North Carolina is now the ninth most populous state in the country. And while that growth is welcome by many, it also presents some real challenges….especially for cities that have also experienced an increase in the number of working-poor. For more than 35 years Urban Ministries of Wake County has been responding to that growing segment of the population with a nonprofit focused on healthcare, hunger, and providing safe housing for single adult women. We sat down with Dr. Peter Morris, Executive Director of Urban Ministries, to talk about his wish for everyone in our community to have good health, full stomachs, and a place to call home.

A recent study by the Center for Responsible Lending finds nationally, for-profit colleges leave students with higher levels of debt and lower graduation rates, and often with no degree and no improvement in their job-outlook. Whitney Barkley Denney with the Center joined us in studio year to talk about their research and the need for greater state and federal protections to prevent predatory for-profit colleges from taking advantage of low-income students.

Carla Obiol, director of the Care4Carolina coalition, discusses why state legislators may be closer to helping those who fall in the state’s health insurance gap.