The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems. We collect and tag every story, providing you with the ability to find coverage of effective or promising ideas and approaches— by issue, location, journalist, and success factor (strategic insights that emerge as patterns).
https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/06/covid-19-facility-helps-homeless-in-unexpected-ways?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Eleni Gill
Honolulu Civil Beat
26 June 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
When Covid-19 began spreading throughout the United States, officials in Hawaii set up a quarantine facility for those experiencing homelessness that helped connect residents with other services to reduce their risk of contracting the virus. While it's too early to know if this could be a viable model for health care in the long run, the practice of temporary housing has currently helped curb the spread of the virus among the community's "unsheltered people."
https://www.berkeleyside.com/2020/06/25/to-reach-vulnerable-populations-berkeley-goes-on-the-road-to-offer-covid-19-testing?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Frances Dinkelspiel
Berkeleyside
25 June 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
City officials in Berkeley have recently implemented a mobile testing site for Covid-19 to better reach vulnerable populations throughout the region. Although the physical testing site will remain as the central point for testing, the mobile option has helped test those in senior homes and nursing facilities, as well as their caretakers.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mexico-city-tames-covid-19-in-one-of-worlds-largest-food-markets-11593097826?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
David Luhnow
Juan Montes
Wall Street Journal
25 June 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
In New Mexico, the world’s largest wholesale food market managed to contain the spread of Covid-19 by taking an aggressive, early intervention course of action that included widespread testing, contact tracing and isolation protocols. Although the rest of the country has yet to implement such measures, the market which was once called "a center for infections," has already seen a drastic reduction in cases.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/25/us/police-reform-civilian-oversight-invs/index.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Rob Kuznia
Casey Tolan
CNN
25 June 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
The most effective civilian oversight agencies that act as watchdogs over police discipline are empowered to conduct independent investigations, impose discipline on individual officers, and influence disciplinary policy. One of the strongest, in Oakland, forced the police chief out of office over police shootings and diversity on the police force. But the lessons to be learned in this field come more often from the many examples of structural flaws that render civilian oversight powerless to counter the wishes of the police, or even to be listened to.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/25/criminal-justice-prison-conditions-san-quentin-media-335709?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Emily Nonko
Politico
25 June 2020
Text / Over 3000 Words
San Quentin Prison's media created by the men incarcerated there have gone beyond rehabilitation of individuals to a broader mission of promoting criminal justice policy reform by reframing the narrative about those who have committed crimes and the system's inequities. Through San Quentin News, the podcast Ear Hustle, and a series of dialogues between incarcerated men and criminal justice officials, their stories have shed new light on prison life and those held in prison, and formed a cadre of journalists who gained experience behind bars and have become prominent advocates on the outside.
https://www.blackstarnews.com/us-politics/justice/mississippi-local-groups-offer-financial-aid-to-black-businesses?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Aallyah Wright
Black Star News
24 June 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
Black businesses in Mississippi are receiving a financial boost from a nonprofit that seeks to level the playing field for rural African-Americans in the state who have historically been overlooked when it comes to federal aid. Higher Purpose Co is a black-led economic justice nonprofit that has raised $400,000 for entrepreneurs and has received over 2,500 applicants. The nonprofit has given up to $5,000 to small businesses with 20 or fewer employees.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/nyregion/new-jersey-police.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Rukmini Callimachi
The New York Times
24 June 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
New Jersey’s responses to police misconduct offer stark lessons in how certain failures can allow troubled officers to hop from job to job undetected. The state lacks a central database of police misconduct and remains one of only five states that cannot revoke an officer’s credentials because of performance. In one case, an officer with serial failures at nine departments, involving 16 incidents in which people he arrested got injured, the red flags that should have been raised never were, allowing him to mistreat residents of majority-Black neighborhoods despite a record indicating racism and brutality.
https://www.npr.org/2020/06/24/882316641/what-parents-can-learn-from-child-care-centers-that-stayed-open-during-lockdowns?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Anya Kamenetz
NPR
24 June 2020
Radio / 1500-3000 Words
When schools and daycares closed at the onset of the pandemic, YMCA centers around the country remained open to provide care for the children of essential workers. In Phoenix, YMCA staff worked to screen children for symptoms, and made social distancing fun by having them use 'airplane arms,' as well as implementing activities that made handwashing fun. Experts say "these experiences illustrate that it's possible to bring kids together without a guarantee of an outbreak or a serious situation developing," but the risk remains.
