All About the Utopia That Was Once in Perth Amboy, NJ – Montclair Girl – The Montclair Girl

A beautiful waterfront and a lineup of delicious seafood restaurants are some of the highlights of Perth Amboy a Central Jersey town thats full of culture. What many may not know is that this Middlesex County town has a fascinating past dating back to the 1800s. Raritan Bay Union was a utopian community in Perth Amboy, New Jersey that existed for seven years (1853 1860) as an effort to manifest gender, class, and racial equality through intentional living.Read on to learn all about the 19th-century utopia in Perth Amboy.

The Raritan Bay Union community was started in 1853 bywealthy investor Marcus Spring and his force of a wife, Rebecca Buffum Spring. Rebecca, a Quaker, was an avid follower of the great abolitionist, John Brown, and was determined to do all she could to end slavery. Both were convinced that society would change once it had witnessed moral living in action. The two were no strangers to the concept of utopian communities. They founded Raritan Bay Union after leaving the secular North American Phalanx community in Colts Neck Township,Monmouth County, New Jersey out of frustration with that societys pluralistic lack of focus.

These intentional cooperative communities were incorporated by founders who then sold shares to stockholders who became members.Like the Shakers before them, they wished to plan and create a more perfect society. The latter half of the nineteenth century, during the decades leading up to the Civil War, was an especially intense period of American ideological fervor. Critiques of the still-new United States government drove the most optimistic to believe they might lead by example.

New Jersey locals made occasional attempts, well into the beginning of the twentieth century, to build a perfect society set apart from the corrupting influences of mainstream life. In 1906, Upton Sinclair, author of the scathing social critiqueThe Jungle, founded the Helicon Home Colony in Englewoodthough it burned down after only half a year. Emma Goldman, who famously fought for racial equity, womens reproductive rights, and freedom from the government while claiming, If I cant dance, I dont want to be part of your revolution, participated in the Stelton Colony in Piscataway NJ.

One aspect that set the Union apart from most other intentional communities was its economic design. Members were not forced to surrender their private property for the purposes of the group. Though the Union was meant to correct outside social inequalities and to save labor and money for members who would work collectively, members could live communally or in private residences. Along with their shared work within thecommunity, they were expected to participate in social events and exchange knowledge gained in their individual intellectual pursuits.

Read More: All About the Hamilton House Museum in Clifton, NJ

A major aspect of the Union was its boarding school. The school was considered radical in its time. Female students were encouraged to participate in activities that were, at the time, generally limited to males. They were taught to speak in public, engage in physical sports, perform in theatrical plays, and be actively involved in social agitation for the causes espoused within the community.

The schoolwas run by Theodore Weld, a well-known abolitionist and journalist who was married to the equally famous abolitionist, Angelina Grimk. Sisters Angelina and Sarah Grimk were teachers in the school, along with several other noted social reformers. There, they taught the children of other abolitionists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Black leadership was glaringly absent from this and other utopian communities of the era. Sarah Grimk tied the subordination of enslaved people and free women together, identifying both as unjustly deemed mentally inferior while being denied access to education. Prominent Black speakers came often to give presentations to the community andstudents. Yet, while the Grimk sisters championed the education of their Black nephews sons of their brother, Henry the Union school was hardly interracial.

In this, and other ways, the Union was a place of contradiction. Contradictions around race abound in the history of Perth Amboy. The Perth Amboy wharf was New Jerseys primary inbound port for selling enslaved people kidnapped out of Africa during the colonial settlement era. Yet, that same city would, in 1870, be the place whereThomas Mundy Peterson became the first free Black person in the US to votein an election after the passage of the 15th Amendment to the Constitution.

See More: Around the World in 80 Days: From Hoboken to Jersey City

The Union did not remain intact for long. The inconsistencies of beliefs and intentions that had driven the Welds to leave the Phalanx community and to found the Union emerged in their Perth Amboy community too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not everyone who signed on to the overarching themes of racial, class, and gender equality shared the same ideas of how to express and live their idealism. Some of the variances in perspective amongst members were centered on philosophies of education and others on aspects of community life. Some members and visitors simply found the community stifling.

While visiting in 1856, Henry David Thoreau let it be known that he did not appreciate the degree to which members were expected to participate in community society. He was specifically aggrieved by his inclusion at each evenings dance social. Less a revolutionary than a recluse, it isnt terribly surprising that Thoreaus notion of utopia did not include the famous dancing demanded byEmma Goldman.

The end of the Union as an incorporated venture did not mean the total dissolution of the community. In the post-Union years, Marcus Spring attempted to draw literary and artistic intellectuals to the spot. In 1864, Marcus invited artist George Inness to come to live at Eagleswood, the new name for the school and surrounding area. Often called the father of American landscape painting, Inness paintings of New England and theEast Coastsparked an art movement referred to as Tonalist that could be described as artworks set into edit mode with the warmth mode turned all the way up, bathing scenes in rich yellow and red hues. Rather than pay rent, Inness presented Spring with his painting Peace and Plenty (1865) which isnow on view in Gallery 760 of the American Wing at the MET Museum.

(Photo credit:metmuseum.org)

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All About the Utopia That Was Once in Perth Amboy, NJ - Montclair Girl - The Montclair Girl

Guest opinion: The time has come for Central Iowa Water Works – Business Record

Submitted by: Jay Byers,president and CEO of the Greater Des MoinesPartnership, andSteve Gaer, former West Des Moines mayor and COO of R&R Realty Group

We live in a community experiencing significant momentum. Central Iowa continues to grow in both residents and amenities, and we are nationally recognized as a great place to live and work. This growth is intentional. It is the result of our collective ability to work together as one region. Whether you live in Des Moines or Waukee, Ankeny or Norwalk, or anyplace in between, we are one community. Our ability to think with a regional mindset has led to transformational success in our community.

This year marks one of the most important metro-area partnerships to date a regional drinking water entity called Central Iowa Water Works (CIWW). The collaboration for this initiative began in 2017 with all of the affected stakeholders participating in discussions. This will be one of the most important quality-of-life aspects to ensure adequate, affordable and safe drinking water for all of us, which will also provide an economic development advantage for our community.

Coming together as a region has long been part of the fabric of Central Iowa. Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) has provided drinking water to multiple communities across the metro for decades. In 1934, Urbandale entered into the first contract with DMWW, and since then many other communities have signed similar agreements.

Since that initial agreement for services almost 90 years ago, the Des Moines metro has changed significantly. In the past two decades, our community has been the fastest-growing major metro in the Midwest and is now home to more than 700,000 people. Countless businesses have expanded and relocated to the metro, including large data centers, manufacturers, insurance and financial services headquarters, warehouses and distribution centers, shopping complexes, and the list goes on.

Through it all, DMWW engineers worked with city officials in growing communities, developers, and its partner drinking water utilities and boards to appropriately lay out the water service grid and construct the water treatment and storage facilities that were needed and will be needed to provide water to new developments and our growing communities.

While this partnership has served all of us well, the time has come to create a regional drinking water production utility in order to ensure that we have the water we need at the lowest possible cost. The leaders of DMWW, West Des Moines Water Works and Urbandale Water Utility have demonstrated bold and thoughtful leadership in developing a framework and draft agreement to create CIWW. This drinking water production utility will be governed by a new board made up of representatives from each community and utility that chooses to join CIWW during this creation phase.

CIWW is designed to give every participating community a seat at the table in discussions, so we have the most cost-effective and efficient way to manage the production of drinking water. It is projected this regional model will provide the quantity of water needed while also minimizing future cost increases with collective purchasing and joint decision-making. This plan ensures protection of our water system in case of a power outage, flood at a treatment plant, during drought conditions or another natural disaster. Strategically locating treatment plants throughout the region provides a backup system that ensures our drinking water needs will be met where growth occurs.

To date, the following entities have passed a resolution supporting participation in the development of the CIWW Agreement: Altoona, Ankeny, Bondurant, Clive, DMWW, Grimes, Johnston, Norwalk, Polk City, Urbandale Water Utility, Waukee, West Des Moines Water Works and Xenia Rural Water District. Currently, these utilities and communities are reviewing the draft agreement and providing feedback and comments. The goal is to finalize the agreement this year and seat the new CIWW board in 2023.

We came together after the 1993 flood to make significant investments in the facilities that supply drinking water to all of us in this region. Now, almost 30 years later, we are again coming together to create a new framework, board and entity that will protect this critically important natural resource and ensure we meet the water demands of our rapidly growing region.

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Guest opinion: The time has come for Central Iowa Water Works - Business Record

Final push underway to secure $10 million in federal funding for revitalization of Hough neighborhood – News 5 Cleveland WEWS

CLEVELANDArea leaders made a final push Thursday for federal funding that would help revitalize Clevelands Hough and Midtown neighborhoods with a reconstructed East 66th Street corridor.

The project, called Dream 66, involves transforming East 66th Street from Euclid Avenue to Superior Avenue.

What the grant does is allow for reconstruction of the roadway, along with the development of complete and green streets, said Grace Gallucci, CEO and Executive Director of Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA). That means not only are you going to have a street available for cars and drivers, but also for walkers, bikers, and public transit riders.

S9Architecture/Vocon

Mayor Justin Bibb, along with Congresswoman Shontel Brown, explained how theyve requested more than $10 million as part of the U.S. Department of transportations RAISE program.

That same program provided nearly a million dollars to Cleveland Metroparks to improve six miles of trail and bicycle connections on Clevelands east side.

RELATED: Cleveland Metroparks receives $950K grant for bicycle, pedestrian trail planning

A walking tour highlighted investment already injected in the mile-long community including a new Cleveland Public Library branch and League Park, as well as helping many imagine what else is to come.

When professional baseball was played at League Park, it was in the middle of a densely-packed, diverse community.

When you think about the generations of disinvestment that has been intentional and purposeful here in Ward 7 and throughout Cleveland and many other communities throughout the country, it is about time for partners, governments to reinvest into these areas, Cleveland Ward 7 councilwoman Stephanie Howse said.

For Sheila Wright and Frontline Development Group, the grant would represent even more investment for the neighborhood.

The minority owned business is already working to create 237 housing units, broken up between single-family homes, townhomes, and mixed-use buildings that could also bring street-level retail back to Hough.

RELATED: Construction on Allen Estates first phase starts, hoping to spark even more development nearby

The project, entitled Allen Estates, is designed to make home ownership more attainable for residents and could help make future development nearby easier by increasing property values and bringing more people to the neighborhood, including Wright.

We are moving into this project to show we want to put our money where our mouth is, she explained.

With construction underway on one single family home, Wright told News 5 she hopes their apartments could be ready as soon as the beginning of 2024.

According to the Department of Transportation, selections for the RAISE grant program will be announced no later than August 12. Records show the city of Cleveland previously applied for the grant in 2021, requesting more than $15 million in funding for the Midtown-Hough connector project.

To learn more about the Dream 66 project, click here.

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Final push underway to secure $10 million in federal funding for revitalization of Hough neighborhood - News 5 Cleveland WEWS

VMware : The Intentions of a New Chief Open Source Officer – Marketscreener.com

There is something uniquely powerful about a time of change, both as individuals navigating our own life journeys and as groups working toward common company goals. These periods of change give us moments of opportunity: the opportunity to take stock in where we have been, the opportunity to thoughtfully reconsider our goals, and the opportunity to renew our resolve in achieving those goals. Change gives you permission to change. And embracing that change with intention is how we unlock the potential of the moment.

Joining VMware as the Chief Open Source Officer is not unlike that moment for me. This opportunity is a time to take stock and set a course for the future. To change. Only one month into my new role and I can already see the immense potential and the incredible body of work that VMware open source community leaders and contributors have built. It's impressive, without a doubt. But there's always more work to be done. As I have been telling our team: Be proud of what you have achieved but never be satisfied.

As I made this transition into VMware, I reflected on how my career has led me here. I used to consider it a bit of a winding path, filled with serendipitous moments that opened the door to my next challenge. What I found upon reflection this time around is how important it has been for me to act with intention at each step of the journey.

I started my career as a developer at a professional services company. At that job, I expanded my experience with each new assignment, shifting between clients with different industry needs, technology stacks and personalities, and each client expecting me to play a different role. I learned to embrace change, to quickly orient myself to each new environment, and to focus on setting the right goals that would move the client forward with intention. It is these lessons that have underpinned my growth at every step of the way.

Open source also played a key role in my career. As many technologists do, I started as a user of open source well before I became a contributor. I still remember the many hours it took to get Linux installed from a stack of 5 1/2-inch floppy disks when I was still in school. It wasn't until later in life that I started to contribute to open source communities. The driving motivation for taking that step was to ensure the diversification of a project beyond the vendor that first produced the project. It was an investment decision to manage risk, really. An investment of my time, of my teammates' time, and of dollars to support the community. We achieved the goal, but perhaps more importantly, it gave me a new perspective on the power of collaborative development in open source communities.

Collaboration in open source projects makes you part of a community. These communities drive the growth of new innovations, from idea to implementation. Ecosystems form around successful projects, moving the entire industry forward. Early adopters inspire further development by acts as simple as acknowledging the work of the maintainers. While open source has been a part of the technological landscape for many years now, we have reached new heights of importance and impact. Everywhere we look, open source technologies have shaped our world. This is especially true in the world of enterprise technology.

