Latest news with #AmericanRescuePlanAct
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Vermont homeowners can apply now for septic and well repair aid
The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation is offering $3.5 million to help low- and moderate-income homeowners repair or replace failing water and wastewater systems, according to a community announcement. This is the fourth round of funding for the program, which aims to ensure equitable access to clean drinking water and sanitation. Eligible homeowners can apply by 3 p.m. Sept. 3, 2025, by submitting an online pre-qualification form. For assistance, contact the Healthy Homes Team at 802-828-0141, 877-344-0354 (toll-free), or Due to limited funding, the DEC will select about 100 priority projects based on income, environmental impact, household demographics and severity of system failure. Awards are expected to be issued in winter 2026, with projects to be completed by September 2027. To qualify, applicants must have a failed or inadequate on-site drinking water or wastewater system, own and live on a residential property with up to four units, and earn a household income of less than $80,835 per year. Community groups cannot directly receive awards but can assist homeowners in applying. DEC staff members are available to help those with accessibility needs fill out the pre-qualification form over the phone at no cost. The Healthy Homes program, first announced in 2021, has already issued over 600 awards with American Rescue Plan Act funding. This fourth round is funded by general state funds. Homeowners who previously applied but were not selected must submit a new application to be considered for this round. The DEC is responsible for protecting Vermont's natural resources and safeguarding human health. For more information, visit or follow the department on Facebook and Instagram. 'This critical funding will help Vermonters afford costly repairs to their wells and septic systems,' said DEC Commissioner Jason Batchelder. 'Connecting homeowners with these dollars not only ensures equitable access to clean drinking water and sanitation but also furthers our mission to protect both human health and the environment.' This story was created by reporter Beth McDermott, bmcdermott1@ with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the information gathering, review, editing and publishing process. Learn more at This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Vermont offers $3.5M to help low-income homeowners fix systems Solve the daily Crossword
Vox
5 days ago
- Politics
- Vox
Why America is murdering less
is a senior producer and reporter for, Vox's daily news podcast. These days, Miles is mostly focused on economics stories, but he has reported and produced episodes on topics ranging fromto the campaign of Over the last two years, a quiet miracle has been playing out across the United States: People are killing each other far less often. Murder and other types of violent crime spiked across the country in 2020, when the pandemic closed down schools and recreation centers and the police murder of George Floyd fueled a collapse in community trust in policing. Violent crime stayed high for the next two years. But murders fell by about 12 percent in 2023 — the largest drop ever recorded in federal crime statistics — and may have declined even further in 2024. Federal data for the year has yet to be released, but murders likely fell around 14 percent in 2024, according to data compiled by the Real Time Crime Index. This year, they're down roughly 20 percent. Jeff Asher, a crime analyst who helps run the index, said 2025 is on track to have the lowest murder rate since 1960, when the FBI began keeping reliable records. Today, Explained Understand the world with a daily explainer, plus the most compelling stories of the day. Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. One of the most remarkable examples of this trend is Baltimore, Maryland, which in the first six months of this year has had its fewest homicides in five decades. Baltimore, like many other cities in the US, received a massive influx of federal funding in 2021 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). In the last few years, the funding paid for things like new recreation centers and street lights in high-crime areas. At the same time, the Biden administration distributed billions in grants to nonprofit violence reduction groups. That funding, Asher told Vox's Today, Explained podcast, may be part of the answer. He described an 'everything but the kitchen sink' theory of gun violence reduction, with a tide of federal money addressing multiple potential factors, directly and indirectly. 