency Radio app, which turns your iPhone into a supercharged scanner for police, fire, NOAA and other emergency radio frequencies.
New research finds California will miss out on more than one billion because an estimated 800,000 eligible Californians will neglect to claim over $1.2 billion in federal Earn Income Tax Credit (EITC) dollars this tax season, according to the new report Left on the Table, published through a collaboration between the New America Foundation and economists at California State University at Fresno.
During the 2009 tax season, United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! helped taxpayers in seven Bay Area counties claim $4.5 million in EITC, but we’ve apparently got a long way to go to reach more eligible taxpayers.
Help us spread the word! Download flyers and paycheck stuffers to distribute at your workplace. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! is providing free tax filing assistance to any household that earned less than $49,000 in 2009. Our tax preparers are trained to help taxpayers claim the maximum EITC for which they are eligible, as well as other important tax credits.
NICOS Enrollment Specialist Corina Liew helped Serena Chen obtain Healthy Families coverage for her 15-year-old son. As a massage therapist, Chen earns too much to qualify for Medi-Cal, but does not receive insurance through her employer.
Jenny Li of San Francisco lost her health insurance and her job as a line supervisor at a Bay Area electronics manufacturer because the company relocated to Mexico in 2007. The loss of insurance would have had devastating effects. Jenny’s teenage son is challenged by mental-health issues that require two types of medication and regular psychiatric visits. Thankfully, a friend referred Jenny to the NICOS Chinese Health Coalition, a United Way grantee that helps community members access and enroll in California’s Healthy Families program, which helps children access no- and low-cost health insurance.
“I am so thankful for NICOS and Healthy Families,” Jenny said. “Without them, I don’t know what I would do. Until I find work again, I can’t afford to pay for my son’s medical costs on my own.”
Unfortunately, more than 874,000 children,including Jenny’s son, could lose their health coverage if Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2010/11 passes. We have seen this threat before. In 2008, United Ways across California called on legislators and the governor’s office to ensure no children lost their health coverage.
United Way is gearing up to fight once again. Under the governor’s current proposal, the Healthy Families program would be eliminated unless California is able to obtain federal funding, which is highly risky and uncertain. Even if funding is appropriated, the proposal would still eliminate coverage for at least 200,000 children with new eligibility and cost-sharing requirements, as well as significant benefit reductions.
We are on the front lines of the fight for California’s children. We know that health insurance for all children is one of the most cost-effective ways to support their long-term success. “Children who are healthy are more likely to do well in school and in life,” said Anne Wilson, CEO, United Way of the Bay Area. “We urge the governor and the legislature
to stop these short-sighted cuts, which will force children into more costly types of care.”
Take Action Today!
We need your help to save the Healthy Families program. Please urge your legislators to reject Schwarzenegger’s proposal. We’ve made it easy—visit www.uwba.org/healthychildren. With just a few clicks you can send an email your legislators about Healthy Families. Learn more by contacting United Way’s Susan Jeong at 415.808.4359 or sjeong@uwba.org.
Last year more than $47,000 million was returned to Bay Area tax payers
When Earn It! Keep It! Save It! said they needed translators fluent in Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Vietnamese, United Way Community Project MatchBridge was more than happy to respond.
Earn It! Keep It! Save It!, a community project of United Way of the Bay Area, is a free, tax-preparing service offered to qualifying individuals and families. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! (EKS) operates more than 180 free tax sites across the Bay Area, where volunteer tax preparers help individuals and families claim their maximum tax refund.
With so many sites across the ethnically dense Bay Area, the need for translators was high. With all the talented young adults at MatchBridge looking for part-time work, the partnership made perfect sense.
Twenty-seven of MatchBridge’s youth members came into the orientation to potentially offer their services as translators. EKS, United Way, and MatchBridge staff held interviews and fluency tests that many of the members passed with ease. Earn It! Keep It! Save It! partners with hundreds of community organizations and free tax preparation providers, such as Tax-Aid, to process almost 50,000 tax returns each year. They also provide low- to moderate-income households with access to public benefits, low- or no-cost bank accounts and financial education. Most importantly they make sure that eligible taxpayers claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) which can amount to as much as $5,600 per family.
Due to the complex nature of the free financial services that Earn It! Keep It! Save It! offers, translators play an essential role in serving the families and individuals who have limited English fluency.
If you are a Spanish speaker and you’re interested in being a translator, MatchBridge and Earn It! Keep It! Save It! are still recruiting. Leave a comment with your email.
HEY has released 4 new HEY Statistics focusing on foster youth and unemployment. The 4 HEY Statistics paint a picture of the barriers foster youth face while searching for and keeping employment.
A report released last month and available on Feeding America details the rise of food insecurity in the country. Feeding America is the nation’s largest network of more than 200 food banks and the largest domestic hunger-relief charity in the United States. Each year, Feeding America secures and distributes more than 2.6 billion pounds of food and grocery products to 61,000 agencies nationwide.
Simply put, food insecurity is US Dept of Agriculture’s measurement of the lack of access at times to “enough food for active, healthy life for all household members, or limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.” So along with simply not always having enough food to feed your family it could also take into consideration people who live in ‘food deserts‘ – areas dominated by convenience stores and without access to fresh or healthy foods.
