After a long evening spent with other dissenting writers in 2001, I hailed a rickshaw to take me home. Previously, a ride late at night in my hometown, Barishal, Bangladesh, would not have worried me, but this was an anxious time. 

A few months prior, two political parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami and Bangladesh Nationalist Party, unexpectedly formed a coalition government around Islamist, nationalist principles. Just 16, I was among an angry younger generation who knew the Jamaat-e-Islami as an Islamist party that helped the Pakistani army kill hundreds of thousands of people during the 1971 Liberation War in Bangladesh. 

Now the party controlled our beloved country again. They committed some barbaric acts, such as burning houses belonging to Hindus, a minority religious group in Bangladesh. I began publishing a literary magazine with editorials criticizing the new government, and the local Jamaat-e-Islami members took notice.

As the rickshaw pulled onto the street where my family lived, a group of men with handkerchiefs covering their faces were waiting for me. The rickshaw driver vanished in fear, and I felt a sharp pain from being stabbed on my left side. I ran toward our apartment, banged on the door and screamed in pain as the group fled the scene. Though my clothes today conceal the 5-inch scar carved into me that night, the memory is still fresh.

I’m not alone among refugees in having such nightmarish memories, nor in my decision to share them. As war, political unrest and climate change drive ever-larger numbers of people to flee their homelands, it’s easy for societies on the receiving end of the flow to wonder: Why don’t people stay home? Why don’t they fight to improve their countries?

For me, the answer is: I tried.

Kidnapped at gunpoint

Being attacked didn’t stop me; I recovered and fervently published more. I wrote for other magazines across the country. A few years passed, and the looming general election bred hope that the final days of the dual-party coalition government were drawing near. 

On a chilly night in 2006, I was again reminded that my writing was not considered appropriate by everyone. While walking home, I was kidnapped at gunpoint by a government law-enforcement agency.

The commanding officer put his 9mm pistol to my head and asked, “How cold is it?” Then his team blindfolded me, beat me with wooden sticks and squished me in the back floorboard of the car. 

I remember the painful pressure as they pushed their feet on me. I assumed they would take me to their headquarters, but they drove me out of town, removed the blindfold and told me to get out of the car. As I looked around and saw a field, I heard someone say, “The last moment of your life has arrived.” I tasted blood, and though my mouth was bleeding, I could not reach up to wipe as my hands were tied behind my back. 

I next remember them driving me to their heavily militarized station with tall brick walls, where I was continuously beaten for the next four hours. Hog-tied, my hands were restrained in front of me, and my legs were lashed to a metal pole. I was interrogated about my writing; they wanted to know why I was mad at the Islamist leadership. Toward the end of the questioning, a doctor entered the room and gave me some medicine. I did not trust him, so I discreetly spat the pills out after he departed.

I could not sleep the whole night as I watched the sky from my tiny prison window. I remember understanding that night the value of art in a time of emergency, and I promised myself I would never be compromised in this regard. The next evening, they left me on the street and told me to leave the town before the election.

On an al-Qaida-related hit list

But I didn’t leave because I had important university exams to take.

The elite force returned to my house a week later. I was afraid, so I went into hiding in a neighboring town. Using a pen name, I continued writing newspaper articles advocating for a more secular Bangladesh.

After the coalition government lost the election a few months later, I felt it was safe and returned to my hometown. I continued writing and publishing and reading my poetry at public gatherings, marches and candlelight vigils as part of a nationwide effort led by activists and bloggers in 2013 pushing for a trial against prominent Islamist leaders accused of war crimes dating back to 1971.

Fundamentalist groups started counter-protests and declared war against the activists and the bloggers. In 2015, a local al-Qaida-related militant organization published hit lists, and one for my hometown included three poets, myself included. I went to the police for protection, but they made copies of my writing. Feeling unsafe, I went into hiding.

I went to my relatives in a nearby village, but they had seen the list on TV and in newspapers and were terrified. I spent one night with them and then went 10 hours away to Chittagong, the second largest city in Bangladesh, and lived with a friend. Later, when I realized someone had started following me, I left and moved through four different cities. 

I received news that two different militant groups attacked two publication houses at the same time. One publisher was killed, and three other people were injured. During these attacks, the publishers’ pictures were broadcast in the media, and old video footage of me speaking was included, putting me at even greater risk.

From disorientation to blending in

Like fellow writers being persecuted in Bangladesh, I applied to the International Cities of Refuge Network in Norway. I was very fortunate that soon after, Carnegie Mellon University invited me to be a visiting scholar, and City of Asylum invited me to join their Exiled Writer and Artist Residency Program. I left Bangladesh in 2016 and moved to Pittsburgh’s North Side. During the month I arrived, I learned that four writers were killed in Bangladesh and I received additional threats, so I decided to apply for asylum.

I was depressed that I had to leave behind my life, my family and my belongings, but I was relieved that I didn’t need to look behind my shoulder to see if an assassin was following me. The support from the City of Asylum was life-changing as I was provided a stipend, a quiet, furnished house and other support as needed.

I felt safe and secure in this house, and it enabled me to complete a poetry manuscript in which I shared my experiences in exile, and my debut book, “Exile Poems”, published in 2022 by Pittsburgh-based press Bridge & Tunnel Books.

I also wrote my first novel, about the persecution of the Hindu religious minority in Bangladesh, which I was unable to write when I lived in Bangladesh because of the fatal consequences for writers who question religious-based oppression. Though I miss my friends back home, I am fortunate to have made good friends here with whom I can share my thoughts and concerns. My neighbors have been welcoming; even those I don’t know will often wave hello as they pass by. 

I had never left my home country before I came to Pittsburgh, and moving to an unknown place where people speak a different language and share different customs felt disorientating when I first arrived.

Local organizations that help immigrants navigate life in Pittsburgh, such as Literacy Pittsburgh and Jewish Family and Children’s Services, offered me long-term English classes, computer training and other career development services. I received a grant to translate my works from Bengali to English from the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council, which enables me to continue writing as I connect my former life as a dissident in Bangladesh to my new identity in Pittsburgh, thus bridging my own culture with my audience here in Pittsburgh. 

Though coming to Pittsburgh provided me with safety and protection, standing up for literary and political freedom required me to physically separate myself from my family and homeland — an immense pain that I feel every moment. My initial culture shock has lessened over the years, which suggests to me I have become more blended into American society.

At a recent poetry event in Pittsburgh, Jason Irwin read his poem, “Darién Gap,” which describes the dangerous journeys of asylum seekers who cross the jungle in Panama to reach the United States. Though I had a different path, I relate to their experiences, and I know that I will continue to fight for the freedom of expression because it’s worth risking everything to ensure basic human rights are protected. 

Tuhin Das is a Bangladeshi writer who lives in Pittsburgh and former writer-in-residence at City of Asylum and can be reached at dastuhinbd@gmail.com.

The post Facing tyranny, I tried to stay and fight with my pen, but had to flee for my life to Pittsburgh appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Nearly two years ago, Russia invaded Ukraine. Pittsburghers of Ukrainian descent immediately felt the emotional impact. The war displaced some 11 million Ukrainians, the vast majority of whom remained in Europe, but thousands of whom came to the U.S.

Some found their ways to Pittsburgh.

I am Ukraine is a series of three free events featuring discussions, song, dance, food tasting and video presentations crafted by refugees and other immigrants from the country, plus others with deep roots there, running from Sunday through Feb. 10.

The events stem from a partnership of the nonprofit Sharing Our Story, City of Asylum, St. Vladimir Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Jewish Family and Community Services, JCC Center for Lovingkindness and Engagement, and Ukrainian Cultural and Heritage Institute.

Sharing Our Story and four of the storytellers agreed to share their work with PublicSource.

Ukrainian special treasure

Olha Myroshnychenko, 40, left Ukraine on Feb. 25, 2022, on the second day of the war. From Slovakia, she relocated to the U.S. in February 2023, and lives in Whitehall with her mother and son.

I’m going around my apartment again. What else should I take with me? Of course, the child is the first priority, but I’ve already dressed him and he is waiting near the door. What else? I put my books in the suitcase. I had room only for two books there. I’m taking the icon of Saint Barbara with me, the one who protected me in all my travels. I’m whispering to myself that Barbara will help this time as well.

I’m opening the drawer and seeing an unfinished knitted jacket. My hand is reaching for it by itself. But no, I have no room for it. And if there is no electrical light, how will I possibly be able to knit? I’d better take this pearl bracelet — I could give it to the worst enemies as a bribe at the checkpoint — so that they can let me go. Oh, I should take the gold jewelry! Where is it?

While I’m looking for gold, my eyes fall on the acrylic peonies that we painted together with my son, and the flying fairy, embroidered with a cross and beads. I feel my heart ache, but I’m taking my eyes away from my paintings — now the most important thing is to save our lives and survive. I will draw more. I will embroider more. Later. I promise this to myself. I’m wiping the tears from my eyes and putting the gold jewelry in the suitcase.

Now, after a year and a half, there are two of my books on a table in my new American apartment. Above the table there are daisies (not peonies) painted by acrylics, which we made together with my son already in the states. I keep myself warm in a knitted jacket that I created based on Ukrainian ornaments, and I embroider Christmas decorations with a red and black cross, as my grandmother taught me on long winter evenings in front of a kerosene lamp and by the crackling fire in the stove.

The creativity that I learned from my grandmother helped me to save our lives and relocate. I painted, I embroidered and I created a new book while sobbing over the news about new attacks and countless victims. But I continued painting, embroidering and it helped to find the strength to smile and to build my life.

And I believe that creativity continues to support me in difficult times. This is our Ukrainian trait — and it is the strength of all Ukrainian women, our special treasure that cannot be exchanged for any gold or pearls. A treasure that no one can ever take away.

This trait will last through distances and even through times. Because we are Ukrainians. Because I am Ukrainian!

‘We Don’t Abandon Our Own’

Diana Denysenko left Ukraine on March 9, 2022 and lives in McCandless with her daughter, son and dog.

My life in Ukraine was normal. Coffee at 7 a.m., kids to school, lovely work, time with the kids and the dog. On Feb. 24, at 5 a.m., the sirens wailed and we knew that the war had started. My son was at home, but my daughter was in university in Kharkov, close to the Russian border. She did not respond to my calls; the cell phone service was turned off. 

I was to learn how God helped me through the hands of other people. A friend going to Kharkov for business asked me for her address. He found my daughter huddled in her pajamas in her dormitory basement. Coming back took 12 hours. His car was shot at; there was no glass left in it. My daughter couldn’t speak for three days; she just stayed in bed and slept. 

On March 4, the Russians came to Enerhodar. The children slept in the hallway, away from the windows. People helped each other, making sure everyone had supplies.

On March 9, the Red Cross set up a Green Corridor for women, children and older people to get to Zaporizhzhya. This time the helping hands were the company bus drivers; 27 of them drove us to safety. The Russians shot at the buses; what was usually a two-hour trip took seven hours.

We had only one bag; I had a son on one hand, a daughter on the other, and our dog tucked under my arm. We stayed in a church and at night, my children cried, “Why did this happen to us? Why? Why?” I couldn’t say anything; I had to let them let it out.

The next step took us to Khmelnitsky. The bus humming. Crying children again. Holding onto my son’s sleeve and my daughter’s pant leg. Zig-zagging across the country. Apples from a random old woman for Ukrainian soldiers. 

Kind, helping hands drove people from Khmelnitsky to the border. There, my Uncle Ivan met us. We stayed in Moldova for four months, waiting to immigrate. Finally, we flew to Istanbul, to New York, to Pittsburgh, where my parents lived. And yes, our dog eventually joined us in America. My children said, “We don’t abandon our own.” 

Today, I have a new normal life in a new place. My son plays top-level soccer. My daughter studies business in college. My dog saw his first deer. I help others who are coming here for a second chance. We have started on our new “normal” life.

My depression cure

Anastasiia Vykhrystiuk, 37, left Ukraine on April 26 and lives in Mt. Lebanon with her two daughters.