So, what does the future hold for VMware and open source? A continued investment. A continuation of community collaboration all based on what I call "intentional engagement." Engaging authentically and sustainably in open source demands that you start with a plan: know why you're engaging and your desired outcomes. It also demands that you are intentional about what projects you rely on. While we will continue to actively encourage and support upstream contributions by our entire VMware engineering community, we also want to be sure that our larger-scale engagements are aimed directly at helping our customers be more competitive and innovative.

I'll be speaking at VMware Explore at the end of this month about VMware's strategy and approach to open source. Join me for a lively conversation and take part in the many other open source sessions while you're there. I look forward to meeting you and the rest of the VMware Explore open source community in San Francisco. See you there!

Stay tuned to the Open Source Blog and follow us on Twitter for more deep dives into the world of open source contributing.

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VMware : The Intentions of a New Chief Open Source Officer - Marketscreener.com

Comment: 988 crisis line will help, but care needed after call | HeraldNet.com – The Daily Herald

By Kailey Fiedler-Gohlke / For The Herald

As the new 988 mental health hotline rolls out across the country, theres growing concern among officials and advocates alike that the system is not ready to meet demand.

In Washington, one of only four states that managed to pass comprehensive legislation (House Bill 1477) to sustainably fund its 988 call centers, the outlook surprisingly isnt any better. Already, more than a third of crisis calls made in Washington are rerouted out of state to backup centers, where operators inevitably wont be as familiar with local needs or resources. The state continues to struggle to fill call center jobs and the situation only stands to get worse as more people turn to 988 for help.

The hope is that 988 will eventually allow people experiencing a mental health emergency to easily reach a trained crisis counselor 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via call, text, or chat, and be met by mobile crisis teams; drastically reducing police involvement on mental health calls to the few, limited circumstances when public safety is at risk.

But our vision for mental health care shouldnt start and stop at the moment of crisis. We need a more comprehensive and compassionate continuum of services, one that holistically supports a persons wellbeing, and works to prevent crises to begin with.

As the chief executive officer of HERO House NW, a group of clubhouses based in Bellevue, Everett and Seattle, Ive seen firsthand how our model of care has been able to help people whose lives have been disrupted by mental illness to recover and thrive.

Clubhouses like ours provide a safe, dedicated environment for people living with serious mental illness, where they can get access to practical services including job training, housing support, education and affordable, healthy meals that consider all of a persons needs, not just their clinical ones.

While medication and therapy treat the symptoms of serious mental illness, clubhouses address the deep social isolation that so often accompanies these conditions. By bringing people into an intentional community and building the necessary trust, were able to work with members to improve their health without turning to coercion and forced treatment, all while reducing the negative impacts of incarceration, homelessness and neglect that people with serious mental illness disproportionately face.

This approach, rooted in respect and human dignity, has a long, proven history of incredible results ever since Fountain House first pioneered the model in the late 1940s. To this day, clubhouse members are more likely to be employed and stably housed, and have lower health care costs than others living with serious mental illness.

For Lisa, a member of Bellevue Clubhouse, our community gave her the confidence, acceptance and strength of purpose to make major changes in her life, including going back to school. Shes now joined our board as a clubhouse representative working to aid others in their recovery and tells me that: We may have to deal with a serious mental illness for the rest of our lives, but we can still have meaningful lives, one day at a time.

While 988 wont be perfect overnight, it shows theres bipartisan support among state officials, policy makers and the public at large to advance mental health care; working towards a continuum of services that should leverage the power of clubhouse communities as an important tool for a persons recovery.

To accomplish a truly effective care response, we need to give people in crisis more than a number to turn to. Expanding clubhouse capacity should be a critical part of our strategy and approach, recognizing that its a model shown to save lives, save money, and improve outcomes with grace.

Kailey Fiedler-Gohlke is chief executive officer of HERO House NW in Bellevue, a member-led community for people living with serious mental illness that is modeled after Fountain House and part of Fountain Houses national clubhouse network.

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Comment: 988 crisis line will help, but care needed after call | HeraldNet.com - The Daily Herald

Could the US highways that split communities on racial lines finally fall? – The Guardian US

Amy Stelly can see the on-ramp for the Claiborne Expressway from the second-floor porch of her childhood home, a block and a half away from the highway. She lives in Treme, a historic Black neighborhood in New Orleans. For decades, the highway has devastated her neighborhood. Stelly is an urban designer and co-founder of the Claiborne Avenue Alliance, which is advocating for its removal.

Claiborne has not been maintained at all, she says of the highway on the brink of disrepair. Not only do we have the dire economics, we have the actual physical atrocity. Its dirty. Its loud. Its polluted.

So, when the US transportation department recently announced a $1bn five-year pilot program to aid communities racially segregated by US government-sponsored highway projects, Stelly responded with a mix of optimism and tempered expectations. Joe Biden singled out the Claiborne Expressway when the program, known as Reconnecting Communities, was first announced.

Experts and advocates question whether the initial investment is enough to reverse the devastation in Black neighborhoods in the name of connection. The amount unveiled by the transportation department is a far cry from the original $20bn proposed. But advocates agree that its an unprecedented and welcome step in pursuit of highway reparations.

Its the beginning, not the end, of the process, Stelly told the Guardian.

Under the departments program, announced in late June, cities, states, non-profits, tribal governments and city planning organizations can seek grants to conduct traffic studies, encourage public input on highway plans and pursue other planning activities in advance of a project to remove, retrofit, or mitigate an existing eligible facility to restore community connectivity. Communities can apply for $195m in grants in the first year, $50m for planning studies, the remainder for capital construction.

[W]e cant ignore the basic truth that some of the planners and politicians behind those projects built them directly through the heart of vibrant, populated, communities sometimes in an effort to reinforce segregation, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, said during a speech announcing the program in Birmingham, Alabama. While the burden is often greatest for communities of color, Americans today of every background are paying the price of these choices.

The wreckage wrought by Americas highways began after the second world war, when President Franklin D Roosevelt approved the construction of 40,000 miles of interstate highways. By the time President Dwight Eisenhower took office, in 1953, just over 6,000 miles had been built. That accelerated after Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which authorized $25bn to construct a modern, interstate highway system.

Deborah Archer, co-faculty director of New York Universitys Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, says that the federal program destroyed vibrant Black communities and cut the heart and soul out of many Black communities by taking their homes, churches and schools.

Back then, the US government provided little assistance to displaced communities, forcing people farther away from economic opportunity and toward already segregated and financially disenfranchised communities. Our highway system was a physical realization of the racialized norms and values in our country. So much of that was really intentional, says Archer, who wrote a paper on the historical damage highways have done to Black communities.

By the time the Claiborne Expressway opened in 1968, more than 500 houses had been cleared, according to the Congress for the New Urbanism, which supports people-centered places. The oak trees that lined Claiborne Avenue were replaced with concrete.

Its only right that the federal government seeks to correct the mistake that it made decades ago. So I applaud them for doing it. But we have to follow through, Stelly says. The key is to continue funding the efforts once this $1bn is exhausted, because we all know that its not going to get us to the final goal.

The Freeway Fighters Network, a coalition supported by the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU), estimated that more than 70 projects are under way to remove or revamp highways and prevent expansions throughout the US. The group started in 2019 when activists lobbied lawmakers in Washington to support infrastructure legislation. It has since grown to an informal network that meets regularly on Zoom to discuss their projects and share strategies.

Ben Crowther, who led CNUs advocacy for the reconnecting communities program, says it will take years of sustained funding to see how these highway removal campaigns play out. He says the funding is not going to solve the inequities or the problems that weve created with the highway system in one fell swoop. Transportation department officials have estimated that the money could only support from three to 15 projects involving demolition and construction.

Whats unique about the new federal program, says Crowther, now advocacy manager of AmericaWalks, is that it gives non-profit organizations the chance to pursue funding to study what highway removal means for the surrounding community, which state transportation officials typically dont consider. He said it often takes public pressure to inspire change, like what happened during freeway revolts in the 1960s and 1970s when communities blocked proposed highway projects.

Its ultimately up to state lawmakers and governors to approve project funding, a prospect that often leads to even further delays, leading state transportation agencies to pursue this new pot of funding.

In St Paul, Minnesota, the group ReConnect Rondo has advocated for turning a stretch of Interstate 94, which cuts through the historically Black neighborhood of Rondo, into a 21-acre land bridge over the freeway.

Keith Baker, the groups executive director, described the Rondo neighborhood, where his family often visited, as a small town. But like freeways across the country, Interstate 94, built between 1956 and 1968, tore out the social, economic, environmental and cultural fabric of the community, he says. More than 300 businesses closed and more than 700 houses were demolished, according to the group. Baker estimates that those houses represented at least $157m in lost wealth. That equity never got realized for people who own those homes, he says. Before the freeway came through, Rondo was the enterprise district of the African American community. The freeway ultimately destroyed them.

Baker says his group plans to pursue grant funding to conduct a study on what their proposal would mean for the surrounding areas. The land bridge, he says, can bring houses and businesses back to the neighborhood, cultivating a green gathering space for the surrounding neighborhoods. A feasibility study released in June 2020 shows that the effort, which could cost an estimated $458m, could attract 1,800 jobs.

Deborah Archer, who also serves as president of the American Civil Liberties Union, cautions that the transportation department funds, though unprecedented in scope and intent, would not fully rectify the damage in Black communities caused by the loss of wealth. Future removal projects need to ensure that anti-displacement protections are in place to guard families living by highways and ensure they are not replaced in the name of economic investment.

The conditions that the highways created have been built over decades, Archer says. Its not going to be easy to weave back communities that were torn apart by these highways. The funding recognizes that rebuilding is not just about the absence of these physical dividers. Its even more about creating the conditions for a community to flourish.

For Stelly, the funding would give the Claiborne Coalition the opportunity to conduct an updated study to see how a highway removal project would affect the surrounding community. It offers a chance to gather community input on what the future could hold, to examine ways to ensure people are not displaced by future highway projects and to forecast the economic impact of removing the highway.

Stelly reflected on what the community her family has called home for decades lost: the convenience stores, the small family businesses, the neighbors. A funeral home is one of the few businesses that survived the aftermath of the highways construction.

When my family bought this property almost 70 years ago, this neighborhood was very different. It was beautiful. It was tree-lined. It had a host of professional services and had places to buy fresh food. It was clean, Stelly says. I would like to receive reparations for what my family has lost because when they made this initial investment, they didnt do it thinking that it was going to be derailed.

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Could the US highways that split communities on racial lines finally fall? - The Guardian US

Governor Murphy Announces Mark Dinglasan as Director of the Office of the Food Security Advocate – InsiderNJ

TRENTON Governor Phil Murphy today announced Mark Dinglasan as Director of the Office of the FoodSecurity Advocate. In September 2021, Governor Murphy reaffirmed his commitment to ending hunger in New Jersey by signing a comprehensive legislation package aimed at combatting food insecurity and establishing the Office of the Food Security Advocate.

Ensuring access to proper nutrition is essential to solidifying New Jersey as the best state to raise a family, for every family,said Governor Murphy.Today, I am excited to announce Mark Dinglasan as the Director of the Office of the Food Security Advocate. I am confident that under Marks leadership, we will make great strides in our ongoing commitment to end food insecurity by strengthening food assistance and providing support to communities across the state.

The Office of the Food Security Advocate will coordinate the administration of the States food insecurity programs, advocate for the food insecure, and develop new policy initiatives to combat hunger and facilitate greater access to food relief programs.

I am truly delighted by the appointment of Mark Dinglasan as New Jersey and the nations first ever state-level Food Security Advocate,said Assembly Speaker Craig J. Coughlin.We were very intentional in crafting this office to oversee statewide anti-hunger efforts, break down silos, and facilitate partnerships across all levels of government and organizations working in the food security space. Leading CUMAC as its Executive Director for the last five years, Mark brings deep knowledge about New Jerseys food landscape and a unique skillset focused on food justice that together make him highly equipped to step into the role. I will look forward to meeting with him in the coming weeks as he builds out the vision for the office and to partnering in the future to ensure everyone can have their most basic food needs met.

Im extremely humbled and excited for the opportunity to serve the state of New Jersey as as Director of the Office of the Food Security Advocate,said Mark Dinglasan.Ending hunger has nothing to do with giving people food and have everything to do with advocating for food security. New Jersey has the leadership, the systems, and the change agents that we can partner with to pursue that advocacy.

Mark Dinglasan is currently the executive director of CUMAC, the largest anti-hunger organization in Passaic County. As Executive Director, Dinglasan led CUMACs mission to fight hunger and its root causes through a holistic, trauma-informed approach that provides groceries and basic necessities to families and individuals in need. With more than 15 years of experience in corporate and nonprofit sectors, Dinglasan has led teams in program management, youth development, sales, & strategic planning. He received his MBA from DePaul Universitys Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and graduated Magna Cum Laude from Monmouth University.

For a picture of Mark Dinglasan, clickhere [t.e2ma.net].

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Governor Murphy Announces Mark Dinglasan as Director of the Office of the Food Security Advocate - InsiderNJ

The Federal Whiplash on Climate Is a Wake-up Call for Better Grant Making – The Chronicle of Philanthropy

In the final days before I lost my wife to cancer, we often relived a memory of Californias millennia-old redwood forest. Arlene and I spent many weekends hiking among the majestic trees, awed at the thought that those same wondrous creatures who watched civilizations rise had also borne witness to our partnership. Soon, I fear Ill have to let go of this sacred space, too, as the fires intensified by climate change threaten to consume the redwoods.