https://thediscourse.ca/cowichan-valley/cowichan-homelessness-covid-tenting?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
David Minkow
The Discourse
24 June 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
A coalition of local groups in the Cowichan region focused on the welfare of vulnerable populations during COVID-19 opened five tenting sites that have provided people experiencing homelessness with safety, meals, and access to service. The temporary solution, pending the opening of 100 units of housing to open in 2021, has uncertain financing after its initial $392,000 phase. But, almost immediately, the well-managed sites have had a visible effect: many fewer people wandering the streets.
https://www.ypradio.org/post/covid-19-motivates-policy-overhaul-county-jails-montana?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker#stream/0
Charles Bolte
Yellowstone Public Radio
24 June 2020
Radio / 5-15 Minutes
In response to COVID-19 infection fears, Montana jails rapidly shrank the numbers of pretrial detainees held on nonviolent charges in a demonstration of how quickly a change in policy – without even changing state law – can decrease incarceration rates. Based on numbers like those seen at Missoula County Detention Facility, which dropped its jail population by 37% in March and April by turning away people who ordinarily would have been jailed, decarceration advocates hope to make the changes permanent after studying the effects on crime.
https://www.ypradio.org/post/montana-manufacturers-new-products-markets-could-have-lasting-impact-post-pandemic?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Kylie Mohr
Yellowstone Public Radio
23 June 2020
Radio / 5-15 Minutes
In Montana, a handful of manufacturers have adapted their facilities to make products and materials that help healthcare workers safely work on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. From face shields to liquid transport mediums, these businesses are finding new ways to play a larger role in the efforts to contain the virus, while also keeping their employees working.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/us/iyw-university-rebuild-minneapolis-trnd/index.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Ashley Vaughan
CNN
23 June 2020
Multi-Media / Under 800 Words
University Rebuild brings together theater members in Minneapolis who are not working due to Covid-19 to use their skills in support of the Black Lives Matters movement by helping communities clean up, make repairs, and create infrastructure to gather safely. Volunteers, numbering more than 100 within the first week, used set design and construction skills to help around 200 businesses impacted by protests following the killing of George Floyd. Windows and doors are boarded up and then prepped for murals painted by local artists and leftover materials were used to build stages for Juneteenth celebrations.
Help us grow our database of solutions stories! Please enter the following information. Our staff will review the story, and if it meets our criteria (see below), it will be added to the Solutions Story Tracker®.
If you want to get notified when your story is added, register or login before submitting stories here.
Great suggestion! So great, that we already have that story listed in the Solutions Story Tracker®. View it here.
We appreciate your patience as we review your story submission. You can check on the status of all of your story submissions here.
It may take a few weeks to see your piece in the Solutions Story Tracker®, as we have a backlog of submissions longer than Ben Hur that we’re diligently working to eliminate. We appreciate your patience.Our issue area taxonomy was adapted from the PCS Taxonomy with definitions by the Foundation Center, which is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International License.
Photos are licensed under Attribution Non Commercial 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license / Desaturated from original, and are credited to the following photographers:
Fondriest Environmental, David De Wit / Community Eye Health, Linda Steil / Herald Post, John Amis / UGA College of Ag & Environmental Sciences – OCCS, Andy B, Peter Garnhum, Thomas Hawk, 7ty9, Isriya Paireepairit, David Berger, UnLtd The Foundation For Social Entrepreneurs, Michael Dunne, Burak Kebapci, and Forrest Berkshire / U.S. Army Cadet Command public affairs
Photos are licensed under Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike 2.0 Generic Creative Commons license, and are credited to the following photographers:
Ra'ed Qutena, 段 文慶, Fabio Campo, City Clock Magazine, Justin Norman, scarlatti2004, Gary Simmons, Kathryn McCallum, and Nearsoft Inc
Photos are licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons license / Desaturated from original, and are credited to the following photographers:
Burak Kebapci and SCY.
Photos are licensed under Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) and are credited to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Conference attendee listening to speaker, Jenifer Daniels / Colorstock getcolorstock.com.
Photo Credit: Kevork Djansezian via Getty Images
Photo Credit: Sonia Narang
