Angela S

Child(ren): 2 children, Ayaan, age 4, and Jahzaire, age 10

Issues: Food and Hunger, Housing, Environment, Violence and Trauma, Welfare & Assistance, Family, Childhood, Breaking the Cycle

"The key is to prevent everybody needing welfare. The key is to get people off welfare. You don’t want this to keep being a repeated cycle. It seems like it’s a repeated cycle, and it gets worse."

Angela was featured Ebru Television, an international news agency with viewers across the globe. Click here for the video and accompanying transcript.

Angela's writing and photography were featured by Media Voices for Children and Change.org. Click here to read and see her work.

Angela gave a presentation as part of a webinar entitled, "Stories Behind the Statistics: What the 2009 Poverty and Income Data Mean for Your Family." The webcast was sponsored by the Coalition on Human Needs and the Half in Ten Campaign--click here for a summary and links to Angela's presentation.

See Angela featured as she speaks out on hunger in the Philadelphia Inquirer

See Angela featured in a story about gaps in women's wages.

See Angela featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer on 2/15/10.

Angela is a thirty-two and a mother of two boys, aged two and eight. She receives SSI-disability because she was shot in the abdomen when she was a teenager and she supports her family with her SSI check, a small amount of cash assistance and food stamps. She also braids hair for extra cash because rent payments eat up eighty percent of her income. Housing is one of Angela’s biggest concerns-- she has been on a waitlist for Section VIII for nine years. Angela was about to receive her voucher in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina happened and she was told by Philadelphia Housing Authority that her voucher had been given to a victim of Katrina and that she had been placed back on the waiting list.

Angela has survived many challenges in her life—she’s been shot, stabbed, raped and was homeless for several years. She’s still struggling to move forward with her education so that she can start a career and be able to support her family without worrying about how to stretch out her SSI check for the month. She has earned an associate’s degree in health education and is working towards a bachelor’s degree. She is now fighting to qualify for CCIS so that she will have time to study and complete her online coursework.

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Angela S

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