Liberty and the pursuit of happiness aren’t the only rights you have in this country. You’re also entitled to an attorney. But that’s something disabled children didn’t have in the state of Florida.
Fortunately, that’s now changing.
According to HB 561, signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on June 25, it is mandatory that dependent children with special needs receive an attorney in court. The $4.5 million allocated by the Florida legislature will go towards paying any lawyer who agrees to represent these clients, making legal services available for these children. (Attorneys, though, can provide their services pro bono if they choose.)
Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF) will use certain criteria to determine eligibility. In order to be considered, the child must fall into one of the following categories: reside in a nursing home, have a developmental disability, be a human trafficking victim, or be an unwanted recipient of prescribed psychiatric drugs.
This new law is desperately needed considering Florida’s track record with children with special needs. An investigation conducted by the Miami Herald revealed that since 2008, the DCF knew of 500 children that had died of abuse or neglect. Of those victims, 85 percent were disabled. And the news gets even worse from there. Disabled children in the state are 17 times more likely to die from abuse or neglect than those without limitations.
One such death was Tamiyah Audain, an autistic girl who was diagnosed with tuberous sclerosis. After her mother passed away, the child went to live with her cousin. In 2013, she was found dead in the relative’s apartment — her death due to neglect and abuse.
Since cases such as these are so common in the Sunshine State, hopefully this law is a step in the right direction. Everyone has the right to an attorney, and in the case of disabled children, this legal representation is even more necessary.
MORE: Why Did This California Mayor Spend a Night in a Cardboard Box?
Category: Making Government Work
Why Boston Asked Its Youth to Determine How to Spend $1 Million
As America inches closer to the 2015 election, a new wave of initiatives to engage the country’s youth will soon follow. But instead of launching social media campaigns or canvasing college campuses to capture their attention, Boston is empowering young people to care by involving them in the budget process.
Earlier this year the city launched the Youth Lead the Change project, a participatory budget (PB) process inviting young people between the ages of 12 and 25 to give input into how Boston spends $1 million in public capital. The project—the first of its kind in the United States—was limited to “bricks and mortar” funding, ranging in categories including education, community culture, parks/environment/health and streets and safety.
Young Bostonians worked on designing the PB process as well as with city officials on project proposals, spending priorities and current projects in place. The pilot included projects ranging from improving community centers and renovating parks to neighborhood safety and creating new public art space.
Officials then set up voting booths throughout the city at schools, transit stops and community centers from June 14 to June 20. Young people were encouraged to vote for four of the 14 projects showcased, using digital tools such as SMS, Vimeo videos with Mayor Marty Walsh and a custom built platform for ideation collection, according to New York University’s Governance Lab. Young Boston residents joined Mayor Walsh to celebrate the winners this week, which include:
1. Franklin Park Playground and Picnic Area upgrade ($400,000)
2. Boston “Art Walls,” public spaces for local artists to display work ($60,000)
3. Chromebook laptops for three area high-school classrooms ($90,000)
4. Skatepark feasibility study ($50,000)
5. Security cameras for the community near Dr. Loesch Family Park ($105,000)
6. Paris Street Playground makeover ($100,000)
7. Renovate sidewalks and lighting around two Boston parks ($110,000)
The city worked in collaboration with the Participatory Budget Project (PBP), a nonprofit geared towards assisting local, national and international organizations with empowering citizens to become decision makers in the public budget process. More national cities like Chicago and New York have also pledged to use participatory budget practices in partnership with PBP, but perhaps the key to unlocking greater civic participation is focusing on America’s next generation.
Rather than targeting political messaging to young people, let the youth be the architects creating that message. If we begin to foster an environment that empowers young people to be a part of the solution, improving parks and creating art space is just the start of where we can take American progress.
