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Pour Charlotte Achievers
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| Senior Americans In Sight
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Story On Page 15 A
By JaM* Strong
JPeat Staff Writer
Waeit's beauty is attractive
Curry. She is a junior at South
_ enburg High School where she
■F* member of the Student Council
Erica is enjoying her high school
days. She Bays in high school one
receives many more privileges
than one gets in Junior high. “You
don’t have to go to lunch with the
teachers anymore,” she smiles. Her
IjJavorite subject is Chemistry. “I like
] all Sciencda,” she admits.
^Wben she graduates, Erica claims
Science. “I feel that in the future the
world will rely on computers I’m
very interested in them,” she states
She’* decided she’d like to attend
N£. University. “I’ve found
that this university otters a good
computer science and engineering
J "hen asked about her favorite
hobby, Erica responds, “Tatting on
the telephone.” Is that a hobby? “I
classify it as a hobby,” she states
;;ug»vc me something to do and I
"But I'm also a clothes fanatic,”
•M^onthmes. “I love shopping for
f
■4 Uni skirts.” What she likes
"Preppy Look”, a pretty
ive style that consists of
shirts and argyle sweaters
- “1 like the
_I
says, that the
■"FYsppfe” styles
« Hue, or light
and light green and
WniMNK
* J*
•Tfc* ftowcn «f tomorrow mrt In Ut<
M«U«r today.
yellow.
In building her wardrobe, Erica
telle, the garment she’d like to add to
it more than anything else would be
a Blue Fox. She says, “I’ve been
looking at a few but that’s about it,
just looking. I’m not expecting one,"
she laughs.
Erica describes herself as friendly
and easy to get along with. She likes
to dance and also enjoys attending
parties. Her favorite singer is
Prince. “I think he’s a good compo
ser and I like his music." She also
claims she’s not disturbed over the
controversy concerning Prince’s ly
rics. “I pay more attention to the
music than the lyrics," she admits.
Her favorite person all around is
her mother, Yvonne Curry. “She’s
great,” says Erica. “She’s very
understanding.'' Erica is the older
See BEAUTY On Page SA
Con You Afford What's Here?
By Audrey C. Lodato
Post 8Uff Writer
Not long ago, one of the television
networks did a news feature on the
scarcity of available, affordable
housing In parts of the country. The
problem that was presented was
that, in some areas, housing at the
lower end of the scale in terms of
coat is so scarce that working people
and their families are forced to live
in their cars or in public shelters
Whet is the sites tion here in
Charlotte end Mecklenburg County?
Art there sufficient apartment units
available at all rent levels’’ la
buying a home an affordable option
for the average wage-earner, or a
luxury reserved for the affluent?
According to local experts in the
private sector, the bousing market
hare la a good ana., with housing
both apartments and single family
homes - available for just about all
Figures provided by Reba Gor
man, researcher for the Chamber of
Commerce, b*dlca*ethat the median
hooaahold income In Charlotto la
933,700; la Mecklenburg County,
933,Mg. These figures are for
December, 1993 and are the latdM
available. "Median income" moans
that half the households havy higher
homes, and half have lower
BU1 Pickens of Consumer Credit
Counseling Service was asked for
guidelines on what percentage of an
Absent Fathers Could Pay
Affirmative
Action Group
Sets
The American Association for Af
firmative Action will hold its 11th
Annual Conference March 10-13,1985
in San Francisco, California at the
Cathedral Hotel. The title of this
year’s conference is ‘‘Affirmative
Action: The New Era.”
The special guest at the confe
rence will be Rene Enriquez, a
member of the “Hill Street Blues”
cast, who will be honored by the
association for affirming the posi
tive image of Hispanics through his
role in the series.
Featured speakers at the confe
rence include Aileen C. Hernandez,
San FrafchWBUfQrme*- Qoroinis-'
sioner with the U.S. Equal Employ
ment Opportunity Commission and
now owner of Hernandez & Associ
ates, an urban consulting firm;
Marilyn Moats Kennedy, Chicago,
author, consultant and career stra
tegist; and Toby Malichi, Indianapo
lis, president of Malichi, Incorpo
rated, a motivational consulting
firm.
Other highlights of the confe
rence include “Shop Talk: An Af
firmative Action Problem Solving
Clinic” to be held on Monday, March
11. This workshop will provide
conference participants and mem
bers of the San Francisco business
community an opportunity to inter
act with one another to exchange
ideas and information relating to
Affirmative Action-Equal Employ
ment.
In all, a series of 30 workshops
covering all aspects of Affirmative
Action in the 1960's will be offered.
Cost of the conference ranges from
$35 to $225 depending on the number
of workshops selected. Deadline for
advanced registration was February
16, 1965.