'It's a lot of slop being thrown against a wall, but it's also, I think, well-informed slop, if that's a thing,' Asher said. 'And it is the thing that I think helps to explain why we're seeing [a decline in murder rates] everywhere.' How Baltimore got a handle on gun violence Baltimore's murder spike began earlier than the rest of the country. It came in 2015, after a young Black man named Freddie Gray was killed in police custody. Violent crime shot up to historic highs and stayed elevated through 2020, when Brandon Scott was elected mayor on a platform of reforming how the city approaches gun violence. 'The goal was very simple,' Scott told Vox. 'We were going to reduce the number that has sunk many Baltimore mayors for years by 15 percent from one year to the next, and that was homicides.' Scott's team has leaned into a strategy called 'focused deterrence.' It calls for concentrating resources on the small group of people — mostly young men and boys — who are most likely to be both victims and perpetrators of gun crime. Baltimore's police have tried focusing on these high-risk young men before; what's new here is the carrot: Baltimore partners with nonprofits to offer them job training, mental health support, housing assistance, and other services to try and head off gun crime before it happens. 'What we were doing [before] is we were trying to arrest the criminals who were committing the acts, but there were no wraparound services,' Baltimore Police Commissioner Richard Worley told Vox. 'There was nothing offered for them to get out of the game.' The effort was initially funded by tens of millions of federal dollars. And preliminary research suggests it's moving the needle. 'My whole mindset changed for life,' said Malik, 20, who got involved with Roca Baltimore, an anti-violence group that partners with the city on focused deterrence, after he finished a stint in prison for a gun charge in 2023. 'I think way different — I'm more disciplined now.' Other young men at Roca Baltimore said they thought a general improvement in the infrastructure in their neighborhoods was contributing to the decline in gun violence. Scott's administration received $41 million from the American Rescue Plan Act to renovate the city's parks, pools, and recreation centers. 'All of the [recreation centers] getting reopened, getting refurnished, rebuilding and all, everything looking better and stuff like that. Just simple things like that can go a long way,' said Antonio, 20, another member of the Roca program in Baltimore. 'If you got somebody in a messed-up environment, all they see is abandoned houses, all the recs closed, no activities. What else is there to do [but be] outside? You feel me?' What's next for Baltimore The tenuous progress in Baltimore and elsewhere is now under threat. This spring, Roca Baltimore found out it was one of the programs impacted by the Justice Department's decision to cancel nearly a billion dollars in violence reduction grants; it lost a million dollars in grant money that had already been promised. The organization has had to lay people off, and it will serve fewer kids this year than last year. After the passage of President Donald Trump's reconciliation package earlier this month, Scott is also bracing for the additional ripple effects of federal cuts to Medicaid and food benefits. 'It's really sad because you have a president and administration and a party that claims that they want to deal with violent crime, right?' Scott said. 'But then they cut Roca. They cut…people that are out here helping to prevent violence simply because they don't believe in the methods that they use.' Asher, the crime analyst, cautioned that it's difficult to predict what is going to drive gun violence up or down. It may continue to trend downward even if the funding cuts force Baltimore and other cities to scale back the anti-violence strategies developed over the last few years. But, he said, if history is any guide, gun violence will likely begin to trend back up at some point — and that's when the loss of those programs will be felt the most acutely.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
An Asheville respite supports the unhoused after hospital stays. It is now expanding.