I want to show the whole world the amazing charm of our country. I do this through my art.

War knocked in the morning. There was a lot of thunder, and rockets were flying. Panic spread everywhere. People buy tickets. Children cry, old people swallow pills. The number of dead constantly grows. Did I have a nightmare? No. This is reality!

Two long months of hesitating and hoping for the best didn’t live up to my hope that it would all end. The alarm sounds again, a rocket is about to hit somewhere. I decided everything and also bought tickets. Thus began my first trip abroad. Alone with two children, I found myself in a completely different world, no money, no knowledge, no acquaintances.

It was very difficult, but I always remembered that I am Ukrainian. I am strong! I am free and able to overcome everything. 

I miss Ukraine very much. I sat at my easel creating art to ease my depression. My art brings the Ukraine that I love back to me. It inspires me. These memories of Ukraine come to me through my art. The natural world — wheat, wolves, the symbols of our villages, the culture of our embroidered clothing, the signs of the country that I love. They help me survive. I am healed through my art and memories of Ukraine.

My art heals my depression. I am a visual artist in oil and acrylic. This painting I created as a symbol of the end of my life as a wife. I bought this house to begin a new life. I left in Ukraine only two chickens and a rooster. In the U.S., I have only an apartment I rent. 

This painting reminds me of the beautiful home I had in Ukraine. Another of my paintings is about a yellow field and a blue sky. This painting contains the colors of Ukraine.

I love my Ukraine, even though I was lonely here. I want to ride into the future. I had to decide whether to stay or to flee. I want to ride the horse to a new life.

The sparkle of my life

Kateryna Boiko, 36, left Ukraine a month before the war, but had to help extricate her daughter, and now lives in Sewickley with her husband and daughter.

In my life, there was no father, but I rarely felt his absence because my mother had three sisters, my beloved aunts, who raised me.

I remember in our village, under the bright August starry sky, we lit a bonfire. As Aunt Inna sang “Fog Over the Ravine, Fog Through the Valley,” I sang along, gazing at the bonfire, sparkling, and the starry sky! Waves of peace and happiness engulfed me, as if a spark from the fire landed in my heart, igniting a love for music, while another became a guiding star that continues to guide me. This connection to my Ukrainian singing roots with the cosmos continues!

Here I am with other children, about to depart for Spain for an international vocal competition. I gaze at the starry sky, see my star, drawing me into something incredible.

The stage, blinding satellites, my solo! And the little stars here are other children, 2013 August, the same starry sky, the deck of a huge cruise liner. My family calls: “How are you there?” I reply, “Today we’re presenting an international show. Big orchestra, three solo singers — from Cuba, Turkey and me, the Ukrainian.

February 2022, I’m on a Mexican beach with a cocktail, looking at the stars and calculating that I’ve already done over 2,500 world shows.

At night, my husband awakens me: “Kyiv is being bombed!”

I try to call my mom and daughter in Ukraine. They are hiding in a bomb shelter. I have a terrible connection in the middle of the Caribbean Sea. I look at the peaceful sky, each star exploding like a bomb in my heart.

I safely brought my daughter and mom from Ukraine to Krakow.

At a railway station I see the eyes of my daughter and mom, tired from constant relocations, who’ve been waiting for a train leading nowhere. They bring our one lonely suitcase, with everything we once owned. Somewhere at the bottom is my music.

“God, give me a sign.”

Erica, who sponsored us and helped us get to America, wrote, ” We chose your family because we have so much in common; my three daughters are musicians, too. I bought you tickets to Pittsburgh.”

Unpacking my suitcase, at the bottom, I found a badge with my smiling face from the ship, signed, “Kateryna, musician, Ukraine.” I burst into tears!

Sitting by Erica’s family bonfire, I see the same sparkles as they were in my childhood.

I want to play the guitar, the one my father gave me, with rusty strings and a bent soundboard, my only remaining connection with him.

I would love to take it but it’s back in Ukraine, and sing “Fog Over the Ravine, Fog Through the Valley” for my daughter, just like Aunt Inna used to sing for me.

Click here to register for the free I am Ukraine events.

Sharing Our Story bridges cultural divides between refugees and their Pittsburgh community members by using storytelling to support understanding at the personal and wider community level, creating mutual understanding, and empathy while providing opportunities for self-expression, technical training and engagement. Sharing Our Story welcomes neighbors into deeper understandings of each other and acknowledgement of shared experiences. Sharing Our Story can be reached at sally@sharingourstory.com.

The post ‘I am Ukraine’ highlights accounts of flight and hope appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Every Friday, at 1:53 p.m., Sha’Ron Kennedy helps his classmates at Pittsburgh Public Schools’ Langley K-8 prepare bags filled with food. First, he slips in some instant noodles, and then he adds green beans, corn and tomato sauce. Sometimes he also adds breakfast oatmeal and fruit. 

Once all bags are prepared, Kennedy leads the students to different classrooms. 

At each class, they knock on the door saying, “Blessings in a backpack!” then deliver the bags to other students. 

Kennedy is a seventh-grader in Langley’s autistic support class where he volunteers to work in the school’s Blessings in a Backpack program. The program is part of Langley’s community school model, providing food for students experiencing food insecurity. 

PPS Langley is one of nine schools in the district that are designated as community schools. Unlike traditional neighborhood public schools, the community public school model focuses on providing services that support the neighborhood’s needs by involving parents and other community members. They often partner with local businesses and organizations and have an integrated focus on learning opportunities, health and fulfilling basic needs. 

The pandemic reinforced the importance of community schools, when schools needed to meet a range of needs outside the classroom. The Coalition for Community Schools estimates there are about 5,000 community schools in the country. 

Outside the city, Communities in Schools of Pittsburgh-Allegheny County [CISPAC] is helping districts build community schools across the region. Last year, they began implementing the full-service community school model across eight school districts in Allegheny County. 

Community schools across Pittsburgh serve as hubs of the neighborhoods in which they operate. Many go far beyond delivering instruction and offer resources such as food, clothing and after-school programs with a focus on mental health and reducing violence in the community. 

A spreading model with federal friends

Although the model is relatively new for Pittsburgh-area schools, community schools have, over the past two decades, reported successes in states including Texas, Florida, Ohio, California, Maryland and Minnesota.

In Cincinnati for example, all schools became community schools following a policy passed in 2001. From 2006 to 2015, research showed that the achievement gap between Black and white students in the Cincinnati school district decreased from 14.5% to 4.5%. In the Minneapolis area, the Brooklyn Center Community Schools saw district-wide behavioral references cut in half in the first five years as a community school system.

On Nov. 28, the Biden-Harris Administration announced almost $74 million in grants for full-service community schools in Idaho, Missouri, New Hampshire and Ohio. The next day, senators from Ohio, Maryland, New York and New Mexico introduced The Full Service Community School Expansion Act of 2023, which is a comprehensive bill aimed at helping more public schools implement the wrap-around services of a full-service community school model. 

The long-term success of community schools depends on consistent funding, according to Jennifer Kotting, communications strategist for The Partnership for the Future of Learning, a national network dedicated to supporting public education.

“It’s really ongoing [funding] that is needed to maintain a really strong set of possibilities in each community school,” Kotting said. 

Duquesne: Reducing violence through conflict resolution

CISPAC’s full-service community school approach stands on four pillars: integrated student support, expanded and enriched learning opportunities, active family and community engagement and collaborative leadership.

School districts such as Sto-Rox, Duquesne and Pittsburgh are hoping the community schools model will help students deal with trauma stemming from violence in their neighborhoods.

Duquesne has partnered with the University of Pittsburgh’s Just Discipline Project [JDP] to reduce exclusionary discipline practices in schools. Instead of resorting to suspensions, which have been linked to the school-to-prison pipeline, the project aims to offer more holistic solutions.

For a school to be selected for the Just Discipline Project, it must show high disciplinary action numbers. 

Currently, JDP is partnered with 20 schools around the Pittsburgh area, including Sto-Rox and PPS Langley. At most schools, they employ a full-time restorative practice coordinator who is available all day, much like a traditional teacher. 

At Duquesne, Molly Means, a restorative practice coordinator, leads a classroom group of middle schoolers to become leaders in training. The students learn restorative justice ideas and lead healing circles in younger classrooms. 

She said Duquesne’s desire to increase restorative practices makes it a good fit for the project. 

“It’s a unique opportunity for kids in the school districts that we’re in to get to be part of a leadership program, to get to learn about mediations, to get to learn about community building from such a young age,” said Means. 

Dae-Mere Johnson, an eighth grader at Duquesne and part of Means’ group of Leaders in Training [LIT], said the violence and shootings around the community impact his mental health and that of his peers. 

Johnson said he feels he and his fellow LITs are helping other — especially younger — students by sharing the conflict resolution skills they’ve learned.

“Sometimes they need help,” Johnson said. “I feel like when we come into the classroom, it’s helpful. It calms them down.”

Whether through leading healing circles for younger classrooms or helping students resolve conflict at lunchtime, Duquesne Superintendent Sue Mariani said, the leaders in training are helping to shift the school’s culture from a punitive approach to a restorative one. 

Bridget Clement, executive director of CISPAC, said often there is tension in schools where there is a majority of economically disadvantaged, Black and brown students and mostly white administrators.

“We have teachers that are afraid of the students and administrators that are afraid, and this comes out a lot because they don’t understand how to best engage students that are traumatized,” she said.

To avoid overidentifying Black and brown students for discipline, Duquesne teachers present data on students displaying at-risk behaviors, such as attendance or discipline issues, to a team of school counselors, teachers and administrators who work together to determine the best course of action for a student, said middle school Principal George Little.

Duquesne’s community school model emphasizes student mental health supports, through an approach known as social and emotional learning. 

“We have students who experience significant trauma,” Mariani said. To address that, educators focus on “making sure a kid feels safe, whether it’s emotionally or physically before they can even learn.” 

Duquesne has a full-time therapist from Auberle, a social service agency, available to students during the day. 

Langley: Meeting community needs, addressing burnout

Other than a Family Dollar that sells eggs, milk and some dried goods, Sheraden, where Langley is located, does not have a grocery store. 

“It’s a food desert,” said Keysha Gomez, founder of H.O.P.E. for Tomorrow, a community partner at Langley. In addition to in-house programs such as Blessings in a Backpack, community partners including H.O.P.E. and 412 Food Rescue work together to send kids home with food every day after school. 

Gomez said because public schools lack resources, it falls on standalone organizations such as H.O.P.E. to raise money through grants and fund-raising.

“Finances are a big problem,” she said. 

Mike Dean, Langley’s community school site manager, said they try to provide basic necessities not only for students but for the community outside of the school. 

“If someone wanted to come out and needed something at that moment, it is the understanding that Langley is the hub for this community,” he said. 

Outside of the food pantry and a free clothing store, Langley also offers a boxing program, a dental cleaning and hygiene camp each fall and summer, and lifestyle classes. The school has also worked with the city to install a stop light on Sheraden Boulevard. 

Nationwide, teachers have left the teaching profession and experienced higher levels of stress and lower morale after the pandemic, as reported by Chalkbeat. Former PPS teachers have said that burnout preceded the pandemic. 

Kathy Monti-Trievel, a Langley alumnus and now a teacher at the school, thinks that the shift to a community school model in 2017 has eased some of the burden. Having community partners bring in extra resources such as food and clothing — things teachers previously had to provide alone — has helped, she said. 

“I think community schools allow there to be healthy boundaries for teachers and staff to do their craft, which is to teach, deliver instruction,” said Sarah Armenti, a social worker and Langley’s family and community engagement coordinator. 

Sto-Rox: Expanding community, reducing absenteeism

Sto-Rox Superintendent Megan Marie Van Fossan said she would like to see more providers in their school buildings. She said the district is facing staffing challenges in teaching and health care services. Not having full-time nurses in the buildings also contributes to truancy issues in the schools, she said.

