July 2022

From Legal Defense Fund, Photo: Unsplash, Legal Defense Fund, July 15, 2022 Yesterday, the Southern Prisons Coalition, a group of civil and human rights organizations, submitted a new report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination on the devastating consequences of incarceration on Black people throughout the southern United States. With the long-term goal of eliminating all forms of racial discrimination in the criminal legal system,...

By Eric Westervelt, Photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images, National Public Radio, July 21, 2022 On one level, it's almost impossible to put a dollar figure on lives shattered by gun violence or to try to measure the pain of having a loved one killed or seriously injured. But researchers of two new studies using federal health care and hospital data underscore that the repercussions from firearm deaths and injuries are deeper, wider and far costlier than previously known. In a...

By Bryce Covert, Illustration: Dakarai Akil, Photos: Shutterstock, The New York Times, July 21, 2022 The United States is one of six countries in the world without a national guarantee of paid parental leave. Twenty-three other countries have universal child or family allowances. We spend just 0.2 percent of our gross domestic product on child care for our youngest children, compared with an average of 0.7 percent among countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

By Matthew Cunningham-Cook and Ricardo Gomez, Photo: Jae C. Hong/AP Photo, The Lever, July 21, 2022 In Austin, Texas, the average rent has surged 108 percent year over year. In New York City, rent has skyrocketed 41 percent. In Salt Lake City, it’s increased 40 percent. In Portland, Oregon, it’s 32 percent. Since mid-March of 2020, there have been just over one million evictions , with 6,613 in the past week alone. There were already half a million people experiencing homelessness nationwide...

The second round of the PACEs Connection Historical Trauma in America series launched on July 21 with the first regional event, Historical Trauma in the South. The event was facilitated by PACEs Connection staff members Ingrid Cockhren (chief executive officer) and Carey Sipp (director of strategic partnerships) with support from St. David's Foundation . Click here to download the slide deck from this presentation. Then click “download file.” The series examines the impact of...

By ChrisAnna Mink, Photo: Children's Institute, Center for Health Journalism, July 19, 2022 Even when a resource is in their own backyard, people often don’t take advantage of it. That’s not the case for Children’s Institute in Watts. The organization offers early childhood education and mental health programs for kids and parents, and their new building is emerging as a community center. The organization operates under the principle that children’s development is intertwined with their...

By Katherine Kam, Image: iStock, The Washington Post, July 19, 2022 Scapegoating — the projecting of unwarranted blame — can crop up often in everyday life. It happens in troubled homes where members shame a family scapegoat rather than look at the true nature of their frustrations. Political leaders can direct constituents’ fears toward a single target: immigrants. Scapegoating also can take a hateful, violent turn. Witness the attacks on Asian Americans during the pandemic and the recent...

By Ellen S. Alberding, Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, July 20, 2022 Ten years ago, 20 children and six of their teachers were murdered in an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. The nation was horrified. Congress debated. But nothing happened. Year after year, month after month, the shootings continued. More people died. And still nothing happened. This past May, 19 children and two of their teachers were murdered in an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex.

By Janie Har, Photo: Godofredo A. Vásquez/AP Photo, Associated Press, July 15, 2022 San Francisco Bay Area high school teacher Lisa Raskin moved out of a cramped apartment she was sharing with a roommate and into her own place this month, paying a deeply discounted $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom with expansive views within walking distance to work. It was once an impossible dream in an exorbitantly priced region hostile to new housing. But her employer, a 4,000-student school district...

Health begins with mental health, and the United States is currently experiencing a mental health crisis. This problem has been highlighted by national and local leaders and elected officials. For example, on December 7th, 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, issued an advisory highlighting the mental health needs of young adults . Then earlier this year on February 1st the U.S. Congress held a hearing on the growing crisis of Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders . Looking...

July marks the end of the second HOPE Innovation Network (HIN) cohort. The HIN review committee selected the twelve participating organizations through a competitive application process last fall. The final group included direct service providers, K-12 schools, and community coalitions. Over the past 6 months, the organizations attended trainings and joined activities about how to make their intake processes HOPE-informed. Now, these organizations have implementation plans specifically...

While the scientific community has come to unprecedented international scientific agreement on the causes of climate change and what needs to be done to stop it, there remains significant contention about the issue.