ASHEVILLE - Trokon Guar was finally walking without a wheelchair. He'd come to Haywood Street Respite eight months earlier with a fractured leg. In July, the respite's screened-in porch dimmed the summer heat, an alcove tucked away from the near-constant activity of the downtown church. Guar demonstrated a few calf raises, grinning. He is a composer and musician. When it comes to genre, he's not picky — R&B, rock, jazz. But he favors spoken word hip hop. In a new music video on his YouTube channel, snippets of footage are filmed in Haywood Street Congregation's sanctuary, backlit by stained glass. The 12-bed respite offers post-acute, short-term care after hospitalization for people experiencing homelessness. The intervention is intended to give them a place to recover, rather than ending up directly back on the street. 'This place has changed my life," Guar, 34, told the Citizen Times July 17. He has been homeless for years. In-and-out of the hospital. If not for the respite, he said, "I had nowhere else to go." More: Homelessness after Helene: With final Buncombe disaster shelter closed, what's next? Respite expansion underway The respite is slated for expansion using funding from a $1.6 million grant, awarded by Buncombe County via American Rescue Plan Act dollars in September. The Continuum of Care recommended funding for the program after issuing a request for proposals last year to bolster area shelter beds. The project will grow the respite to 25 beds, more than doubling its capacity, adding a second-story addition to the building, along with an elevator and 3,300 square feet of new offices, bedrooms and common areas. Haywood Street Congregation, an urban ministry with the mission, "relationship, above all else," opened the respite in 2014. The brick church sits on the outskirts of downtown. It hosts a midweek Downtown Welcome Table, often a refuge for the city's unhoused. If the welcome table is the ministry's "hub," respite is its "heart," said Executive Director Laura Kirby. The city began processing its permit application July 1. Construction on the $1.9 million project is expected to begin construction in late September, Kirby said. It will take about 12 months. The respite will temporarily relocate residents to allow for uninterrupted operations. Respite Director Nicole Brown said the expansion will mean, first and foremost, turning less people away. Staff will also have more flexibility to keep people longer, leading to better outcomes for residents. A stay starts at two weeks, but lasts 45 days on average. Placements are made by referral, with many coming from Mission Hospital and the county's community paramedics. Those in respite care have a safe place to rest, meals, transportation to follow-up appointments and assistance accessing services and support. In 2022, the National Institute for Medical Respite Care selected Haywood Street's program, along with four others in the country, to receive capacity building assistance to increase the integration of medical respite with behavioral health care. There is a licensed clinical social worker on staff, as well as an in-house case manager, a peer support specialist, nurses and other 24/7 support. Asheville faces lack of affordable housing The goal is to create an exit plan for each person in respite care, like working toward long-term housing or connecting them with a behavioral health provider. It ensures people are added to the by-name list — a standard practice for an area Continuum of Care, with real-time information used to prioritize people to be slated for available housing programs dedicated to those exiting homelessness through coordinated entry. Asheville's list includes 690 people actively engaged with providers, according to Emily Ball, manager with the city's homeless strategy division. For the respite's first decade of operation, 70% of residents went somewhere other than the streets upon departure, and 87% were newly connected with primary care, with most attending at least the first follow-up appointment, according to Haywood Street figures. Guar, for example, is awaiting documents he needs to replace his identification and Social Security card before he can take next steps toward housing. He is hopeful for placement in a group home, before eventually moving into his own place. Others are waiting for housing at Vanderbilt Apartments or the housing authority. As the ministry shifted its model to work with people facing more complex issues — like those with intersecting medical and behavioral health needs — it can be more difficult to exit them into shelter, Brown said. Some shelters also may not be structured to support people in wheelchairs or on oxygen. 'So it might be that they're going outside, but they're going outside hopefully a lot more supported than they were when they came in," Brown said. Asheville also faces a lack of affordable housing options, Brown said. The city's 2024 Affordable Housing Plan found that 36% of all Asheville households are "cost-burdened," meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Between 2015 and 2021, median rent increased 33%, from $866 to $1,152, while median wages for workers in Asheville's top industries increased only 15%, the study found. Asheville has among the highest rents in the state. For this reason Haywood Street embarked on its own housing venture: constructing 41 permanently affordable apartments less than a half-mile from the church, aiming for occupancy by November. More: Haywood St.'s 41 affordable apartments named for Asheville activist Gloria Howard Free Community 'changes things' In the respite's kitchen July 17, hospitality manager Elizabeth Bower, affectionately referred to as the "house mom," was serving up a baked potato bar. She and Brown remembered the earliest days of Haywood Street Congregation's welcome table, back in 2010, making large batches of scrambled eggs in a residential kitchen. They didn't know the color changed when kept warm for too long. Faced with a pot of green eggs, they just made ham, too, Bower said. At the kitchen table was Tracy Fowler. He was homeless for about three years before coming to respite. 