MORE: How Mobile Apps Help Local Governments Connect with Citizens
Many Politicians Are Dragging Their Feet on Immigration Reform. But This CEO Says It’s Time
Last week several news organizations including the Washington Post and Politico reported that many Washington insiders feel any hope for immigration reform in the near future is “dead,” following the defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his primary race. But those outside the Beltway aren’t so pessimistic. In a recent speech at the Illinois Chamber of Commerce, Greg Brown, the CEO and Chairman of Motorola Solutions, said, “Why is the timing not right for this? I find that unacceptable.”
According to Anna Marie Kukec of the Daily Herald, Brown plans to continue to advocate for immigration reform and rally other business leaders to do so, until it’s revived. According to Brown, it just makes good business sense at a time when the economy remains “fragile.”
Brown said that American businesses cannot find workers with the skills they need, due to limited visas available for high-skilled workers. He believes that hiring such international workers does not take jobs from Americans—on the contrary, it creates jobs for them.
“Immigrant workers are job generators themselves,” he said. “They have a job multiplier effect. So if our goal is to grow a dynamic environment for businesses to be created, grow and thrive, we ought to care about this as a state.”
Motorola Solutions runs programs to encourage American kids to become engineers, working with the Chicago Public Library Foundation, the Museum of Science and Industry, school districts and other organizations. “It’s about preparing the workforce for the jobs that will keep America competitive and enable kids to succeed in the 21st century,” Brown said. “But, unfortunately, it takes 18 years to make an engineer, and the crisis for talent is now.”
MORE: Can An Influx of Immigrants Bolster Michigan’s Economy?
Public Transportation Is Getting a Major Makeover
Noise, exhaustion and incredibly long wait times – all of these words are inconveniences most of us have associated with riding public buses. Seats aren’t guaranteed, and then there’s the ever present fear of the bus just not showing up. But one company is now working to make those fears a thing of the past. Say hello to Bridj, dubbed “the world’s first smart mass transportation system.”
Using the power of technology, Bridj is hoping to reinvent and rejuvenate the transportation industry. How do they plan to do this? By collecting and analyzing 14 million data points, Bridj maps out how the city moves. It finds out where most people live and work, and designs bus routes that align to create more effective and efficient travel.
While this seems a little techy for most of us, the process for users is much simpler. Patrons need only check the Bridj app to find the closest stop to their location and go there to catch the bus.
So far, Bridj has only been introduced in Boston and the Washington, D.C. metro area, but the results are positive. For one trial route in Boston, the commute is usually a 45 minutes subway ride, but, on Bridj, the commute has been cut in half and that is including traffic. The plan is to have 40 main routes in the city, with a few shorter or pop-up routes for big occasions such as concerts.
Although the cost of the ticket — $3 to $5 — is a little higher than traditional public transit, Bridj feels that the overall experience more than compensates. Amenities include free Wi-Fi, power outlets and a guaranteed seat with the purchase of a ticket.
Bridj is not taking over or disregarding the public transportation system, though. Instead it wants to work with them, setting up partnerships with public transportation authorities in cities across the country with the end-goal of decreasing the amount of cars on the road.
A little comfort and relaxation goes a long way on the morning commute, and Bridj is looking to provide that. With less traffic, less waiting and more luxury, Bridj hopes to change the image of public transportation—something that could benefit all of us and reduce a little of that commuter stress.
MORE: How Can Two Cities Develop the Area Between Them?
What’s Helping More Refugees Than Ever Build Businesses in Colorado?
In many states across the country, the economy is picking up after the long recession, making aspiring entrepreneurs eager to launch their small businesses. The only problem? Requirements for loans from traditional banks are still strict, leaving potential business owners, including many immigrants who may not have the credentials banks are looking for, with no capital to start their ventures.
In Colorado, the solution to this crunch has come through several microloan nonprofits that are able to lend smaller amounts than commercial banks do, and serve a wider variety of people, including refugees who want to open shops, home childcare businesses and restaurants.