Fully 72.3% of students were chronically absent, missing more than two days of school a month for any reason, in the Sto-Rox Junior Senior High School in 2021-22. 

Van Fossan said the district is working on social-emotional skills and conflict resolution to solve violence issues that contribute to truancy and drop-out.

Duquesne’s Mariani said she believes the community school model has played a major role in supporting the return of eighth graders, who came back to the Mon Valley city in 2022 after almost a decade of being educated in neighboring districts. When it comes to the district’s goal to reopen the high school — closed in 2007— Mariani said she hopes to use a similar model. 

Sonya Gooden, a school board director for Duquesne and a family advocate at Duqusene’s Head Start program, said she feels the lack of a high school disrupts community bonds for older children.

“With the closing of the high school, bringing it back will again make a wholeness of the community because currently we’re split up between different cities,” Gooden said. “Once you get to 13, 14, you’re away from your friends and it takes away from the center of the community which the district represents.”

La’tresha Dean, the director of the Boys and Girls club at Duquesne and a parent in the district, said that while she believes the community school model at Duquesne is making a positive impact, its leadership and goals need to be consistent for community members to put their full trust into the school.

Building trust in the community

Many of Duquesne’s school staff are community members and alumni. Little said that established interpersonal relationships between staff and students give the district leaders a better understanding of students’ needs and help parents and families feel more comfortable confiding in staff and seeking out help.

“By having so many people from the community in the building it helps us understand what’s going on in the community … around guns, drugs, domestic issues — we hear about it,” Little said.

Clement said sometimes parents who have had bad experiences in school do not want to engage with their children’s school. CISPAC accordingly works to engage parents through their community school model. 

“We need to have more of that family infusion so that the teachers and the administrators who maybe aren’t on the ground have a better understanding of what the community is dealing with on a day-to-day basis,” she said. 

Another way Duquesne is keeping parents in the loop is through its Parents As Allies organization that focuses on supporting parent needs and engagement — both for their children and for themselves. Last year, Duquesne held a career and resource fair where parents could find mental health resources and professional development opportunities.

Through community and parent engagement, LaQuandra Bennet, Duquesne’s CISPAC site manager, says the long-term goal of the full-service community school model is to equip parents and the community with the resources to help their children on their own.

“We want to empower families when it comes to their student’s education,” Bennet said. “We want to make sure that … the things we’re bringing in are able to continue and that is going to be with the help of the families.” 

Lajja Mistry is the K-12 education reporter at PublicSource. She can be reached at lajja@publicsource.org.

Tanya Babbar was an editorial intern at PublicSource and is a junior at the University of Pittsburgh.

This story was fact-checked by Erin Yudt. 

The post Going beyond instruction, community schools serve as ‘hubs in the community’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

A few months prior to my 20th birthday, as I was waiting and hoping that my younger brother would wake up from his cancer-induced coma, I found out I had been accepted at Wheeling Jesuit University in West Virginia.

Since age 16, I had been working at a Giant Eagle to help support my family. Neither of my parents had bachelor’s degrees and there were zero expectations in my house that I’d go to college. I figured that if I didn’t go to college soon, I’d never get the hell out of that stock room and away from the chronic back pain it inflicted. I had applied to the only two colleges I knew anything about, WJU (now Wheeling University) and the later-discredited Art Institute of Pittsburgh, intending to enroll at whichever accepted me first, if either of them did.

I had missed nearly 115 days in high school, some of which were due to an emergency medical condition greatly worsened by doctors’ refusal to listen to my mum or me, resulting in an amputation. Other times I skipped because of how I was treated at school. I’d been tardy nearly 95 times, had countless detentions, and graduated with a 2.07 GPA and a 470 on my SAT.

A school staff member used to tell me that my “kind of people don’t go to college” and most of my peers at my suburban, Catholic high school either ignored me completely, called me and my family “poor white trash,” or mocked my appearance and heavy Pittsburgh accent. All throughout high-school, I was called lazy, stupid and ignorant by other students and even by several teachers. When I showed up for school, I’d sometimes deal with it by sneaking a swig of booze or popping Valiums that my mum gave me.

Fifteen years after that acceptance letter from WJU came through, I’m a data analyst, dedicated to understanding and addressing poverty, segregation, affordable housing and community violence.

On the way, I’ve developed a clear understanding that white poverty tends not to come with the additional, deep racism-based challenges that often come with Black poverty – though white poverty can be similarly grinding in places like rural Appalachia, the deep rural South and parts of the Rust Belt. But that understanding didn’t happen overnight. I’ve learned that while racial disparities are stark on their own, they’re often intertwined with class and other identities. 

Given this, when policymakers work to address challenges like poverty, they must be aware of the ways race, class, gender and other identities intersect so that they can tailor solutions to address the different challenges that tend to be experienced by different groups — including low-income white people.

A poor kid’s response to ‘white privilege’

My parents moved us from Carrick to Brookline when I was little, in hopes of keeping us away from gun violence. They sacrificed what little money they had, “robbed Peter to pay Paul,” and had us kids write letters pleading for financial aid to the Catholic bishop of Pittsburgh to attend Seton La Salle High School in Mount Lebanon. They wanted us to be safe and get a Catholic education, and had concerns about us going to Brashear High, which was Brookline’s Pittsburgh Public Schools feeder school.

Still, I didn’t always feel very safe at Seton or in my own home during much of high school. My parents did, and do, many loving things for me but also repeated the cycles of abuse they themselves were exposed to. Outside of the bullying and isolation at school, I was exposed to significant trauma in my home. As a result, our house was frequently visited by police. 

Police also had a tendency for following me around stores and harassing me. Once, an officer even kicked in a stall door that bashed into my head when someone falsely accused me of doing drugs in a carnival bathroom.

When the time came to start at WJU, my Pell Grant and other financial aid left a few thousand in tuition to pay. Around the same time, my dad lost his job and never regained full-time employment. We only hung on to the house because of Obama’s unemployment extension, my mum’s disability and my younger brother’s Supplemental Security Income from having cancer. But they didn’t have anything to help me, so I asked the priest who baptized me at the now-closed Saint Canice in Knoxville to lend me the money, and he did. My dad and brother dropped me off at WJU with a single pillow, my guitar and one backpack full of clothes.

Adapting to being a college student was hard at first. I spent the first few weeks trying to collect unemployment from the just-closed Giant Eagle where I had worked, and hearing about the problems at home on my flip phone. Academically, I didn’t know what paragraph breaks were, so my first submitted essay was a single wall of text. I went through college without a computer. 

But I made lifelong friends immediately. The son of an unemployed electrician, I felt included among classmates who were the sons and daughters of coal miners and tradesmen. Many of the professors were from Appalachia and cared deeply about first-generation college students. I had a bed again (my mattress at home got maggots, so I’d been sleeping on the floor) and a meal plan, which meant I didn’t have to worry about food stamps running out or having to steal food from Giant Eagle to eat lunch.

Given my life experiences and how hard (and lucky) my road to college was, when a middle-class white student in my psychology class said something like, “white people don’t experience real poverty,” I pushed back. And when they then told me to “check my white privilege,” I could barely keep from blurting out: “What the fuck did you just say?” Comments like that initially made me allergic to conversations about privilege.

Blaming poor people for poverty

I was slightly above, at or below the poverty line from birth until age 29, so my understanding of the advantages of being white came slowly and through meaningful exposure to people with different perspectives and life experiences.

It came through self-reflection on what I’d seen in my own life, a growing understanding of what many of my poor Black peers faced, and, importantly, an intersectional and non-shame-based approach to conversations about privilege and the history of discrimination in the United States. 

This all culminated in a major belief change in 2014, when I read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “The Case for Reparations,” which affected me because it was coming from a Black man who grew up poor and reflected data, plus experiences, that connected with mine. 

Building off much of the existing research cited in Coates’ essay, Opportunity Insights of Harvard released a landmark study on race and income mobility. It found that when accounting for race, class and gender, poor Black and Indigenous Americans had significantly lower average incomes in adulthood when compared to their poor white and Asian peers, and poor Latinos fell somewhere in the middle.

While the study shows that lower-income people of all races tend to do worse than their peers of the same race who did not grow up in poverty, it also makes clear that class alone doesn’t explain gaps between the outcomes of poor children of different races. The study proposed two primary factors: racial bias against Black people and the neighborhood context in which low-income Black children tend to grow up. 

Here in Allegheny County, 73% of poor Black families reside in our higher need census tracts, along with 22% of poor white families and 14% of poor Asian families. Poor white and Asian families mostly reside in lower-need working-class and middle-class neighborhoods, unlike their poor Black peers.

As I wrote in a previous essay for PublicSource, our neighborhoods look the way they do because of the causes (structural racism) and consequences of persistent racial and economic segregation, in addition to the massive impact of deindustrialization. While I grew up poor, I did so primarily in a low-poverty, working-class, relatively safe neighborhood. Most of my poor Black peers are disproportionately exposed to concentrated poverty and gun violence and I strongly argue we cannot ignore them. Exposure to gun violence may be one of the most important factors that explain why neighborhoods matter in affecting life outcomes.

Despite being low-income, and after moving us from rental to rental, my parents were able to get a mortgage for our house in Brookline, an easier lift because they are white. Government programs kept the family afloat. Additionally, attending a college like WJU and meeting mentors there who held me to high expectations and supported me undeniably helped me eventually rise out of poverty. While the classism I faced throughout middle and high school was challenging (and would have been even harder if I was poor and Black), getting to attend a low-poverty school was still of huge benefit to my social mobility. 

While it took tremendous efforts to go from lifelong poverty to middle-class researcher, I rose out of poverty not because I worked any harder or was any smarter than poor peers, but because I was exposed to enough protective factors and got lucky at various points in my life.

With all this context in mind, I still think it’s important to talk about and understand white poverty in its own right and in a way that doesn’t invalidate and dismiss its challenges, especially in the current political reality. 

In my experience, politicians on the political right — from former poor people like Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance to generationally wealthy people like Donald Trump — tend to exploit poor white people when they are politically useful, but otherwise demonize them and do little to address poverty. And people on the political left tend to acknowledge the systemic drivers of poverty for every marginalized group except poor white people, but at least they tend to support the social safety net more broadly. 

Recent research published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that social liberals, when prompted to reflect on white privilege, had reduced sympathy for poor white people and were more likely to blame them over external causes for their challenges. Liberals showed higher levels of sympathy for other poor groups. On the other hand, conservatives expressed low levels of sympathy for all low-income people. My experience is that neither political conservatives nor liberals tend to look at the very real external causes of white poverty. They blame poor white people for supposed personal failures.

Addressing learned biases and better understanding privilege, call for an intersectional approach that acknowledges how different, intersecting identities shape our experiences and outcomes. If a conversation or research study doesn’t minimally include the intersecting realities of race, class and gender, then that conversation or research is insufficient and incomplete. Just as poor Black people tend to experience additional hardships to those experienced by upper-income Black people, being poor and white is incredibly distinct from being upper income and white, so looking at race alone is not enough.

There also is a lack of understanding of the volume of white people who experience poverty. Here in Allegheny County, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, the white poverty rate in 2022 was 8% and the Black poverty rate was 31%, which reflects the realities of structural racism. At the same time, there are more poor white people in the county than any other group: more than 73,000 poor white people and around 43,000 poor Black people. Nationally, most poor people are white, with over 17 million white, non-Hispanic people living in poverty. 

Policymakers have to understand the full scope of poverty and how it intersects with race to properly address disparities across groups and serve all those in need. 

Closely intertwined with the enduring reality of racism in America is the enduring reality of classism, reflected in the slur “white trash.” As documented in Nancy Isenberg’s book “White Trash,” people coming to the New World from England during the colonial era weren’t primarily escaping religious persecution and the monarchy, but rather shipped over because British elites saw America as a trash bin for England’s poor when starvation, incarceration or war didn’t dispose of them.