'I've been able to get the rest I've needed, get off the streets, get regulated on my meds. Become myself again," Fowler, 57, said. Accepting someone into a community is crucial to respite's mission, Brown said. "(It) just instantly changes things," she said. 'While the stay in respite might be short, the relationships that you build, and the support we offer, is long term with that connection with Haywood Street.' John Madden, 78, who prefers to go by "Jaunito," was living in Mexico when he fell ill. Unable to afford a doctor there, he came back to Asheville, where he lived for more than a decade before the pandemic in 2020. "I came back with no plans but to stay alive, if I could, or find out what was going on,' he said. He's experienced homelessness before — he estimated about 25 days total in the last five years — but the 10 days on the street before securing a spot at respite were brutal. One night on the street, "and I unravel in a way that is startling," he said. 'This place has been beyond miraculous," Madden said of the respite. "The staff are astonishing. I call them ninjas, because they have to handle every kind of problem, from psychological to housing ... I started to exhale once I got through the door.' Phillip Lucero, 65, was clear about the emotional and physical toll homelessness takes. He was in shelters for about three years, and on the street "fairly recently." 'This can really happen to anybody. I had a very good job. I had a really good apartment … And it just, piece by piece, fell apart in a matter of months," Lucero said. 'A couple of bad decisions and here I am. And it is extraordinarily difficult to survive." Places like respite make it possible, he said. They do a good job to make you feel "at home." He, Madden and Fowler are on various housing waitlists. Lucero said he has been on some of them for years. 'You become a target' The respite is working to break a cycle people can become trapped in when experiencing homelessness: bouncing from the street, to shelter, to jail, to the hospital and back. It is complicated by a lack of shelter beds. Further complicated by difficulty finding affordable housing. Sleeping or existing outside while homeless can result in a second-degree trespassing charge, Brown said. 'When you're homeless, you become a target for a lot of people. No one really cares about you," Guar said. You are arrested for disorderly conduct, for trespassing or are kicked out of buildings. It was enough to make him feel like no one "wanted anything to do with me." 'But these people here care," he said of respite. "They've shown me that there is people out there that care. My mentality has changed completely.' How to get help Call Haywood Street Respite at 828-301-3782. Learn more about respite referrals at More: BeLoved Asheville rebuilds with resilience in Swannanoa's Helene-damaged Beacon Village More: Could Asheville get alcohol-friendly social district downtown? Council may consider it Sarah Honosky is the city government reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. News Tips? Email shonosky@ or message on Twitter at @slhonosky. This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Downtown Asheville's Haywood Street Respite is expanding its beds Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The real effects of the Wisconsin state budget on children
As federal aid ran out, advocates called on lawmakers to fund the Child Care Counts program using state dollars, as Evers proposed. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner) This summer Democratic and Republican legislators along with the Gov. Tony Evers participated in closed-door negotiations to come up with the 2025-27 state budget. All of the parties involved are touting the budget as a historic advance for children and patting themselves on the back for compromising with each other and the work they accomplished. In other words, they played well in the sandbox together. While yes, the state budget has never included funding for child care in its history, as we were one of only six states that didn't, crowing about it now is kind of like touting the fact that you've just changed a diaper for the first time when your child is 2 years old. It's not something to brag about, and the new state budget is nothing to brag about either. On the surface, as you read the claims about historic investments in child care and K-12 schools, you might think the budget really solved some big problems. Take Evers' statement celebrating 'Over $330 million to support Wisconsin's child care industry and help lower child care costs for working families, a third of which is in direct payments to providers.' That means only $110 million is to continue the direct investment to all 4,700 eligible regulated child care programs. The original amount for this program was $480 million. Child