By: Hope A. Lane-Gavin, Fellow, Health Equity, The Center for Community Solutions Katherine Ungar, Policy Associate, Children’s Defense Fund – Ohio In our first blog of this series highlighting our research into the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and how it operates in Ohio, we outlined many of the program’s...
Poverty data for 2016-2020 shows mixed results for Cleveland and Cuyahoga County
The number and percent of people living in poverty in Cleveland appears to have dropped in 2020, according to the American Community Survey 5-year estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Although the change is not statistically significant, improvements in the economic circumstances for children continued a recent trend, and estimates of child poverty in...
What’s Going on with ARPA in Greater Cleveland?
Work is underway for our Greater Cleveland American Rescue Plan Council (GCARP Council). We are in the process of bringing together a steering committee to guide our coalition and work, and we are planning to hold our first public meeting in Spring, 2022. Stay tuned for more details on how to engage with this important...
Unwinding the Public Health Emergency: Ohio Medicaid
On March 10, 2020, Ohio recorded its first case of Covid-19. In the two years after that case, the state Medicaid program played a critical role in ensuring access, providing coverage, and enabling budget stability as the state grappled with the complexities of the pandemic and its effects. And while the clinical science has not...
Getting older and getting connected
What do your seventeen-year-old niece and seventy-four-year-old uncle have in common? An obsession with TikTok? Maybe, especially if they live in Lorain County. A recent community needs assessment of older adults in Lorain County paired with census data has revealed some surprising and exciting data related to older adults and internet usage. And while Uncle...
Unwinding Emergency Pandemic Supports
Over the last two years the federal government enacted a number of waiver options, flexibilities and enhanced benefits across public programs to promote health insurance coverage and economic stability during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many safety-net programs, reinforced by targeted assistance and suspended payments have held families together, helped keep them safe and supported their most...
Racism as a Public Health Crisis: Declarations are only the first step
The year 2020 brought with it two epidemics that have caused the premature and disproportionate deaths of Black and Brown Americans: the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and a slew of publicized police killings and racially motivated murders—Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. Public outrage mounted as these...
Why Are Some Ohioans Still Resisting Vaccination?
In recent press briefings, Governor Mike DeWine referred to “two Ohios”: one that is vaccinated and largely safe from the harms of COVID-19 and one that is unvaccinated and for whom coronavirus remains a serious threat. As the Delta variant surges through Ohio communities and hospitalizations rise, we are also seeing increases in the number...
Federal aid through the American Rescue Plan Act begins to take shape
Throughout the past year, The Center for Community Solutions has written about the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which was passed in March 2020 to aid the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), passed in March 2021, was meant to be a supportive catalyst for America’s...
County Executive delivers State of the County address amidst recovery
The 2021 Cuyahoga County State of the County speech was sure to be memorable due to the pandemic and its effect on county residents and the economy. That was indeed the case, as Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish presented the first-ever virtual State of the County address. …the county devoted $20 million towards eviction protection...