San Francisco has tech billionaires and Google buses, famous landmarks and crowds of European tourists. It also has an income disparity comparable to that of Rwanda. And while many low- and middle-income people have been pushed outside the city limits, the city’s poorest families often don’t have the resources to leave and remain stuck in one of America’s most expensive cities.
Now city officials are trying to address the needs of its most vulnerable by subsidizing disposable diapers and becoming the first major U.S. municipality to do so, it is believed.
San Francisco plans to spend about $479,000 annually to distribute diapers monthly to families in need. Still in its pilot phase serving 257 families with a child under the age of one, the city says that the diaper program will be operating at full capacity by Nov. 1, at which point it will serve roughly 1,300 families with children under three years old.
Sheree Guthrie is one of those receiving assistance through the scheme. The 35 year old has lived in San Francisco for 23 years and has one baby, Tristan, with another one on the way. In the past, the mother explained, she sometimes couldn’t afford to change Tristan’s soggy diaper. But she recently received her supply of diapers through the pilot program.
[For more of this story, written by Azure Gilman, go to http://america.aljazeera.com/a...income-families.html]
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