In recent years, experts developed a fancy term for what Im experiencing: eco-anxiety. But as a young woman of color growing up in Camden, N.J., near Superfund hazardous waste sites, I didnt have a name for the kind of grief that comes with losing your community and your special places to environmental degradation. I just knew that something was terribly wrong when loved ones suffered from cancers and respiratory illnesses more often than those who lived in neighborhoods just a few miles away. My sense of injustice is what led me to my current work with the Health and Environmental Funders Network, which organizes grant makers in support of environmental health and justice.

That same righteous anger and hope for something better has propelled people of color across the country for generations to hold the powerful accountable for protecting clean air, clean water, and livable communities. Our communal grief deepened last month after the Supreme Courts ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, which stripped away some of the Environmental Protection Agencys tools to keep industrial polluters in check. And while the recent news of a Senate climatel deal shows promise, its unclear how much the legislation will ultimately benefit the low-income neighborhoods and people of color who bear the brunt of climate change.

Taken together, the devastating Supreme Court ruling and the hopeful congressional action signal an opportunity to redirect attention to the work of environmental-justice groups, which for decades have toiled with minimal support to address climate change in the hardest hit communities.

Consider, for example, that one of the so-called solutions struck down by the Supreme Court was the power of the EPA to implement a cap-and-trade program, which attempts to reduce carbon emissions from year to year by allowing industry to pay when those emissions exceed the government-mandated limit. But instead of reducing emissions, companies often buy credits to pollute more typically in communities of color and low-income white rural areas where most of their fossil-fuel-burning plants are located.

Heres the bottom line: No matter which way the federal winds blow on climate, activists and donors need to organize and invest in proven solutions that dont sacrifice the well-being of large segments of the population. Especially at the state and local level, important opportunities remain to halt new fossil-fuel-producing projects despite the Supreme Court ruling. Theres no better time for grant makers to step up as allies in this work.

A recent analysis of climate funding by the Health and Environmental Funders Network found that 14 percent of total philanthropic dollars spent annually in the United States or $272 million goes to heath and equity issues related to climate change. Compare that with the $10.45 billion spent by the biggest industrial polluters during the past decade on lobbying and greenwashing campaigns that deceive the public into believing companies have adopted environmentally friendly practices when, in reality, they are protecting the status quo. As elected leaders continue to play political football with the health of communities, philanthropy has an opportunity and a responsibility to pick up the slack and invest in bigger and bolder action.

What does this look like in practice? From my experience working with a range of grant makers and nonprofits, climate philanthropy is most effective when it focuses on three strategies: intersectionality, building power, and trust.

An intersectional approach to climate funding. In straightforward terms, this means health donors should see climate change as a health issue, food donors, as a food-security issue, and social service grant makers, as a critical factor in social and economic development. All are connected, especially for people shouldering the worst of climate change. Investments in solutions should be connected as well.

The Kresge Foundation, for example, combines its health care and environmental work recognizing, as the foundation puts it, that climate change is the greatest public health threat of this century. Its efforts include building the capacity of hospitals, health care systems, and public-health institutions to lead climate mitigation and equity advocacy. It also supports professionals in these fields seeking to incorporate climate-related health practices into their work. Along with this strategy, Kresge has more than tripled its funding in the past decade to climate-justice organizations led by people of color.

A focus on power building. Left to their own devices, major institutions and elected officials will rarely do the right thing on climate. That means grant makers must move beyond programmatic or direct-service investments and support work that builds influence. Mobilizing communities; nurturing partnerships with government, business, and research institutions; winning in court and in the court of public opinion are all avenues that movement leaders say are effective if only they received more than a sliver of funding.

Industry understands this well. Between 2008 and 2017, for example, oil companies forked out $1.4 billion on advertisements, largely to promote greenwashing tactics. In 2020 alone, the industry spent at least $9.6 million on Facebook ads to undermine government action on climate by, for example, suggesting that gas created by fracking is a green fuel source.

Philanthropy needs to borrow a page from industry and invest in communications strategies that embrace the relationship between power, narrative, and policy to build support and influence. They should follow the lead of grant makers such as Grace Communications Foundation, which invests in strategic communications, storytelling, and partnerships at food and environmental-justice organizations. The foundations own multipronged communications effort includes consumer-focused websites, a seasonal food guide, and a series of films to shift public appetites and policy toward regenerative agriculture.

Trust in the knowledge and expertise of movement leaders. Unleashing the environmental-justice movements full potential will require the same intentional listening and flexible, trust-based grant making that nonprofit leaders have been forcefully pushing in recent years. A foundations prebaked ideas about what will make their climate investments more effective may have little connection to the work advocates are doing to keep their communities safe, healthy, and economically sustainable. That means they may need to loosen the reins on those identified strategies and listen to what advocates on the ground say they need to address climate and cancer-causing pollution in their communities.

Our nations climate story is a work in progress as the troubling direction of the Supreme Court and inconsistent action by our elected leaders make clear. But one thing is certain: By increasing investment in environmental-health and justice-movement leaders, grant makers can help write a story focused on hope instead of despair.

Continue reading here:

The Federal Whiplash on Climate Is a Wake-up Call for Better Grant Making - The Chronicle of Philanthropy

A Tale of Two Schools: A Failing Boston School Building and the Impact on Two Communities – NBC10 Boston

A failing building with a leaky roof was the home of two schools in Allston: The Jackson Mann and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. On June 27th, the Jackson Mann was closed, but the Horace Mann will remain in the same structure for at least another year. This is a tale of two schools.

You might call it the tale of two schools. Because under one roof-- and a leaky one at that-- the Jackson Mann School was permanently shut down on June 27its students and staff dispersed, its supplies transported across the city. But, there is another school in the same failing building. The Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing will remain in the same structure for at least another year.

The Jackson Mann Horace Mann complex has the highest buildings needs score in the entire school system. Thats BPS-speak for the building in the worst shape that impacts the most students. Eventually, the building will be torn down. The plan is to build a new one at that location. But the Horace Mann school population is filled with students who are some of the most vulnerable, who require the most services. They need a very specialized learning environment. And the Boston Public Schools has nowhere else to put these learners until a swing space is retrofitted - hopefully in fall 2023.

The decision to keep the building open for one school while closing it for the other has left people confused and outraged.

Good planning, of which weve not had a lot in the Boston schools for a while, should have been able to figure out an alternative," Larry DiCara, a former Boston city councilor and author of a memoir on busing and the Boston Public Schools said.

Meanwhile, it is the families who pay the price.

Christian, a third-grade student with autism gets off the bus for one of the very last times as a Jackson Mann student.

Christian was a student at Jackson Mann until the shutdown at the end of the school year.

"I loved it for like years," Christian told NBC10 Boston. "Im working with my after-school teacher Miss Laura. Im going to miss her."

While the building was failing, what happened inside was a success, according to Christians mom and other families we spoke with.

Jenny Millien said her son thrived at Jackson Mann with its strong special ed program.

"Through Jackson Mann, hes had an amazing abundance of resources." And she was intentional in choosing it.

I get emotional thinking about it because it is so much upheaval.

"Jackson Mann is K -8. And that was the biggest thing for us, that he would be in a solid place. He's a kid who is, routine based. So it was just really devastating." Millien gets choked up talking about it. "Its overwhelming. We found our home."

For Millien it feels unfair to be pushed out until the building closes for everyone. "Im really upset at that. I get emotional thinking about it because it is so much upheaval."

Rising eighth graders wonder too. "I wish we could stay for another year so I can graduate," said Nushrath Ismail, while acknowledging some of the building flaws. "In one of my science classes, the ceiling was like falling apart and there was leakage and we had to use a garbage can to hold the water in."

NBC10 Boston was not allowed inside the building until after the Jackson Mann closed for good and then for only about an hour. In the spaces we saw, there were numerous signs of water damage and open classrooms without doors.

Water damage inside the Jackson Mann school building.

The building problems provided hints the school might close. But the messaging changed over the years.

"What we saw at the Jackson Mann previous to this year with the previous administration is a failure of planning and communication," said Will Austin, who runs the Boston Schools Fund, an organization aimed at delivering high quality education in every neighborhood of Boston.

"The way that it was closed resulted in a lot of disruption for families...these things are all knowable. Like we knew the Jackson Mann was in bad shape in 2016, and you should have known theyre going to close the building."

But plans to close Jackson Mann didnt become public until 2019. That April, a top BPS official wrote to Jean Powers, a Jackson Mann parent and activist "as of now we are planning to close the Jackson/Mann facility but not the school."

"A lot of us stayed here thinking that we would have more time here. I mean, we were told two years ago thinking that, you know, we would stay here until another place came for us. But that didn't happen," says Jackson Mann teacher Christine OKeefe.

A lot of us stayed here thinking that we would have more time here.

Later that April, Interim Superintendent Laura Perile wrote the school community to say the building was technically safe, but the "level of work is so extensive and time-consuming that the safest course of action, long-term, is to vacate the building."

But the exact plan and timeline were vague.

"If you know that a building is in bad shape, you have to communicate that clearly to the community and really clearly communicate a plan," argued Austin.

Instead, families didnt learn the school would shut down for good until this winter, dispersing the students to schools around the district.

"I think," explained Austin, "that when you dont bring people into the solutions, you cant have trust. If families feel like they werent engaged in the solutions, theyre going to feel like they dont have the full story."

The Boston public schools refused to make anyone available for an interview about the Horace Mann Jackson Mann plans. Instead, they offered a statement saying in part:

After two years of meetings and conversations with families, BPS decided to close the school because it was not a safe learning space for students.

"The City of Bostons Public Facilities Department (PFD) commissioned a full-scale external engineering review of all the building's systems in 2019. The engineering reports findings suggested that keeping the site open long-term is not a viable option. The district had enough seats in other schools in Allston-Brighton for students who live there and enough seats in other schools closer to home for non-Allston-Brighton students. About 50% of the students at the Jackson Mann live in the Allston Brighton Neighborhood and there were local seats at other schools available for them."

The Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing currently has fewer than 100 students. Ranging from K-12, they also serve children from beyond the City of Boston. And now they are staying put in a deficient building for at least another year. Earlier this year, Mayor Michelle Wu released her Green New Deal plan for the future of Boston Public Schools. As part of that, a wing of the Charles Edwards School in Charlestown will be retrofitted, at a cost of more than $31 million to be a swing space for the Horace Mann. The location is a former middle school that had been promised to the community of Charlestown for an early childhood center. Now they will share the building.

"That's why we had to fight literally the community to be able to move in there temporarily," said Charlie Kim, a Horace Mann parent and co-chair of the school's site council. "And by temporary, were talking seven or plus years. Thats the final place for a lot of these students."

Founded in 1869, Horace Mann has a rich legacy of innovation for the deaf and hard of hearing community. Kim is pleased about the upgraded facility.

Others we spoke with off camera raised concerns about the commute to Charlestown, six miles away. And through an interpreter, the first deaf principal of Horace Mann makes it clear where she wants to end up.

"We look forward to a permanent home back here in Allston/Brighton," said Dr. Michelle Eisan-Smith.

The journey to this swing space and the fact that this school community remains in this building is frustrating at best.

"They blamed COVID," said Kim. "They blamed budgeting, planning, all these things. But the bottom line is they just didn't move when they had to move. They were very indecisive. They were showing us sites, the Timilty. They showed us the Edwards facility. If you knew about how many times that was given to us, offered, then taken away, then offered again and then taken away," said Kim. "We should always assume that folks will advocate for their kids. They should," said Austin. "But it should be done in a way where the process is clear. Right? The rules are clear. The planning is clear. So people can all engage."

Last year, Horace Mann applied for school building assistance to get a new facility. The application notes "many building deficiencies" including leaks and obsolete equipment. It states the cost of ongoing "inspection maintenance, and repair is unsustainable." And yet, the City of Boston did not give the application the highest priority designation.

What is clear now is that a new facility for The Horace Mann School is part of the plan. The location and budget remain unclear. But as part of the Green New Deal, there is $150,000 in the budget to explore a permanent site for a new Horace Mann.

This is the statement we got from BPS about Horace Mann:

"Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is moving to a new swing space location beginning in the school year 2023-24. A swing space is a space that a school moves into while permanent space is being built or restructured to appropriately fit the program. Because the Horace Mann School services a special population of our students, we needed to find them a swing space. To support the needs of the HM students, renovations to the swing space (Edwards Building in Charlestown) needed to be made before the school could move location. Working with the City, it was determined that it was OK for the HM school to remain at its current location until their swing space was ready."

When Jackson Mann Horace Mann opened in 1975, the Boston Globe described a school where educators taught racially diverse classes of students, both mainstream and special needs, all together.

"The goal was to construct large school buildings in neighborhoods where Black children and white children could both walk to school," said DiCara.

But did the building itself interfere with that success?

"Buildings were built big and thick because there was urban rioting in the sixties and people were interested in being sure that buildings could be fortresses," explained DiCara.

More than 60% of the 120 buildings in the Boston Public Schools were built before 1950. Some are older than Fenway Park. But it is the facilities built in the 60s and 70s that have failed the most. The West Roxbury education complex which opened in 1976 was deemed unsafe and closed in 2019.