Surrounded by populations of white people brought over as indentured servants and Black people transported into slavery, wealthy whites, terrified of a united rebellion, have exploited the construct of race to divide and control poor people since the colonial era. According to Isenberg, the general landlessness of America’s white rural poor, meanwhile, led to a series of slurs that are still openly used to this day: waste people, redneck, hillbilly, white trash, clay eater, cracker and trailer trash, as just some common examples. Given how often I still hear them used, they seem to be considered acceptable, even on the political left. 

Throughout America’s history, poverty has been wrongly viewed as hereditary, not the result of structural barriers. As part of the eugenics movement of the early 1900s, forced sterilization was used to control “undesirable” populations, which included women of color and poor white women. And while discriminatory voting, housing, lending and land use laws throughout U.S history took clear aims at disenfranchising Black people, they also impact poor people of any race, though not equally.

Such thinking has seeped into political discourse on all sides, with poor white people viewed as part of a group of deplorables. Even today, most of the discourse on the 2016 election results blames poor and working class white people for the election of Donald Trump, even though exit polls show he was mostly elected by middle- and upper-income white people.

Statistical truths, individual experiences

In 2022, West Virginia — where my classmate had denied white poverty — was 90% white and the third-poorest state. Its second-poorest county, McDowell, is 90% white and has the state’s highest suicide rate, America’s highest opioid overdose rate among counties according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the nation’s lowest county life expectancy, the latter statistic on par with Iraq. 

Here in Allegheny County, most Black people live in our higher-need neighborhoods, which is not true of any other racial or ethnic group. At the same time, there are nearly as many white people in our higher-need neighborhoods as Black people — around 76,000 white people and around 82,000 Black people. While need is most concentrated in our Black neighborhoods,  there is also high need in mixed-but-majority-white neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s South Hilltop, McKees Rocks and steel towns throughout the Mon Valley. These are neighborhoods where low-to-moderate-income people of different races are exposed to challenges like gun violence,  pollution, economic isolation, food deserts, transportation barriers and more, a fact that may get overlooked. 

I was poor or near poor from birth until about six years ago, when I landed my career as a researcher after graduating from Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College (an aggressive culture shock for me given that two-thirds of students come from the top fifth of the income distribution). Despite my own economic mobility, the consequences of poverty and trauma still impact me to this day. I also have had to deal with years of people invalidating my experiences or demonstrating a lack of empathy toward poor white people. 

This approach didn’t work in teaching me about the reality of racism, and it doesn’t help build coalitions across race and class to abolish structural racism, classism and other forms of discrimination. But exposure to intersectionality and approaches that combine empathetic listening with highlighting our shared humanity did and do work, and as a result, I’ve dedicated my adult life to addressing the causes and consequences of persistent racial and economic segregation.

We need to recognize and separate statistical truths from individual ones. One should never assume what someone’s life experience is without getting to know them. Individual experiences can and do stray from statistical averages. If someone has a bias or a lack of understanding about how intersecting identities tend to shape outcomes, we should educate in a way that acknowledges these identities and expose people to these ideas in ways that are effective, not confrontational.

We should care about eradicating poverty for people of all races, with an understanding that individuals from different groups tend to require different levels of support, given the reality of structural discrimination. To do that, we need diverse anti-poverty coalitions across race and class, not silos. 

Nick Cotter is a researcher with Allegheny County and the creator of the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project. He can be reached at pittsburghneighborhoodproject@gmail.com. The views expressed in this piece are those of the author alone. This piece does not reflect official views of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. You can follow the Pittsburgh Neighborhood Project here.

The post From poor white roots to intersectional anti-poverty solutions for all appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Falaknaz Paiwandi came to the Oakland Food Pantry in search of fresh vegetables and halal meat. 

The 56-year-old father of four fled Afghanistan with his family after the Taliban seized power there in 2021. They left their home in Parwan — a rural province north of Kabul — for a New Jersey military base, where they joined thousands of Afghan refugees awaiting new lives in American cities. 

They settled in Pittsburgh a few months later, but are finding it hard to afford food here. Paiwandi, a veteran of U.S.-backed Afghan armed forces, can’t work because he was injured in a car accident. His 23-year-old son, a laundromat worker, is the family’s sole earner. His wages are nowhere near enough to feed his parents and siblings. 

“It’s too expensive and we’re not able to buy food for ourselves,” said Paiwandi, speaking in Dari through an interpreter. “That’s why we’re having a plan to get food from the food pantry.”  

He selected apples, carrots, walnuts and mangoes, among other produce items. But he couldn’t have his pick of protein: There was no halal beef or chicken that day, so he took the salmon that pantry staff offered him.  

About 30 Afghan families visit the pantry each month, according to Community Human Services [CHS], the nonprofit that runs it and offers other supportive services. Their needs highlight gaps in Pittsburgh’s charitable food system, which is struggling to keep pace with high demand and changing demographics in the region. Staff at food banks and pantries say more people with limited English proficiency are seeking food assistance. And few pantries offer halal meat — a crucial macronutrient for Paiwandi and other followers of Islamic dietary law. 

CHS is trying to fill those gaps. It uses interpreters to communicate with people facing language barriers. It stocks the kind of fresh produce and grains that are staple foods in many countries. And it offers halal meat as much as its budget allows. 

Staff said their efforts drew more refugees and immigrants to the pantry. High food prices and the end of pandemic-era food benefits are driving demand, too. Nearly 2,800 people used the pantry in the last fiscal year — a 77% increase from fiscal year 2022 that brought more traffic to the neighborhood and generated backlash from residents. 

“We’re trying to be really good neighbors while also serving the community,” said Chief Executive Alicia Romano. “It’s been a really tough balance.” 

Growing needs and rising tensions 

To get the food they need for the week, a pantry participant must first maneuver through the tight streets of South Oakland. If they’re new to Pittsburgh and unfamiliar with traffic laws here, they might park in a fire lane or permit-parking spot for residents.  

It’s happened often enough to create conflict with neighbors, some of whom called police to report participants who illegally parked near the pantry, or blocked traffic on Lawn Street while loading food into their cars. Pantry Program Manager Mattie Johnson once had to defuse tension when a group of neighbors confronted participants outside the pantry to complain about the disruption near their homes.   

Police who arrived to enforce traffic laws were unprepared for the language diversity at the pantry. Johnson said an officer “made this one big announcement” in English, which many participants couldn’t understand. When staff used interpreters to make sure everyone got the message, “it kind of clicked to her, you know, what was going on here.” 

More refugees have resettled in Allegheny County in recent years, according to data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. It partnered with resettlement agencies to bring 746 people here in 2023 and 822 in 2022 — up from 174 in 2021. The historic high is due to people fleeing conflict and instability in countries such as Ukraine, Afghanistan, Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said Dana Gold, chief operating officer of Jewish Family and Community Services [JFCS], one of four resettlement agencies in the region. 

Research shows they’re at risk for food insecurity after they arrive — especially if they face language barriers, which can lead to fewer job opportunities and difficulty enrolling in food assistance programs. 

It’s why food pantries should develop “linguistic and cultural competency” to serve them, said Ha Ngan (Milkie) Vu, an assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University who studies food insecurity in refugee and immigrant populations. That means stocking “culturally appropriate foods” and hiring staff with the language skills to communicate with participants. 

The CHS team stepped up on a recent afternoon as people from Ukraine, Afghanistan and other countries walked through the pantry doors. 

An Arabic-speaking volunteer helped new participants with the intake process. Interpreters from Larimer-based Global Wordsmiths — who speak rarer languages and dialects like Dari and Pashto — were a phone call away. An assortment of fresh produce, dried legumes and canned goods was stocked on the shelves. And non-English-speaking participants could point to signs on the wall — of a lamb, pig, cow, turkey and fish — to choose cuts of meat.  

There were problems to solve, too. Staff placed signs and cones around no-parking zones, and have expanded pantry hours to keep the flow of traffic moving. 

Romano attended a November meeting of the Oakcliffe Community Organization, which represents residents of the South Oakland enclave, to announce the changes to neighbors who complained.  

Johnson said neighbors who called police to “intentionally ticket” vulnerable participants aren’t helping. She described the plight of a low-income woman who stayed away from the pantry for weeks after she was fined $50 for a parking violation.  

“It’s affecting the people that are already here to receive help, and who need it the most — especially her,” she said. “And I felt so bad because there was nothing we could do.” 

Elena Zaitsoff, vice president of the Oakcliffe group, declined to comment on behalf of residents. She said CHS leadership is welcome to keep attending meetings to update the community. 

Johnson hung a large sign near the pantry entrance that reads “Welcome” in 17 languages. After clashes with neighbors and a recent xenophobic comment from one participant to another, she wanted refugees and immigrants to know “that they can come here [and] we're going to try to accommodate their needs … as much as possible.”    

One of her biggest hurdles? Sourcing halal meat, which is expensive and hard to find in the charitable food system. 

Working toward a charitable food system for all 

Halal is the Arabic word for “permitted.” 

It applies to anything that’s allowed under Islamic law, but it’s most often used to describe food, said Asma Ahad, the director of halal market development at IFANCA, an Illinois-based halal certification organization. 

An animal must be slaughtered by a Muslim using the proper method, which is considered more humane, according to IFANCA guidelines. Pork isn’t allowed, so Muslims typically eat halal beef, lamb or chicken. Suppliers avoid cross-contamination with non-halal foods.  

“We see more halal-specific diets than anything,” said Johnson. 

But the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, which supplies local pantries, hasn’t consistently offered halal meat. Johnson pulled up its online ordering form on a December afternoon. It allowed her to select kosher foods — eaten by followers of Jewish dietary law — but not halal ones. 

“I feel like our halal families are coming in every week and we have to constantly give them fish, fish, fish,” she said. “... I don’t feel like it’s fair” that Muslims who come to the pantry can’t choose from a wide array of meats.  

“I don’t think it was intentional,” she added.

It “definitely” wasn’t, said Erin Kelly, director of partner and distribution programs at the food bank. “Our inventory is constantly changing.” 

A food bank spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that partner food pantries have “low demand” for halal beef and chicken because it’s more expensive. “Thus, we tend to not keep as big of a supply” in our warehouse. But it keeps some halal meat offsite for partners who need it and encouraged pantry staff to reach out when they can’t order the items online.

“We will work with CHS and other partners that serve similar populations to ensure they have the resources to serve their community,” said the spokesperson. 

Johnson asked the food bank for halal products in November. It responded to her request the day after PublicSource asked it questions about its halal inventory. She said the food bank offered to add halal chicken to its next delivery to the pantry.

A majority of food-insecure Muslims require or prefer halal foods, according to a poll by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Michigan-based think tank that studies American Muslims. Ahad said food banks and pantries are “slowly” realizing they need to do more, “but there’s still not an understanding of … why doing it right and doing it on a regular basis is critical.” The problem needs to be recognized at the federal level “so it can trickle down,” she added. 

Advocates want to expand the list of halal and kosher foods available through The Emergency Food Assistance Program, a federal program which buys healthy foods and partners with states to distribute them via food banks and pantries. They’re pushing for more equity in food stamps, too.    

In the meantime, a handful of pantries in the region will keep trying to plug the holes in the system. Some are struggling to keep up with demand. 

The Islamic Center of Pittsburgh runs a delivery-based pantry that offers halal meat sourced from local butcher Salem’s Market and Grill. The sign-up system filled up in a day this month — a record since it started posting the forms online a few years ago.

“I was shocked to see this,” said Pantry Manager Issam Abushaban. “That goes to show you how many people are in need and how desperate the situation is.” 

He’s seen more families from Syria and Afghanistan at the mosque lately. “We tend to be a comfort zone for people who need help when they come from other places,” he added.  

The Squirrel Hill Food Pantry, run by JFCS, is one of the few pantries in the county that’s open five days a week. It’s built up a network of suppliers — local and in New York — to keep shelves stocked with kosher and halal foods. Refugees often receive their first supplemental foods from the pantry, which sources culturally appropriate produce for them such as tomatillos, plantains and mangoes. Staff said they tend not to use canned goods.   

