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  • A couch is not a home: Where the hidden homeless get housing vouchers

    Boston used vouchers to help "doubled-up families" – those with school-age children sharing crowded apartments with other families – jump the line of people waiting for subsidized housing and get their own homes. Schools identify children living in this limbo status that often isn't visible or recognized as homelessness. They referred families to FamilyAid Boston, which put about 300 families into their own homes. Doubling up, which often violates leases and can quickly put families on the streets, is the most common homeless status of public-school students.

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  • Some U.S. states have higher vaccination rates inside prisons than outside.

    Three state prison systems have vaccinated incarcerated people at far greater rates than in the general public thanks in part to educational meetings with experts that helped overcome natural distrust. In California and North Dakota, town-hall-type meetings gave incarcerated people opportunities to ask questions about safety. Kansas prisons gave incarcerated people priority in the vaccination program, and provided them and their families with information. Other possible factors increasing compliance included peer pressure and the ease of getting vaccinated within the prisons.

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  • Black Women Come Up Short On Funds And Food In COVID-19 Pandemic

    Village Minds was started by Natia Simone as a Facebook page to connect people in need of food and assistance, due to COVID-19 and grocery store closures after the protests following the murder of George Floyd. However, a broader issue of food insecurity led her to expand into a formal organization that has made more than 3,650 grocery deliveries. A partnership with a local produce store helps fill bags with fresh food and a food pantry provides other staples. With the help of friends and family, Simone uses a rented U-Haul to deliver the groceries to seniors throughout Chicago.

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  • The 40-Year-Old System: How an upgrade could help the VEC solve payment problems

    If Virginia taxpayers who lost their jobs in the pandemic want to understand why their unemployment insurance payments lagged for months and why they couldn't get the Virginia Employment Commission on the phone, they could look to South Carolina. In 2017 that state took advantage of a grant to upgrade its computer systems. It was able to process payments much more quickly, needed many fewer call-center staff, and could help South Carolinians take advantage of enhanced pandemic benefits much sooner. Virginia has struggled to upgrade is decades-old systems, which were overwhelmed with calls and claims.

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  • Both lost jobs. She got paid. He waits. Where they live may be the reason why.

    Four years before the pandemic caused unemployment compensation claims to spike, South Carolina took advantage of a federal grant to modernize its claims processing systems. That upgrade saved thousands of hours of time once claims rose sharply, which meant that people making legitimate claims got paid relatively quickly. That stands in contrast with the Virginia Employment Commission's huge backlog, which must be run through a decades-old system. The state was finally upgrading its systems when the pandemic put that work on hold, leaving some laid-off people in financial limbo for several months.

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  • N.C. has vaccinated over 13,000 farmworkers. Advocates are making it happen.

    Because of coordinated partnerships between local governments, state health departments, and nonprofit groups, more and more farmworkers are receiving COVID-19 vaccinations. Through the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services Farmworker Health program and its partners, nearly 14,000 doses were administered to the farmworker community over two months. Advocates also have to dispel rumors and myths about the vaccines, but they are working to combat that misinformation and make it easier for them to get vaccinated.

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  • Birthing in rural Haiti a miracle all its own

    Midwives for Haiti (MfH) is one of the Haitian or American-based organizations working to address Haiti's alarmingly high maternal and infant death rates. MfH trains skilled birth attendants, through an 18-month curriculum taught by Haitian professionals. It also trains the matwòns, midwives who attend most births in Haiti. Its network of community clinics serve more than 6,000 patients annually, and hospitals and clinics are hiring its trained attendants.

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  • How Pennsylvania reached 70% vaccination goal quicker than most

    Pennsylvania at first lagged in its push to vaccinate its residents. But the state vaulted ahead in the race to vaccinate, collaborating with vaccine providers and the medical community to make vaccines easy to receive as demand waned. Tactics included opening clinics at schools, shopping centers, and other accessible places, and a series of Facebook Live events called "Vax Facts" to answer the questions of people hesitant to get vaccinated.

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  • Food waste is heating up the planet. Is dumpster-diving by app a solution?

    The app Too Good to Go helps restaurants and other shops prevent food waste by selling their extra food to people for a cheaper price. So far, more than 700,000 people in the United States have downloaded the app and the company estimates that, on average, each meal sold halts 2.2 pounds of food from ending up in the garbage, which ends up reducing carbon emissions. There are challenges to widespread implementation, but the app has launched in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle.

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  • This South L.A. startup will turn your front lawn into a farm

    A startup in California called Crop Swap LA is converting unused front yards into community gardens that can grow crops like kale, rainbow chard, and tomatoes as a way to feed neighbors. Community members can pay for subscriptions for up to $43 a month to receive a bundle of greens and vegetables from the microfarms and homeowners get a share of the profits. Each garden needs to have the proper maintenance, which can make it difficult to scale, but these gardens can help provide access to food to those who don’t have a grocery store in their area.

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