It can't be easy being the leader of Maryland's huge Department of Human Resources. Secretary Brenda Donald gets all the blame when things go wrong, and scant credit for making things go right. That's why her agency deserves kudos for helping more Maryland kids than ever find permanent homes; last year, DHR placed 770 kids with adoptive parents around the state, nearly half of them from Baltimore City. It was the first time since 2002 that the city exceeded its adoption goals for the year.

Nearly 10,00 kids languish in foster care and group homes across the state. Virtually all of them would be far better off with loving parents and a stable home life. The tragedy is that too many of them will grow up without ever experiencing either. But through its new Place Matters initiative, DHR is at least trying to minimize the length of time children remain in foster care and to place kids with relatives whenever possible.

It has often been said that a society can be judged by how well it treats its children. A giant bureacracy like DHR can never be a substitute for caring adults and a permanent home. But the agency's growing success at finding adoptive parents for children in need at least shows that progress is possible when officials seriously put their minds to making it happen. 

Posted by Glenn McNatt at 5:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Demographics
        

It hardly comes as news that the Census Bureau estimated this week that Baltimore City lost more than 3,000 people from July 1, 2007, to July 1, 2008. There have only been three years in the last 20 in which the city has gained population, part of a decades-long decline from Baltimore's million-plus peak long ago.

What's more surprising is that Baltimore County lost population in the same period. Not much -- just 212 people out of a population of more than 785,000. But it does reflect a change in the trends in the region's population. When the county first surpassed the city in population in 1994, the city was losing 10,000 or more people a year, and the county was gaining 5,000-7,000 a year. The numbers don't prove that the city's losses were the county's gain, but it's a pretty good bet. Now both of those trends appear to be cooling off. The county isn't gaining as many people as it once was, and the city, even including this year's dip, isn't losing nearly so many.

The city has been grappling with the issues of population decline for a very long time. But the end of steady population growth would be a big change for the county. A government that has been focused on managing development and holding the line on the property tax rate could, in the years ahead, find itself dealing with a very different set of problems. Unless the county abandons its long-standing (and wise) policies of limiting rural development, it will quickly reach the point at which it stops growing altogether. Is the county's leadership prepared for that day?

Posted by Andy Green at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)
Categories: Demographics
        

Dear Susan,

Thank you so much for your column in Monday's paper expressing empathy for white, middle-class men who, as you note, have had the richness of our life experiences truncated by our presumed access to lives of ease and privilege. On behalf of us all, I'd like to say how pleased we are that someone noticed this painful lack of institutionalized suffering from which we suffer. Until now, we've had merely to console ourselves with our, on average, higher wages and easy access to the corridors of power.

But if it's any comfort to you, I'd like to remind you that we are a resilient lot. In fact, our lack of compelling life stories has not stopped us from producing a signficant amount of art and literature. Where we have been unable to plumb the depths of our own life stories, we have, resourcefully, managed to make our very boringness the subject at hand, or, in a pinch, made something up.

So, don't cry for us, Susan Reimer. We'll manage somehow. We always do.

Sincerely,

Middle-Class White Men

Posted by Andy Green at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
Categories: Demographics
        

Nancy Johnston's editorial notebook on Saturday dissecting a growing media narrative about Millennial generation resentment of baby boomers is generating some passionate responses. Over on digg.com, the discussion is ranging from:

thanks baby boomers for making us support you with social security and medicare, while you piss ours away on bailouts and wars!

Look at me, I'm a Millennial and I can blame other people for my problems.

Continue reading "Millennials vs. baby boomers" »

Posted by Andy Green at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Demographics
        

Despite all the ruckus over illegal immigration in Anne Arundel County last year -- and the political milage County Executive John R. Leopold managed to milk from it -- Friday's  brief  story  about a painting contractor who pleaded guilty to hiring illegal immigrants could easily have passed under most readers' radar screens. Robert Bontempo admitted to federal prosecutors he hired a couple of dozen workers who weren't U.S. citizens or didn't have work permits; he'll be sentenced Sept. 4.

The case made headlines last summer when federal agents and Anne Arundel police raided Bontempo's offices and arrested 46 suspected illegal immigrants. It was a showy, politically driven  spectacle calculated to sow fear in the area's immigrant community, and it worked. Afterward, immigrants across the state, legal and not, were quoted as saying they too now feared being harassed or arrested by police.

No one really believes such raids will solve the nation's immigration problem. The idea seems more to have been that tough talk and heavy-handed tactics would intimidate illegal immigrants into deporting themselves. That's not likely to happen; like the big fight in the legislature this year over allowing illegal immigrants to get drivers' licenses, all it does is whip up fear and hatred against a particular ethnic group -- in this case Hispanics, the state's fastest-growing immigrant population -- and allow politicians like Mr. Leopold to grandstand by giving the public a false impression that local authorities are doing something, however destructive or misguided.

 As we've pointed out before, raids like the one last year grew out of the Bush administration's failure to pass comprehensive immigration reform that would have dealt in a serious way with the problem posed by the estimated 11 million people who live here illegally. Neither Anne Arundel County nor the country as a whole can arrest its way out of this dilemma. This is a national problem that demands a comprehensive change in federal immigration policy that only Congress can enact. Sooner or later lawmakers in Washington are going to have to summon the political courage to take it on.

Posted by Glenn McNatt at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Demographics
        

To some, the hard fought legislative struggle over whether people who could not prove their legal status should be permitted to obtain or renew drivers licenses seemed a fringe issue for Maryland, which became the last state east of the Mississippi to resolve the issue with passage this week of a bill bringing this state in compliance with a national ID law.

But a new national study indicates that illegal immigrants comprise a surprisingly large proportion of Maryland's workforce - placing the state in the top ten, tied with New York and just after Texas for it's share of illegal workers. Some 200,000 Maryland workers - 6.7 perecent of the state's workforce - are illegal immigrants, the study from the respected Pew Research Center estimates. New York, a much larger state for population and size has 650,00.

The Maryland statistic reflects national trends. Unauthorized immigrants living in the United States are more geographically dispersed than in the past and are more likely than either U.S.-born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with a spouse and children. In addition, a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents -- 73 percent -- were born in this country and are U.S. citizens, the Pew study reports.

That means that in Maryland the treatment and fate of illegal immigrant families is a much larger social and economic issue than many state state residents might think. And an ongoing national debate about their status and rights will have important consequences here.

Posted by Larry Williams at 5:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Demographics