Little Jonathan Ellison, age 2, sits restlessly on the curb in a shopping
center parking lot. Jonathan accompanied his mother. Pearl Ellison, and
a friend while they ran some errands. The Ellisons reside on Remount
Road.
Second in series
Incoipd can typically go toward rent
or house payments. A rough guide,
according to the CCCS director, is 29
percent of gross income or Sft-85
percent of net income, "but that
would vary, depending." he noted
"One family with four children
might spend considerably less than
another family with four children.
Each household has to figure for
themselves what they can afford."
Using Pickens’ guidelines with the
Sandra Heartlev
..Bank vice president
median income for Charlotte house
holds, a family earning $22,796
might be able to afford approxi
mately $550 a month for housing
How much will $550 per month buy in
the Charlotte market?
Lois Wilson of the Apartment
Association, a trade association for
the apartment industry, gave some
average rents for the city based on
a survey done last October. The
survey did not include Subsidised
units or very small complexes, such
as duplexes. There was a 5.1 percent
vacancy rate in the 26,661 apartment
units surveyed. The average rent
for a 1-bedroom apartment was
$319; for a 2-bedroom, $360; and for
a 3-bedroom, $428 These figures are
averages for the city as a whole
Rents in various parts of the city
differed. For instance, average
rents for 1, 2, and 3-bedroom apart
ments north of Central Avenue
ranged from $270 to $374 In the
southwest segment, average rents
ranged from $217 to $273 Average
rents in southeast Charlotte ran
from $384 for a 1-bedroom to $549 for
3 bedrooms.
Lynn Tankersley of Tenant Rating
Guide agreed that there is no pro
blem finding affordable apartments
in Charlotte. “Apartments are
available at all levels in this city,"
she affirmed. Even at the lower end
of the scale "nice apartments" in
"nice neighborhoods" can be found,
she noted.
What if you’d rather own than
rent? What are the prospects of
finding something you can afford?
Muriel Helms, president of the
Charlotte Board of Realtors, asser
ted, "There Is a good supply of
homes for all income levels " In
home buying, mortgage interest
rates play a key role in determining
the affordablitiy of a home. Based
on an "affordability index," Helms
showed that a household with eam
flee HOUSINO On Rage ISA
4 Million
Women Eligible
For Support
Special To The Post
CHAPEL HILL— American
fathers who are required to provide
child support could be paying at
least $26,6 billion a year, or more
than three-and-a-half times as much
as they actually paid in 1984, accord
ing to a new national study.
That money would improve the
standard of living considerably for
many of the more than 4 million
women in this country and their
children who are eligible to receive
support, authors of the study said.
If an additional 4 million fathers
who are hot currently -uhiBer Court
order to provide child support also
were required to pay, the $26.6
billion figure could go much higher,
they added
The study, conducted at the Uni
versity of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill, was commissioned by the
Social Security Administration and
the Federal Office of Child Support
Enforcement
Dr. Ron Haskins directed re
search for the agencies, which
wanted accurate estimates of what
could be paid in child support across
the country if there were a perfectly
efficient enforcement system.
Haskins is associate director of
UNC’s Bush Institute for Child and
Family Policy. Co-authors of the
study were Drs Andrew W. Dobel
stein, professor of social work; John
S. Akin, professor of economics; and
J Brad Schwartz, visiting assistant
professor of economics, all at UNC
“The $26.6 billion is a very conser
vative estimate, but it shows how
inefficient our current system for
extracting child support from
fathers really is,' Haskins said in an
interview “Most of this money is
owed by fathers who are essentially
middle class and who earned the
average amount of money or more.”
Data used in the three-part study
came from a national sample of
household spending habits, U S Cen
sus Bureau statistics. Employment
Security Commission records of
more than 25,000 North Carolina
men involved in the title IV-D
program and 150 personal inter
views with randomly selected ab
sent fathers
The IV-D program was esta
blished in part to recover money
paid as Aid to Families with Depen
dent Children
Among the findings were that:
— absent fathers have essentially
the same incomes as other fathers
with comparable backgrounds
— 90 percent of the $26 6 billion is
owed by men earning more than
$13,000 a year, few of whom are in
the IV-D system.
— as a group, fathers in IV-D had
very modest incomes, spent what
money they had reasonably,
acknowledged their support obliga
tions and were haunted by the
prospect of unemployment.
— low income blacks in particular
saw their children often, maintained
good relationships with the mother
and children and provided substan
tial non-cash support in the form of
clothes, food, baby-sitting and trans
portation.
Legislation passed by Congress
last summer may make coQectlng
the child support owed more suc
cessful, Haskins said, because for
first time, states have a financial
Incentive to pursue non-AFDC
fathers.
"In the past, states were legally
See FOUR On Page SA