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A Black-led, parent-driven organization is pushing the School District of Philadelphia to make schools more joyful and less punitive

On a treeless sidewalk on a day in May that feels much hotter than it’s 75 degrees, there’s an ice cream truck serving a long line of people, while several plastic machines are cranking out a flurry of bubbles. Some of the bubbles hurtle toward 440 North Broad Street, the headquarters of the School District

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7 mins read
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More than 10,000 students in Philadelphia don’t have adequate housing. Funding and stigma can get in the way of them getting what they need

Before her mother died in 2020 at age 46 of heart failure, complicated by diabetes, lupus and lung disease, Lelache Word (aka Lela), then 15, was living in Arizona with her mother, stepfather and step-siblings. Strapped by her mother’s staggering medical bills, the family sometimes slept in the car or hotels. After her mother’s death,

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7 mins read
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Philadelphia isn’t prepared to help people struggling with addiction and homelessness, but that isn’t slowing down Mayor Parker’s plans to end Kensington’s open-air drug market

On May 8, the City of Philadelphia cleared a homeless encampment that stretched two blocks on Kensington Avenue between East Allegheny Avenue and Orleans Street under the Market-Frankford Line. This clearing marked the first step of Mayor Cherelle Parker’s five-phase plan to dramatically improve Kensington, whose residents contend with extreme poverty, open-air drug markets and

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11 mins read
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The Environmental Justice Issue

In this issue we take a closer look at how environmental problems disproportionately affect communities of color, and particularly low-income communities of color. More than those of whiter and more affluent communities, their residents breathe air poisoned by industrial facilities like refineries or by the tailpipes of unending lines of cars and trucks. Often homes

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1 min read
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Grid talks with professor and author Dorceta Taylor about how communities of color became ground zero for toxic industries

Why is it that low-income and communities of color bear the brunt of industrial pollution? And when environmentally hazardous facilities move into their neighborhoods, why don’t people leave? These are some of the questions that guide the environmental justice movement, which seeks to address the disproportionate environmental harm marginalized communities face. Dorceta Taylor, professor of

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5 mins read
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Logan Triangle’s past leaves neighbors skeptical of new development push

This story was originally published in Hidden City Philadelphia. Last fall, after Philadelphia announced the release of a request for proposal to develop one of the most notoriously blighted areas of the city, the Logan Triangle, a bevy of reporters called up Charlene Samuels, chairperson for the Logan Civic Association, to get community perspective. With

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10 mins read
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