4 thoughts on “Policy Options Brief: Financial Pressures on NYC Families and the Negative Effects on Child Mental Health”
The issue of financial pressures on NYC families was explicitly addressed in this memo. It clearly identifies the problems that NYC families face in regards to financial burdens, lack of shelters and socioeconomic issues. A policy option that could be helpful in this matter is to recognize and provide education to the community and not just parents. Mental disorder faces a lot of stigma because of ignorance. Providing information to society would be helpful to identify the needs, causes and solution to mental illness. It would be more useful to know what studies was done to recognize the necessity of education and how it would be helpful to parents. Also what evidence supports your findings in regards to education of parents? The option that seems best to me is long-term supportive housing. This is because; shelters create a greater risk of violence, diseases, and instability. Having a steady home will be helpful as children are more stable and have somewhere to call home.
The tricky part about your memo is that you’re focusing on two issues rather than one – you’re looking at financial pressures on NYC families AND child mental health. I would recommend focusing on “Mental Health Issues of Children in the Homeless System.” You could mention policies to reduce homelessness as an option to fix the issue, and then your memo would be a little more streamlined and easier to navigate/make sense of.
I think you provide good evidence of poverty rates and also good evidence of the mental health issues that arise from homelessness. I think what is lacking is some background info on how homeless shelters are run and the resources that are currently provided. This will help determine if the shelters need completely new programs or if the existing ones just aren’t working. It also will help support your later claims of children being separated and the “current solution of taking people and shuffling them from place to place.” Is this really how shelters are run? You give no evidence to support this…
I think that increasing the minimum wage could help decrease homelessness in theory, but you don’t give strong evidence to support this. Is there any evidence that the homeless rate in Seattle has gone down? Would it be enough to help the mental health issues of children? Are you looking at mental health issues of ALL low income families? Or ONLY the ones living in homeless shelters – this needs clarification…
I like the idea of long term supportive housing, but I have never heard of it before – could you give more data on what exactly it is and what it provides? Do we have anything like this in NYC? Where has it been implemented? What is its evidence of success? I also like the idea of having early childhood development available, but have you thought of mental health help for parents too? They can’t help their kids be health if they are not healthy themselves. You should look into the Nurse Family Partnership – they have a great track record of success and can possibly give you some ideas for other policy options.
I think you should exclude the option of educational programs provided through the employer. How many employers have enough of a staff that suffer from homelessness that it would be worthwhile for them to implement this?
Have you thought about the option of increasing the availability of low-income housing? This could help more families escape the homeless system.
For your problem of financial struggles, increasing the minimum wage and providing low-income housing could help. For improving child mental health, I like the idea of long term supportive housing with mental health resources. However, you need to provide more data and information on long term supportive housing before I would be convinced to support it.
I agree with Katie that the topic could be changed to the Mental Health of Homeless Children. The Part I of the Problem can be regarded as some background information of this topic. The middle class is also suffering financial pressures in NYC but this paper only focuses on the low income families.
When considering the effect of the minimum wage, yes I agree that it may not lead to unemployment implied in the simplest economic model. The employers may simply cut down the hours of each worker, or hire more part-time workers. Employers can save the fringe benefits when they hire part-time workers. As a result, the less skilled workers may not be better off if you simply increase the minimum wage to $15 for all workers. A traditional view is that minimum wage and earned income tax credit (EITC) are two substitutes. But nowadays the economists suggest that these two are good compliments to combat poverty, especially the child poverty. You may want to explore the interaction of the two in your policy option session.
Education, instead of income, has a larger impact on children development. The government can provide free counseling sessions to the poor children. An education reform can also mandate public schools to improve counseling services at school.
Gun violence, as seen in the Democratic Debate last night,is a major issue in our nation today. Sadly the country is quite split down the middle where people from rural states feel that they would like their guns for sport, hunting and protection but people from cities and more progressive areas want them banned. I feel like the memo does a great job outlining all the major parts of the issue and if i had to pick one option I would pick the Mandatory background checks. Not because I feel like it would be the best option but because it is more than likely the only option that both sides would be able to somewhat support and pass legislation.
One point of the memo that I think should be added is the percentage of gun deaths by ones own firearm. People are more likely to kill themselves with a gun that is used for “protection” than keeping a burglar away.