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” said Gold, the JFCS executive. 

But there’s still more to learn: “We were buying the wrong kind of lentils” for Afghan families, she said.  

CHS secured a $51,000 grant from McAuley Ministries last month to buy halal meat and other foods. It’s awaiting the funds, searching for a local supplier and keeping a dedicated halal freezer ready.  

Paiwandi, the father of four from Afghanistan, will be glad to have some options. 

“We just want to have food which is halal for Muslims,” he said. “Chicken, cow and fish meat.” 

If you need food assistance, dial 211 or find resources here.  

Venuri Siriwardane is PublicSource’s health and mental health reporter. She can be reached at venuri@publicsource.org or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @venuris.

This story was fact-checked by Delaney Adams. 

This reporting has been made possible through the Staunton Farm Mental Health Reporting Fellowship and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

The post Oakland Food Pantry faces ‘a really tough balance’ between emerging needs, tight supplies, neighborhood norms appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

I love aggressive music.

In fact, my love of extreme music forms a major part of my identity, like it does for so many others who enjoy heavy metal, punk rock and hardcore. This is my toe-tapping, heart-thumping, above-the-neck music that has brought me joy over the past few decades.

The first time I knew I loved aggressive music was in grade school. The ubiquity of MTV and pop radio exposed me to videos and music from varied artists. Something happened to me when I first heard the sound of the electric guitar. It was as if a blast of lightning struck my nervous system. Everything in my body felt supercharged. It’s an excitement I still feel every time I push play. I was bound to be a metalhead.

At the time “hair-metal” was everywhere. This became my entry into the greater world of heavy metal. Seeing videos by Poison, White Lion and Skid Row showed me that others also enjoyed this music. Musical connections with other metalheads forged in grade school led me to bands such as Anthrax and Sepultura, which in turn led me to artists that would eventually become central to my identity in my teen years, such as Helmet, Jawbox and Fugazi. These days I’m quite fond of a subgenre known as doom metal. 

Though heavy metal has an unfortunate reputation for hostility and sometimes even intolerance and racism, I’ve found something entirely different: A scene that has transcended politics and borders, which encourages conversation about taboo topics, marginalized lifestyles and diverse backgrounds — including mine. 

My love of aggressive music opened up the world that I only ever saw in newspaper headlines and still photos in encyclopedias, and introduced me to most of my closest friends. 

Aggressive sounds and African horizons

Heavy metal has also opened doors to cultures, countries and people in ways I could never have imagined. 

As a college student, I majored in political science, and focused my attention on Africa’s post-colonial history. A door opened for me while I was studying for an MA in African Studies in London. Friends in the heavy metal scene there asked me about the metal scene in Africa. I had few answers, but decided to find some. 

What I discovered was a continent that was rich with a music scene that resonated for others the way it has for me. I saw firsthand how metal has bridged troubled histories, connected rival ethnic groups and built common understanding. 

I have since authored two books on the subculture’s existence and challenges in Africa, and have contributed research to the growing body of work of metal studies in academia by way of published papers and speaking engagements across universities in the U.S. and Europe. 

Metal has provided me the confidence to step into this world as a scholar and writer, an unimaginable thought as a kid.

Fans in Africa found it much easier to talk to me as an outsider about certain issues because of the common love of metal that allowed us to break through cultural barriers. Notably, many Africans were curious about America’s openness to the LGBTQ+ communities, because being openly gay was still viewed negatively in many countries. This also allowed for questions on American life, social issues and how Africans felt Westerners viewed them.

I have also seen how metal bands in Madagascar and Togo celebrate their pre-colonial histories and cultures by incorporating pre-Francophone languages and traditions. I met a band from Ghana that uses their music to address widening economic disparities and highlight how poverty is cleaving their county. I have seen how South Africans use metal to build a post-apartheid future, and a band in Zimbabwe that uses heavy metal to spread a message of unity and hope in the midst of authoritarian rule.

Needless to say, these experiences have taught me to be more human, humbling me in multiple ways. And heavy metal is very much at the center of bridging conversations in centers of conflict. In Kenya, I met the band Last Year’s Tragedy, whose music serves to unite the scene as they ask fans to look beyond their ethnic upbringings in the wake of post-election violence that pitted neighbors and communities against each other.

A welcoming scene with global reach

Having had the privilege of learning how aggressive music scenes have come to exist within other cities and countries, especially in Africa, I gained a greater appreciation for the second-to-none scene that exists in my adopted hometown.

I was introduced to this city’s metal scene in the mid-90s, after my mother moved us to Central Pennsylvania. Raised by a single mother, my younger sister and I bounced around more than we would have liked to. My love for metal allowed me to discover more about the region and get closer to others with the same affinity. 

For Appalachia-based fans, Pittsburgh’s scene was the “go-to” for what was happening in metal, punk and hardcore. After leaving Pennsylvania for a stint in South Florida, I returned to the Keystone State (this time in Pittsburgh), where I immersed myself in the metal scene as a writer, guitarist in the band Negative Thirteen and passionate fan. 

Pittsburgh’s metal scene is ambitious and honest, because of the fans and their drive to keep pushing to the next level. Our scene has long prided itself in being a community bound by our love of metal, punk and hardcore, but also by our status as outsiders. 

Though there are times when the scene may not be as unifying as fans feel it could be, Pittsburgh metal fans are quick to remind each other that our love of aggressive music puts us in the same room together, providing an entryway to better understanding others and respecting various lived experiences. Discussions around social and political issues at shows end with handshakes because of this.

Pittsburgh’s Metal, punk and hardcore shows are no place for hate, or spiteful rhetoric of any kind. “All are welcome” is a common theme within the scene and at our venues. This is exactly the welcoming that has allowed me, as a Puerto Rican fan, and many others to feel at home at a metal gig. Notably, the ability to speak Spanish at a metal show with another fan and not be told to “go back to where I came from” is a feeling of comfort I cherish.

The work ethic, talent and passion that many in this city have for aggressive music has only grown in recent years and it is a scene that we have been able to share with the rest of the world in a big way.

In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, bands such as Dream Death, Eviction, Aus-Rotten, Half Life and Zao began pushing Pittsburgh’s aggressive music scene to audiences worldwide. Since then bands such as Signs of the Swarm, Lady Beast, Submachine and Horehound have kept its aggressive music engine revving. All of these bands have fan bases throughout the U.S. and abroad. 

Others have elevated this scene to another level.

Code Orange formed when its primary members were students at the Pittsburgh CAPA 6-12 arts magnet, and they have gone on to become a global brand with two Grammy nominations. Citing punk, hardcore and metal influences, their success was expected by many who closely watched the local scene.

It is remarkable to walk into a record shop in Stockholm or Tel Aviv and see an album by one of Pittsburgh’s own, or to see fans wearing shirts of bands from the Pittsburgh scene at metal festivals in Kenya and Johannesburg. Having fans and musicians in various cities around the world ask me about Pittsburgh’s metal scene has been wonderful.

What is it about our scene that has brought it to stages around the world? Part of it is the work ethic that many in this city know all too well. Most here grew up in working-class homes with working-class upbringings and values that encouraged people to push forward regardless of circumstances — a true “do-it-yourself” mindset.

Going underground

It was not always like this.

By the mid-2000s, Pittsburgh’s metal scene was fairly stagnant. Gatekeeping and “scene politics” kept many bands from making strides. Bands struggled to get gigs, promote themselves and get taken seriously by other fans of aggressive music in this city.

What happened next was an ignition.

Independent promoters got more involved in the local scene, encouraging venues to take metal more seriously. Heeding the call were Mr. Smalls Funhouse, Penn Brewery, Shred Shed and the aggressive music Mecca in the making, Preserving. These venues and promoters have provided local acts the opportunity to perform with touring acts and to connect with regional artists while elevating our own scene.

Bands started to push each other in a way that fostered a professional outlook. With the ever-moving vicissitudes of the music industry, musicians started to assist each other by promoting local bands on social media platforms, offering up design services or assisting in teaching other musicians how to navigate new avenues such as streaming and platforms. Record labels such as 20 Buck Spin, Willow Tip, Our Ancient Futures, Play Alone and Katzulhu Productions have helped validate Pittsburgh’s scene by investing in a city that believes it can be a global center for heavy metal.

Eventually Pittsburgh’s metal scene started to believe in itself. The success of festivals such as Deutschtown Music Festival, The Millville Music Festival, Descendants of Crom, Metal Immortal and Skull Fest have provided opportunities for fans and musicians to converge in new spaces and enjoy the local talent.

For me heavy metal has become more than just another lineup of albums in a playlist. It has shaped my identity, providing me with a passport of memories and a life of words that continues to open up new doors for me and take me to places I had only previously dreamed of seeing. There is nothing like heavy metal.

Edward Banchs is an author and independent researcher based in Verona and can be reached at edwardbanchs@gmail.com.

The post How heavy metal took me all the way to Africa — and deeper into Pittsburgh appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

“Can I use your phone?” I asked a lady at the Greyhound Bus Station in Muncy. As she started to hand me her smart phone, I asked: “Can you dial the number? I don’t know how to use that.” Thankfully, she was happy to help.

No one sat next to me on my way home on the Greyhound bus following my release from prison. It was a pretty day, and the greenery of Central Pennsylvania rolled by. But I was nervous. Extremely nervous.

Walking out of the State Correctional Institution Muncy, I felt like I was floating above the sidewalk. Now, with time to think, it hit me: I had spent much of my 20s making mistakes connected to crack cocaine, and much of my 30s locked up. Now I was in my early 40s, thinking and praying: “I hope I don’t mess up again. God, I’ll dedicate this year to you. Just please help me to get myself together.”

But I had no idea how to get myself together. I assumed it would involve a job. But how do I create a resume — especially with my past? If I get an interview, what do I wear? Perfume, or no? What will the interviewer ask, and how should I answer?

I didn’t even know how to use the new phones.

That was more than 15 years ago.

Fast forward to last month

A few weeks ago, on a mid-December evening, I handed certificates to three men, including Terrill Weatherspoon.

Terrill, like me, got in trouble with substances. On that December night, he’d be returning to a halfway house. For two hours, though, we were together with a few dozen people in the basement of the Pittsburgh Mennonite Church, celebrating the graduations of Terrill and three other men from the Colorful Backgrounds EXPO, a program I launched a few years ago. 

EXPO stands for Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing. The graduates spent the prior 11 Tuesday nights getting organized, through courses on anger management, mental health, computer literacy, job hunting, money management, civics, leadership, etiquette and criminal record expungement.

Even with that preparation, Terrill was feeling some butterflies. “You come out of jail, you’re putting in an application, they flag you because of your background,” he said in conversation. But now he had some tools in his belt. “God willing, I’ll get a good job and everything will fall into place.”

I knew exactly what he meant. I’d learned a lot of lessons in 2007, and it took 14 years — and lots of help from others — for me to convert that experience into an organization which is built to last.

Lesson 1: It’s not easy having a colorful background

You think serving time is hard. It is, but leaving prison can be even harder. As one Colorful Backgrounds graduate said, the world “will eat you up and swallow you and put you right back” in prison.

That’s in part because the world you return to may not be the world you left.

I grew up in Broadhead Manor, a public housing community in Pittsburgh’s Fairywood neighborhood. Growing up, we had everything: rec centers, track and field facilities, families that kept an eye on each other. But when I got out of state custody, Broadhead was gone — demolished, like so many public housing communities in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Truthfully, I didn’t mind. Broadhead’s disappearance was one more reason to start fresh.

But how?

I was lucky to have a case manager who asked me what I needed. I told her I needed help finding a job, so she sent me to a career development course. That career development course saved my life, and stuck with me when I found myself, much later, in a position to help others.

After working up a resume, going through mock interviews, learning when to send a thank-you card, figuring out what to do with my napkin at a business lunch and countless other lessons, I started submitting applications. The POISE Foundation invited me to an interview.