"The 1970s buildings in the district are really uniquely designed," said Austin, "and use a lot of materials we don't use anymore."

"In some cases, there were also efforts," said DiCara "to have open classrooms, which sounds really great at the Harvard School of Education, but doesnt really sound very good if you're a parent of a small child."

Austin agrees.

"That was a bad idea. And we spent a lot of money undoing all of that."

"We have as many buildings, even a little bit more than we did 20 years ago. And we have significantly less kids," said Austin.

In 2001-2002 more than 62,000 kids enrolled in BPS. Twenty years later it's just over 46,000. Thats a whopping 26% decline.

In 2015 then Boston Mayor Marty Walsh rolled out Build BPS" - $1 billion to upgrade schools, close some and build others.

"Construction involves timetables, specific projects, resource and implementation. Build BPS never produced that," said Austin.

"There was never a set process of saying over the next 10 to 15 years, this is what we are going to do. And so that resulted in school communities kind of wondering every year, are we going to get closed this year?"

This June at Jackson Mann, the answer was yes.

Its heartbreaking, said teacher Christine OKeefe. "Im devastated. Were leaving our families and all our friends."

And the families will deal with the stress of new transitions.

"Ive always been comfortable in knowing he's good where he's at so I can thrive where Im at," said Jenny Millien, whose resilience will be put to the test once again.

"We're going to make the best of this. And Christian has always thrived regardless. So Im just hopeful that we continue that streak," she added.

There are more than 20 grade configurations in the Boston Public Schools system. BPS is now working eliminate middle schools in order to cut down on confusion, align with exam schools and create fewer transitions for kids.

Guthries parents moved from Somerville to Mattapan so their son could start pre- kindergarten this fall in the Boston public schools.

"I'm excited for him to go to a school where probably, you know, as a white kid, he'll be in the minority. I think that that would be good for him and for us," said future BPS mom Andrea Wells.

We were there last spring when Guthries mom learned her son was assigned to the Haley Pilot school-- their second choice. When Boston parents pick schools for their children, they find all kinds of grade configurations. In fact, there are more than 20.

To limit these options, cut down on confusion, align with exam schools and create fewer transitions for kids, BPS is working to eliminate middle schools. Its one solid legacy from the Build BPS plan. Two middle schools closed for good this June: the James Timilty in Roxbury and the Washington Irving in Roslindale. On the other side of that equation, schools like the James Otis in East Boston recently expanded to include the sixth grade.

"Its been such a success and our parents couldn't be more thrilled," said Paula Goncalves, principal of the James Otis Elementary School in East Boston.

The goal is to move to a model where schools go from Pre-K to 6th grade and then 7th through 12th.

We want to make sure that every single kid in the City of Boston has access to high-quality schools," said Austin, "and we do that through supporting schools like the Otis to expand and serve more kids over time."

Right now, the Boston Schools Fund is working with 12 schools across the city to add sixth grades.

"The best way to have the city progress over time and reach educational equity is to send more and more kids to good schools, said Austin.

On a tour of the Otis, Principal Goncalves stops by a third-grade classroom and points to a sign on the door.

"This is the college of Class of 2035." At another door she tells us, We are a school of 415 students. Lots of us classrooms are half the size of this classroom, and they have 20 students in them."

As part of Boston Mayor Michelle Wus $2 billion Green New Deal, the Otis is expected to get a new, modern and much improved building just a couple of blocks away.

It will provide us with a state-of-the-art auditorium, hopefully a science lab for our students, a Spanish lab for our students, a music room, an art room, says Goncalves. We've also asked that it be a community space for families to gather if they need a place to go to utilize technology.

Wu said we need a large-scale shift in how we manage our school facilities. The city launched a website you can look at to see how upgrades and changes are going at your own school. Shes working with the city and BPS to hire 25 people to manage building projects. They are looking at creating new K-to-6 schools in Roxbury, Dorchester/Mattapan, and Allston/Brighton. Its a process that will involve merging school communities.

"School closures are traumatic for families, traumatic for educators. No one wants to do them. But our leaders also have to tell people the truth. And the simple truth is we have too many school buildings and most of them are old. And so it's going to take leadership to fix that problem and time to fix that problem," said Austin.

School closures are traumatic for families, traumatic for educators. No one wants to do them. But our leaders also have to tell pepople the truth.

The first step in the process, make sure that all the data collected is correct and accurate and relevant. After that, said Austin, "you need a real community process, where you hear directly from people. What do they want in their schools and why? So you're being responsive to the needs of students, families and educators. Then you have to look at the mechanics of all this. Where are kids? Where are they most densely populated? What schools are under-enrolled? Which schools are over enrolled? Which means that more families want to send their kids to them and then making a decision about how you put buildings in the right places for the right number of kids. That is the work."

Again, the BPS would not make anyone available for an interview for our story. This is what they shared about the Green New Deal.

Last spring in Mattapan, families, educators, and community leaders gathered for a celebration outside the P.A. Shaw, a neighborhood K- 3 school. After pressure from students, parents and teachers, the Shaw will expand in the fall to include two fourth grade classrooms

Amid chants of Hey Hey, Ho Ho we want the Shaw to grow, the community made it clear, they love this place and they want to see a fifth and sixth grade added in the years ahead. But the future remains unclear.

Will the building expand or merge with other school communities in a new facility? Its one of many hard questions the new superintendent Mary Skipper will have on her plate when she begins her job in the coming months. Meanwhile, families across the city await the fall and the challenge, promise and excitement of a new school year.

Originally posted here:

A Tale of Two Schools: A Failing Boston School Building and the Impact on Two Communities - NBC10 Boston

Heru the Happy Dragon: Helping Kids Love Themselves and Embrace Imagination – tntribune.com

By Ashley Benkarski

NASHVILLE, TN Heru the Happy Dragon, by Fred Doc Beasley, is a love letter to Black and Brown children, and the original and indigenous children of the diaspora, letting them know that their health, their creativity and their imagination is paramount, the author said.

As a father of four children myself, learning things that pained me in [my childrens] early processes was that there werent too many characters they could look to in the media that reinforced who they were, for them to have pride in themselves. I saw that void there. Also as someone whos been working with at-risk youth for over two decades, you realize how important of a role the media plays in childrens lives when you deal with them up close and they feel like no one represents them or sees or knows their stories.

Children who never see themselves in the shows they watch, and, yes, the books they read can leave them feeling othered, and therefore not valued, which they begin to see as normal, even within themselves, Beasley intimated. It really inspired me to try to create something that could reinforce their beauty, their intelligence, their genius, their wisdom and their strength through art.

Further, he said, I think adults who read the book will also be able to find some type of strength and moral in the story because, at its root, the book speaks about making a pivot and knowing what you have in your dreams and your ideas can push you to greatness.

Heru, a humble yet powerful servant to the Crown, asks his King and Queen to allow him to serve them in another way through his passion for cooking and farming.

But though Heru had served them well, the King and Queen laughed at him, and denied his request. And because they laugh at him, it forces him to rethink all of his years of service. Here he is, a dragon of the highest rank who has the riches, who has the so-called honor, but yet he knows theres something missing inside, Beasley said. In the process of writing this book, you know, we were experiencing Covid. And a lot of people they kind of felt that same void, like, What do I do now? How do I pivot and still find meaning in whats happening? Because the whole world was changing in front of our eyes.

What lessons will readers learn from Heru the Happy Dragon? Understanding mental health, social and emotional learning, growth and development, conflict resolution, cpnfidence and even a bit of urban farming, Beasley remarked.

This book is the culmination of years and years of his experiences, focused into a form children can understand, which is why theres lots of pictures to help spark the readers imagination.

Heru is Egyptian for hero, and he wants children to know they have the ability to be that hero theyre seeking, and they can find that hero when they look in the mirror and look inside themselves.

He continued, The powers that be, or in this case the king and queen, who represent the power structure, do not do anything to affirm him. Beasley pointed out that the same has occurred throughout our nations history, drawing a line from the murder of young Emmett Till to Michael Brown and George Floyd, along with the countless unnamed young indigenous people whose options have been taken because they wereent valued or even considered to be citizens according to the highest document of the land, the Constitution. How do you reconcile that in someones mind when theyre looking at mass media and theyre seeing people who look like them being gunned down in the streets and just being treated other than? It puts you in a very precarious place as a parent, trying to reconcile that in their imaginations without making them bitter toward the world, without making them afraid.

Beasley said the characters in the book arent human because readers wont impose their inherent biases on animals and other mythical creatures in the same way they would with people. And Heru being a dragon was very much intentional. A dragon is a mythical creature, and to me, in many ways, the indigenous population of the diaspora are mythical creatures to the world at large, Beasley explained.

Herus passion is also a subtle nod to living a healthier lifestyle, as he prepares dishes consisting of vegetables for the people in the kingdom. Beasley said he feels its an important message because, in so many communities, people dont eat food, they eat emotions.

Beasley self-published this first installment of Heru the Happy Dragon and held an in-person reading at Alkebu-Lan Images Sun., July 24. You can buy the book at heruthehappydragon.com.

See the article here:

Heru the Happy Dragon: Helping Kids Love Themselves and Embrace Imagination - tntribune.com

How ‘We Met in Virtual Reality’ director Joe Hunting filmed a documentary in VR – Exclusive Interview – Flickering Myth

Flickering Myth had the opportunity to speak with filmmaker Joe Hunting, whose documentary We Met in Virtual Reality is currently available to stream on HBO Max

While plenty has been written about the potential of virtual reality how it can transform the way we work, how we entertain ourselves, how we interact much less attention has been focused toward VR as a new vehicle for art. And thats exactly the space in which UK-based filmmaker Joe Hunting wants to innovate.

His debut directorial effort, We Met in Virtual Reality, the first feature-length documentary shot within the video game VRChat, marvels at the world of VR from the inside looking out. Hunting makes the very intentional decision to never show the subjects of his doc IRL only through their in-game avatars, who have found meaning, fulfillment, and oftentimes even love, within the VRChat community.

Flickering Myth spoke to Hunting about the challenges posed by filming a movie in virtual reality, playing with form in his documentary, and where virtual reality as a cinematic tool can go from here.

So much of this doc is about what brought people to the VRChat community. You began documenting the VRChat community in 2018 and have made multiple short films in VR since then, so what drew you to the world of VR?

What really drew me to VR was VRChat, the documentary, the platform that the documentary was filmed in. I first discovered VRChat just browsing articles about online communities and gaming communities, and I found that the platform was really assisting people with their mental health and saving peoples lives and giving them community and belonging, which they could never find before. And as I was studying film in 2018, my documentary brain just lit up and I was so curious about how the space was affecting our social and emotional lives and kind of came at the space from that very anthropological perspective, as well as a participant myself. And from that moment was really led down a path of curiosity to talk to people and explore that and make films.

Clearly, even based on your answer, the VRChat community is one that means a lot to you, and not only have you made films in it, but youre also a member of it. So what does it mean to you to get to share not only this doc with the world for the first time, but also put the VRChat community on a public stage?

Oh, it means a great deal to me. I have a great personal attachment to the platform. I have found so much support and Ive learned so many new skills because of the people Ive met inside of virtual reality. The documentary really represents the community in a very positive way and shows how we can come together and use this platform and use this technology for good. And that was the story that I really wanted to tell as thats how its affected me and many others as well. [The documentary] doesnt shy away from the negative aspects of the internet, but it really highlights the positive ways we can use VR specifically. Its a film that I can show my parents. Its a film that I can show my friends and colleagues and acquaintances have no idea what I do. Ive now got something I can show them for them to understand and see the value in what I do.

I know this film was shot with a VR camera Extension VRC Lens. How much of your real-world experience shooting with a physical camera were you able to bring to this experience of shooting with a virtual camera?

I would say my entire skillset of using a functional, real film camera, I have brought it with me into VR. I am holding the camera, VRC Lens in my avatars hands whilst in a VR headset, immersed in the same space the subjects are. I can see my aperture, I can zoom in and out, I can fly the camera as a drone, I can change my focal length, and it can do anything and everything that a real film camera can. And so all the aspects of why a different focal length, why change the aperture, what cinematic techniques are used in what scenarios, I could use all of that. [I can] really exploit it in this film and use cinematic techniques to tell the story and play with the form of documentary. Id say every aspect of visual language Ive learned from my time in the real world, and also from my studies and in film school, Ive taken into this film. Im very grateful that I was able to do that with this camera, but it did take some training and some real understanding of how that worked.

Which begs the question, what were some of the difficulties with using the virtual camera that you came across?

I think the difficulties with the camera specifically was keeping it steady on a drone. If I wanted to capture some coverage from the other side of the room, Id put my camera in drone mode and just fly straight across the room and Id lose it for a moment. So I had to be very careful on how fast I was pushing my drone pilot skills. The biggest hurdle in terms of production was sound and capturing sound and in stereo and not mono. My head in VR is the microphone, and I always had to maintain eye contact with the subject so I could capture the sound in both ears. The moment I started pivoting my head, I would start losing their sound, and Id have to fix that in post. So it was actually the sounds that caused me the most trouble.

The film moves between very candid interviews, not unlike something youd see in a traditional documentary, and then very cinematic, stylized sequences. How did you develop that aspect of the films composition?

