The Refinery Explosion In Southwest Philadelphia, community members were accustomed to stuffing towels and blankets under their doors to keep the stench of chemicals out of their houses. Mere blocks away from the old Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) plant, the largest oil refinery on the East Coast, the neighborhood had been plagued by birth complications, […]
Columbus Property Management is a publicly subsidized nonprofit tasked with providing decent, safe, and affordable housing for vulnerable populations across Philadelphia, including low-income tenants and tenants with disabilities. On June 7, 2024, in partnership with Holland and Knight, we brought suit on behalf of nine residents across three Columbus apartment complexes, alleging various security failures, […]
We’re standing up for Pennsylvanians to make their voice heard, representing voters in Delaware County who were disenfranchised when the county board of elections rejected their provisional ballots.
Pittsburgh is facing an escalating crisis in housing affordability. In response, the City passed an inclusionary zoning ordinance this spring. The Builders Association of Metropolitan Pittsburgh is seeking to block this law in federal court in a lawsuit filed May 12, 2022. Today, the people of Pittsburgh are fighting back. Organizations representing neighborhoods where housing costs are soaring filed a motion to intervene in the case and defend inclusionary zoning, affordable housing, and diverse communities.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed the CARES Act, including provisions for the Small Business Administration (SBA) to issue $350 billion in loans and grants to aid small businesses. Aid was provided through two programs, the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loans program. While the CARES Act passed by Congress […]
Amid a once-a-century pandemic and a drumbeat of misinformation and threats from prominent national politicians, we have spent 2020 protecting the right to vote in Pennsylvania.
An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. UPDATE July 8, 2021 — Prisoners in FDC Philadelphia have concluded their case. The agreement to end the case comes after the FDC has made COVID-19 vaccination freely available to all prisoners and staff and has agreed to show all prisoners a video […]
An initiative of the Richard Berkman & Toni Seidl Health Care Justice Project. In Philadelphia, gun violence is an epidemic. In 2018, in addition to the 249 Philadelphians killed in shootings, over 1,100 people were shot and survived, leaving many with lifelong disabilities. This violence does not affect everyone in the city equally: nearly 85 […]
Community Benefit Agreements, or CBAs, are contracts between community-based organizations and developers that establish developers’ commitments to provide a range of benefits related to a proposed project. Meaningful CBAs, with substantive goals, transparent negotiation, and measures of accountability, can be used to address environmental impacts, educational gaps, housing insecurity, and other pressing issues in communities […]
When prisoners are counted in their cells during the redistricting process–rather than their hometowns–political power shifts from urban and predominantly minority communities to rural and white ones where prisons are located. We’re advocating for an end to prison gerrymandering in Pennsylvania.
