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Until Carmencita Robinson received a letter last July stating that her public housing complex would need to be evacuated due to toxic levels of lead and arsenic in the soil, she’d had no idea she’d been living on contaminated land for nearly a decade. “I felt betrayed,” she said. “They knew that there was lead, and they misled the families that were there because they continuously accepted our rent and gave us no notice of lead.” A month later came the second blow. When Mayor Anthony...

Seattle’s decision to hike its minimum wage up to $13 an hour—on its way to $15—ended up costing its low-wage workers time on the job, hundreds of dollars of annual income, and a shot at a better livelihood. That is a reasonable conclusion one could draw from a blockbuster, if not yet peer-reviewed, new study on the city’s famed minimum-wage increases. The research, performed by a group of academics from the University of Washington, looks at detailed data on the earnings and hours of...

Today, along with the heads of several tech companies, I will be attending a meeting at the White House convened under the auspices of the American Technology Council (ATeC). I wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post explaining why, but I wanted to share a bit more about the decision with the Code for America community here. This is not a decision I have made lightly. I personally believe that, outside of the issues discussed at this meeting, the policies of the Trump administration are...

Thalia Taylor, a 17-year-old Bronx teen has a lot of opinions, specifically when it comes to problems affecting her peers. After all, young women from the South Bronx, Southeast Queens or East New York areas experience higher rates of HIV infection , are more likely to be victims of violent crime and have less access to reproductive services than white women within the same age. [For more of this story, written by Joseph Darius Jaafari, go to ...

A 62-year-old recovering from a broken neck and a 17-year-old who wore the reddest dress in the world to prom are an unlikely pair. But they’re mentor and mentee, and now friends, as part of a program that aims to solve two troubling challenges: the “silver tsunami” of millions living longer and needing care, and the challenges of at-risk urban youth trying to find meaningful careers that offer the chance for advancement into the middle class. Olga Cruz lives in The New Jewish Home, a...

There’s something of a formula to the first morning of jury duty. It might involve a refresher on differences between civil and criminal cases, a little bit of shuffling between rooms, and a lot of waiting around in a generously named “Jury Lounge.” But in one federal district, the customary civics lessons for jurors have been given a twist to alert them to the hidden biases they might bring into the courtroom. The source is an 11-minute video — believed to be the first of its kind — that...

The BLOCK Project examines how housing policies and practices exacerbate health inequities, and identifies promising solutions. Decades of research have shown that safe, stable, affordable housing sets the foundation for health. Housing located near good schools, high-quality jobs, healthy food, safe parks, and dependable transportation can ensure communities prosper and thrive. Yet, housing policies have not been guided by a vision of healthy and equitable communities. Instead, many housing...

Women who suffer four or more adverse childhood experiences before the age of 18 are more likely to face pregnancy and postpartum problems, which they may in turn pass on to their children in a “cascade of risk,” according to a new study in The Journal of Pediatrics. The study, led by the University of Calgary’s Sheri Madigan — Canada Research Chair in the Determinants of Child Development, a member of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute and an assistant professor in...

Back in April, the white, middle-class Alabama city of Gardendale, a suburb of Birmingham, received preliminary approval to saw itself off from its poorer, largely black county school district. It was a move that, as my colleague Mimi Kirk reported , telegraphed clear messages of racial inadequacy that “assail the dignity of black schoolchildren,” according to Madeline Haikal, the district court judge who presided over Gardendale’s secession bid. The judge found that the school districts...

ACES CONNECTION NETWORK OVERVIEW ACEs = Adverse Childhood Experiences 2 SITES ACEsTooHigh.com A solutions-oriented news site for the general public that covers stories on ACEs, trauma, and resilience. ACEsConnection.com An action-based...

Editor's note: The Sonoma County Department of Health Services Public Health Department response to the Grand Jury report was filed in September 2017. It is attached to this post. The 2016-2017 Sonoma County (CA) Civil Grand Jury issued a remarkable report today. Tucked among the "Sales Tax Report" and "Elementary School Truancy" was — " Maternal Child and Adolescent Health: Caring for the Most Vulnerable ". The 10-page report casts an unblinking eye on the consequences of adverse childhood...

Growing up poor might put you at risk for heart failure in adulthood, a new study suggests. Heart failure, a progressive condition, means the heart isn't pumping as well as it should. This causes fatigue and shortness of breath, and can make everyday activities difficult to carry out. Finnish researchers looked at household income for hundreds of children in 1980. The findings showed that kids from poor families were more likely than richer children to have an enlarged, poorly functioning...