Government Executive reports that not everyone’s happy with the latest version of USAJobs:

Readers of Government Executive have been less than impressed with USAJobs 3.0. Of the nearly 160 responses to an open-ended query as of Tuesday, only seven praised the website’s Oct. 11 relaunch.

…

The most frequent complaints centered on the site’s search function. Commentators said the tool for filtering search results isn’t working properly — for example, location-based searches return results outside of the specified regions.

Many readers also complained about losing the searches they had saved under USAJOBS 2.0, although OPM had stated on its website and via emails to users prior to the relaunch that no saved searches would carry over.

Bugs in the results pages, login difficulties and long load times also were high on readers’ list of grievances.

The folks at the Office of Personnel Management (which administers USAJobs) are, however, undeterred:

OPM stands by the product, updating the public via daily reports on the site.

“Through refinement efforts, USAJobs 3.0 is continuing to see success, and the most recent testing by OPM shows that the site remains stable and secure, and its capacity is at full strength,” OPM Chief Information Officer Matthew Perry wrote in an Oct. 31 public report. The agency is planning an additional technical briefing on the site for later this week.

by Kristen Pavón

November is National Homelessness Awareness Month and to kick it off, the National Center for Family Homelessness hosted a policy briefing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) here in D.C.

The briefing featured the following panelists:

• Christina Murphy, Director of Campaign to End Child Homelessness, The National Center on Family Homelessness
• Jeremy Rosen, Policy Director, National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty
• Asa Fanelli, President, Horizons for Homeless Children
• Sarah Bolton, Legislative Assistant, Office of Senator Patty Murray
• Amy Grassette, Consumer Advisory Board Member, The National Center for Family Homelessness

In addition to the program’s panelists, Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and Development for HUD, Mercedes Marquez, gave the opening remarks.

The amount of information given at the briefing was a bit overwhelming but also alarming, inspiring and motivating.

In particular, I was moved by Amy Grassette’s story. She spoke about her family’s hardship after losing their small business after 9/11. Her family experienced homelessness for almost 2 and a half years after losing their business. Amy gave us a great perspective in terms of the services she received while homeless and where she saw room for improvement.

Here’s a hodgepodge of my notes/thoughts/questions from the briefing:

• More than 34% of the homeless population are children (and this statistic is likely a low estimate because of under-reporting).
• For the 2009-2010 school year, there were 1 MILLION homeless youth (and again this number is probably low because some states do not report this data).
• The Opening Doors Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness has a goal to end youth and family homelessness by 2020 by focusing on the following services: access to affordable housing, jobs, mainstream services, and collaboration between agencies.
• The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty takes a human rights perspective to housing, meaning that housing is a basic right.
• There was a 20% increase in family homelessness between 2007 and 2010.
• Oftentimes, it costs less to offer families housing vouchers (so that families can live closer to schools) than provide transportation to school.
• The Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act can allow tenants to remain in their homes longer and more needs to be done to publicize this law.
• While housing is the foundation for a stable community and life, housing alone is not sufficient to end homelessness. Wraparound services are needed to be effective in preventing and ending family homelessness.
• Homeless children are at a higher risk for: physical and mental health issues, hunger and poor educational outcomes.
• One-third of homeless children have been forced to skip a meal.
• 85% of brain’s core structure is developed from birth to age 5, and because of this, it’s important to intervene early and provide mental health services, transitional services and early education childcare.
• There’s room for improvement in these areas: affordable, adequate & accessible housing; transportation services; childcare services; accessible, affordable, adequate healthcare; livable wages; education; and case management services.

On another note, if you’re in DC and a new law grad — you should check these kinds of events out. I learned about it from Twitter — of all places! @HUDnews tweeted about the program yesterday. It was a great networking opportunity — Keep your eyes and ears open!

MADRE offers three PAID internship sessions throughout the year: Summer (June-August), Fall (September-December), and Spring (January-May). These internships take place in Manhattan, NY.

MADRE is an international women’s human rights organization that works in partnership with women’s community-based groups in conflict areas worldwide. Our programs address issues of sustainable development, community improvement and women’s health; violence and war; discrimination and racism; self-determination and collective rights; women’s leadership development; and human rights education.

MADRE provides resources and training to enable its sister organizations to meet immediate needs in their communities and develop long-term solutions to the crises they face. Since we began in 1983, MADRE has delivered over 18 million dollars worth of support to community-based women’s groups in Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans and the United States.

If you’re interested, check out the listing at PSLawNet!

by Kristen Pavón

The National Law Journal summarized some of the Commission’s findings in an article today.

The last time the Commission took a hard look at mandatory minimums was in 1991. This time around the Commission reviewed over 73,000 cases from 2010 and previous years.

. . . [T]he Commission unanimously believes that certain mandatory minimum penalties apply too broadly, are excessively severe, and are applied inconsistently across the country,” said the Commission Chairwoman Judge Patti Saris in a statement.

Here are a few of the key findings:

• More than 75 percent of offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty were convicted of a drug trafficking offense.
• Hispanic, followed by black offenders accounted for the largest groups of offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty.
• Black convicted offenders are the racial group least likely to earn relief from mandatory minimum sentences for assisting the government.

And a few of the Commission’s recommendations:

• Congress should reassess some statutory recidivist provisions for drug offenses.
• Congress should tailor the “safety valve” relief mechanism (allows sentencing below the mandatory minimum) to include other low-level, nonviolent offenders convicted of other offenses carrying mandatory minimums.
• Re-evaluate and examine “stacking” of mandatory minimum penalties for some federal firearm offenses.

I’m sure there’s more to come from this report… Initial thoughts?