I remember walking into their offices at Two Gateway Center. I thought: “Oh my God, I’m not getting this job! Look at this place.” But after three interviews, POISE President and CEO Mark Lewis said, “You just need a chance.”

Truthfully, I would’ve taken a job at McDonald’s at that point. POISE, though, allowed me to learn nonprofit management while starting to think big.

Lesson 2: Start wherever, but grow

The seed of Colorful Backgrounds was planted by that career development course, but watered by Barack Obama.

As Obama’s 2008 campaign picked up steam, somebody told me that I couldn’t vote, because of my record. Luckily, I did my research, and found out they were wrong. When I showed up at the polls for the first time, the line was around the corner. Passing cars were honking their support. It was like a party.

But a year later, with only local officials and judges on the ballot, I showed up at a nearly empty polling place. “What’s going on?” I wondered. It turned out the Black community wasn’t voting in near the numbers that it did in presidential years, even though local elections may be even more important to our everyday lives.

I mean, our youth were getting murdered. There was something triggered in me. I couldn’t keep complaining from the sideline. I had to get in the fight.

I drifted into activism, sometimes spending my lunch hour on Grant Street protesting against violence, for police accountability and about other causes. A few times my boss asked, “Did I see you on the news?” When your boss asks you that, in a skeptical tone, it might be time to change your passion to your profession.

Lesson 3: Aim to sustain

I founded West End P.O.W.E.R., dedicated to activism, advocacy, education, equity and unity in communities of color and other underrepresented communities. That allowed me to work on voter empowerment, community advocacy and food security, among other issues. But something was gnawing at me.

Remember the career development program that saved my life? It closed a few months after I graduated. I heard the funding ran out. It wasn’t the only program for ex-incarcerated people, but with more than 13,000 people leaving Pennsylvania prisons each year, the demand is a lot higher than the supply.

In early 2021, I got a call from Illah Nourbakhsh at Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Shared Prosperity. “If you have a project, we may be able to endow it,” he said. I was like, is this a prank? He said, “No, it’s not a prank.”

The center pairs CMU’s expertise with community members’ passions, ambitions and skills. Illah’s offer to bring planning help and funding gave me hope that I could build a program like the one that saved my life, with some added civics and with staying power.

I had to envision a project, build a team and estimate the cost. It took nearly a year to put it all together, and we took in our first cohort in early 2022.

So far we’ve helped 38 ex-incarcerated people, in six cohorts, to prepare for life on the outside. Some, like Terrill, will apply what they’ve learned locally.

Luis Jimenez, though, plans to return home to North Carolina when he’s released from a halfway house here. “This was my first time being in jail,” he said as he ate at the graduation night dinner. He’ll come out with “a lot of perspective: The finances, the credit, the computer skills.”

Then there are students like Andre “Chewbacca” Gay. He did a half-century in prison, emerging last year at age 72. He told me, “I never even voted.” After he finally voted, he came to me and said, “Look what I did!” His smile was so big, you didn’t need to turn the lights on.

Getting out of prison, you always think that you have this horrible story that no one would ever understand. But if someone meets you where you are and gives you a chance, it is both humbling and empowering. 

Working with Colorful Backgrounds students changes the way that I fight for them. Seeing them graduate, my heart swells for them — but also for those still locked up, or released with no one to help.

Terri Minor Spencer is the founder and president of West End P.O.W.E.R. and can be reached at 1terriminor@gmail.com.

Rich Lord is the managing editor at PublicSource and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

The post ‘I hope I don’t mess up again’ I thought on leaving prison. Now I help others say, ‘Look what I did!’ appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

SparkleDragon’s Magical Emporium es un lugar en Beechview donde las brujas, los idólatras, los paganos y los locales se pueden reunir para encontrar inciensos, libros, y otros objetos de lo oculto. 

Beechview Puntos de Orgullo
FuentePública (PublicSource) mapea y relata las fortalezas de comunidades diversas.

Joyce Crock, autodenominada bruja, visualizaba su negocio en la Avenida Broadway como un lugar de reunión donde las personas que sienten que no pertenecen a los lugares denominados “normales” puedan construir una comunidad, cuando lo abrió en el 2015. 

“Siento que mi lugar es muy importante para la comunidad pagana,” Crock dijo. “Tenemos a mucha gente LGBTQ+ en la comunidad pagana y no siempre se sienten cómodos en todas partes. Hay personas de color que han venido a decirme cuán bienvenidos se sienten porque yo no los juzgo. Eso fue cómo una bofetada para despertar.”

Crock dijo que muchos negocios a su alrededor han visto disminuir su clientela . Y mientras ella da la bienvenida a cualquiera en su tienda, últimamente también se le ha hecho difícil atraer clientes. 

“He tenido mi negocio por mucho tiempo y nunca he generado ganancia,” agregó Crock, quien también vende obras de artistas locales, por consignación. “No sé cómo todavía sigo abierta, en realidad no lo sé. Algunas personas dan mucho apoyo a la tienda. Hay varias personas que entran solo para platicar. Casi tengo una pequeña clínica de salud mental.” 

El distrito de negocios de Beechview no se ha recuperado completamente de un escándalo de fraude masivo a principios de la década del dos mil, incluso cuando es impulsado ahora por la afluencia de nuevos residentes, muchos de ellos Latinos. Los dueños de negocios tienen la esperanza de que la accesibilidad del vecindario y la creciente población de inmigrantes van a solidificar la transformación.

“El distrito de negocios quedó diezmado. La afluencia de los Latinos ha ayudado a revivir la comunidad después de todo lo que paso con Bernardo Katz,” dijo Charlene Saner, una residente de Beechview, refiriéndose a un desarrollador que compró numerosas propiedades, prometiendo invertir en el área con ayuda de la fundación de la Autoridad de Renovación Urbana (Urban Redevelopment Authority).

En lugar de eso, Katz huyó del país, con cargos federales de fraude electrónico, fraude bancario y conspiración, y dejó una deuda atada a muchas propiedades comerciales que compró en Beechview. De acuerdo con informes, Katz poseía el 80% del distrito de negocios de Beechview y prometió una revitalización de $2.6 millones.   

Los negocios que atienden a la población Latina han ayudado a llenar el vacío. 

El área es hogar de numerosos restaurantes de dueños Latinos, así como un supermercado y una peluquería. La Corporación de Desarrollo Hispano de Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh Hispanic Development Corporation), con sede en Broadway, alberga un programa de incubación de empresas que promueve emprendedores Latinos en South Hills y en toda la región. 

Guillermo Velazquez, director ejecutivo del grupo de desarrollo, dijo que su organización trabaja con todos, pero se especializa en ayudar a personas Latinas que quieren empezar negocios. 

“Es bueno para Beechview porque se están incubando aquí y tienen una dirección postal de la empresa con nosotros durante el periodo de incubación,” Velazquez dijo. “Hay actividad, y las personas vienen aquí para reuniones. Incrementamos el tráfico en una manera positiva en Beechview.” 

Velazquez dijo que desde que la organización empezó en el 2018, han ayudado a abrir más de 126 negocios en la región, y al menos uno de estos está en Beechview. 

Él dijo que espera que la oferta de negocios continúe creciendo y que traigan con ellos una variedad de industrias, como de tecnología y de investigación. Piensa que con el tiempo el vecindario se beneficiaría de un festival anual en Broadway.

Quien sabe cómo se hubiera visto sin esa afluencia [Latina],” dijo Saner, quien también trabaja para el Concejal de la Ciudad Anthony Coghill. Algunos inmigrantes pioneros de Broadway tuvieron dificultades. “Los negocios que encabezaban todo eso ya no están allí. Pero dejaron un legado muy poderoso. Ellos animaron a otros Latinos a venir al área.” 

Huddle cerrado, participación prometida

El restaurante The Huddle en Broadway operó por 47 años, dirigido por la familia Wagner, políticamente influyente, antes de cerrar este verano. 

El vecindario es “completamente diferente ahora y también es un mundo completamente diferente,” dijo Peter Wagner, de 78 años, quien manejaba el negocio. “Tenemos que seguir adelante.”

El dijo que el vecindario se ha “ido todo al infierno por la aplicación de los códigos… Los funcionarios encargados de hacer cumplir los códigos se niegan a aplicar las reglas de códigos que están escritas. Hay muchos propietarios absentistas en esta área.” 

Cómo consecuencia, se han deteriorado las acciones  de las viviendas que una vez fueron sólidas, él dijo. 

“Ahora se ven lotes descuidados y ventanas clausuradas con tablas, y ves que la gente simplemente no cuida sus propiedades y en muchos casos son propietarios absentistas y si no los buscas y les presionas no puedes ganar en una comunidad,” Wagner dijo.  

Pittsburgh tiene tres funcionarios que velan por el  medioambiente, cada uno es responsable de 30 vecindarios, de acuerdo con la vocera de la ciudad Olga George. Desde septiembre, el inspector que atiende a Beechview ha reunido 191 denuncias, de las cuales 24 fueron a la corte del distrito.

“La filosofía del equipo es educar, investigar y [cómo un] último recurso litigar,” dijo George. Los funcionarios “hablan con los residentes directamente o por carta cuando ocurre una infracción. A veces, cuando van a una inspección ya se ha resuelto la infracción.” 

Wagner dijo que ha tratado de encontrar un comprador para su restaurante, pero hasta ahora no ha encontrado a alguien con el que esté satisfecho, aun cuando se lo ha mostrado a posibles compradores de Maryland y New Jersey. 

Algunas propiedades del distrito de negocios no han encontrado compradores. 

Una propiedad que fue de Katz en la Avenida Broadway fue demolida recientemente por la ciudad.

“Es agridulce porque hay un vacío enorme en el distrito de negocios. Y ahora va a haber un plan metódico de lo que irá allí,” dijo Saner. “No queremos más monopolios. No más de que una persona sea dueña de múltiples propiedades. Con participación comunitaria ahora, todos van a tener una voz fuerte.” 

Saner dijo que la participación comunitaria es más fuerte por el historial del vecindario con malos inversionistas como Katz. 

“Por [Katz], emergieron más grupos comunitarios cómo una manera de prevenir que ese tipo de cosa pase de nuevo,” dijo. “Y ahora somos más fuertes por eso.”

Señales prometedoras

Una propiedad que antes fue de Katz, en la esquina donde la Avenida Beechview se une con la Avenida Broadway, ahora es un Dollar Eagle.

En el otro lado del distrito de negocios está Slice on Broadway, una pizzería que se ha expandido a 6 locales en toda la ciudad. El dueño Rico Lunardi dijo que abrió el negocio en el 2010, después de regresar de Filadelfia con un título en administración de empresas. 

“La pizza es una gran cosa aquí,” dijo Lunardi, destacando que el área presume de pizzerías legendarias cómo Fiori’s Pizzaria y Badamos. “Hay mucha competencia.”

A pesar de la competencia sabrosa, Lunardi dijo que le ha ido bien en su negocio y “despegó” después de ganar algunos premios locales. Él atribuyó su éxito comercial a ingredientes de alta calidad y a la novedad regional de vender rebanadas de pizza.

“Hay un estilo Pittsburgh de hacer pizzas y nosotros no somos eso,” él dijo. “La pizza de Pittsburgh tiene una masa más gruesa, salsa más dulce y mucho más queso. Nosotros somos un poco diferentes y no había muchas opciones de conseguir rebanadas de pizza cuando empezamos.”

Lunardi dijo que espera poder franquiciar su negocio.

“Este vecindario es genial, pero ha tenido altibajos,” dijo, refiriéndose al fracaso de Katz. “Nosotros pensábamos que íbamos a tener más desarrollo aquí, pero eso no es el caso.”   

Él dijo que el tren de superficie, conocido cómo el T, trae la posibilidad de que el área atraiga a más personas que buscan trasladarse a diario hacia dentro y fuera de la ciudad. 

Crock también dijo que el acceso al transporte público puede ayudar a revitalizar el vecindario. 