care is receiving less than 25% of the requested amount. You might have surmised from Evers' victorious statement that parents will see a decrease in tuition costs with the new budget. However, the opposite is going to be occurring, and tuition increases will start in August. The $110 million will cause child care rates to increase next month because the new state investment is less than a third of what Child Care Counts, funded through the American Rescue Plan Act, originally provided. The purpose of that money was to stabilize a field that had been declining for decades. It increased teachers' wages while holding down tuition costs for parents. It worked. The data showed a decline in closures and it raised the average child care educator's wage from $11 an hour to $13 an hour in Wisconsin. (In our state, over 50% of early child care teachers have some college education or degree, with an average of 10 years experience.) This month the ARPA funds run out, and for the past few years, knowing the federal funding would be ending, families, child care providers, and businesses have been advocating for the state to fill the gap and to subsidize child care. We know that for every $1 a state invests in early childhood education, the rate of return is between $10-$16. Not only does quality early child care give children an opportunity for greater success as adults, it also supports our workforce, families and the economy. Regardless of the research and well-being of children, the gatekeepers of our tax dollars on the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee deleted Evers' $480 million direct state investment budget request for child care. Instead, child care funding was determined behind closed doors with Senate Minority Leader Diane Hesselbein and Evers in one corner and Rep. Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin Lemahieu in the other. It should be noted that no one in that space is considered an expert in child care policy. What came out of this room was a compromise for the sake of compromise. The $110 million for child care won't come from state dollars. It's the interest that has accrued on the federal ARPA funds. It will be allocated directly to child care providers over the next 11 months, until June of 2026. It comes to about 70% less than the original amount paid through CCC. This is why, starting in August, there will be significant closures of child care centers and home daycares in rural areas of the state — already considered a child care desert. Tuition will increase at the child care operations that try to stay open. So no, working families will not 'see a decrease in childcare costs' as stated by Evers. And when the $110 million ends next year, there is nothing to replace it. The Wisconsin Legislature will gavel out in March and not gavel in until January of 2027, as legislators will be campaigning the rest of 2026. There won't be an opportunity to pass emergency legislation funding child care. Rates will increase again and closures will continue. The remainder of the $330 million in child care funding in the new state budget is for several new programs. A $66 million state investment for 4-year-olds to access 'school readiness' in their child care program. This will help parents as the state will pay for their 'preschool' time, but it replaces tuition for part of the school day. Child care programs that have school districts with all-day, free 4K will likely find it almost impossible to compete with public schools when they still need to charge for the remainder of the day plus wrap-around care. In addition, there is a $28 million pilot project to deregulate the child care field, which ends in July 2027. This move comes directly from the Republicans' playbook. The pilot project will incentivize providers to increase their ratios, meaning more children per teacher, lower quality and safety for children and more stress on teachers. Another harmful policy in the new budget is that 16-year-olds are now allowed to be assistant teachers and count as adults in the ratio. Coupled with the pilot project mentioned above, this means a classroom of 14 toddlers can be supervised by one 18-year-old and one 16-year-old. This reduces the quality, safety, care and education for the children in our programs. Recall that while these decisions were being made behind closed doors, there were no experts in child care policy in the room. This policy was made without consideration of our state accreditation program, YoungStar, and our national accreditations. Any program that participates in the pilot project will no longer qualify to be accredited. And in Wisconsin, accreditation is not just a certificate to state you are following high safety standards, but our YoungStar program is tethered to our Wisconsin Shares (subsidy for child care). Programs with a five or four-star rating receive a bonus subsidy rate. It can mean a considerable loss of funding for providers to participate in the new pilot project. The politicians who wrote the budget deal behind closed doors neglected to consider the increased cost or loss of insurance for providers when we increase the teacher-to-child ratio and when we allow 16-year-olds to count as adults. The same group of non-experts also decided to allow policies that, in 2023, were already proposed and had failed to become law due to the overwhelming outcry from families, providers and the medical field against a policy that reduces quality and safety for our children. The