Comcast is awarding a total of $1 million in $10,000 grants to more than 100 Philly businesses owned by women and people of color. | From: WHYY (Read more.)
A new annual report from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health provides a snapshot of city life during the first several months of the pandemic, highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on housing, as well as a variety of health outcomes. | From: Plan Philly (Read more.)
Philadelphia’s free preschool program doesn’t offer the 6,500 seats city leaders envisioned when it launched more than five years ago, but a modest expansion planned for the coming school year could bring the number to 4,300. | From: Chalkbeat (Read more.)
The city of Philadelphia fell way short of local contracting targets in 2021 spending. Local business leaders talked about what that failure means for the economy at a City Council hearing Monday afternoon. | From: WHYY (Read more.)
The fee on loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took effect in December and was meant to cover projected losses due to the pandemic. It added $1,000 or more to the average cost of refinancing. | From: The Philadelphia Inquirer (Read more.)
Families hit hardest by the pandemic are also struggling the most with medical bills, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund. | From The Inquirer (Read more.)
For years, around 9,000 Pennsylvania child care workers received money from the state in recognition that they’d earned additional credentials. The award — the median amount was $1,500 — was a bonus of sorts, meant to keep qualified early childhood workers in a field marked by low pay and high turnover. But during the pandemic, the “education and retention awards” disappeared when the state reallocated the funds to give $600 relief payments to a much larger pool of child care workers. | From Chalkbeat Philadelphia (Read more.)
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted much of life as we knew it. That held true for religious communities across the Philadelphia region, who couldn’t congregate during the quarantine, when many in-person activities were restricted in the wake of the coronavirus.
Rev. Naomi Washington-Leapheart is the director of Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs in the Mayor’s Office of Public Engagement, where she and her staff advocate for faith leaders and religious communities throughout Philadelphia. Early in the pandemic, Washington-Leapheart said, it was important to provide COVID-19 guidance because religious gatherings had the potential to become sites for rapid spread of the virus. | From WHYY (Read more.)
Philadelphia is receiving a big cash infusion from the federal government to restore our funding levels and services after the pandemic-induced budget crunch last year, and there are a lot of questions out there about how strategically city elected officials are using that money. | From The Citizen (Read more.)
Federal guidance supports employers’ right to require the COVID-19 vaccine for all employees who physically enter the workplace, allowing for religious and medical exemptions when possible. But implementing vaccine mandates can be a tough decision, said employers and employment attorneys, and a gray area remains. | From: WHYY (Read more.)
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