Chicago to receive Candidates needed $72.72M in Federal for local school funding for homeless councils programs The Chicago Continuum of Care (CoC) has received $72.72 million in federal funding for 140 programs intended to prevent or end homelessness, as part of $2.2 billion in grants announced by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) on January 14. Last year, the Chicago CoC received $68 million for 167 programs. HUD CoC grants serve more than one million people annually through emergency shelter, transitional and permanent housing programs. The federal department challenges state and local planning organizations known as “continuums of care” to support their highest performing, most effective programs. For the past decade, All Chicago Making Homelessness History has been the Chicago CoC’s collaborative applicant for the federal grants. This year’s recipients include Breakthrough, Catholic Charities, Featherfist, Heartland Health Outreach, HOW Inc., Interfaith Housing, Low Income Housing Trust Fund, Mercy Housing, Sarah’s Circle, Thresholds, Trilogy and more. The All Chicago website listed 16,437 beds in 291 homeless projects at 77 agencies. This information from the Housing Inventory Count and the Point-in-Time (PIT) count of people on the streets Jan. 24, 2019, was submitted to HUD. Two out of 3 beds (66 percent) among the 291 homeless projects were in permanent supportive housing, with the remainder in emergency shelters (19 percent) and transitional housing (15 percent). Just over half (52 percent) of Chicago homeless beds were available to adults without children, 43 percent went to households with children and 5 percent to unaccompanied youth under age 24. The upcoming HUD grants will fund roughly 6,593 local programs on the front lines of homelessness. Most of the United States experienced a decrease in homelessness last year, according to HUD officials, “but significant increases in unsheltered and chronic homelessness on the West Coast, particularly California and Oregon, offset those nationwide decreases, causing an overall increase in homelessness of 2.7 percent.” HUD’s 2019 annual homelessness assessment to Congress showed that 567,715 persons were homeless across the nation, according to the Jan. 24, 2019 Housing Inventory and PIT counts. The number was up 2.7 percent from 2018 but down 11 percent since 2010. HUD officials said also that the number of families with children experiencing homelessness declined 5 percent from 2018 and 32 percent since 2010. Veteran homelessness also decreased 2.1 percent since the previous year and 50 percent since 2010. -Suzanne Hanney, from online sources
Local School Councils (LSCs) are the closest thing to democracy in education Chicagoans can get without the benefit of an elected school board, advocates say ahead of this year’s biennial elections.
Candidates are needed for over 4,000 LSC seats in Chicago Public Schools. The filing deadline is March 5 in the school of choice. Elections will be April 22 in elementary schools and April 23 in high schools. LSCs were a school reform movement idea of Mayor Harold Washington, who called for local governance in public schools, according to the Facebook page of the LSCs4All Coalition. “Over the years, LSCs have been the fall guys for what’s wrong with public education. When in reality they can be the answers for ALL schools to be great. Start with policies that give all parents – no matter what type of school they attend – the power to help create great change in our schools.” Created by the School Reform Act of 1988, LSCs have three responsibilities: to approve how school funds are allocated, to develop and monitor a School Improvement Plan, and to select and evaluate the school principal. Traditional LSCs are comprised of the principal, six parent representatives, two community representatives, two teacher representatives, one representative of the non-teacher staff; and at the high school level, one student representative. All parents, community members and school staff members who want to strengthen their local schools are eligible to run. No experience or formal education is required of LSC members. Candidates must file an annual statement of economic interests, complete a criminal disclosure form, undergo fingerprint-based criminal conviction investigation (and complete a criminal conviction disclosure form) and complete required training within six months of taking office. The LSCs4All Coalition includes the Lugenia Burns Hope Center, Kenwood Oakland Community Organization (KOCO), Pilsen Alliance, Chicago United for Equity (CUE), Blocks Together, Northside Action for Justice, Chicago Teachers Union and Raise Your Hand for Illinois Public Education (RYH). Two years ago, City Bureau cited CPS numbers that showed only 221 of the 512 schools eligible for LSCs had enough members for a full council. -Suzanne Hanney, from online sources
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