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

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  • Community courts and the homeless: Do these programs make a difference?

    As an alternative to traditional courts, community courts provide resources to those experiencing homelessness. Fines and jail time are often the punishment in traditional courts for those charged with trespassing or loitering, but community courts provide services that help people find housing, jobs, health care, and even offer mobile showers, food stamp assistance, and mental health care. While the long-term data are lacking and don't offer a clear picture of recidivism rates, community courts do provide a better quality of life for those living on the streets.

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  • In CAHOOTS in Oregon

    Oregon's CAHOOTS program has succeeded in replacing police on many mental-health crisis calls over its 30-year history because it is integrated in a larger system of services, including law enforcement. CAHOOTS' crisis workers, who cover the cities of Eugene and Springfield with three vans taking dozens of calls for help a day, come to their jobs with expertise as EMTs, nurses, or social workers. Then they spend 500 hours of training in crisis management and de-escalation, learning to offer help without forcing it, and without the threat of arrest except in the few cases when police backup is needed.

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  • The Warsaw Ghetto Can Teach The World How To Beat Back An Outbreak

    In the 1940s, typhus spread throughout the community living within the Warsaw ghetto, but cases dramatically decreased in the winter of 1941. While some researchers remain unsure why, others point towards a change in behavior that included increasing hygiene and nutrition practices and introducing social distancing.

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  • Rural California Transit Agency Reinvents Itself During COVID

    The coronavirus pandemic drastically reduced the ridership of the Monterey-Salinas Transit District, so the system shifted services to help the mostly rural community it serves. Despite cash-flow problems, unused drivers and vehicles helped Meals on Wheels deliver 8,000 meals to seniors and persons with disabilities, wi-fi-enabled commuter buses parked in rural areas to provide hot spots for students, and the system donated unused vehicles to groups serving veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and at-risk youth. The system continues to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances.

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  • A Healthy Quality of Life Should Be Available to All — Even the Poor, Sick and Disenfranchised

    Advocates in Tenneessee are looking to California's state-funded programs that approach the issue of homelessness holistically, providing wraparound services. Social services are combined with medical care, to help those who live in poverty and are at risk of medical issues that lead to debt and eventually homelessness. The program is known as Whole Person Care and provides supportive services to those who end up in emergency rooms.

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  • New Community Responses Bring Hope to the Homeless in Washington, D.C., But They Still Need More Permanent Housing

    Washington D.C. has decreased the number of people experiencing homelessness through the implementation of its permanent supportive housing programs. The 'housing first' initiatives prioritize providing permanent housing to those experiencing homelessness and then connecting those residents to all the services they need to maintain that housing. There are no requirements of sobriety, employment, or medication to receive the permanent housing. The local government adopted the housing first approach in 2008 and has seen a decline in homelessness.

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  • An incomplete picture

    Housing First, an approach that has helped many cities address homelessness, has failed to make much impact in Boulder thanks to a shortage of permanent housing and complaints that the program suffers from a lack of coordination and ignorance of the views of the community it's trying to serve. Boulder County housing authorities and non-profits teamed up in 2017 to shift toward permanent housing and other services for people experiencing homelessness, rather than the previous policy of providing temporary shelter beds. But most people remain unserved by both temporary and permanent solutions.

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  • The Forgotten Stones That Still Inspire Turks to Help Their Neighbors

    Building on a history of anonymous charity, a mosque in northern Istanbul started a pop-up communal food bank to help those most impacted by the pandemic. The initiative is one of several mutual aid efforts underway in the municipality, with each paying homage to the nation's historical use of a charity stone - a place where "people who had money would leave some on top of the stone, and those who didn’t would take some, according to their need."

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  • Homegrown: Part 2

    By collaborating with other businesses, nonprofits, and institutions, food processing enterprises in Montana are expanding the local supply chain to keep food in the state. The Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center packages food for a local grower's co-op, which distribute Montana products to individuals, grocery stores, and restaurants. The Livingston Food Resource Center created its own partnerships by buying its food from Montana farmers to give to people experiencing economic hardship. These collaborations are reducing the costs for local food processing, which also cuts down on costs for customers.

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  • This Chicago Nonprofit Supports Incarcerated Youth and Local Businesses During the Pandemic

    Liberation Library, a Chicago-based nonprofit, provides books for incarcerated youth. The nonprofit fills the youths' book requests and has also partnered with five Chicago-based bookstores, where shoppers can purchase gift cards on behalf of the nonprofit. Since the onset of the pandemic, it has sent more than 1,100 books, more than double its usual number, along with card games, snacks and art supplies.

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