Sunday, November 29, 2009

plus 4, Fairfield family gets help with rent - San Francisco Chronicle

plus 4, Fairfield family gets help with rent - San Francisco Chronicle

Fairfield family gets help with rent - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 06:48 AM PST

Then, a week after submitting their offer, which luckily was rejected, Megary-Herrera lost her job. She found a new one a few months later, but at barely half the salary. They struggled but managed to survive - until August this year, when both of them were laid off and they ran out of savings.

"We were really freaking out. There was no income coming in, no reservoir," said Megary-Herrera. "We couldn't pay the rent."

The couple found help through Season of Sharing, which paid for almost all of their October rent. "I'm really happy there was a program to help us," Megary-Herrera said. "There was nothing left for us to do."

The Megarys are still in a tough spot. They have a 7-year-old daughter, Delicia, and Megary-Herrera is four months pregnant, which limits her employment options. She'd rather have a job than collect unemployment benefits, she said, but the few jobs she can find barely pay more than unemployment, especially when they have to pay for day care.

Meanwhile, the construction industry has been among those hit hardest by the economy, and Megary has felt the pinch in his job search. Every morning he goes to the iron workers union office in hopes of finding a new job, but he's only had two weeks of work in the past six months.

"I'm freaked out," he said recently, sitting next to his wife in the couple's dining room. "Just getting by financially, it's hard."

Megary-Herrera said she isn't worried about the new baby - she plans to breast feed for as long as she's able, and she's been researching ways to save money, by using cloth diapers, for example.

The couple told Delicia that she shouldn't expect much for Christmas this year. She's getting the message, Megary-Herrera said, although a few days before Thanksgiving, Delicia already seemed excited about the letter she'd sent to Santa Claus.

"Last Christmas was hard, too," Megary-Herrera said. "We kept it really small. She got a bike, because we could only buy her one thing and we wanted to make sure it would last."

The Megarys said they never expected to find themselves needing financial support. Until last year they'd always had steady work. Even after Megary-Herrera lost her job and they struggled to make ends meet, they had a hard time asking for help.

They'd started living frugally. They bought five chickens and ate the eggs they produced. They purchased food in bulk and got in the habit of making meals stretch. Then one day Delicia was in the kitchen looking for something to eat and she started crying.

"She can be a little melodramatic," Megary-Herrera said with a smile. "But she opened the cupboard and said there was nothing to eat, and she was right. Going to the food bank was hard for me. It wasn't something I ever imagined doing."

Still, the couple said they're trying to stay positive. Megary-Herrera said she should have saved more money during the good years. They're both more cautious now, and they've learned new ways to keep expenses down.

"It was really hard at first. You just struggle to get by," Megary said. "But you learn from it."

About the fund

Donations to The Chronicle Season of Sharing Fund help thousands of people in the Bay Area throughout the year. Assistance is in the form of grants paid directly to the supplier of goods or services, such as a landlord. Individuals cannot receive direct grants. For more information, visit www.seasonofsharing.org.

Chronicle Season of Sharing fund

Founded: 1986

Number of families helped: 5,000 families and individuals annually, a total of about 115,000.

Cash distributed to food banks: More than $10 million

Total cash distributed: More than $66 million

Number of donors: More than 5,000 annually

Largest donors: Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund: $500,000 in 2009, $400,000 in 2008, $300,000 in 2007, $250,000 in 2006 and 2005. The late Walter A. Haas Jr. and Ira Hirschfield, the president of the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund, helped bring the Season of Sharing Fund concept to The Chronicle.

Anonymous donor: $500,000 in 2009, $400,000 in 2008, $300,000 in 2007, $200,000 in 2006 and 2005.

E-mail Erin Allday at eallday@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

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San Francisco's school of last resort - San Francisco Chronicle

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 06:34 AM PST

But the typical public school experience didn't work for the 105 students at John Muir.

Among them are former robbers and thieves. Some are teenage parents. All were academic failures elsewhere and, at one point or another, on the state's long list of high school dropouts.

Each one wants another chance.

This school gives them that as well as health care, bus passes, individual support, construction job training, and a capitalistic reason to show up: a paycheck.

John Muir offers its students a fast track to the elusive diploma and the option of vocational job training in various construction fields. Getting a paycheck with benefits gives them one more reason to go to class.

"We're taking the kids our school system can't handle," said Garry Grady, the former bank robber, as he sat in his musty administrator's office watching students head back to class to solve algebraic equations, complete a plant biology worksheet and finish a lesson on Adolf Hitler.

