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

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  • Anti-violence programs are working. But can they make a dent in Chicago's gun violence?

    Chicago is home to multiple street-outreach programs that target the people most likely to be shot or to shoot others, and that provide them with social services that keep them and others in their network safe. Programs like READI, CRED, and CP4P have shown strong results in studies of their ability to help people get access to education and jobs while avoiding arrest or injury. But community violence in Chicago is so entrenched that the existing programs lack the scale and structure to make meaningful reductions in Chicago's street violence.

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  • Is it time for Guaranteed Basic Income in Chicago?

    A proposed program in Chicago could work to close the racial wealth gap through the use of a guaranteed basic income. Unlike Universal Basic Income, which has seen impressive results in places like Stockton, California, GBI provides monthly cash payments only to people who qualify.

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  • Could A Ward Map Drawn By Citizens, Instead Of Aldermen, Become A Reality In Chicago?

    California residents passed Proposition 11, a redistricting reform ballot initiative, in 2008 and in 2010, voters strengthened that reform by passing a bill to allow an independent commission to redraw state and congressional lines. Fourteen people, who were selected from 30,000 applicants, spent a year holding public hearings across the state to make informed decisions on how to fairly redraw district maps. As a result, more than a dozen Congressional incumbents lost their seats, which was not an intentional outcome but rather what resulted from decisions made based on the public testimony they heard.

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  • An Evanston Teen Saw How Hard It Was For The Elderly To Find Vaccines, So He Built A Website To Help

    When a teenager in Evanston, Illinois realized that senior citizens were facing difficulties securing Covid vaccination appointments due to technology barriers, he created a website to help eliminate some of the technological barriers. The site aggregates available appointments in the area so seniors don't have to go searching for them, which has consequently helped reduce stress for users of the website.

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  • ‘I'm Stronger Now:' Support Centers For Trauma Survivors Expanding In Illinois

    Since 2017, two publicly funded trauma recovery centers in Illinois have helped violent-crime survivors cope with the emotional fallout that can accompany a loved one's murder or surviving their own violent attack. Case managers help people get group and individual therapy. They can also line up financial aid to help people pay for food and rent, when their trauma interferes with their ability to make a living. The centers, based on a model developed in California as a way to foster public safety through healing communities, will expand by three more in the state in 2021.

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  • How Promotoras De Salud Are Fighting Vaccine Conspiracies In Chicago's Latino Communities

    Promotoras de salud, also known as community health workers, are helping to connect Latino immigrants with reliable and factual information about COVID-19. Using a peer-to-peer outreach model, a team of seven promotoras de salud from Centro San Bonifacio have "interacted with more than 4,000 Spanish speakers in Chicago."

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  • Here's How Chicago Police Spent 4 Million Hours Of Anti-Violence Overtime

    As Chicago touts the latest in a series of anti-violence police units, a look back at the Violence Reduction Initiative launched in 2012 teaches lessons about how a program that claims credit for falling violence still might be termed a failure for its lack of focus and for the collateral damage it inflicts on a suffering community. VRI spent $4 million on police overtime to saturate 20 South and West Side areas, targeting not only illegal gun possession but a host of minor offenses, burdening mostly Black residents with parking fines and frequent police stops, alienating them from their protectors.

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  • Seniors Struggle With Isolation In The Pandemic. Here's How Some Organizations Are Trying To Help.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has complicated how seniors are able to come together for companionship, but groups in Illinois are trying to utilize technology to address the problem. While the digital divide is a significant limitation to this approach, some seniors say "they are having new experiences, meeting new people and that their world has actually expanded since COVID-19."

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  • Meet The Chicago Virus Hunters Who Are Tracking Down COVID-19

    Doctors and staff at Howard Brown Health, a Chicago health center for LGBTQ patients, is using its years of experience in containing and treating HIV and other sexually-transmitted diseases with contact tracing to help contain the spread of Covid-19. The conversations can sometimes be emotional and difficult. The team has found some people are afraid to get the test and others who have lost a loved one to the virus. They have interviewed over 200 people, with many more in the pipeline, and about 65% of those they talked to also tested positive for Covid-19.

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  • Flint's Water Crisis Spurs Other Cities To Remove Lead Pipes

    As cities and states across the United States begin to remove lead water pipes, some communities are looking for cost-effective ways to fix them because of the risk of contaminated drinking water. Three cities in the Midwest have started the process and have used innovative ways to raise the funds to replace the aging service lines, which could be a model for other cities like Chicago to follow.

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