Tag: ALICE report
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Council candidates discuss ALICE, transportation, and affordable housing
The candidates campaigning for the three city council seats up for election on Nov. 3 participated in a virtual forum Wednesday night – the second such event this month involving all five candidates. Two incumbents, Mayor Deanna Reed (D) and George Hirschmann (I), and three first-time candidates, Democrats Laura Dent and Charles Hendricks, plus Republican Kathleen Kelley, largely agreed on topics ranging from how to help low-income residents in Harrisonburg to transportation priorities.
United Way releases new ALICE Report, into COVID’s shadow
According to the United Way’s just-released 2020 ALICE Report, 61% of households in Harrisonburg struggle to make ends meet. While that represents a 4% drop from the first ALICE report, published in 2017, it does not factor in the pandemic’s effects. In any case, Harrisonburg still has one of the highest rates of ALICE households in Virginia.
New campaign bypasses minimum wage debate by praising companies that pay workers more
Instead of lobbying for policy changes in Richmond and Washington, a new group is pushing for raising workers’ pay by gathering voluntary commitments from — and cheering on — local employers that pay their staff a “living wage.”
In the grip of Harrisonburg’s housing crunch, some families keep getting squeezed
When Shannon Porter, executive director of Mercy House, pictures someone who’s homeless, the mental image that springs to his mind isn’t a loner with gray hair and well-worn wrinkles.
Despite Harrisonburg’s status as a ‘childcare desert,’ day care providers’ expansion plans keep getting sent to time-outs
While two day care operators cleared a key hurdle in their effort to expand the number of spots for children of working families, their win was short-lived. And their saga has underscored the complex process day care providers must navigate to create more spots to for children, even as working families across Harrisonburg and beyond scramble to get on waiting lists for safe places to send their children during workdays.