Some of the report’s (which is available here) other findings include:
37 million different people used food banks last year, and increase of 46% from 2005
1 in 50 Americans receive emergency food in any given week, a 27% increase from 2005
36% of all households receiving food assistance include an employed member of the household
39% of households receiving food assistance had to chose to between paying food or rent or mortgage in the previous year.
Given our own findings in our recently released Self-Sufficiency Report these results are not surprising but no less upsetting. There is plenty more information available and they have a very nifty blog where you can read more about the faces of hunger and see who is really hungry in America.
Last month, United Way gathered Bay Area community leaders at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco to explore opportunities to address poverty in our region.
The event began with an overview of United Way’s recent report, “Struggling to Make Ends Meet in the Bay Area,” which was followed by a panel discussion with audience participation. This 8-minute video contains the highlights of the event.
The “Struggling to Make Ends Meet in the Bay Area” report can be downloaded at www.liveunitedca.org (pdf).
As part of our ongoing goal to ensure that everyone is prepared for disaster – made even more urgent considering the recent events in Chile – we encourage people to do just one thing each month to prepare yourself and your family. The idea is to prepare enough to be able to sustain yourself and your family for 72 hours after a disaster. As a guide, we’ve been following the disaster preparedness calendar featured on Do 1 thing. This month’s 1 thing is Shelter.
The goal is to identify a safe a place to shelter during an emergency and to know how to respond safely when instructions are given. If you spend a lot of time in certain locations that aren’t your home, like a workplace or perhaps a gym or place or place of worship, it might be a good idea to think about safe places in those locations as well. When establishing your shelter plan here are some things to consider:
Identify the best shelter area in your home:
Where can you duck, cover and hold at your residence?
What area of your house is the best place to stay high and dry?
In case you must evacuate, what places in your community can you go to for shelter?
Talk to your child’s school regarding their sheltering procedures.
Have a leash or carrier to evacuate or contain your pet in an emergency.
If you have to evacuate – and sometimes even while sheltering in place - having a “Go Bag” can be a very convenient way to ensure you have some necessary items that will make life easier. Your Go Bag can be part of your home emergency kit, just make sure that it is in a bag or easy to carry container and that it is in an easy-to-get-to location.
Some things to include are:
Battery powered, or wind-up radio
Flashlight
Blankets (“space blankets” are cheap and can be found at most sports/camping stores)
Emergency information, including a list of any prescription medicines and insurance policies
Personal items such as toothbrushes, soap, extra glasses, etc.
Whistle
Pen and paper
First-aid kit
Diapers and baby formula
Supplies for pets (leash, food, bowls, plastic bags)
Change of clothing
Anything you know you just can’t live without!
Remember, disasters can strike at time, so doing just a single thing each month can help you and family survive at least 72 hours.
Did you know that paying income taxes is the law for anyone who earns wages in the United States, including undocumented immigrants?
Each year, United Way’s Earn It! Keep It! Save It! provides free tax filing assistance to thousands of undocumented workers in the Bay Area, helping them to participate in our country’s tax system.
For Carlos Rodriguez, a self-declared undocumented immigrant, tax day isn’t about refunds or money he’ll have to pay to the government. It’s about establishing a record.
“I don’t have any reason to hide,” he said on a recent evening, while waiting along with a handful of other immigrants, for his appointment at a free tax clinic on Mission Street.
Tax preparers throughout the Mission District, say that tax filers like Rodriguez are increasing, despite the recession. They are walking, W-2s in hand, into storefronts along Mission Street advertising tax prep services in Spanish or the handful of free clinics run out of non-profits and community centers on evenings and weekends.
Such tax services in the Mission rival taquerias for the highest number of storefronts and have become ubiquitous in most heavily Latino communities as millions of undocumented immigrants file tax returns each year, even without collecting the benefits for which they pay.
For ten years, Rodriguez, a roofer who is now unemployed, has diligently declared his income to the Internal Revenue Service so that he can prove his tenure in the country if there is immigration reform and that he—like a legal resident—has contributed to government coffers.
Paying income taxes is the law for anyone who earns wages in the United States. Yet undocumented immigrants face special challenges in filing a return.
To work legally in the country, an employee needs a valid social security number. But undocumented workers are ineligible for one.
That leads many undocumented workers to make up social security numbers or acquire somebody else’s number, said Francine Lipman, a professor of tax law at Chapman University in Los Angeles.
Since 1996, the IRS has issued Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, or ITINs, which has reduced the confusion this creates, she added. The nine-digit codes are issued to anyone ineligible for a social security number and serve as a unique identifier for the purpose of paying taxes.
ITINs can also be used for other things, like opening bank accounts or getting a car loan. But they do not give a person the right to work legally in the country.
By expanding education and access to broadband services, and providing digital literacy and job training, we’ll be working to enhance economic opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Californians at a time when they need it most.”
- Peter Manzo, president of United Ways of California and co-chair of 2-1-1 California.
If you have a smart phone, getting prepared for disaster has never been easier. Over on Mashable, they have a great list of resources that either use Web 2.0 tools like Facebook , or can be integrated with any current generation smart phone.
