Welfare Reform, Squatters Welcome, Leslie Odom, Jr.

How Welfare Reform Affected Families Guest: Alan Hawkins, PhD, Professor of Family Life at BYU, Author of “The Forever Initiative” This year marks the 20th anniversary of major reform to the US welfare system. Leading up to the changes implemented by President Bill Clinton and a Republican-led Congress, welfare programs were criticized for promoting government dependency and single-motherhood. The 1996 reforms added work requirements and time limits to the welfare system and gave states more control over the money. Child care, job training and even marriage skills classes are now part of the welfare spending mix. So how have families fared? Original welfare programs may have encouraged women to have children out of wedlock. Does welfare now encourage couples to marry and stay together?  Squatters May Actually Help Neighborhoods Guest: Claire Herbert, PhD, Recent Doctoral Graduate in Sociology at the University of Michigan The housing and foreclosure crisis that helped cause the Great Recession also plunged many neighborhoods into decline. Homes that have been abandoned by their owners and the bank quickly over grow with weeds; then they become a magnet for thieves, loiterers and worst of all, squatters.  So why on earth would some neighborhoods in Detroit want to recruit squatters? Claire Herbert spent five years interviewing homeowners, community leaders and squatters in Detroit for her doctorate in sociology at the University of Michigan. She found that sometimes squatters are good for a neighborhood.  From the Vaults: Kay Nielsen Guest: Julie Allen, PhD, Humanities Professor at BYU Do you remember this final scene from Disney’s Fantasia? There’s a winged demon with glowing eyes on top of a craggy mountain. He looms over a sleeping village and then he starts summoning spirits from the grave. They’re flying through the air on wispy skeletal horses and then there are demons dancing around a pit of fire. The whole thing is super-creepy and a lot of people said it was too dark for a kid’s movie. But it end