The conversation about child welfare is changing, both locally and nationally. While over 440,000 children are in foster care on any given day in our country, society is beginning to question a model that for far too long has seen family separation as the solution to poverty and instability. In the words of our federal Children’s Bureau leadership,…
This afternoon, Community Legal Services (CLS) and Disability Rights Pennsylvania (DRP) filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of almost 12,000 low-income Pennsylvanians who will lose their only source of income once the General Assistance program ends. The Pennsylvania residents who will lose this vital support are people with disabilities, people fleeing domestic violence, people completing treatment…
Mr. Amos has a criminal record. Even though the charges against him were dismissed, they still remained on his record and affected his ability to find work. Today, Mr. Amos’ record is sealed
In 2018, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania signed the Clean Slate Act. With its signing, Pennsylvania became the first state
A recent Pew Charitable Trusts article highlighted a growing problem across the country – overdue water bills causing the loss of a family home. In Philadelphia, getting behind on your water bills could mean losing your home through a Sheriff’s Sale – a public auction where the City sells your property to the highest bidder. That’s a…
Philadelphia’s tax one-year non-collection rate hit a low of 3.9% in 2017, according to a report out in February from the Pew Research Center.[LINK]. This marked the third year in a row that the City has seen a decrease in the number of properties with uncollected taxes, outpacing similar cities with high poverty rates. According…
In 2018, Governor Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania signed the Clean Slate Act. With its signing, Pennsylvania became the first state
Each year, residential Philadelphia Gas Works (PGW) and PECO customers are protected from utility shut offs by the winter moratorium. In Pennsylvania, it is illegal for utility companies to shut off services for low-income customers because of non-payment between December 1 and March 31. To be protected
The Presidential Administration’s proposal would take food away from 755,000 people, including 90,000 Pennsylvanians.
We often talk about the various kinds of traumas experienced by children in the child welfare system –the traumas that they experienced as a result of whatever situation landed them in foster care in the first place, the trauma of removal from their parents, and the traumas that can happen all too often in foster care.
