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RIP Medical Debt helps poor Americans eliminate medical bills

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

June 30, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, New York

Two former debt collectors have teamed up to put their experience and expertise to use paying off medical debts for Americans below the poverty line. RIP Medical Debt is a nonprofit that buys debt in bulk at reduced rates from hospitals. Within five years, $2 billion dollars of debt have been eliminated. The nonprofit has also launched projects researching systemic issues within healthcare and how to solve them.

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Europe offers creative ways to fight domestic violence during Covid-19. Why not bring them to Philadelphia?

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

June 09, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia’s domestic violence shelters filled during the pandemic, emergency funding ran dry, and officials offered victims little recourse if they were trapped at home with their abusers. These gaps in protection could be remedied by copying what has been done in Spain and France, where pharmacists were enlisted to turn coded language – a request for a particular kind of mask – into a call for help, and pop-up counseling centers at supermarkets and funding for emergency shelter and counseling organizations expanded to keep pace with a spike in incidents.

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PA should follow California's lead and mail ballots to every registered voter in the state

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

May 15, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Pennsylvania

Governor Gavin Newsome in California ordered vote-from-home ballots be sent to all registered voters for the November 2020 election due to the Covid-19 pandemic. While some states allow people to vote by mail for any reason, a ballot is usually obtained only by request, which evidence shows does not lead to the same increased voter turnout as automatically receiving a ballot. Absentee voters do tend to be white and upper-middle class, but some voter-rights organizations such as Committee of Seventy have shifted priorities to getting everyone who is eligible to request a vote-from-home ballot.

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This virtual tip jar helps Philly out-of-work food industry employees during the coronavirus

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

March 19, 2020 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

As restaurants across the nation have been forced to close their doors during the coronavirus pandemic, some are turning to creative means to help account for the loss of revenue. In Philadelphia, restaurants have created a virtual tip jar to encourage patrons to "donate a tip" to a person or business while in San Francisco a restaurant owner has created a Facebook group that helps connect out of work servers with childcare jobs.

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New apartment project in Kensington will give residents a discount if they volunteer

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

October 23, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

An b-corporation in Kensington, a Northern Philadelphia neighborhood, addresses gentrification and population growth in their area by bringing together entrepreneurs with community members to encourage local business growth and partnership. Now, Shift Capital's latest project aims to bring the community together by offering discounted rents for tenants in exchange for volunteer hours in the community.

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Let's nix Columbus Day and make Election Day a paid holiday instead

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

October 14, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Sandusky, Ohio

Sandusky, Ohio, recently got rid of Columbus Day in favor of a holiday on Election Day, following the lead of several countries around the world such as South Africa, Germany, and India. Sandusky's swapping of Columbus Day for Election Day is largely symbolic, but symbols can be powerful, especially for small towns.

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Reducing Gun Violence

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

September 20, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Oakland, California

Oakland’s Ceasefire initiative takes a collaborative, comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence. City officials, community advocates, residents, and law enforcement work together by prioritizing data analysis, multi-stakeholder gatherings, personalized social services, specialized police training, and weekly reviews of shootings and meeting with victims. While this approach has shown success, it was hard to get started and required the community to organize around demands to stop gun violence. As Philly grapples with similar issues, it looks to Oakland as a model for grassroots change.

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Less Driving

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

June 27, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Multi-Media |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: France, Paris

Philadelphia, like many US cities, struggles with traffic congestion and the environmental and financial costs of sitting in traffic; however, in looking at the way Paris has adopted pedestrian-friendly streets, Philly could get an upgrade. Paris uses clearly separated bike lanes, revitalized metro lines and cleanliness to encourage residents to get out of their cars and onto their feet (or bikes, or even skateboards).

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Reducing Poverty—Together

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

June 11, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Canada, Waterloo, Ontario

Canada has used a comprehensive approach to lift more than 200,000 families out of poverty in a span of seven years. While the approach has had obvious success, scaling it to other countries presents its own challenges, although some in the United States are ready to give the initiatives a try.

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A Hub for Justice

Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

June 05, 2019 |

The Philadelphia Citizen |

Multi-Media |

5-15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The city of Philadelphia has been experimenting and iterating on the development of a Juvenile Justice Hub – a program that would transform interactions between the city’s youth and the police. The Hub is in the testing phase, as it is part of a Bloomberg Philanthropies competition for $1 million in grant funding. If received, the city would be able to officially deploy the ideas it has been testing, like training police in trauma and providing more social services for kids who are picked up by police.

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