“Quiero ver a Beechview crecer y hacerse más vibrante, como debe de ser. Tenemos la ventaja de la línea T aquí mismo,” dijo ella. “Espero ver a Beechview convertirse en una ciudad [vecindario] cómo Lawrenceville o Bloomfield, sin la gentrificación.”

Guillermo Velazquez, quien fue entrevistado para esta historia, forma parte de la junta de directores de FuentePública (PublicSource). 

Eric Jankiewicz es un reportero de desarrollo económico de FuentePública (PublicSource), y puede ser contactado en ericj@publicsource.org o por Twitter  @ericjankiewicz.

Los hechos de esta historia fueron revisados por Ladimir Garcia. 

Traducción de Zulma Michaca, profesional bilingüe experta viviendo en el Condado de Riverside, Calif., con familia en Pittsburgh. Para contactarla: z.michaca123@gmail.com.

The post Los comerciantes de Beechview esperan que la inmigración, el tránsito – ¿y quizás hasta la brujería? – demostrarán ser la fórmula mágica para la Avenida Broadway appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Lindsey Ramsey became an aide in an infant room at a child care facility as a 19-year-old single mom looking for work so she could afford diapers for her daughter. Never having thought about entering the sector, she learned how to care for children from a group of passionate caregivers.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” said Ramsey, 34, now the executive director of Shady Lane School in Point Breeze North. “But we had a wonderful group of educators who helped uplift new people entering the field … and they taught me how to change diapers and be a mom … I started to fall in love with early childhood education.”

The pandemic, though, exacerbated a multitude of underlying problems that had long haunted the care industry, such as high costs for parents and low wages for employees, according to child care advocates and providers. Now some child care practitioners are anticipating crisis.

While Congress injected $39 billion into child care through the American Rescue Plan Act [ARPA], it didn’t address underlying problems in child care infrastructure. 

More than half of that funding ended in September, igniting fears over a mass closure of child care facilities dubbed the “child care cliff.”

While the end of federal funds will not lead to wholesale closures, Cara Ciminillo, executive director of Trying Together, an Allegheny County-based child care advocacy group, said the decline of providers will continue if long term funding is not brought in.

Despite the mounting challenges, Ramsey said caring for the community and her love of childhood education keep her working in the field.

“I’m driven by equity, because it is so important that we are elevating those who don’t have the resources, who don’t have enough to be able to succeed and thrive in life,” Ramsey said. “Having access to early childhood [care] early on, is one of the leading contributing parts to human development. So I consider it to be a key component to equity, and that’s why I am rooted and stuck here.”

Ramsey is one of many child care providers in Allegheny County who shared concerns with the Pittsburgh Media Partnership. They fear that affordable and accessible child care could take major hits without new funding and government resources. 

Pennsylvania shuttered 2,189 child care programs from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic to June 2023, Emily Neff, Trying Together’s public policy director, said in an email. And even with new facilities opening, the net loss was 597.

Neff said 181 child care programs permanently closed in Allegheny County from 2019 through November of this year for a net loss of 18 in the county.

Diane Barber, executive director of the Pennsylvania Child Care Association, partly blames the closures on high operational costs of facilities and rapid staff turnover that occurred throughout the pandemic.

Barber said utility bills rose over the pandemic, compounding bills for child care providers and families. 

As the pandemic dragged on, employees at child care facilities across the state left for better-paying — and often easier — positions in public schools or even at retail locations, Barber said. And when the pandemic wound down, they didn’t return.

“I’ve heard this not once, I’ve heard this multiple times, that [a new child care staff worker] will show up and they’re gone by lunch because this is just not the job that they thought it was going to be,” Barber said. “They thought they were gonna play with kids and that’s not what it’s all about.”

Ramsey, who worked at Shady Lane as an educator before the arrival of COVID-19, returned as an administrator in the midst of the pandemic, while a budget deficit and record low enrollment prompted talk of closure.

Ramsey said Shady Lane received more than $200,000 in federal funds through the county to expand its programming for young children to accommodate eight new infants and 10 new toddlers. The grants sat on top of additional federal funds it used to subsidize employee wages.

“And that’s what really saved us,” Ramsey said of the Allegheny County grant. “We had a long infant-toddler waitlist. That gave us the ability to open more classrooms.”

How one of the county’s youngest departments distributed ARPA funds 

Allegheny County allocated $20 million of its $380 million ARPA allotment to organizations providing or advocating for child care under the designation “Healthy Childhood Environments,” according to the county ARPA spending dashboard. 

The county established the Department of Children Initiatives and assigned it to administer ARPA funds in December of 2021 following the recommendations in a report from the Allegheny County Children Fund’s working group.

So far, the department has disbursed a little over $6.1 million across 25 child care providers, advocacy groups and a consultancy firm, according to Mathew Singer, the chief of staff at the Allegheny County Controller’s office.

Rebecca Mercatoris, the department’s executive director since its inception in 2021, said the first goal when allocating the money was to build the capacity of existing part-time and full-time child care providers. 

Federal spending deadlines stipulate the county needs to allocate the remaining $13.9 million to organizations during 2024 and distribute it within two years.

Mercatoris said since the department’s establishment, it’s focused on mapping out the problems impacting child care in Allegheny County. Now, it’s trying to solve them. 

Minimal funds and shrinking staff make a ‘bad combination’

Mercatoris said one of the biggest problems facing child care — one described by many providers and advocates — relates to its business model. Parents across demographics need affordable child care to get back to work, while private child care providers need to turn a profit to retain staff and keep slots for children open. 

“I think one of our largest challenges is around family access and affordability and being able to support families in meeting their child care needs while also ensuring providers have the funds they need to be able to hire great staff and be able to keep them with them,” Mercatoris said.

Despite a constant demand for child care, there’s not enough people staying or going into the workforce due to low wages. This, coupled with a lack of financial support on the county, state and federal level, makes for what Ramsey describes as a “bad combination” that providers can’t keep up with. 

“[Providers] don’t want to price gouge families because they know families can’t afford it,” Ramsey said. “So in turn, they are taking the loss and this loss has impacted the sector to the point where we’re at the brink of collapse.”

According to Ramsey, even after the mandatory shutdowns ended, many facilities couldn’t open because all of their staff either had left for higher paying jobs or their older staff couldn’t come back to work due to risk of exposure to COVID. 

“People started to realize that they had to increase their wages to get people to come back to work there,” Ramsey said. “So those mom and pop centers and nonprofits struggled financially because they were having to raise wages with money that they didn’t have.” 

The Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh [BCAP] provides free after-school programs to families and students in the Brentwood area, but had to close down a program it started in 2019 at Concord Elementary School.

Khara Timsina, BCAP’s executive director, said BCAP will need more funding to continue to operate its after-school and summer programs into next year.

Deborah Gallagher, the director of the Council of Three Rivers American Indian Center Early Head Start program, said it’s become increasingly hard to find people who are both interested and qualified to continue working in early child care facilities.

Gallagher oversees both COTRAIC’s Early Head Start program in Hazelwood and the partnerships the program has with several other day care centers.

According to Gallagher, Head Start and Early Head Start received ARPA funding in 2021 and 2022, some of which covered quarterly bonuses for staff. But when the bonuses stopped, Gallagher lost staff. Now she is paying “hefty substitute fees” for subs from a staffing company called Childcare Careers.  

“Parents can’t find care because we can’t find people,” said Gallagher, noting that if facilities had the funds to find and train people the industry would pick up. 

‘I’m just trying to get good care for my kid’

Parents said issues of affordability and long wait lists existed long before pandemic-era staffing shortages added to their woes..

For Shawna Ramsey, 28, of Baldwin Borough, the high cost of child care pushed her out of her career. 

A mother of three, Ramsey – who is not related to Lindsey Ramsey – said she had her first child while in college. In nursing school, she said she couldn’t find a child care facility with an open spot, let alone a facility that matched her budget stretched thin by student loan payments. 

She became a nurse, had another child and then a third — but her nursing salary remained the same. She carried a surrogate child to pay for her student loans, and ultimately decided to leave the nursing field to focus on motherhood.

“I think it’s really interesting that [child care] costs so much when workers get paid so little,” Ramsey said. “Private owners seem to be profiting off of people in need.”

The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, estimates that it costs the average family in Pennsylvania $987 monthly to keep one infant in child care. A median child care worker in Pennsylvania would have to spend more than half of their earnings to put their own child in infant care.

After serving in the Navy, Liz Sterrett, was wrapping up her degree and looking for a child care spot for her 3-year-old daughter. She found a facility that would let her do janitorial work in exchange for a spot, but after college she had to start paying $600 a month — a cost she can’t wrap her head around six years later.

“I’ve had to shape my life and career around the fact that I cannot afford child care by myself,” said Sterrett, 37, of Bellevue. “No matter how much I scream and shout and cry, it doesn’t become affordable.”

Sterrett’s current employer lets her work from home several days a week, saving her hundreds a month in child care. She said it’s not ideal, and her now 9-year-old daughter has “several meltdowns because I can’t give her my full attention,” but child care is still a luxury she can’t afford. 

“Access to child care is absolutely abhorrent,” Sterrett said. “There is no reason why I should be struggling … I am not living some fancy metropolitan lifestyle. I’m just trying to get good care for my kid.”

‘Band-Aid on a historical problem’

While funding initiatives like ARPA sought to help facilities that took a hit during the pandemic build back their staff and resources, providers point to broader inequities that contribute to the issues they are facing.

“[ARPA] was not enough, because it was a Band-Aid on a historical problem,” Lindsey Ramsey said. “The historical problem is that the field was never invested in enough because the work isn’t valued and that has further snowballed into an issue of staffing … of the field not looking attractive enough to join, of programs not being able to truly reflect the true costs of the work that they’re doing.” 

According to Ciminillo, the average hourly wage for a Pennsylvania child care employee is $12.43 — not enough, but hard to raise because doing so would increase the cost of tuition for parents.

“We’re competing for folks and we’re not being successful because we can’t get the wages up and it’s because we don’t have a larger government investment in the system,” Ciminillo said.

Ciminillo described the child care system as already “very fragile” prior to the pandemic given that providers were not compensated, valued, appreciated or invested in enough. 

Lindsey Ramsey added that historically women, especially women of color, are the ones who provide child care, which she said is likely the reason why there seems to be less focus on funding the field. 

Maria Manautou, a former worker at a child care center in Pittsburgh, said better pay would be the fast route to alleviating staffing issues.

“If you have two jobs, and the one offers you … $15 and you’re not having that kind of stress and then the one offers you $12 and you’re stressed all day, then you can see how people end up picking something different,” Manautou said.

Ciminillo said the federal government and local communities began to realize how much they needed child care once – after the initial weeks of shutdown in 2020 – essential workers needed to get back to work but couldn’t do so without care. 

 To build a sustainable future child care sector, Ramsey is calling for  a “change and shift in the narrative of how we are looking at the early childhood field.” 

“At a federal level, there needs to be policy put in place for true equitable wages that reflect the level and importance of the work that’s being done,” Ramsey said. 

Calling on Congress: Providers say short term funding is not enough

Barber said short-term funding initiatives like ARPA only address problems in the child care sector as they arise, failing to address the underlying problems.

She compares the influx of short-term funding to building with Jenga blocks that keep moving around.

“Then we know how that game ends, right?” Barber asked. “Everything falls apart.”

Ciminillo said Allegheny County needs to establish a recurring revenue stream to support early learning and out-of-school programming. And for that to happen, she said local officials must hear their constituents’ demands.

“Each of us, no matter our position, no matter our age, no matter whether we have children or not, play a role in affecting young children, their families, and their caregiver’s lives,” Ciminillo said. “So it’s just so important that everybody show up and use their sphere of influence in support of that.”

Democrats in Congress introduced legislation in September to supplement child care funding by distributing $80 billion over five years when ARPA expires.

According to a press release announcing the legislation, this funding request would support more than 220,000 child care providers nationally that serve a total of more than 10 million children. It has not yet received a vote.