Ive always been really inspired by documentaries that use a vrit form of filmmaking. Not being afraid of experimenting with different forms. Shooting scenes that are very observational and realist and fusing that with more poetic imagery that is very directed and choreographed. Thats hard to achieve really well in the physical world, but for me, I think it was a lot easier [in VR] because audiences are already suspending their disbelief and [letting] themselves see something completely new. So, from the very beginning, I knew I could play and really tell the story in unique ways. I had a lot of intimate interviews with the subjects, which are very relatable and people can always understand a talking head interview. And using that conventional cinematic tool to really bring audiences in, then start pulling them out again through choreographed dance sequences, to tell stories in ways that could guide their stories without any verbal voiceover. The best thing for me to say is that VR really gave me a tool to play with and landscape to experiment with in this documentary, which was a vessel for their stories.

In the doc, we see a lot of people that are drawn to the community because theyve found confidence through VR. Whether its confidence with anxiety or grief or gender identity. Did you find that people had more confidence speaking on camera with you and opening up because they were their VR selves?

Yes, I think so. We were all very open about that when we were in production. Ive always been really passionate about being truly transparent with all of my subjects, so they all knew that they were being filmed. We collaborated on how we were going to tell their story and what we wanted to say in the documentary. But the level of anonymity remained the same I was my username. They were always their username. And I didnt know their real names until we finished production. Because of that, we were able to talk in a very honest way and there was a bit less commitment into their story. Because youre represented by an avatar, you are not thinking about how people are going to judge your appearance. So were just able to talk on a purely personality to personality basis, which allowed people to be much more open. That was an advantage that I had as a documentary director to really get straight into the deeper questions.

Was there a very conscious decision from the beginning not to show the real selves of the subjects featured in the documentary?

Yes, definitely. I had shown real selves of my subjects in previous films, my short films, and in that its a very dramatic moment. If you learn someones real image compared to their avatar, it always changes the way you see them, so I wanted to avoid that with this documentary and embrace the virtual personas of these people and leave the physical ideas up to the imagination. I think that was more interesting from an audience perspective.

Where do you see VR/metaverse filmmaking going from here? And, in your opinion, what possibilities does VR tech open the entertainment industry up to?

I think metaverse filmmaking and just filming inside of a real-time, social VR world will become its own genre in film. And Ive had many people saying that it just feels like a whole new cinematic language in film now, and Im really excited about that. So I hope that more filmmakers will come into this space as a way to tell stories in documentary, but also in fiction as well. And I personally really hope to help pioneer that and ride that wave and understand how that can be beneficial within every aspect of filmmaking. So I can certainly say, I believe that to be its own genre and one thatll grow.

Its definitely good to raise how we can use [VR] for distribution. I think VR filmmakers will need a space to exhibit their films, and we can see VR cinemas being opened up. Worlds or platforms like Bigscreen, for example, a social VR cinema platform, to exhibit those metaverse films. Where we can all go on headset together in a theater and see a film thats shot in live-action animation, but also in metaverse as well. VR provides a whole new potential for also exhibiting films, as well as making them. Which is accessible because some people dont want to go to the cinema anymore. Cinemas are changing by the day and were on streaming much more than we are in cinemas, and I think being able to create VR worlds mainstream for exhibition [would be] a much more engaging way of watching films with people, instead of streaming.

You mentioned wanting to pioneer filmmaking within the VR space. Does that mean that for your future films, you want to stay within VR? Are you working on anything now within VR?

Yes to both. I am certainly going to stay in VR for my next project. [Joking] I am not scared of real life anymore. Im certainly happy to shoot in the physical world and do live action again, but Im enjoying this journey at the moment of filming inside of virtual reality. So Im certainly going to stay and Im currently in development for a new project filmed inside of VRChat again. Im certainly staying in VR for a little bit longer.

Lastly, what still surprises you about the VRChat community? In making this documentary, was there anything that you learned, that even being a part of this community for years, that still caught you off guard?

I think the elements that really surprised me on top of the education and exercise and skills and learning that Ive discovered is how creative the VRChat community is. Every day, I get to see a new world or a new avatar or a new way of playing the piano in VR in real-time. All of the worlds and avatars [are] created by the people. We get to see new things every single day, and it never ceases to amaze me how complex and how far people can take that and the spaces that come out of peoples imaginations. So the creative side of things is always surprising and inspiring to me.

SEE ALSO: Read our review of We Met In Virtual Reality here

Many thanks to Joe Hunting for taking the time for this interview.

Justin Cook

Excerpt from:

How 'We Met in Virtual Reality' director Joe Hunting filmed a documentary in VR - Exclusive Interview - Flickering Myth

Why Value-based Care Is the Future of Medicine – HealthLeaders Media

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center recently accelerated this transition by publishing a 10-year strategic roadmap that prioritizes value-based care.

For healthcare leaders who are not yet there, now is the time to embrace the value-based journey and refocus efforts on putting the patient first, says Chan Chuang, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Medical Group President at Envision Healthcare. Below, Dr. Chuang addresses key highlights in the landscape of value-based care, the critical role clinicians will play in bringing about that future, and the importance of innovative care models such as integrated care and the Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport (ET3) model.

Q: When discussing healthcares future, value-based care always comes up. How do you describe value-based care, and what makes it so critical to the evolution of our healthcare system?

A: Given how our current healthcare system, care delivery and reimbursement model are structured, our country is faced with an unsustainable cost structure of increased healthcare spending coupled with relatively low health outcomes. The U.S. ranks close to last among developed countries in terms of health index and life expectancies. The pressure to shift to value-based care is not only about putting the patient-clinician relationship at the forefront but also about making care more accessible, affordable and sustainable while improving patient outcomes and the overall health of our communities.

One area in which we can see the value-based equation in action is the focus on appropriate sites of care. An example of this is the move of select elective surgical cases from higher-cost inpatient settings to ambulatory surgery centers (ASC). ASCs have demonstrated to be a more convenient setting for patients, a more efficient model for surgical cases and a lower cost of care environment, all while yielding the same or better clinical outcomes. COVID-19 has also shifted how patients and clinicians approach and embrace alternative care settings, such as virtual healthcare, urgent care clinics and in-home care. Aligned with the right incentives, these care models allow patients to receive the most appropriate care when and where they need it while achieving the Triple Aim: improved patient experience, improved population health and stewardship of our resources.

Q: What are the major advantages of value-based care as opposed to a fee-for-service model?

A: Value-based care enables us to pivot to a model that is more sustainable for patients and clinicians, one which is also grounded in scientifically proven data points that more care doesnt equal better care.

From the clinicians perspective, our goal is to provide the best possible care to patients and make sure they are set up for success throughout their care journey. Value-based care aligns with that effort because it prioritizes reimbursement for positive clinical outcomes, allowing for investment into healthcare infrastructure that focuses on the health of the population. More importantly, it encourages every stakeholder in the healthcare system to be more intentional about how they support clinicians in the delivery of patient care.

Healthcare systems and providers who participate in an alternative value-based payment model differentiate themselves and put themselves in a stronger business and financial position to lead the healthcare industry, especially in the current environment where we are faced with significant clinician and nursing labor shortages, increased patient volume lability and uncertainty, and declining fee-for-service reimbursement.

From the consumers vantage point, in the ideal value-based world, patients will be able to spend more time with their physician and/or care team, be motivated to improve their health outcomes with lower cost-sharing responsibilities and have better experiences without being rushed through the healthcare delivery system.

Want to read the full article? Heres a preview of what youll find:

Chan Chuang, MD, FCCP, FACP is theChief Medical Officer and Medical Group President at Envision Healthcare

Envision Healthcare is a leading national medical group delivering care when and where its needed most. They are responsible for treating more than 32 million patients each year.

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Why Value-based Care Is the Future of Medicine - HealthLeaders Media

Draft rules to govern police conduct in Oregon leave lots of wiggle room – Oregon Public Broadcasting

A proposed set of conduct and discipline standards applicable to all law enforcement agencies in Oregon were published Monday.

In several instances, the commission charged with establishing the new rules left room for officers found to have committed serious, often illegal offenses to keep their jobs. For example, officers who commit sexual assault or intentional physical assault may not be fired if there are mitigating factors.

Members of the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards of Conduct and Discipline discuss discipline for officers who intentionally target someone based on them belonging to a protected class on July 12, 2022 in a screenshot during a Zoom meeting.

Screenshot from YouTube / OPB

The butt is considered a sexual part of the body, said Mark Makler, a former prosecutor who represents police unions and officers, at a meeting on June 30. So grabbing somebodys butt in gest or horseplay could be considered a sexual assault.

Defense attorney Laura Fine, another member of the commission, retorted that that would be sexual harassment, not assault.

Makler and seven other commissioners who were present at that meeting voted against making sexual assault an automatically fireable offense.

There are things like state of mind or absence of intent that could come into play. Or degree of harm, Portland Police Association attorney Anil Karia said. There are nuances in this.

The commission was formed with the passage of HB 2930 in 2021, one of several pieces of legislation passed last year tackling police accountability and reform.

The goalwas to have clarity, bill sponsor Rep. Janelle Bynum, D-Clackamas said in an interview with OPB. Officers like to have clarity, some level of certainty about what the standards are.

By having one statewide set of guidelines, Bynum explained, officers who have discipline problems in one local department cant transfer to a different agency that has lower standards. She said the kinds of people the community wants working in law enforcement, dont want to work for agencies with low standards.

The interesting thing about these commissions and how they have these conversations and come up with draft rules you can tell where peoples values are, Bynum said. Why would you have rules that just say you could potentially just get a slap on the wrist for sexual assault. Whos going to want to work there?

The commission has 13 voting members and two non-voting members. Members include a representative from the Oregon Department of Justice, two police chiefs, a sheriff, two lawyers who represent police unions, a defense attorney who also represents police, the former president of the Salem-Keizer NAACP, the executive director of the Oregon District Attorneys Association, and a civil rights investigator at Oregon State University.

Over the course of 13 meetings since early March, the group hammered out standards on a range of issues from unjustified use of force to assault to targeting someone based solely on their race, gender or other protected status.

Some of the most notable draft rules are:

The full list of proposed rules, including moral character violations, is available online.

The commission based their approach to designing the new rules on the recently created New York Police Department discipline guidelines. The NYPD approach essentially listed the range of potential misconduct along with the default penalty, and more severe or less severe penalties that can be assigned depending on mitigating or aggravating factors.

That approach differs from the Portland Police Bureaus recently adopted discipline guide which requires people in leadership positions to identify the infraction and then rank the severity from A to E, a subjective step critics say creates an opening for arbitrators to effectively overturn discipline decisions.

In the case of sexual assault, the commission ultimately decided that the default proposed penalty should be termination but that could be lessened to suspension without pay, salary reduction, demotion or a written reprimand if mitigating circumstances are identified by an officers chain of command. Potential factors that might lead to a less or more severe penalty include an officers conduct history, whether the conduct was intentional, if the officer is a supervisor and the potential for rehabilitation.

At some points in the six months and 26 hours of meetings, proposed rules were watered down after an initial poll suggested they wouldnt garner the necessary support.

In a meeting on July 7, only five of the 12 present commissioners initially thought officers should be fired without any option for mitigating factors when they use excessive physical or deadly force seriously injuring or killing someone.

Michael Slauson, chief counsel of the Oregon Department of Justices Criminal Justice Division and commission co-chair, tinkered with the wording and removed physical force.

Ultimately, eight commissioners said an officer should be fired for using unjustified or excessive deadly force causing serious injury or death; the minimum number required to pass. Makler, Karia, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Police Chief Timothy Addleman and Keizer Police Chief John Teague held out and voted against the rule.

If, however, an officer uses unjustified or excessive physical force that is, anything other than deadly force they can present mitigating factors and potentially keep their job.

Thats one of the disappointments that I have with the way some members of this commission have looked at this, Benny Williams, former president of the Keizer-Salem chapter of the NAACP, told OPB, explaining that he is disturbed by the notion that anything short of being killed by an officer is not considered severe enough to warrant termination.

Sexual assault, deadly force these are things that have been put in front of us specifically because these are issues that are pervasive across the country, Williams said. And Oregon is not in any way unique.

If an officer intentionally targets someone based solely on a protected class such as their race, ethnicity, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or housing status, the default discipline should be termination, the commission said. But, as with assault, the officer can present mitigating circumstances.

Targeting someone in that way is against state law and a Fourth Amendment violation. Only five commissioners thought the offense should be an automatic termination.

Steven Schuback, the lawyer who represented the city of Portland in police union contract negotiations, said the new protected class of homelessness is not well defined.

We have to recognize that there are cases of implicit bias that are inherent just in our culture that we are dealing with on disciplinary levels, Schuback argued. Exclusive termination is just too tight. Whereas presumptive [termination] allows for some level of mitigation when its appropriate.

Slauson, from the Oregon Department of Justice, pushed back.

I see this as an extraordinarily high burden of proof if youre saying that an officer targeted somebodybased solely on homelessness, Slauson said. Describe a scenario in whichtermination would not be a fair sanction for that.

Teague, the Keizer police chief, said what he saw as reasonable policing decisions could look like targeting.

Targeting may connote some nefarious thought but it hardly demands nefarious thought, Teague said.

He explained his officers would ignore teenagers running around near the river but would likely approach a disheveled guy stumbling down there who is rather apparently a vagrant whos established a camp.

Arguably, it is targeting, Teague said, even if the officers dont take action.

Oregon state law prohibits targeting of an individual by law enforcement officers based solely on certain personal attributes, including homelessness.