He summed up his students in five words: "These are the crack babies."

The students, who range in age from 16 to 24, get paid $50 per week for attending class; they get $7 per hour during the weeks they're learning to hammer nails, frame a room, or paint a wall, for example.

The Glide Foundation, with public grants and nonprofit donations, provides funding and support services.

Glide also pays Grady to run the program with his counterpart, the former methamphetamine user, Kyle Moneypenny, a previously homeless man turned credentialed teacher and now John Muir director of education.

A desire to learn

Every stereotype suggests the young people at the school have no future outside a jail or a graveyard, but Grady and Moneypenny know better.

They know that most of the students get up at 5 a.m. or earlier to catch public transit to arrive at the former Treasure Island elementary school campus by 7 a.m. They know that since the school opened four years ago, about 200 young adults are now high school graduates. The stipend they receive is a lure, but a diploma is the hook.

"I've got to get my education," said Lamont Mims, who that morning caught the 5:19 a.m. BART train out of Hayward, followed by a bus out of San Francisco to get to school well before his first class at 7 a.m.

He would get paid $10 that day for his attendance. That amounts to $1.50 per hour for his time on campus.

Outside the school, many of these classmates would be enemies - in some cases mortal enemies - compelled by the street code of neighborhood gangs to hate each other and hurt each other.

Treasure Island is neutral turf.

There they sit side by side calculating how much lumber it would take to frame a door.

"This is their last chance," Grady said. "They know it. They want to change their lives."

The school's roots

The San Francisco school and vocational training program opened in 2005.

It is part of a network of 43 school sites statewide that fall under the umbrella of John Muir Charter School, a network under the authority of the Nevada County Office of Education.

Each John Muir site is affiliated with a vocational or job skills organization, including the local or state Conservation Corps, the national YouthBuild job skills program or a local Job Corps.

The San Francisco campus offers both an academics-only program called Scholars and a YouthBuild vocational/academic program, both affiliated with the Glide Foundation. State education money pays the teacher salaries and basic academic costs while donations to Glide from the Irene S. Scully Family Foundation, the Alexander M. and June L. Maisin Foundation and corporate foundations, combined with city and federal money, pay for everything else.

The students get health care through Healthy San Francisco in addition to bus or BART passes, and assistance from case managers who help with food stamps, housing or other needs throughout school and up to a year after graduation. Those in the vocational program also receive steel-toe work boots and brown construction coveralls.

So far, about 200 of the 500 current or former students have graduated.

Makia Johnson almost gave up.

A teenager in the Fillmore district, Johnson was expelled from San Francisco's Galileo Academy before dropping out of Ida B. Wells High School. After that she hung out with friends, "doing nothing and in a lot of trouble."

After a robbery landed her in jail for a month, she had two choices: spend more time in jail or enroll in the Treasure Island charter school.

"I love my freedom," she said in explaining her decision.

And so she got up before the sun to catch a bus to school.

That was in 2007. By May 2008, she was a high school graduate, Cal/OSHA-certified with training in hazardous waste, asbestos removal and lead.

Johnson, now 21, is a plasterer making $15.63 per hour.

"It changed my life," she said.

About 20 students currently are on the Scholars track, focused on getting a diploma and heading to college or a post-secondary vocational school. Another 60 students are in pre-YouthBuild classes to help them catch up academically so they can qualify for the school's vocational program.

The 24 YouthBuild students alternate between pursuing academics in the classroom and learning trade skills at a deserted former officers' quarters on Yerba Buena Island, on loan for free through the Treasure Island Development Authority.

Books and hammers

At the Yerba Buena site, general contractor Jeff McGallian and training coordinator Steve Michell are the no-nonsense instructors teaching everything from Hammering 101 to insulation, lighting and safety (tuck the thick neck chains in the shirt), along with daily life lessons.

While Moneypenny and Grady often empathize with their students' struggles and can joke about the bad taste of bologna sandwiches behind bars, bad choices at John Muir are met with swift and sometimes seemingly harsh consequences.

On a recent morning, Moneypenny spent a couple of hours processing the two-day suspension of a student.

The offense? At the Yerba Buena job site, the male student had pulled out his cell phone.

Suspended for a cell phone?

"If you're at a job site and a foreman is telling you something and you pull out a phone, he'll tell you to get out and never come back," Moneypenny said. "We needed to teach him some hard, fast lessons."

The students are already judged and labeled with negative stereotypes. Any mistake they make validates those impressions, the administrator said.