U.S. Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Aspinwall, and U.S. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, a Democrat from Massachusetts, toured La Petite Academy, a new child care facility at Pittsburgh International Airport, earlier this month and spoke about the issues plaguing child care and what they deemed as largely partisan opposition to potential solutions.

Clark said that without Republican support, she’s “not very optimistic” Congress will be able to get the $16 billion in supplemental funding passed.

Deluzio, a father of three and member of the Congressional Dads Caucus, described the “death spiral” child care providers enter when they’re forced to increase rates to retain staff but, in turn, price out families, which lowers their revenues. It’s a problem, he said, that can only be resolved through federal support of the child care industry.

“This is about lowering costs. This is about giving folks the ability to work and earn and be part of society,” Deluzio said in regards to the $16 billion funding request, “The federal government’s got to be there to help strengthen [the child care sector], invest and ultimately bring down costs for people.”

Still, several child care advocates say even ambitious fixed-term funding initiatives won’t solve the structural problems plaguing the sector.

“This can’t be a one-time funding,” Lindsey Ramsey said. “This has to be funding that is ongoing [and] sustainable, that’s built into government policy.”

Correction: Shady Lane School is in Point Breeze North. An earlier version of this story included an incorrect neighborhood.

Betul Tuncer and James Paul are students at the University of Pittsburgh. They completed fall internships with the Pittsburgh Media Partnership. Tanya Babbar, a student at the University of Pittsburgh, and Erin Yudt, a student at Point Park University, completed fall internships with PublicSource. Juliet Martinez is managing editor of The Homepage, a community newspaper serving Greater Hazelwood and surrounding neighborhoods.

The post ‘Band-Aid on a historical problem’: Child care providers expect slow collapse of sector without long-term aid appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.

Mario’s family was kicked off Medicaid this year. 

Beechview Points of Pride
PublicSource maps and chronicles the strengths of diverse communities

When he reported a new income source, he learned that his family — including his two children — no longer qualified for health insurance through UPMC for You, a Medicaid managed care plan. 

And buying marketplace coverage is out of the question: Most plans would cost him up to $300 per family member. That works out to more than $1,200 per month — a cost he can’t afford on top of his mortgage and other expenses. 

“It’s too much money, you know?” he said, shaking his head.  

PublicSource is withholding Mario’s last name because he comes from a mixed-immigration status household. His daughters, 13 and 5, were born in the U.S. They’ve been without health insurance for most of the year. 

Despite their lack of health coverage, Chelsea, his eldest daughter, was sitting on a doctor’s exam table. Mario had brought her to a mobile clinic in Beechview for a free COVID booster and exam for her school health record. 

The best part of their experience? The doctor attending to Chelsea, Dr. Diego Chaves-Gnecco, is a Spanish speaker. Mario — who knows English, but prefers to speak his native Spanish — was able to directly communicate with a provider about his daughter’s health. 

“It’s just better because he speaks in my own language,” he said. “I feel comfortable,” he added, gesturing to his daughter. “I think she feels comfortable as well.” 

Asking questions and advocating for yourself or your loved one is an essential part of receiving healthcare. Some take it for granted, but it’s a process that many people with limited English proficiency, including many immigrants, struggle with. 

Experts say it’s hard for non-English speakers to navigate the byzantine American healthcare system — especially if they’re used to universal coverage in another country. And if they’re undocumented, they won’t qualify for public health insurance in Pennsylvania without proof of a serious health condition. The state excludes at least 10,000 undocumented children from its Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to an estimate by child advocates. 

In Beechview, doctors from Salud Para Niños — a bilingual pediatric clinic at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh — have teamed up with staffers from local nonprofit Casa San José to provide primary care to uninsured kids. Many travel from all over Western Pennsylvania to access the free, bilingual and bicultural pediatric care they bring to the South Hills neighborhood that’s become a hub for Spanish-speaking people in the region.

An ‘invisible’ community  

Every Tuesday, a mobile medical van pulls up outside Casa San José on Broadway Avenue. It was parked across the street from the nonprofit’s office on a rainy morning in November. 

Described by staff as “the care mobile,” the van is operated by Children’s Hospital, but was paid for by the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House Charities. It has a tiny nurse’s station, two cheerfully painted exam rooms, and a patient waiting area in the style of a four-seat arrangement on a passenger train. 

There was enough room to accommodate the team of four — Chaves-Gnecco, a nurse and two drivers — working that day. They attended to several families with children, who arrived for their appointments between 9 a.m. and noon. 

There was Alba, who moved to Beechview in February from Santa Marta, a city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. She brought her 11-year-old son, Edward, who has asthma, for a check-up and free inhaler supplied by the clinic. Joselyn arrived next with her son, Justin, 8, who needed childhood immunizations. Chelsea was the last patient on the schedule.

PublicSource is withholding their last names to protect patient privacy.

Chaves-Gnecco is the driving force behind the operation. He’s a pediatrician from Bogotá, Colombia who came to Pittsburgh for specialty training in the late 1990s. He planned to leave after a year, but changed his mind and did a pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital, choosing a track that would help him understand the social and environmental factors that drive health outcomes. It was training that would prepare him to serve communities of color like his own, which he described as “invisible” in the region. 

There are more than 13,000 Latinos in the City of Pittsburgh and more than 31,000 Latinos in Allegheny County, but “you’re still hearing that there are no Latinos” here, said Chaves-Gnecco. That’s partly because the county lacks traditional barrios — a term for American neighborhoods with concentrations of Spanish-speaking immigrants, he said. The group makes up just 2.5% of the county’s population, compared to Los Angeles County’s 49%, according to census data. 

But it’s an important and fast-growing population, he added. Latinos in the county grew by more than 80% between 2010 and 2020 — far more than the 2% total population growth, according to a county report. Latinos here also tend to be younger: Just 7% are 65 or older, compared to 19% of all people in the county.   

Chaves-Gnecco founded Salud Para Niños — “Health for the Children” — to meet the healthcare needs of those young people. It opened more than 20 years ago as a bilingual clinic at Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood. He was helping a lot of kids, but wasn’t reaching the undocumented ones, some of whom, he said, “will never qualify” for subsidized health insurance under current Pennsylvania law. 

“And that’s kind of sad because that’s not the case for other states,” he said, pointing out that California, Washington and others have expanded coverage to include undocumented people. 

Immigrants and people who face language barriers are more likely to be uninsured and less likely to seek primary care, said Drishti Pillai, the director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a San Francisco-based health policy research organization. Without access to preventative services, they might develop a health condition that goes untreated for a long time, which could lead to a trip to the emergency room.  

“By then the situation could likely have gotten much worse, much more expensive to treat, and it theoretically could incur more costs to the healthcare system,” she added.

To keep that from happening to uninsured kids, Chaves-Gnecco and his team took the care mobile to Beechview in early 2020,  just as the world was shutting down to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That year, Salud Para Niños cared for more uninsured kids than ever. Now the program does about 360 uninsured patient visits per year. 

‘Linguistically affirming care’ for families 

“Oh, no!” yelled Justin, the third-grader, when he spotted the nurse carrying a tray of syringes toward him. 

Rose Wise laughed over Justin’s antics in the exam room. A longtime pediatric nurse at Children’s Hospital, she loves her shifts on the care mobile because “it eliminates the barriers to healthcare,” including cost, transportation and language barriers. 

Justin and his mother, Joselyn, are uninsured. She had been taking him to a low-cost clinic in Squirrel Hill, but heard from staffers at Casa San Jose that a Spanish-speaking doctor was treating kids right where she lived in Beechview.

That day was Justin’s first appointment with Chaves-Gnecco, who gave him a physical and caught him up on his vaccinations. He told Joselyn in Spanish that her son was healthy and in good shape to play sports at school. She plans to bring Justin back to the care mobile. 

“Thanks to this type of clinic, we have the possibility to access a doctor,” she said, speaking through Chaves-Gnecco’s translations. “This clinic is very valuable for the community. It’s very important.” 

Joselyn and Justin’s experience is what pediatrician and assistant professor Dr. Maya Ragavan calls “linguistically affirming care.” It creates a safe, supportive environment in which patients and their families can express their identities. Affirming care started as a framework for treating LGBTQ+ patients, but it can be applied to immigrants, people of color and other marginalized groups.  

Ragavan speaks Spanish and occasionally treats patients on the care mobile. She’s also a health equity expert whose research shows that affirming care can help improve health outcomes for immigrants. Too often, families don’t get that kind of care, she said, adding that it’s bad practice to expect family members to interpret for their loved ones. That leaves the burden on the family to advocate for a certified interpreter. 

Chelsea, Mario’s daughter, said she had to translate for her parents in other healthcare settings. 

“That’s really hard and really unfair,” said Ragavan. “… It’s the healthcare system that does that [to immigrant families].”

Chaves-Gnecco, on the other hand, built a system that ensures families receive affirming care “from start to finish,” she said, from a Spanish-speaking scheduler to fully translated health manuals. 

“I love the way that he can communicate with my parents,” Chelsea said. “Anything that I shouldn’t [have to] know to explain, he explains it for them.” 

Non-Spanish-speakers are also welcome at the care mobile, which is equipped with a tablet that provides virtual interpretation services for more than 100 languages, said Chaves-Gnecco. And the team is working with community partners like Casa San José to better accommodate Latinos whose first language is indigenous — a growing population here, according to a county report. 

A trusted community partner

Across the street from the van, Constanza Henry was helping people who were crowding into Casa San José’s tiny lobby. Some had only been in the U.S. for one week, she said. 

Henry is Casa San José’s community health and wellness coordinator. She works with providers to hold free clinics in or near the nonprofit’s office. Her efforts helped bring vaccines, mammograms and primary care to adults and children in Beechview.

Nearly a third of immigrant adults said a community health center is their usual source of healthcare in a recent survey. That jumps to about two-fifths among immigrants who are uninsured, undocumented or have limited English proficiency, said Pillai, the KFF researcher. 

Of all the doctors who donate their time to Casa San José’s programs, only the ones from Salud Para Niños can speak Spanish, said Henry. She often has to translate for patients and providers at the other clinics. It’s why Chaves-Gnecco is one of the most beloved doctors in the community, she added, and in such demand that he sometimes has to turn patients away. 

“It’s also very frustrating, not having all of the resources you would like to have,” said Henry, an immigrant herself from Mexico City. “Or just thinking that in our countries, if you go to the dentist, they won’t charge you so much and they will help you immediately.”  

Chaves-Gnecco said Colombia provides healthcare to immigrants, refugees and unhoused people. He dreams of universal coverage in the United States — of a system that doesn’t punish uninsured children.  

“It’s no secret to anybody that if you don’t have health insurance in this country, sometimes you might end up losing your car … [or] your home,” he said. “That is a really huge problem. And I feel that we should do better for our community in general, for all Americans … and provide health insurance for everybody.”

Back in the care mobile, the team wrapped up with Mario and Chelsea.  

Wise, the pediatric nurse, said Chelsea could have her pick from the clinic’s supply of blankets. She chose a cozy-looking fleece one in a butterfly pattern. It shielded her as she climbed down the clinic’s steps and stepped out into one of the coldest, wettest mornings this fall.   

The locations and hours of operation for Salud Para Niños can be found here in English y aquí en español. 

Correction: Tom Skemp’s name was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

Venuri Siriwardane is PublicSource’s health and mental health reporter. She can be reached at venuri@publicsource.org or on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, @venuris.

This story was fact-checked by Ladimir Garcia. 

Translation by Zulma Michaca, a bilingual professional living in Riverside County, Calif., with family ties in Pittsburgh. She can be reached at z.michaca123@gmail.com.

This reporting has been made possible through the Staunton Farm Mental Health Reporting Fellowship and the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

The post In Beechview, a free bilingual clinic cares for children of immigrants appeared first on PublicSource. PublicSource is a nonprofit news organization serving the Pittsburgh region. Visit www.publicsource.org to read more.