But homelessness has been part of the profiling statute for at least four years, Slauson said. He said he hoped officers were trained to identify and know that targeting someone based on their unhoused status is illegal.

Teagues argument won out. The proposed rules now allow for less severe penalties in some cases where an officer is found to have intentionally targeted someone based solely on a protected class. Even Williams, the former NAACP regional president, supported the slightly less severe penalty. He told OPB hes a pragmatist and that if these changes are going to be impactful it is important that there be consensus.

If anybody thought that we were going to have unanimous consent on any and all of these things, they were fooling themselves, Williams said. Sometimes it had to be brought back to Wait a minute, heres why were here. And so we dont have to all agree, but we have to have a real consensus of understanding how important this particular issue is.

The commission opted not to consider what penalties, if any, an officer should face if they join a hate group, prompting pushback from the only two Black members.

Its really disappointing to see all the law enforcement and how this doesnt seem to be an important issue to you, said Tarron Anderson, a civil rights investigator at Oregon State University who said he felt compelled to speak up over this issue. I try to be objective and understand from both sides of the aisle but some of these things are really troubling.

Williams said it is known that there are officers in the state involved with or sympathetic to white supremacist and extremist groups.

OPB previously reported that more than two dozen current and former members of Oregon law enforcement had joined the Oath Keepers militia, a group that recruits people with experience in law enforcement and the military and which played a central role in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

If nothing is done to address the close relationship between extremist groups and some law enforcement, trust between the community and the police will never be restored, Williams said.

After only five members voted in favor of taking up the issue, several commissioners expressed the hope they would return to the topic at a later date.

The politics of our nation have trained us to take sides: the police or the criminal, Bynum said. Taking sides I dont think its helpful. And thats why I think the conversations of the commission are very important and, again, it will reveal what the dominant thought is around who gets to be safe in our communities and at work.

The commission will hold a series of public hearings throughout August and ending Sept. 16. They will then consider the publics comment and make any changes before the rules take effect on Oct. 1.

The rest is here:

Draft rules to govern police conduct in Oregon leave lots of wiggle room - Oregon Public Broadcasting

How to improve accessibility and digital inclusion | Penn Today – Penn Today

What is accessibility and digital inclusion?

It means that websites and web tools are appropriately designed to ensure that people with disabilities can use them to complete tasks in the same amount of time and effort as others who do not have a disability. The critical component of accessibility is being intentional about providing an inclusive and more equitable experience. One goal of accessibility is removing barriers for all members of the community and beyond.

In the panel, Kyle pointed out that an accessibility spectrum exists. There is no single definition of accessibility that applies to all user needs and preferences when utilizing digital products.

Penns Digital Accessibility Policy states that the University websites and web applications that are created or undergo significant revisions or redesign after April 1, 2022, are expected to meet The Worldwide Web Consortiums Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1, according to Penns Accessibility website.

Why is it important to have these conversations in the workplace?

Accessibility is a component of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, so it is important to have these conversations because web accessibility is a shared, continuous professional responsibility for members of the Penn community. We are all involved in developing, creating, publishing, or sharing digital resources. Its our collective responsibility to bring awareness and take action, to increase inclusion and decrease exclusion.

As Kara pointed out in the discussion, accessibility doesnt just stop at websites and tools; it extends to include our emails, registration forms, and all other methods of digital communications. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that one in every four adults in the United States has a disability. Members of the panel further drove that point home during the discussion, mentioning we run the risk of excluding roughly 20 percent of the adult population from participating in and consuming digital content if we dont work to make digital spaces accessible.

What did the panel reveal about barriers for people with physical disabilities?

The panel revealed a range of disabilities, including visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities, which should be taken into account when implementing accessibility measures.

The panelists also pointed out that physical disabilities can be temporary, permanent, or situational. An example is if someone suffers from a car accident or sports injury, this may temporarily impact their mobility to use a mouse, hindering their ability to navigate digital spaces. Even aging can play a factor in our ability to interact with websites and web tools. Many of our web tools, computers, and mobile devices have built-in accessibility features that allow those with mobility issues to navigate the digital world without using a mouse.

What were the obstacles in digital spaces that were addressed during the panel discussion?

The panel discussed issues for people using assistive technology such as screen readers. People using screen readers can encounter obstacles in understanding the image content on the page that does not have alt text. When images do not contain ALT text, a person who is blind will not be able to see the image, and the screen reader will tell them it is there with no further context or explanation. The ALT text attribute of an on-page picture will be read aloud to people who use screen readers; this helps them understand the value and context of images on the page. Another obstacle mentioned during this panel was how using flashing objects, transitions, and other effects might harm our community members who suffer from epilepsy. These effects should be used sparingly and should contain a content warning or be avoided. These are examples of technological obstacles that impede users ability to engage with the content and have a similar experience as someone who does not have a disability.

Why does representation matter?

Representation matters because we all have a role to play in creating a more inclusive community and working towards normalizing conversations that address systemic issues that further marginalize people. Representation in digital accessibility can offer affirmation and support to the underrepresented members of our communities and provide an equitable experience for all. It fosters an inclusive culture and creates a sense of belonging.

What were some ways to improve digital inclusion and accessibility?

Awareness is essential and will help members of the Penn community work closely with and utilize the accessibility guidance and resources that Penn offers. Ask a question, schedule a consultation, or get help from Penns Web Accessibility Team.

We received sound advice from the panel; during the panel discussion, one tip was to be mindful the next time you create content, email, registration forms, etc., and think about accessibility first. Consider organizing your content differently and in different formats, using captions, text-based transcripts, descriptive labels in form fields, and especially images. Provide multiple ways users can consume your content. An example from the panel was if you are presenting something visual, be sure to use ALT text, and you can also audibly describe images, charts, and tables.

Anything to add?

To help foster digital inclusivity here at Penn, there are four things you can do to get started:

And lastly:

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How to improve accessibility and digital inclusion | Penn Today - Penn Today

Clearing the Way for a Whiter, Wealthier Tax Base in Minneapolis – UNICORN RIOT – Unicorn Riot

Minneapolis, MN As the Twin Cities metro area becomes more diverse, the city of Minneapolis trails behind the regions growth in diversity, with a population trending disproportionately whiter, wealthier, and, consequently more conservative in the past decade. This article demonstrates the intentionality behind this shift and the various tools at the citys disposal to turnover undesirable neighborhoods, and challenges the notion that upzoning on its face will create a more equitable city.

What has replaced the dialogue on urban problems is a public discourse that indicates active antagonism towards the poor.

Minneapolis has experienced a real estate boom since the economic crash of 2008 which was triggered when lenders gave out millions of discriminatory home loans with adjustable interest rates to mostly Black and brown families causing a massive nationwide mortgage default.

In the past decade, the city added over 20,000 new units to its housing stock, with the overwhelming majority being rental units. With increased housing supply, Minneapolis added 60,000 new residents, according to the 2020 census. In recent years, the City of Minneapolis has attempted to codify upzoning, a practice where multi-family housing stock is increased citywide, with its 2040 plan that banned the new construction of single family homes throughout the city.

Despite the massive increase in housing stock, recent data suggests that the vast majority of new residents are white and of higher income. In 2010, Minneapolis was still a homeowner majority city but today it is a majority renter city with renters making up 53% of housing occupants.

At the same time, the median household income has skyrocketed by 42%, from $46,508 in 2010 to $66,068 in 2020. That suggests that its not just a construction boom but rather a luxury apartment rental boom targeted at a higher income demographic.

A former Minneapolis police officer told Unicorn Riot that the city used the war on drugs as the pretext to remove Black and brown communities from targeted areas to help make way for the population boom.

Sarah Saarela, a former cop turned vocal critic after officers from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) murdered Jamar Clark, said Weed and Seed was a federally funded war-on-drugs-era program MPD used to police certain parts of the city. The Central neighborhood was targeted heavily by MPD in the 2000s to arrest and remove the Bloods, referring to the notorious street gang that made their homebase in Central.

George Floyd was murdered by officer Derek Chauvin on the border of the Central neighborhood. 38th Street and Chicago Avenue where Floyd was killed, is still home to the Bloods. That corner has been a prime target of MPD for decades, according to Saarela. However, it didnt start and end with the Bloods. The whole Black community was swept up in overzealous policing, as demonstrated by Floyds murder. It was all about arresting people for livability crimes, which really was just white people calling the cops on Black people for anything, Saarela said.

Livability offenses stem from post slavery vagrancy policies, also known as Black Codes, which were codified into law at the beginning of the Jim Crow era in order to criminalize Black men for petty issues in efforts to re-enslave them.

The Central neighborhood is part of Minneapolis historic Black Southside. Due to past racist housing policies such as redlining, where banks would systematically deny loans in Black communities after labeling them risky for investing, and racially restrictive housing covenants, it was one of few neighborhoods in South Minneapolis where Black families could live and put down roots.

However, in the past decade, the white population of Central has increased over sixty percent, growing from 21% of the neighborhood in 2010 to 34% today. Conversely, the Black population has halved in past decades, going from 46% of the community in 1990 to just 24% percent today. These trends are part of a bigger agenda, according to the former cop. Weed and Seed was designed to displace Black and brown people and make way for gentrification, Saarela said.

Downtown Minneapolis has some of the most expensive real estate in Minnesota. According to the Star Tribune, the increase in downtown Minneapolis residents alone accounts for more than one third of the citys population boom. Downtown increased by more than 22,000 people, growing from 34,000 residents in 2010 to 56,077 residents in 2021, largely due to its massive increase in luxury rental units.

Throughout this series, Unicorn Riot has reported on the SafeZone surveillance program in downtown Minneapolis. Target Corporation, downtowns largest employer, in partnership with the city and county, created the SafeZone in efforts to rid the citys center of undesired populations including unhoused people and transform downtown into a playground for young corporate professionals.

A former Target insider who wishes to remain unidentified recently told Unicorn Riot that former CEO Robert Ulrich is a staunch racist and constantly complained about Black men hanging outside Targets flagship downtown store. Target and local authorities created the sweeping surveillance program to deliberately target Black men with state-of-the-art surveillance cameras, livability crime arrests, and a vast network of law enforcement partners.

Target explicitly worked to suburbanize downtown. One Target executive said candidly in an interview from 2012, [T]he guest demographic we seek is very much a woman with childrenwe want to be a lot more like Disney World and a lot less like a flea market. Targets stake in downtown Minneapolis is more like that of a real estate investor than a big box retail corporation because of its massive headquarters located there, according to sociologist Dr. Michael McQuarrie.

The geographic restriction policy, which has been detailed in this series by Unicorn Riot, is a commonly activated tool used by SafeZone authorities to make downtown more livable for new, wealthier residents. A judge could geographically restrict someone from being downtown after theyve acquired a number of livability offenses and it has been determined by the judge that they refuse to follow conditions outlined by the court.

The overwhelming majority of people on the downtown geo-restriction list are Black. Geo-restrictions, which critics say resembles Jim Crow segregation, were struck down as unconstitutional by a grand jury years ago. But as previously reported, thanks to legal loopholes the practice continues today as prosecutors and judges found ways to work around it and placate corporate backers.

Dr. Edward Goetz, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs professor and director of the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, has written extensively about the tools the City of Minneapolis has at its disposal to remove poor people from the city, primarily the war on drugs. What has replaced the dialogue on urban problems is a public discourse, that he says, indicate[s] active antagonism towards the urban poor.

CODEFOR, which is short for Computer Optimized Deployment Focused on Results, was the citys first predictive data analytics program that tracked arrests and mapped crime hotspots in efforts to predict future crime trends, also known as predictive policing.

In his book Clearing the Way: Deconcentrating the Poor in Urban America, Dr. Goetz wrote about the controversy the program caused. Shortly after its rollout, The program became a flashpoint in the African American community, which regarded CODEFOR as simply an institutional form of harassment. The NAACPcalled the program an unchecked abuse of police power aimed at people of color, Goetz wrote. They labeled this technology racially discriminatory because of its focus on minor offenses committed by Black men in core urban neighborhoods, including downtown, while ignoring those of white men occuring in wealthier parts of town.

Saarela remembers using CODEFOR when she was on the force. At roll call the sergeant would tell us we needed to get our numbers up, Saarela told Unicorn Riot, referring to livability crime arrests. They would tell us what neighborhoods we needed to target more. Saarela said they never used any racist language but it was implied.

CODEFOR had adverse effects on real estate in targeted communities. By using data to identify crime hotspots, this drove down demand as real estate agents steered people away from communities labeled high crime. But in communities that were being gentrified, realtors used racial undertones to assure clients that the neighborhood was turning over, according to Saarela, whose parents were Twin Cities realtors for two decades.

Many activists believe that crime data in communities of color is intentionally inflated to harm those communities making them more vulnerable to real estate investors and predatory lenders. The inflation of crime data hurts communities by driving down home values thus decreasing the already struggling communitys wealth, even when those neighborhoods are not particularly unsafe.

Former Minneapolis Ward 2 City Council member Cam Gordon told Unicorn Riot that he too believes CODEFOR crime data was inflated in communities of color but cannot prove it. Even we [council members] encouraged people to call 911 over any little thing. Former officer Sarah Saarela confirmed to Unicorn Riot that MPD absolutely inflated crime data in communities of color using CODEFOR.