Denver-based Somali refugee Abdullahi Shongolo was one beneficiary of these programs. Three years ago, a microloan enabled him to buy an international grocery store, leaving him with a rosy view of his adopted country. “If you try, this is America—you can,” Shongolo told Thad Moore of the Denver Post. “This is the country that went to the moon, man.”
According to Moore, microlending is booming in Colorado. Community Enterprise Development Services, a lender specializing in helping immigrants and refugees, increased the number of borrowers in the most recent fiscal year by 150 percent. None of the 51 loans the nonprofit has made since it opened in 2010 has defaulted.
“Refugees do not only bring a few bags of clothes and a few belongings,” Suleyman Abbgero, who used a microloan to open a coffee kiosk in an Aurora mall, told Moore. “They also bring a lot of ideas. If they are given the opportunity, they can do much more.”
MORE: From Field Hands to Farmers: This Program Helps Latino Immigrants Become Land Owners
Meet the Volunteers Bringing Relief to a Humanitarian Crisis in the Southwest
An unprecedented humanitarian crisis is unfolding in the southwest: A surge in gang violence in Central America, especially in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, has prompted the parents of thousands of children to send their kids to the U.S. border, often alone or with a “coyote,” or paid smuggler.
According to the Dallas Morning News, officials say that 52,000 such children and teenagers have already arrived this year, with an estimate of 120,000 to arrive in the next fiscal year. While politicians argue about the cause of the surge and what should be done, caring people in Texas are not waiting for federal action to step up to help the distressed mothers and kids.
Sister Norma Pimentel saw immigrant mothers and children drooping at the bus station in McAllen, Texas as they waited to travel to meet relatives in other parts of the U.S. Because there are more people than local immigration officials can handle, they are permitting the migrants to travel to meet relatives and then appear before an immigration court at that location. “They are dehydrated, they are totally drained, they just fall and they need attention,” Pimentel told Karla Barguiarena of ABC 13.
Sister Pimentel began to coordinate a massive relief effort. For the past two months, she’s led a group of volunteers in assisting people at the bus station. “They don’t know who to trust,” Sister Pimentel told the Catholic News Service. “They fear someone will take advantage of them.” The volunteers reassure them that they are not going to exploit or harm them, and help address their immediate needs.
She also contacted a local priest who agreed to allow her to use the parish center at Sacred Heart Church, near the bus depot, as headquarters. Sister Pimentel set up cots for the homeless immigrants, and began to manage and distribute the donations of clothes and food that are flooding in.
“The assistance centers are an immediate and temporary response to the need,” she told the Catholic News Service. “A long-term solution is needed.”
According to Dianne Solís of Dallas Morning News, volunteers are launching similar efforts in other parts of Texas. A Catholic Charities children’s shelter in Fort Worth is doubling its capacity and aiming to open more shelters soon, and the Dallas branch of Catholic Charities is working to coordinate relief services, as well as holding immigration law seminars for lawyers who want to volunteer to help the migrant kids.
If you want to help Sister Pimentel’s efforts, you can donate through Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley. Catholic Charities of Dallas has set up a crisis info page and is accepting donations too, as is Southwest Key, another nonprofit that is running shelters for the kids.
MORE: A Life of Service: This Couple Wants Every Latino to Achieve the American Dream
Could Denver’s Light Rail System be The Future of Public Transit?
As more urban planners across the country brace for a future where cities are densely populated, local officials are turning their attention to investing in enhancing public transit. And even historically car-centric cities like Denver are getting on board.
The Western hub has spent the last decade planning an ambitious blueprint for a major regional light rail system. Denver’s FasTracks program first was defeated in a 1997 referendum only to return in 2004, when voters got behind the $4.7 billion project to add 121 miles of commuter and light-rail tracks, 18 miles of bus rapid transit lanes, 57 new rapid transit stations and 21,000 park-and-ride spots, according to the Atlantic CityLab.
