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://nextcity.org/daily/entry/waiving-regulations-for-affordable-housing-shows-results-in-austin?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jared Brey
Next City
22 September 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Affordable housing requirements for developers were eased in Austin through legislation known as Affordability Unlocked. As a result of less stringent parking, set-back and height codes, developers are able to maximize the number of units per building and deliver a bigger impact per project. These projects are generally built through government subsidies, therefore giving tax payers a higher return on investment.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/09/18/metro/how-teachers-are-bringing-lessons-racial-justice-uprisings-into-classroom?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Deanna Pan
The Boston Globe
21 September 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Teachers across Massachusetts are finding ways to incorporate antiracist practices into their curriculum. An English teacher at Newton High School is replacing required reading materials produced by white male authors with texts from authors like Sandra Cisneros, Langston Hughes and other authors of color. A physics teacher at Brookline High School is sharing more stories about scientists of color and teaching students about "naming conventions in scientific laws and theorems rooted in European colonization."
https://www.richlandsource.com/solutions/how-a-neighborhood-collaborative-transformed-a-small-town/article_5d61ed4e-f3a2-11ea-b74e-67f1af5b5a12.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Katie Ellington
Richland Source
21 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Residents are using dollar-for-dollar matching grants to spruce up their homes in Fulton, NY, resulting in higher home values, higher morale and the formation of neighborhood collaborations. The grants are granted to entire neighborhoods with the condition that at least half the residents sign up for the challenge. The initiative strives to create a ripple effect that eventually revitalizes the city.
https://tucson.com/news/state-and-regional/scientists-work-in-arizona-to-reshape-desert-food-production/article_a7dcbbe1-9c5d-5951-b799-b0b7de632aca.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Henry Brean
Arizona Daily Star
20 September 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
In an experimental garden in Arizona, scientists are seeing how to produce sustainable and local food in a desert environment. They’re growing plants under a photovoltaic “canopy” of solar panels that provide necessary shade for the crops and, at the same time, generate cheap, renewable energy for irrigation systems and farm equipment. So far, they’ve been able to grow basil, Anasazi red beans, and a special bell pepper. While not all crops will work in this system and scaling the garden has its challenges, learning how to grow food in the desert is necessary to adapt to a future with climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/19/vigilantes-on-a-mission-to-reunite-owners-with-their-stolen-bikes?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Donna Ferguson
The Guardian
19 September 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
Facebook groups are reuniting bicycle-theft victims with their property by creating a place to report thefts and alerting others to be on the lookout for the bikes. A pandemic-inspired boom in bicycling, as a means to avoid public transportation, has fed a concurrent boom in bike thefts. Police praise the Facebook groups' public spirit and effectiveness, but warn of risks when confronting those trying to sell stolen bikes. More than 90% of bike theft reports to police hit a dead end, lowering faith in the police as a solution.
https://www.rrstar.com/news/20200919/program-offers-alternative-to-calling-police?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jeff Kolkey
Rockford Register Star
19 September 2020
Text / Under 800 Words
For 31 years, CAHOOTS (Crisis Assistance Helping Out On The Streets) has used unarmed medics and crisis intervention experts to respond to mental health and other non-violent crises, saving money and preventing potentially violent reactions that can result from having police respond first. No effects on police officers' use of force have been measured. But CAHOOTS estimates it saves taxpayers $8.5 million annually in police costs.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/19/alexandria-kentucky-police-social-workers?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Josh Wood
The Guardian
19 September 2020
Text / 800-1500 Words
When Alexandria, Kentucky's police chief realized how many of his officers' calls were for mental health crises or minor interpersonal disputes, and then how many of these unresolved problems resulted in repeat 911 calls, he hired a social worker to follow up with people to offer health and social services after the police leave. Now the department's two staff social workers do that work, costing less than hiring more police and reducing repeat calls. Alexandria is a small town, but now its approach is being copied in nearby Louisville.
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/18/913229469/mental-health-and-police-violence-how-crisis-intervention-teams-are-failing?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Eric Westervelt
NPR
18 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
More than 2,700 police departments in the U.S. have crisis intervention teams aimed at responding to mental health crises with fewer arrests and less violence, but the death of Daniel Prude in Rochester police custody offers clear lessons in the shortcomings and misuse of the CIT model. A lack of adequate mental health services across the country, coupled with superficial training of the police, too often means a police response to a crisis will not de-escalate the situation or lead to meaningful help for the person in crisis. A recent study found CITs have not shown they will lower violence.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/09/18/police-shooting-mental-health-solutions-training-defund/5763145002?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Grace Hauk
USA Today
18 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Daniel Prude's death in police custody illustrates a common flaw in how police respond to mental health crises, but reform advocates disagree on whether to improve police training or bypass police almost entirely. Mental health crises make up a large share of police calls, jailings, and fatal police shootings. Most police training on mental health responses is limited to 4-12 hours. Some departments put at least some officers through crisis intervention training. But critics of police-focused responses prefer non-police response teams, in use in a few cities.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2020/09/18/california-may-need-more-fire-to-fix-its-wildfire-problem?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Sophie Quinton
Alex Brown
Stateline
18 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Prescribed burns are considered the best way to contain catastrophic wildfires, and fires sparked by lightning or by Native Americans once burned more land in California than has burned in 2020's record-setting fires. But burning its way out of danger is hardly a simple matter for California now. Obstacles are many. Long-standing policies of aggressive fire suppression, plus climate-change-induced drought and pestilence, have amassed more fuel for fires. Dense populations in fire-prone areas, make for daunting logistical and financial obstacles.
http://filtermag.org/lead-program-police?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Helen Redmond
Filter
17 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
The LEAD program (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion), which was launched in Seattle in 2011 and is used in such cities as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Portland, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, provides intensive case management and services to people who come in contact with police and qualify to have their low-level cases bypass the criminal justice system. LEAD has been shown to lower recidivism by half and to make it more likely that people with drug and mental health, and other problems can find housing and jobs more easily. But this critical analysis argues that the police should not serve as gatekeepers.
https://www.ft.com/content/a5d516b5-eff8-4f6f-841f-1fed303e4395?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
John Kampfner
The Financial Times
16 September 2020
Text / 1500-3000 Words
Germany has weathered the pandemic with lower illness rates than its neighbors and a relatively strong economy thanks to leadership and responses that have evolved and helped the country thrive in the three decades since reunification. The author of the book "Why the Germans Do It Better: Notes from a Grown-Up Country" reports on the blend of governing, business, and social approaches to challenges – rooted in a concept of "social trust" in the state and society, and a steady, deliberate, caring mindset – that help the country confront a contagion, a recession, or a refugee crisis.
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Ra'ed Qutena, 段 文慶, Fabio Campo, City Clock Magazine, Justin Norman, scarlatti2004, Gary Simmons, Kathryn McCallum, and Nearsoft Inc
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