Gordon said CODEFOR data was public and the City of Minneapolis gave it to lenders and realtors regularly. Leading up to the Great Recession, data indicates that lenders including Wells Fargo and Countywide sold Black and brown families riskier home mortgages. With sophisticated technology, similar to CODEFOR, and numerous sources of publicly available data to identify potential customers, predatory lenders turn towards those very same neighborhoods police deem hotspots to market their products.

Big banks target communities with predatory loans where they believe the customers are financially unsophisticated or vulnerable, and therefore most likely to accept highly unfavorable loan terms, according to the federally sponsored lending corporation, Fannie Mae. In turn, this leads to increased mortgage defaults, home foreclosures, homelessness, and incarceration, thus completing the cycle of removal and achieving the desired outcomes of public and private interests.

Urban policy is less about revitalizing cities and neighborhoods, and combating the disinvestment of capital, and it is more and more about controlling the dangerous classes.

Through heavy-handed policing and predatory lending public and private interests converge, resulting in the loss of wealth, greater criminalization, continued discrimination and increased state violence against communities of color.

Although Minnesota ranks above all other states and Washington, D.C., for how well its residents are doing collectively, it ranks as the fourth most segregated state in the country. The gap between white and Black households in Minneapolis is one of the most pronounced in the U.S.

The Minneapolis metro has the lowest homeownership rate for Black people and the largest homeownership gap in the nation with a 51% gap between white and Black residents.

The median income for white households in Minneapolis is almost $74,000, while Black households earn slightly over $23,000 today, amounting to a $51,000 pay gap on average, which is the second worst in the nation following Milwaukee.

Democratic political strategist Kendal Killian, who formerly worked in city hall and currently serves as senior advisor to Congresswoman Ilhan Omars reelection campaign, recently tweeted that this conservative shift in the city is not a natural one but one that was intentional by city leaders. Our politics have shifted, and the very people we sought to attract are voting in their own self-interest. This is the city we deliberately sought to create.

In a phone interview with Unicorn Riot, Killian said that the City of Minneapolis fate is not inevitable. The way it trended whiter and more conservative in the past decade, it can also trend the opposite over this decade, if there was political will for it.

Coming out of the 2008 recession, the mayor at the time, R.T. Rybak, used loud dog whistles and talked about attracting a certain demographic of young corporate professionals to the city with promises of breweries, boutique eateries, dog parks, grocery coops and farmers markets. Importantly, critics point out that behind the mayors rhetoric were draconian policies that displaced poor residents of color.

Recent data presented in this article demonstrates that the practice of upzoning alone wont ensure population diversity or racial equity when authorities have at their disposal a number of policies to deconcentrate communities of color that they have deemed problematic.

Dr. Goetz believes such policies are little more than the authorities way to target communities they consider threatening. Urban policy is less about revitalizing cities and neighborhoods, and combating the disinvestment of capital, he wrote, and it is more and more about controlling the dangerous classes.

About the author: Marjaan Sirdar is a South Minneapolis based freelance writer and host of the People Power Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @peoplepowerpod1.

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Clearing the Way for a Whiter, Wealthier Tax Base in Minneapolis - UNICORN RIOT - Unicorn Riot

Chick-fil-A to close for 10 weeks due to extensive renovations – The Oxford Eagle – Oxford Eagle

Oxfords one and only Chick-fil-A will completely close on Sept. 1 due to extensive renovations and expansion to the site. The restaurant will be closed for approximately ten weeks and, during this time, the Chick-fil-A food truck will not be in operation due to a lack of available technology.

The West Jackson Avenue Chick-fil-A intends to expand its drive-thru lanes and create more space inside the restaurant to allow for a much larger kitchen and food storage area. Chick-fil-A also intends to reopen its dining area to the public. Oxfords Chick-fil-A is only a few of the ones across the chain with dining areas still closed.

Owner and franchisee Lance Reed said plans were pushed further back do to the citys work on a force main located on the property. The main, containing tons of raw sewage, has ruptured a couple of times in the 13 years Chick-fil-A has operated and, to avoid future ruptures in the future, the city completed work on the main during the summer.

I think its a hard thing for us because the fall is by far the busiest time of the year for us and for every restaurant in Oxford, said Reed.

Reed said the decision to close for ten weeks during the fall semester is unconventional, but it will benefit the restaurants team members.

We just dont have the resources that we need from a capacity standpoint to deal with the sales volumes and all that kind of came with a fall, he said. The West Jackson Chick-fil-A has grown in sales in the past year, which Reed calls a good problem, but the location does not have the square footage to keep you with the demand.

Last year, Chick-fil-A utilized iceboxes to store extra product and chicken to keep up with demand at sports events and festivals.

This year with the anticipation of higher student enrollment, football and all this, were dealing with the same thing, Reed said. It just didnt make a lot of sense for us to go through another season.

Another big change will be the loss of Chick-fil-As playground. The loss of the playground will make more room for the drive-thru and provide more room for Chick-fil-A employees to work.

Well probably take eight or 10 trips of a team member just going and getting ice to fill up for the drive-thru in the middle of lunch, Reed said. When they do this, well have an ice machine over in the drive-thru, well have tea brewers and its going to give our team members so much more room. Its going to be such a better working environment for our team members than we currently have and, because of all of that, we felt like it was best to get this done as soon as possible.

Weve kind of been telling [the employees] Be patient. Things are coming in, just keep working hard, said Chick-fil-A Executive Director Tatum Wilson. We dont want to lose our good people to what I would call a tough work environment.

Full-time Chick-fil-A will be supported while the store is closed and some will be given opportunities to work at Centerplates, a service at the University of Mississippi that provides food and beverage services for Ole Miss Athletic events.

Although it will not be selling its famous chicken sandwiches to Oxford, Reed said the hiatus will give Chick-fil-A and team members time to work on other projects.

Chick-fil-A will work with Reclaimed Project, a non-profit organization in Marks, Mississippi that works to make sustainable communities, to renovate apartments for teachers in Marks and Quitman County to live in. Chick-fil-A will also help renovate a room at Madison Palmer High School in Marks into a leadership classroom.

Lastly, Chick-fil-A is working along with Ole Miss, the 410 Bridge, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and Ethiopian Airlines to help people working at the airline with their integrated marketing degree. Five to six team leaders will join Reed on that project in Ethiopia.

The store may be taking a 10-week hiatus, but that has not stopped the work.

While were closed, were trying to be very intentional about service projects, giving back and what can we do and to be intentional, said Reed.

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Chick-fil-A to close for 10 weeks due to extensive renovations - The Oxford Eagle - Oxford Eagle

‘I Am From Here’ is more than a cookbook. It’s a way to get to know people. – Mississippi Today

On the introductory page of I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef, it reads This cookbook thoughtfully, and persuasively, expands notions of what it means to be, and cook like, a Southerner today.

Throughout the cookbook, Vishwesh Bhatt refers to himself frequently and proudly as a Southerner. A native of Gujarat, India, Bhatt later moved to the United States where hes become a standout culinary mind, known for his excellent dishes at Snackbar in Oxford, Miss., where he is executive chef. As a foreigner whos also made her home in Mississippi, I think often about what makes someone Southern. Its a descriptor people born and raised here are proud of, but is it a birthright? When do you get to adopt that moniker for yourself if youre of a place, but not from it?

So I had to ask him what makes someone a Southern chef? Bhatt paused for a second before responding it was a question hes not sure he can answer. He said he learned how to cook in the South. He chose to become a chef here and learned from Southern chefs. Hes made a home and a community for himself in Oxford.

This is the place that influences what I do. This is the place where people come and eat what I cooked, and it is the South and so therefore, Im a Southern chef, Bhatt told Mississippi Today.

The idea that after living here for so long, I still have to answer the question, Where are you from? And then, you know, I say Im from Oxford, and then the follow up question is No, where are you really from? So thats why the title, if that makes sense. Yeah, I moved here from somewhere else, but Im here now.

My main takeaway from I Am From Here, is that food is not static, something Bhatt reminded me of when we spoke. Before our interview, I set out to make a vegetable plate like youd find at meat-and-three restaurants across Mississippi, but with dishes from his book.

I settled on Stewed Gujarati-Style Black Eyed Peas, Spicy Potato Mash, Not Your Mamas Cornbread, and Kashimiri-Style Collards (Haaq). The surprising star of the meal was dessert, Mr. Buzendahls Green Tomato Pie. It was flavored just like a traditional apple pie, but substituted the fruit with fresh unripe green tomatoes.

The dishes all turned out well, and though they were flavored with things like curry leaves, ginger and turmeric, it still felt unquestionably like I was sitting down to eat a Southern plate.

I grew up eating okra and greens and stuff. And when I came here I was like, well, thats not how you eat it, Bhatt said. To him, food is always evolving and changing. You can have the same ingredients in many different places and work with them very differently. And thats okay. And it can all still be just as delicious, just as important.

To use I Am From Here is to rediscover cooking. You can tell flipping through the pages of this cookbook that Bhatt has a deep respect for food. Many of his recipes call for small extra steps that ultimately produce a more tasty dish. Whether it be blooming whole spices in oil, or setting a pot full of basmati rice and water on the stove for 15 minutes before turning on the heat to produce a fluffier result, taking the time to make sure individual ingredients shine is worth it.

Rather than organize the book by meal breakfast, lunch, etc. he organizes it by ingredient. Bhatt says this is because so much of his cooking focuses on fresh, seasonal produce.

In all, 130 recipes fuse meals from his childhood with ingredients and dishes hes learned along the way in homes and restaurants across the South. Take, for example, the pickled okra two ways one with vinegar as its served in Bloody Marys at City Grocery in Oxford, and Gujarati style, the way he grew up where vegetables are steeped in oil and spices to achieve a similar effect but different flavor profile.

But of course, the book is not just a book about food. Its, in a way, a guidebook to foster conversation and connection with new people.

In the introductory pages of the book, Bhatt outlines the many spices and ingredients commonly used in the recipes to come. But for so many of them from tangy, garlicky asafoetida to the bright, punchy Kashmiri chili powder, he includes where to find them. This is helpful in a place like Mississippi where specialty grocery stores and the people who run them are not always well known.

This was intentional, Bhatt says.

These people who run the Indian grocery store are part of the community, same as the people who have the little taco shop where you can go buy chilis, he said. Unless we start interacting with them, theyre always going to be the other. And so the idea is, hey, these people might be your neighbors, you dont know them. Unless you go in that store then youll realize, oh, thats the guy that lives three doors down from me.

Yes, its an expectation that immigrants attempt to assimilate into the communities they come to call home, he said, but as somebody whos been here a while, we also need to make an effort to make people feel welcome. To bring them into the fold and learn about them.

This place the South, much like where he grew in India, has a lot of social issues, he said. Prejudices and preconceived notions keep people from getting to know each other, and it can be awkward and difficult to discuss the ugly parts of history responsible for the inequality that exists today.

We are still very far from being a society that treats people equally and gives people credit or respect for just being themselves, he said.

Now 56, Bhatt continued: What Ive come to realize is that I cant really wait any longer for people to interact with me or acknowledge me. Im just going to say that Im here.

Differences in opinion or beliefs are solvable if people are willing to have a conversation, he said. What better way to start one than through a meal?

The only way I know how to talk about it is through food like okay, heres what we eat. Heres what it comes from. You know, lets start that conversation.

What should people take away from I Am From Here? That cooking is easy, and a great way to get to know people.

Bhatt, 2019 winner of the James Beard Award for Best Chef: South, is a featured panelist at the Mississippi Book Festival on Aug. 20. His cookbook goes on sale Aug. 16.

By listening more intently and understanding the people who make up Mississippis communities, our reporters put a human face on how policy affects everyday Mississippians. Were listening closely to our readers to help us continue to align our work with the needs and priorities of people from all across Mississippi. Please take a few minutes to tell us whats on your mind by clicking the button below.

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'I Am From Here' is more than a cookbook. It's a way to get to know people. - Mississippi Today

Following Years of Revitalization, Detroit Still Has a Long Way to Go – ArchDaily

One of Los Angeles firm LOHAs four corner anchor buildings at City Modern, a development featuring a mix of new and rehabilitated buildings in historic Brush Park, just outside of downtown. Developed by Bedrock, the citys largest developer, its one of the citys most substantial residential developments in decades.. Image Jason Keen Share Share

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Detroit is different.

We say that with confidence knowing the citys demographics (nearly 80 percent African-American and with one of the highest poverty rates in the United States) present unique challenges to providing economic opportunity. And we say that with certainty knowing that a pernicious history of redlining, loan discrimination, and other inequities has denied Detroits Black majority the kind of power and say-so in design and economic development that would produce more favorable outcomes.

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The citys 139 square miles have seen a lot of change in the past 15 years, with billions spent by business and philanthropy in the citys core, revitalizing a downtown and adjacent communities that had become ghostly and abandoned. The question is, Whos benefiting? And while other cities may have seen substantive shifts toward more community input, and even control, over redevelopment and investment, a group of Detroit policymakers, designers, developers, and activists who gathered for a recent virtual roundtable discussion said that turn has been harder here.

Indeed, it has yet to happen.

The African-American population is still largely disinvested in, and still largely doesnt have the capacity to lead development in our own neighborhoods and in the city where we are the majority population, said Malik Yakini, the executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), a citywide organization of urban farmers and distributors whose aim is to create sustainable, independent sources of fresh food for Detroiters.