Now a decade later, the Regional Transportation District (RTD), metro Denver’s rail provider, boasts the makings of one of the nation’s greatest public transit systems. Although a work in progress, last year FasTracks introduced the West Rail Line, which runs through some of Denver’s lowest income communities to its terminus in Jefferson County. The program is aiming to expand the East Rail Line to the airport and the Gold Line out west to Arvada by 2016, both powered by overheard catenary wires. Local officials are also targeting 2016 to add a bus-rapid transit system to the university community of Boulder.
Nine of the 10 FasTracks lines are projected to be completed by 2018, connecting 3 million spread across 2,340 square miles, and will include 18 miles of bus rapid transit and 95 stations.
“You’ll wheel your suitcase out of Denver International Airport, ride the train to Union Station, and hop a Car2Go — or even a B-Cycle if you’re traveling light — to your house or hotel. All using one card,” said Phil Washington, RTD’s general manager.
While the city remains a car-heavy town — only about 6 percent use bus or light rail — daily light-rail boardings shot up 15 percent between 2012 and 2013. Though cars are still a mainstay, more residents are embracing the potential.
“From the start, we made it clear we weren’t competing with the car,” Washington said. “And we explained, to the average Joe, that for only four cents on most ten dollar purchases, he’d be getting a whole lot of new transportation.”
Melinda Pollack, a founding member behind local nonprofit Mile High Connects has become a system supporter. Her group coordinates efforts to bring affordable development near transit, and hopes to build 2,000 units of affordable housing near the forthcoming stations in the next 10 years.
“When all the lines open, it’s really going to change connectivity for people,” she said. “We’re trying to make sure that low-income people don’t get pushed away from the stations.”
Indeed, FasTracks investment has seen an addition of 7 million square feet of new office space, 5.5 million square feet of new retail and 27,000 new residential units, The downtown area has increased its residential population 142 percent to 17,500 people since 2000.
“The system is developing and merging,” said University of Denver transportation scholar Andrew Goetz. “ The connectivity we’re going to see as a result is going to be quite impressive.”
Could Denver outpace the transit-praised cities of Portland or Washington, D.C.? By building an expansive system that not only serves urban areas but reaches the sprawling outlying communities where commuters work, Denver officials are not only betting on yes, they’re aiming to reshape American public transit system.
MORE: 5 Gorgeous New High-Speed Rail Stations Coming to the U.S.
Why Local Governments Are Becoming More Data-Driven
It’s no secret that data analytics and an emphasis on machine learning are easy ways to fast track efficiency when it comes to navigating the daunting processes of bureaucracy. That concept is gradually catching on, but in the wake of budget cuts and economic recovery, government officials in Indiana are understanding the important role data can play in saving costs.
Earlier this year Indiana Gov. Mike Pence used an executive order to create a Management and Performance Hub (MPH) to streamline and increase the use of data services across state agencies. In an effort to increase productivity and transparency, the MPH uses performance management tools and an analytic platform to identify to examine where agencies can improve and how to save money.
Supported by the governor’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Indiana Office of Technology (IOT), MPH stands to serve as an example of agency coordination and cutting out some of the drawn-out, bureaucratic procedures that have long been in place. The state’s vast pool of data is now organized in a central place within the IOT, according to Paul Baltzell, chief information officer.
“We are seeing boosted productivity from standardization and cleaning of data, and also from new technology purchases,” said Sara Marshall, the MPH project director for OMB. “For example, a complex query that takes ten minutes on an SQL server takes less than one second on our new in-memory computing platform.”
The reorganization and clean-up of procedures also limits opportunity to corrupt data, Marshall adds. With few steps involved in a query, there’s less of a chance of error. That also adds to a better workflow.
The state agencies are also exploring more ways to implement a data-driven government, including improving real-time statistics on drug and alcohol abuse for local authorities as well as keeping up with updating resident addresses.
The success of Indiana’s implementation of the site is due in part to strong support from state leadership. The city of Chicago is another example where leadership backing has helped foster a successful model. The city’s Department of Innovation and Technology (DoIT), which helps streamline data use across departments, has had strong support from Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office. The agency is dedicated to identifying problems and making data-driven decisions through use of machine learning and analytics.
