For the first time, “eliminating racist policies and practices and promoting racial equity” was identified as the most important issue confronting the State of Ohio, according to our 2021 survey. Respondents came from across Ohio and included nonprofit executives, elected officials, business people, professors, students, and foundation program officers. More than 330 people responded to...
Category: Racial Equity
March 15, 2021
Hate has no place in the fight against COVID-19
Last March, before there had been a single case of COVID-19 reported in the State of Ohio there were already disturbing signs that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were being targeted for abuse and hate crimes. At the time I wrote to my colleagues that “as the coronavirus has spread, there have been increased reports...
February 25, 2021
Federally Qualified Health Centers key to racial equity in COVID-19 vaccine access
By: Kate Warren, Loren Anthes More than 1.4 million Ohioans have now received at least the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. Vaccine distribution was sure to be challenging from the very beginning, with demand far exceeding supply, a history of underfunding in Ohio’s public health system and states being able to decide where and...
February 16, 2021
Access Denied: The impact of Cleveland’s digital divide on students
The library, a friend’s porch, the parking lot of the local McDonald’s, these were some of the places my daughters’ friends went to, so they could login to school at the beginning of the pandemic. And they weren’t alone. In Cuyahoga County, 25 percent of residents don’t have access to the internet or a computer....
February 8, 2021
Fertility and fibroids: The other side of Black reproductive health
During the height of the COVID-19 lockdown last April my biggest concerns were staying home, completing a ‘90s Nickelodeon cartoon puzzle and determining if Joe Exotic’s zoo was still open. Although the future of the virus was uncertain and most days blended together, I enjoyed the opportunity to slow down, be home, take up new...
February 1, 2021
The Audacity to Vote!
This is the second in a series of blogs written by Community Solutions staff members of color in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and Black History Month. Before my mother passed away in 2018, she accomplished something her parents never did. She voted. Like an excited child on the first day of...
January 19, 2021
Paying someone else’s mortgage: Many Black Americans struggle to own a home
This is the first in a series of blogs written by Community Solutions staff members of color in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday and Black History Month. Married one year, my husband and I sat in front of a banker we had been referred to. We were trying to learn more about...
January 18, 2021
Community Solutions’ 2022-23 budget priorities
The past year has been unlike any other. The COVID-19 pandemic, a resulting economic crisis and a reckoning on deep and persistent racial disparities in the state and country should shape the state’s 2022-2023 budget deliberations. The Center for Community Solutions has developed budget priorities that are informed by this landscape and the pressing issues...
January 4, 2021
Akron Beacon Journal racism as a public health crisis: Behind the story of one of our HHS grant recipients
In June 2019, The Center for Community Solutions announced the winners of our inaugural Health and Human Services Journalism grant. All applicants submitted story proposals, and a panel of judges selected five winners. Below, grant winner Betty Lin-Fisher wrote about her reporting process and why she eventually decided to cov er racism as a public...
January 4, 2021
Racial disparities extend to unemployment in Ohio
The unemployment rate for all groups in Ohio has fallen in the past few months. But the pain of not having a job is not spread evenly. For Black Ohioans, the unemployment rate in November was 12.1 percent compared to 4 percent for whites, according to data from the Current Population Survey. [1] This means...
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