The issue of financial pressures on NYC families was explicitly addressed in this memo. It clearly identifies the problems that NYC families face in regards to financial burdens, lack of shelters and socioeconomic issues. A policy option that could be helpful in this matter is to recognize and provide education to the community and not just parents. Mental disorder faces a lot of stigma because of ignorance. Providing information to society would be helpful to identify the needs, causes and solution to mental illness. It would be more useful to know what studies was done to recognize the necessity of education and how it would be helpful to parents. Also what evidence supports your findings in regards to education of parents? The option that seems best to me is long-term supportive housing. This is because; shelters create a greater risk of violence, diseases, and instability. Having a steady home will be helpful as children are more stable and have somewhere to call home.
The tricky part about your memo is that you’re focusing on two issues rather than one – you’re looking at financial pressures on NYC families AND child mental health. I would recommend focusing on “Mental Health Issues of Children in the Homeless System.” You could mention policies to reduce homelessness as an option to fix the issue, and then your memo would be a little more streamlined and easier to navigate/make sense of.
I think you provide good evidence of poverty rates and also good evidence of the mental health issues that arise from homelessness. I think what is lacking is some background info on how homeless shelters are run and the resources that are currently provided. This will help determine if the shelters need completely new programs or if the existing ones just aren’t working. It also will help support your later claims of children being separated and the “current solution of taking people and shuffling them from place to place.” Is this really how shelters are run? You give no evidence to support this…
I think that increasing the minimum wage could help decrease homelessness in theory, but you don’t give strong evidence to support this. Is there any evidence that the homeless rate in Seattle has gone down? Would it be enough to help the mental health issues of children? Are you looking at mental health issues of ALL low income families? Or ONLY the ones living in homeless shelters – this needs clarification…
I like the idea of long term supportive housing, but I have never heard of it before – could you give more data on what exactly it is and what it provides? Do we have anything like this in NYC? Where has it been implemented? What is its evidence of success? I also like the idea of having early childhood development available, but have you thought of mental health help for parents too? They can’t help their kids be health if they are not healthy themselves. You should look into the Nurse Family Partnership – they have a great track record of success and can possibly give you some ideas for other policy options.
I think you should exclude the option of educational programs provided through the employer. How many employers have enough of a staff that suffer from homelessness that it would be worthwhile for them to implement this?
Have you thought about the option of increasing the availability of low-income housing? This could help more families escape the homeless system.
For your problem of financial struggles, increasing the minimum wage and providing low-income housing could help. For improving child mental health, I like the idea of long term supportive housing with mental health resources. However, you need to provide more data and information on long term supportive housing before I would be convinced to support it.
I agree with Katie that the topic could be changed to the Mental Health of Homeless Children. The Part I of the Problem can be regarded as some background information of this topic. The middle class is also suffering financial pressures in NYC but this paper only focuses on the low income families.
When considering the effect of the minimum wage, yes I agree that it may not lead to unemployment implied in the simplest economic model. The employers may simply cut down the hours of each worker, or hire more part-time workers. Employers can save the fringe benefits when they hire part-time workers. As a result, the less skilled workers may not be better off if you simply increase the minimum wage to $15 for all workers. A traditional view is that minimum wage and earned income tax credit (EITC) are two substitutes. But nowadays the economists suggest that these two are good compliments to combat poverty, especially the child poverty. You may want to explore the interaction of the two in your policy option session.
Education, instead of income, has a larger impact on children development. The government can provide free counseling sessions to the poor children. An education reform can also mandate public schools to improve counseling services at school.
Gun violence, as seen in the Democratic Debate last night,is a major issue in our nation today. Sadly the country is quite split down the middle where people from rural states feel that they would like their guns for sport, hunting and protection but people from cities and more progressive areas want them banned. I feel like the memo does a great job outlining all the major parts of the issue and if i had to pick one option I would pick the Mandatory background checks. Not because I feel like it would be the best option but because it is more than likely the only option that both sides would be able to somewhat support and pass legislation.
One point of the memo that I think should be added is the percentage of gun deaths by ones own firearm. People are more likely to kill themselves with a gun that is used for “protection” than keeping a burglar away.