Human Services
Covering topics such as affordable housing, food security and child services.
Organic waste in landfills is a major source of methane emissions. Orange County, Calif., is making progress in diverting it.
Health-care systems across the nation are sending inaccessible medical bills and notices to blind Americans, and breaking disability rights laws by doing so. So far, the patients are the ones being punished through lost time and money.
The path to delivering government services in accessible and efficient ways is through human-centered design and technology. Some programs are showing the way.
They face many a myriad of negative outcomes, ranging from homelessness to involvement with the criminal justice system and unplanned pregnancies. But one county’s approach shows promise in helping these youth build better lives.
Many of them want to develop their properties to help revitalize their communities. Partnering with them can be a challenge for governments, but there’s much they can do to help these institutions build capacity to help.
The state’s child-care search website launched this week, listing more than 1,000 providers and matching services available in Spanish and English in an effort to more easily connect families with services they need.
The New York City mayor said the reforms to the rental assistance program will make it easier to access the CityFHEPS voucher program but did not address removing the 90-day rule which housing advocates have slammed.
Too often, programs are designed from the top down, without taking into account the lived experience of those facing barriers to accessing the benefits they need.
Even as cities’ African American populations decline in the face of gentrification, Black candidates can win elections if they focus on the needs of the public.
The annual census found that chronic homelessness rose 43 percent since 2020, even as the county and city of Santa Rosa spent an unprecedented $4 million on housing homeless people through the first 15 months of the pandemic.
Though roughly two dozen cities have appointed food policy directors at the local level, an estimated 53.6 million people still live outside an easy walk or drive to a full-service supermarket.
The cost of fuel and food items used on a daily basis to help vulnerable New Yorkers has skyrocketed from a year ago, including beef, chicken, eggs and all cleaning products.
A study of housing underproduction found that the state was short by approximately 9,000 units, 8,000 of which are in the Portland metropolitan area, the state’s largest city. The state ranks in the middle of other New England states’ deficits.
At least 16 states have opted out of receiving millions in pandemic food aid while more than 18 million Americans didn’t always have enough to eat last month.
It’s an opportunity for governments to dramatically improve access to critical services, guiding people step by step through what too often is an unnecessarily arduous process.
Inflation, desire for hybrid work and low wages have caused great swaths of workers across Massachusetts to leave their jobs in human services, threatening the industry. Some say the state needs to be proactive.
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