Category: Racial Equity

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Racial equity and social services safety net top concerns: Results of the 2021 Community Solutions survey

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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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 cover racism as a public health...