For example, the city recently completed a pilot project to predict rodent infestations for the Department of Streets and Sanitation. The department was then able to target areas where it should use rodent-baiting, saving on cost and time.
With more support from government leaders, data analytics can vastly improve the frustrating procedures that hamper government productivity. Perhaps Indiana’s success can serve as a future model for more states to get on board with the power of data.
Could Los Angeles Become The Next Pedestrian-Friendly City?
Survival in Los Angeles has long hinged on owning a car and enduring its punishing traffic, but a new report suggests the sprawling city has potential to become America’s next walkable urban area.
As we reported earlier this week, coalition of real estate developers and investors partnered with SmartGrowth America (a non-profit that focuses on developing and sustaining great urban neighborhoods) and the George Washington University School of Business to analyze the number of walkable neighborhoods in the country’s 30 largest urban areas and look at the potential for growth.
Though L.A. came in at 18th (just below Columbus, Ohio and Kansas City), researchers suggest its future could move it toward the top of the list.
How’s that possible, you might be asking?
Currently, the report finds that only about 16 percent of L.A.’s office and retail space is walkable, compared to three times that amount in Washington, D.C. But 35 percent of that pedestrian-friendly space exists in the city’s suburbs, which means L.A. and its surrounding communities are ripe for growth.
These walkable areas are in-demand for office and retail development, which is driving up rent costs, according to Chris Leinberger, a real-estate professor at George Washington who led the study.
“This is a pretty significant change in how we invest, how we build the country,” Leinberger said. “There will be demand for tens of millions of square feet of additional walkable urban development.”
Additionally, the city has invested more than $40 billion in developing public transit over the next decade — more than any other city across the nation — with eight new commuter, light and heavy rail lines already open. The city has also begun construction on five new rail lines while suburban cities like Pasadena and Santa Monica continue to develop plans for a more public transit-friendly community, Fast Company adds.
“That future—of a walkable, transit-friendly Los Angeles—is being built right now,” the report said. “It will allow people to drive everywhere they want, assuming they can put up with the traffic, and provide the option of walkable urbanism for those who want it.”
Despite the investment, L.A. still must clear the hurdles of circumventing zoning and regulatory policies in some of these communities, as well as find tenants who can afford the soaring costs of rent.
Challenges aside, as the report points out, achieving the futuristic transit system depicted in last year’s movie “Her” is not too far from reality.
MORE: How Can Two Cities Develop the Area Between Them?
A New Museum Exhibit Educates About Disaster Preparedness
From ‘superstorm’ Sandy in 2012 to the countless forest fires that ravage the West every year, natural disasters are increasingly becoming a large part of American life. As a result, combating Mother Nature when she’s at her angriest requires not just innovation, but education, too.
That’s exactly what a new exhibit at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. aims to do, according to Next City. Organized into categories of earth, wind, fire, and water, “Designing for Disaster” is educating visitors about the history of disaster relief and prevention, as well as what works and what doesn’t.
Tales of large-scale projects such as flexible staircase joints at UC Berkeley’s California Memorial Stadium will surely draw in visitors, though it is the hands-on demonstrations and focus on everyday solutions that this exhibit is making the most difference with.
As the Washington Post writes, “The exhibit’s most compelling demonstrations show how innovative engineering solutions can reduce the impact of disasters and, in fact, already are.”
Whether highlighting family disaster plans, showcasing earthquake drills, or using an interactive feature to help visitors learn about the durability of different roof styles, Designing for Disaster is spreading knowledge.
As Americans flock to our nation’s capital during the summer vacation months, they can learn how others are preparing for natural disasters. And with that education, perhaps they can educate members of their own communities on how best to prevent future damage.
After all, while you can’t avoid Mother Nature’s fury, you can make sure you’re ready to meet it head on.
MORE: The Competition for Disaster Relief Funds Heats Up