"We have to beg, borrow and steal to get these kids into jobs," Moneypenny said. "I guarantee that (suspended) kid is not pulling out a cell phone any time soon."

E-mail Jill Tucker at jtucker@sfchronicle.com.

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Japan PM orders action on rising yen: reports - YAHOO!

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 05:58 AM PST

dkjf;k;alkd; buzzed up: The waiting continues with Woods (AP)

51 seconds ago 2009-11-29T07:07:48-08:00

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State mistake puts personal data at risk - Statesman Journal

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 06:26 AM PST

(4 of 4)

On Wednesday, the newspaper returned to the agency the confidential records it had received concerning assisted living and low-income housing residents. The agency immediately prepared letters to notify those people about the security breach.

Also Wednesday, the newspaper returned to parks and recreation officials confidential records it had received concerning former employees of the agency.

Parks agency reacts

Computerized data sheets with employment information about dozens of parks and recreation employees were found in the recycling bin. The forms had employees' names, job titles, pay amounts and performance appraisal dates, but they didn't have Social Security numbers or other types of personal information.

Agency officials said the employment-data records didn't require shredding and were properly discarded in the recycling bin.

However, other forms found in the bin had the names and Social Security numbers of six former parks and recreation employees.

Their personal information appeared on "Request for Separation Information" forms. The state Employment Department sends such forms to an employer when a former employee files a claim for unemployment insurance benefits.

Typically, such forms are supposed to be shredded after an agency verifies the starting and ending work dates of a former employee.

Chris Havel, a spokesman for state parks and recreation, said the agency was looking into why shredding didn't happen with a small number of forms.

"It's a big deal that something that regularly gets shredded didn't get shredded," he said.

Havel said the agency was sending notification letters to people whose personal information had been left unprotected.

"We need to own that and figure out a way to fix it," he said. "We're going to do that by contacting those people, and figuring out where the error occurred."

A draft notification letter prepared Wednesday by the agency states: "We are contacting you because we have learned of a security incident that may have involved some of your personal information."

The letter, set to be signed by Tim Wood, parks and recreation director, linked the problem to an office cleanup in October, when "a small number of unemployment claim documents containing private information normally placed in a locked barrel for shredding were inadvertently placed in an unsecure bin.

"We have notified the three major U.S. credit bureaus about this incident ... Because this is a serious incident, we strongly encourage you to take preventive measures now to help prevent and detect any misuse of your information."

As a first step, the letter said, "we recommend you closely monitor your financial accounts and, if you see any unauthorized activity, promptly contact your financial institution."

agustafs@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6709

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US pay czar OKs changes for 2 top BofA executives - Island Packet Online

Posted: 29 Nov 2009 05:51 AM PST

NEW YORK — Bailed-out Bank of America amended the salaries of two senior executives after a review by the White House pay czar, according to a regulatory filing.

Chief Financial Officer Joe. L. Price and mortgage unit President Barbara J. Desoer will earn less salary in 2009 than they did last year following approval by the officer of the special master for TARP Executive Compensation, Bank of America said in papers filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Charlotte, N.C.-based bank remains under scrutiny after receiving $45 billion in bailout funds as part of the Treasury Department's $700 billion financial rescue package. Unlike some rivals, it has not said when it will pay back the government the money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

In the filing submitted late Friday, Bank of America said it amended the 2009 compensation agreements for Price and Desoer.

Price's salary was trimmed to $500,000, retroactive to Nov. 1. He earned a salary of $800,000 for 2008, according to a separate filing submitted in March.

The CFO will also receive stock unit awards valued at $5.3 million for the full year 2009. According to the March filing, he received stock awards worth $2.3 million and options awards valued at $1.5 million for 2008.

Desoer, president of Bank of America mortgage, home equity and insurance services, will also see her annual salary trimmed to $500,000 from the $800,000 reported for last year. She will receive 2009 stock unit awards of $3.95 million. She received $2.3 million in stock awards and $1.53 million in options awards for 2008.

Both executives are also limited to $25,000 in other compensation, which often includes items like tax preparation, payment of insurance premiums, use of corporate aircraft, matching charitable contributions and other perks. In 2008, Price received $41,000 in perks. Desoer received $2.66 million in perks, including $1.5 million in relocation benefits when she moved from Charlotte to Calabasas, Calif., to take over the home lending and insurance business.

If either has already received more than $25,000 in perks this year, they must repay the difference, the filing said.

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