The Choice Neighborhoods Initiative is an initiative through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to transform neighborhoods of extreme poverty and distressed housing into mixed-income communities. From the Urban Institute, this paper provides insight on how to effectively monitor the outcomes and measure success in this community and neighborhood change initiative. Authors provide a framework and logic model and performance measurement tools, including performance indicators.

This is part of a new series of issue briefs from the Urban Institute and Georgetown University, and offers information for utilizing Federal expenditures to reduce high unemployment over the next three to five years. High unemployment can lead to long-term problems for children and youth, decrease State funding for education and social services, and further harm the United States economy. Authors provide recommendations on anti-poverty efforts to help provide jobs, income supports, and services for the low-income and unemployed population.

This report was authored by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center), and provides information on a model to help states work collaboratively with industry, community colleges and each other to provide opportunities for workers to build their skill sets. This report highlights industries that will play a key role in the global economy and how to train workers to fulfill these labor market opportunities, such as the green energy and health care fields.

From the Center for Law and Social Policy, Maine’s Parents as Scholars (PaS) program provides services to Maine TANF participants who are pursuing two-year or four-year postsecondary degrees. The program is open to all TANF participants who did not previously have a bachelor’s degree in a field with available jobs or do not make 85 percent of Maine’s median income for their family size in their current field. Participants must remain full-time students, maintain at least a 2.0 grade point average, and must be on track to complete their degree programs in the usual two or four years.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued this report on revised USDA policy for free school meals for children. Under the new policy, if anyone in a household is a recipient of benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP: formerly the Food Stamp Program), the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash assistance program, or the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), all children in the household are categorically eligible for free school meals. This policy change will help an estimated 2.5 million children who have been missed in the enrollment process receive free school lunches.

The Urban Institute hosted this Web cast with four experts from across the social policy spectrum. Speakers discussed lessons learned from public policies and programs that they have had experienced in the line of their work. Panelists included Greg Berman, the director of the Center for Court Innovation; Martha R. Burt, an affiliated scholar with the Urban Institute and expert in homelessness, welfare, hunger, and social service delivery; Kevin Finneran, the editor-in-chief of Issues in Science and Technology; Olivia Golden, an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute whose work focuses on service delivery, leadership, and political strategies human services programs, and; Susan J. Popkin, an expert on assisted housing and mobility and a senior fellow at the Urban Institute.

This program highlight is from the Center on Law and Social Policy, and provides information on the Pennsylvania Keystone Education Yields Success (KEYS) program. The program assists parents receiving TANF or SNAP benefits who are in certificate or degree programs among Pennsylvania’s community colleges. Each participant receives career guidance and continued support from a student facilitator, in addition to help with mitigating transportation and child care barriers to attending class.

This Spotlight is from the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse, and provides valuable information on the importance of men's activities and behaviors prior to and around the time of a child’s birth (i.e., prenatal involvement). Prenatal involvement has been found to have important implications for the quantity and quality of fathers’ involvement with their children and partners following the birth.

Authored by the Urban Institute, this paper provides an overview of economic mobility and income volatility for America’s families. Specifically, authors provide information on how economic instability and insecurity have changed for America's low-income working families over time as well as the factors that contribute to, or offer protection from substantial income losses and promote or inhibit recoveries from such losses.

This innovative program highlight is from the Center on Law and Social Policy, and provides information on the Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative (CPI) program. CPI provides academic and support services for low-income, low-skill individuals to acquire the degrees and credentials necessary to secure a job. The program is funded with TANF dollars, and students are eligible for the program if they are adult caretakers of children under 21 and have incomes below 250 percent of the federal poverty line.