The logic of capitalism leads to the trickle-down economic development that were used to seeing, where the core of the city is where the majority of the finances are put in and we develop that with the hope that then, somehow, that wealth and prosperity will trickle down to the rest of the population in the neighborhoods, Yakini added.

Anika Goss is CEO of Detroit Future City, a think tank dedicated to using data to design and encourage a more equitable future for Detroiters. She has a statistic that she shares frequently to point out how lopsided the gains from investment and development in Detroit have been so far.

The exclamation point to what were seeing, how were trending in terms of demographics, is that the only neighborhoods that are growing population are upper-income white neighborhoodswhere weve seen this large-scale investment, Goss said. The rest of the city is static or shrinking.

Yakini has been working for nearly a decade, for instance, to leverage the financing for DBCFSNs Detroit Food Commons, a 31,000-square-foot, two-story development along Woodward Avenue, the citys north-south spine. It will house the Detroit Peoples Food Co-op, which will be a full-service, low-cost grocery in the citys North End neighborhood. Many Detroit neighborhoods lack easy access to fresh food outlets because many big grocers avoid the city altogether, and smaller ones sell mostly processed food. The food co-op intends to give Detroiters better access to and more control over the food landscape.

Weve approached the finish line over a long period of time, he said. There were several barriers that we faced, and one I want to [underscore] is the question of market studies. If youre going to any financiers for a deal, they want to see a market study that suggests the demographics and all the other factors align [to] reasonably project that the business will be viable.

But the problem with that is that this art and science of developing market studies is not some objective thing. In fact, often what happens is, if youre hiring a person to do the market study for some amount of time, they come here for three days and they try to get a glimpse of the trade area and try to understand what the demographics and traffic patterns are, and then they make some projections based on similar circumstances, similar factors in other places.

According to Yakini, the underestimation of the Detroit market is nicely illustrated in the development of a Whole Foods store in the citys core in 2013. Projections for sales in the store, developed by a market study, were shattered in the first year.

So there was something wrong with the perspective of the folks who were doing the market research, because they grossly underestimated the market value within the city of Detroit, Yakini said. I think part of that is rooted in this very subtle racism that continues to permeate American society that suggests things like Black people are not concerned about healthy food, or suggests that were not willing to spend money on our well-being and all kinds of other assumptions. As were looking at how we create more equitable development, changing the template for market studies is one of the things we have to do.

Goss believes a big part of the problem is the difference in the lenses that get applied to projects in the citys core, and out in more underserved communities. She said the expectations for big financial returns are mostly concentrated in neighborhoods that already have strong fundamentals, and those neighborhoods tend to be whiter than the rest of the city. Meanwhile, in Black neighborhoods, the investments seem to be social in nature, and not of the scale or possible return of investments in the core.

The big opportunities are not going into those areas, and when they do, its socializing poor Black people and that really bothers me, she said. Its not economic opportunity. So, without some sort of disruption or interruption to that same model, we will continue to [see the] trend where the only places that grow are white and those are the only places that are also stable. That is the highest risk for us.

The best example Goss has seen of Detroit development focused more on the majority population is along Livernois Avenue, on the northwest side of the city, where a once-thriving mile-long Avenue of Fashion that had gone largely fallow was revived with an eye toward inclusive development. African-American developers did the work. African-American businesses were given the support to open shops along the stretch. And the surrounding neighborhoods, which range from middle- to upper-class majority African-American areas, were dealt into the design and execution from the beginning. The result is a thriving corridor that not only reflects but also seems to celebrate the citys majority population.

Ive never seen it done like that [elsewhere], Goss said. Anytime theres a concentration of investment in that way, its always turning over to the people that have the money to make the development happen first, which are generally wealthy white developers. And so, I think there really is something to build from. If we are making investments for Black and Brown people in Detroit, because thats where theyre living, in neighborhoods, what does that require? It requires this intentional reflection and investment in these areas so that you can have the result that you want at the end.

Chase Cantrell agrees that the Livernois projects outcomes were better for Detroiters, but he still believes there was a lack of intentionality in the design. Cantrell is founder and executive director of Building Community Value, whose specific aim is to create more space and opportunity for development in the citys underserved neighborhoods.

Yes, we were able to select Black developers for the projects that are happening on 6 Mile, but there was no cultural plan. It was a traditional market plan of Lets just get retail restaurants into these spaces. Yes, well pick Black people. But there wasnt a conversation about How is this preserving culture or creating culture? What do we want to see? I think that were still doing poorly on that, and were not necessarily responding to residents needs for culture.

Cantrells most recent project, The Enclave, created through a venture called Speramus Partners, is a mixed-use redevelopment of a commercial space along West McNichols Road on the citys northwest side.

The surrounding neighborhoods, Fitzgerald and Bagley, are tight-knit but were hard hit by pronounced disinvestment and depopulation in the 1990s and 2000s. Now they are experiencing revivals, thanks to philanthropic investments and individually financed renovations. The commercial corridor along McNichols has been left largely out of the moves forward because commercial ventures near neighborhoods like Fitzgerald and Bagley are still seen as financially risky.

Market values on our commercial corridors are low partially because the real estate in most Black neighborhoods is undervalued, Cantrell said. There are six loans on my project, something thats under 8,000 square feeta single story. And we needed all of that to make this project work.

According to Cantrell, it was possible only thanks to a combination of innovative financing tools, including New Market tax credits; a grant through the citysStrategic Neighborhood Fund, a $130 million program designed to support projects in some hard-hit areas of the city; and his own personal savings.

Invest Detroit, the community development financial institution (CDFI) that helped Cantrells project access the tax credits, is leading the efforts along McNichols, including handling the property acquisition and recruiting other African-American developers to participate. But its been nip and tuck the whole way, said Cantrell. Its worked out. But is it a model that we can replicate? Thats the question, he wondered.

I live in the neighborhood where the development is taking place. So this is my neighborhood, but market values and the potential returns, especially with so much subsidy, are limited.

This is my money at risk and the fact is, it will be very difficult to get that money out of the project for 10 years, 20 years. So as a developer trying to create a firm, its not as though I can wait two or three years,pull that money out, and recycle. It must stay there. And Im not rich, and my family isnt rich, so how do you then begin to help Black developers create a practice? That is a real challenge in the city of Detroit.

Olga Stella, vice president for strategy and communications at Detroits College for Creative Studies (CCS), and recently-departed leader of CCSs Design Core, which champions design-driven businesses and developments in the city, said the financial biases against community-led and community-centered projects have a profound design impact on those projects, and on neighborhoods. Inclusiveness, even in the finest details, matters.

You cant just say, Its for everybody, then go off and pick your paint colors and your artists, and not actually see in your mind who it is you expect to walk through the doors and whether they can get up the stairs or in through the entrance, and if theyre going to feel comfortable with the artwork, and if theyre going to like the food being served and all of these things, all of these choices, Stella said.

She said a good example of inclusive design in Detroit can be found at the Love Building, being redeveloped in Detroits Core City neighborhood, an emerging corridor of small businesses, restaurants, and shops between residential areas.

You have Allied Media Projects, [the] Detroit Justice Center, and a bunch of organizations that all center inclusion and equity in the work they do, all working together to undertake a real estate development project. They hired a black architect; they went through the community engagement [process]. They really thought about what the space was going to be. Who was the space serving? What was it going to feel like? Just as Chase was talking about with his project, every single choice makes a difference in whether that space truly serves those people.

Stella believes Detroit needs easier ways to make projects like this seem possible:

How do we build more confidence to do these projects in Detroit? How do we build more confidence in our neighborhoods to be able to assist? Because the decision makers still lack that confidence. And thats true whether its the public or the private institutions.

This article was originally published on Metropolis Magazine.

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Following Years of Revitalization, Detroit Still Has a Long Way to Go - ArchDaily

This Miami-Dade school board member was a teen father. That shaped his views on sex ed – WLRN

Teen pregnancy can upend a students life and educational career and can set families back for generations. For Miami-Dade County School Board Member Steve Gallon, the issue is a personal one: his first child Kastevia Gallon-Martin was born when he was just 16 years old.

He talked about his experience as a teenage father at a recent school board meeting during a debate over whether the district should adopt two comprehensive health textbooks and teach sex education in the fall.

I look at it based on my journey that started in 1985, as a product of this or lack thereof. A former teenage father while a student at Miami Northwestern Senior High School, Gallon said. So it is personal for me.

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Miami-Dade County Public Schools will be offering sex ed in the fall after the school board reversed its previous vote to throw out the two textbooks. The decision to reject the books, and effectively opt out the entire district from receiving sex education, drew public outcry and national attention.

WLRN education reporter Kate Payne spoke with Gallon about his experience as a teen dad raising his daughter Kastevia, and the importance of sex ed for him and for students in the district.

The following is an excerpt of their conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Courtesy of Steve Gallon

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Courtesy of Steve Gallon

GALLON: At that particular time I was 16 years old. The mother was 16 years old. We were high school students and we found ourselves in that situation. Fortunately, we had resources. We had information on how to navigate our way through that particular challenging time.

All fathers are not as responsible as I was at a very young age, because I really accepted that obligation and fulfilled it with fidelity and integrity. But let's face it: life would have been different had I not had to have that additional responsibility. Tremendously blessed with my children. Would not have had it any other way. It was part of God's plan. But obviously, it was not intentional.

I've been tremendously blessed, graduating from high school, attending college, earning a master's and a doctoral degree. But I know that I'm the exception, not the rule. And obviously many of our young people are shackled. Teenage parenthood can become an albatross for the rest of their lives.

Once you drop out of school, you're compounding many of the challenges in life. And information is power. And what we cannot do in any educational scenario is deny children an opportunity to be powerful in their decision making.

WLRN: What was that time like in your life? How did you experience that in the moment, as far as trying to stay on the path of education and graduating high school?

GALLON: Very difficult. But again, I had tremendous support that did not simply come from my home. Educators, counselors, administrators, members in the community, wrapped their arms around me, gave me some guidance, gave me some support.

But again, never would say it was easy. We have legions of young people that fall to the wayside educationally because of decisions they make at a very young age. Find themselves terminally on the margins of our society. And that's something that education should try to mitigate as much as possible.

WLRN: Youre a product of Miami-Dade public schools. What did you learn in middle school and high school about sex? Could that have put you on a different trajectory if you had more information during that critical time in your life?

GALLON: Yeah, absolutely. It could have. I graduated from Miami Northwestern Senior High School. My parents once again did not have the talk. But it's not that I was not able to have access to the information. Could it have been amplified a little more?

But at the end of the day, it comes down to individual decisions that we all make. I think our children and our youth need to be equipped with as much information to make the best decisions possible.

WLRN: For teen mothers, only half of them will go on to graduate high school. Their children are more likely to struggle in school, to drop out and to be incarcerated. What more can the district do to support teen parents?

GALLON: I think the district has been a leader. In my last position in this district, I was [in charge of] alternative education. I was over the schools that served young mothers and teenage parents.

I want to say mothers and teenage parents, because fathers, they can get the resources, they can access additional information and guidance. Our district does provide these particular programs.

Can we do more? Absolutely. And as you indicated through those particular data points, those issues show up not simply in our schools. They show up in our communities, they show up throughout the state, and quite frankly, they show up in underserved, underperforming and under-resourced communities. It often leads, specifically for young African American or Hispanic males, to a pathway toward prison, poverty or an early death.

And we have an obligation, we have a responsibility both professionally and morally to make sure that we equip students with the lifelong skills that they're going to need. And some people believe that that's not our role, that's not our responsibility. But our parents, our families many of them are depending on us.

WLRN Senior Editor For News Jessica Bakeman contributed to this story.

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This Miami-Dade school board member was a teen father. That shaped his views on sex ed - WLRN

Single Moms Buy Home in DC to Save Costs, Build Community – NBC4 Washington

Its a full house at Herrin Hopper and Holly Harper's four-unit home in Takoma Park.

The pair of single moms bought their home together and moved in with their kids during the summer of 2020.

"We were both separated and quite frankly lonely, and we wanted to not be so isolated anymore," Herrin said.

Soon after, they rented the basement to another single mom, Leandra Nichola, and the top unit to their friend, Jen Jacobs, who was tired of overpaying for a small space by herself.

Now living at the home are four adults, five children and three dogs.

Theyre called intentional communities a group of people with common values who choose to live together or share resources. The Foundation for Intentional Community estimates there are more than 3,500 intentional communities in the United States.

"Weve created a village and just like any village, we have ups and we have downs. Life happens, disagreements, joys but overall having the support network of close people that feel like family has been just priceless," Harper said.

Holly and Herrin are now helping more single parents get started.

"There's two things, its the emotional readiness can you find a person that you're willing to enter in a family relationship with, Harper said. "Then you need to just understand your financial readiness."

Holly and Herrin understand buying a home is unaffordable for many right now, even in groups.

The two own a second property in the area, and theyre now working with another single parent to build her own community.

They've gotten a lot of questions from people around the world.

Last week, they had 15 people come to their house for an information session. Holly's working on compiling all their resources so she can create a guide book of sorts to help others find their own sense community.

"Being a single mom, post divorce, separation or whatever life circumstances are, it can be very isolating," Hopper said. "To have created a different way of living, theres just been a ton of interest."

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Single Moms Buy Home in DC to Save Costs, Build Community - NBC4 Washington