Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Inside New York City's Biggest Financial Relief Effort for Undocumented Immigrants

    New York City’s Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs relied on help from 34 community groups to distribute a $20 million relief fund from the Open Society Foundation. The groups verified who needed the funds, and no personal information was required of the more than 24,000 people receiving aid. Membership in the organizations was not required, but limited resources made members more likely to receive aid. The limited transparency and private nature of the OSF fund served as a work around for a Trump-era executive order making it harder for immigrants receiving public assistance to get visas or green cards.

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  • A lot of moving parts: A rundown on affordable housing in Boulder County

    Almost since housing costs shot up in Boulder County in recent decades, the city of Boulder and surrounding communities have used a variety of methods to protect working-class residents from being priced out of a luxury-dominated market. Some of the measures have bumped affordable-housing inventory up a few percentage points. But the numerous special taxes and incentives, plus coordination by a regional housing body, still fall far short of meeting the need thanks to two main factors: lack of funding and building-density restrictions. This story opens a series on what more can be done.

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  • A Portland Program Intended to Reduce Police Interactions With People in Crisis Is Off to a Slow Start

    The Portland Street Response program sends a paramedic and social worker on non-emergency calls, often involving mental health crises, instead of sending police. The pilot project, operating during weekday hours in one neighborhood, was assigned 60 calls in its first 40 business days. That tiny percentage of 911 calls falls short of expectations, possibly because dispatchers' screening of calls is defined too narrowly, or because dispatchers are being protective of the police. Supporters say the program always was meant to start small and deliberately, but its call volume is averaging much less than planned.

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  • Cleveland Was Slow to Address Language and Culture Barriers to Reach Spanish-Speaking Residents During Pandemic

    Cleveland failed to provide Spanish translation services even though 11 percent of its residents identify as Hispanic. The oversight is a threat to public health, especially in the midst of a pandemic. The Spanish-speaking community did not have translated guidelines and health updates, putting them at an increased risk of danger despite directives from the CDC that recommend the employment of bilingual contact tracers and community health workers. Those resources are critical in stopping the spread of the coronavirus.

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  • In the wake of hate, the law is not always enough

    Hate crime laws apply to a narrow range of conduct, and often fail as a response to bias incidents that constitute hate speech but are not in themselves a crime. When high school students working on a history class project produced a video with a song treating the KKK and racist murders as a joke, the school and community responded not with prosecutions but with community dialogues to air differences of opinion about the incident. Students of color then formed a group, Project D.R.E.A.M., that expanded the conversations to the entire school, educating a mainly white community about the impact of racism.

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  • Can Social Scientists Help Control Epidemics?

    When the rise of Ebola in West Africa strict protocols when handling those who were dying or had died from the disease, public health officials began working with anthropologists and other social scientists to increase trust and influence people’s willingness to seek treatment. At the center of the success was the social scientist's recommendations for burial services which addressed concerns about first responders disrespecting the dead. Today, these social scientists are providing similar consult for the Covid-19 pandemic.

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  • In a Pennsylvania town, a Facebook group fills the local news void

    In areas with no newspapers, locals are increasingly turning to Facebook groups to share resources and information about local happenings, particularly crime. Many of The News Alerts of Beaver County's 43,000 members praise the benefits of the group, in which members can post and comment on local news, including everything from infrastructure and businesses to lost dogs and suspected criminals on the loose. However, critics claim it is a hub for misinformation and vigilantism. The group is moderated, but the misinformation, which is shared in good faith by neighbors, is hard to spot without training.

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  • The invisible shield: how qualified immunity was created and nearly destroyed the ability to sue police officers in America Pt. I

    The Civil Rights Act of 1871, as a direct response to white resistance to Reconstruction-era reforms in the former Confederacy, gave people the right to sue government officials for depriving them of their civil rights. But a series of court decisions from the Civil Rights Era of the 1960s through the 1980s undercut the law's intent, so much so that police officers ended up with "qualified immunity" from liability for rights violations – effectively avoiding accountability, even when they act in bad faith.

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  • Algorithmic Redlining Is Real. Why Not Algorithmic Greenlining?

    Urban planning algorithms have contributed to the racial wealth gap by prioritizing funding for communities that don’t need extra funding, but which would create a higher return on investment. The algorithm bias negatively impacts neighborhoods that are typically Black and poor. Detroit’s water and sewage utilities were disconnected as a result of an algorithm, highlighting the “fundamental pitfall of algorithms, as well as the risks that they can be misused or produce unintended consequences.”

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  • Can California's Organic Vegetable Farmers Unlock the Secrets of No-Till Farming?

    A trial experiment with three farmers and several California universities is looking to better understand how to farm with little or no chemicals. No-till farming can boost soil health and better store carbon, but it’s not a perfect system. These farmers are testing how to reduce soil disturbance, use cover crops, and diversify their species of crops, yet so far, they haven’t found much success. “Figuring this all out has been ‘a school of hard knocks,’” says one of the farmers.

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