Community Journalism

In January of 2010, the Poverty Initiatve, a group based in New York that aims to reignite Dr. Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign, visited Philadelphia for an immersion tour. The tour highlighted the history of the struggles of poor people in this city. Willie Baptist and Liz Theoharis, of the Poverty Initiative,  shared stories about the struggle of the homeless in 1995 and 1996.

Driving the American Dream is an exploration into the role and effect lawmakers and state regulators play in the lives of Philadelphia’s taxi drivers. This short film reveals the very real and lived experiences of poor and working drivers that struggle each day to provide for their families. In the face of health risks without disability insurance, drivers are economically forced to work even when sick, preventing service  the riding public deserves.

What if we drew a map that shows metro areas across the US with job gains and losses since the height of the economy in 2004? TIP Strategies did just that, creating a striking animation of the ballooning job losses marked by the crash of the financial markets in November 2008.

In a preliminary ruling at the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, the Temple University Hospital Nurses Association (TUHNA) won an important victory potentially forcing the university to reinstate healthcare workers' right to tuition remission for dependents. This ruling is compounded by an overwhelming vote by nurses to reject the Temple University Health System's (TUHS) contract offer, which amongst other things asked nurses to double their monthly contribution to healthcare. While negotiations between the nurses and university administration continue, the possibilities of a major strike of healthcare workers looms.

Philadelphia is in crisis. People across the city are feeling the effects of the global economic downturn and wondering what the future will bring for them and their families. The city has finally resolved a long, drawn out, and deeply unsettling budgeting process, and it feels now like the dust has finally settled. But even though massive service cuts and layoffs are off the table for now, this economic crisis is far from over, and we in Philadelphia now have a clear idea of the kinds of solutions our city government is willing to present.

Casino Free Philadelphia takes action this Tuesday at Sugar House as it launches the "In The Red" campaign to get casino investors to drop plans for Philadelphia slots.

 
At 12PM Monday September 28th, nurses from the Pennsylvania Association of School Nurses And Practicioners will hold a rally outside Temple Hospital at Broad and Tioga. The nurses are planning  a three-day strike on the following weekend, October 3rd, over a contract dispute with Temple University Health System (TUHS).  The core concerns for nurses at Temple is TUHS's refusal to negotiate over salary (including negotiations over cost of living increases); Temple's recent decision to phase out tuition reimbursement for dependents of hospital employees, and what PASNAP believes is an excessive increases in employee contribution to healthcare (TUHS is asking employee contributions to jump from $180 a month to $360 a month). 
 
See previous coverage over TUHS's decision to shutdown Northeastern Hospital this summer:
Northeastern Hospital Closure Haunts Temple
The Human Right to Healthcare: Northeastern Hospital is Ground Zero
Northeastern Hospital is Too Important to Close
 
 

Watch the full presentation here

On September 22nd in Philadelphia, One Web Day organizers held a panel on the future of broadband and digital inclusion across the region. Todd Wolfson of Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) was on the panel. During the discussion MMP put forward an argument that poverty and the digital divide are deeply linked. Building on this analysis, MMP is harnessing the Federal Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program and bridging the digital divide as a core strategy of building a movement to end poverty led by the poor. Comments from the panel are below and here is a link to photos by Jesse Brown.