Poverty

The Special Committee on Criminal Justice Reform met last month in the City Council chambers. Co-chairs Curtis Jones Jr. of City Council, retired Deputy Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel and the head of the Defender Association [continue reading…]

Though it seems like an ordinary coffee shop, The Monkey & The Elephant in Brewerytown is an entirely unique organization. Its only employees, besides management, are young people who have just recently exited the foster system. [continue reading…]

Historically, business in Brewerytown has had its ups and downs. The arrival of prohibition in America shut down its booming breweries and distilleries, but industry survived into the mid 1900s. By the 1980s, jobs disappeared and [continue reading…]

When the School District of Philadelphia proposed 37 school closings in 2013, Tanner Duckrey Elementary School was scheduled to close its doors to roughly 300 students. Duckrey’s fate changed when the School Reform Commission narrowed [continue reading…]

As education budget cuts have spread throughout the state of Pennsylvania, building closures present a way for school districts to quickly lower their costs. In Philadelphia, a large wave of closings occurred in 2013. During [continue reading…]

It was 8:40 a.m. on a recent sunny, spring-like day. In addition to the birds chirping, chatter could be heard as a line from the front of St. John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church wrapped around Sackett [continue reading…]

The intersection of Lawrence and Jefferson streets may seem like a regular corner, but between noon and 1 p.m. a line will form in front of a nondescript apartment window. Members of the community will [continue reading…]

Philadelphia’s public school system has long faced academic and financial troubles, resulting in poor standardized test scores and high dropout rates. Now, advocates of Mayor Jim Kenney’s proposition for universal pre-kindergarten say such a program [continue reading…]