state is throwing millions of dollars in the garbage for these policies, which won't benefit child care programs and will cause actual harm to Wisconsin children. Enacting policies like these without holding hearings raises the question: Who is representing us? The public already overwhelmingly said no to these policies two years ago. Furthermore, funding for child care is one of the top priorities that the JFC heard from voters throughout the state at budget listening sessions. Surveys show that the majority of both Republican and Democratic constituents support funding early child care. The only real compromise made in this budget was the compromise of safety and quality of our youngest children in the state. So how did school-age children fare in the state budget? Again, we are reading about record-setting investments in schools, along with the biggest investment our state has ever made for children with disabilities. Evers proclaimed that the new budget 'secures the largest increase to special education reimbursement rate in state history.' You might think, great, finally children with disabilities will receive the support and resources they need. But you would be wrong. Evers' budget request was for a 60% reimbursement for children with disabilities. After all, 90% reimbursement is the amount that Wisconsin voucher and charter schools have already been receiving for children with special needs. Unfortunately, the new budget allows public schools a maximum of 42% in 2026 and 45% in 2027 reimbursement, which is a far cry from the 60% request — the rate of the 1980s. Yes, the increase in this budget is technically the largest increase in recent years, but it is still miles away from the finish line. To make matters worse, the budget also provided a $0 per-pupil increase in general aid funding to public schools; however, a provision was placed in the budget paperwork that guaranteed voucher and charter schools would receive additional funding for their general aid in the budget. I can't recall a year when no new general funding was provided in a budget to public schools in Wisconsin. Last year Wisconsin saw a record number of public schools go to referendum to squeeze additional funding from their communities to compensate for the lack of state and federal funding. Under the new budget, we will see another record number of schools going to referendum next year. We will also likely see more schools close, specifically in rural, poorer areas where the communities cannot be squeezed any more than they already have been. As you can imagine, this budget will only continue to widen the education gap in quality between the wealthy and the poor. Not to be all doom and gloom, there was one category of children that fared quite well with the new budget: our juvenile offenders. The budget will invest $1 million per juvenile offender. Yes, $1 million per kid. Remember when it was mentioned that investing in our youth early on saves us tenfold later on? The children in our juvenile justice systems are children who were not given the opportunity for quality early child care, children who were raised in poverty, children who have been abused, children who experience trauma, children with mental health issues. The children in our juvenile systems are those who have been failed by our state. Their families could not afford child care, so they were shuffled from one person to another. They lived with violence and addiction in their homes. And when they got to school at age 5, they were already on a trajectory of despair; the school systems cannot afford to provide all the services and support these children need, especially for those who have suffered trauma at an early age. Our new state budget only prioritizes these children once they are ready to be locked away. Unfortunately the hype about Wisconsin making record investments in our children is terribly overblown. Instead, the truth of the matter is that we are putting in the minimum, and this budget keeps us on the lowest tier as a state for investment in our public schools and our young children compared to other states. Meanwhile, we continue to be among the biggest spenders on our juvenile offenders. Our political leaders have misled us. I don't think most Wisconsinites care whether their representatives can compromise or not. I think we would all rather have elected politicians who will actually represent us with integrity. Represent us with values that prioritize our children, families, workforce and our economy. This is our common humanity. We can stop generational poverty. We can stop children from going hungry, we can support children who have been abused and neglected, and we can give children a chance in life. But we just made the choice not to do that. Correction: An earlier version of this commentary misstated the amount of Gov. Tony Evers' budget request as 90% instead of 60%. We regret the error. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Solve the daily Crossword
Chicago Tribune
17-07-2025
- Health
- Chicago Tribune
City of Gary announces new behavioral health division, grant awards
Everyone needs a little help sometimes, said Gary Mayor Eddie Melton, including himself. That need for help has led the city to launch the Gary Health Department's new behavioral health division, Melton and other officials announced Thursday morning. 'With the stress of life, the stress of jobs and the stress of just everything day-to-day, sometimes we need someone with expertise to talk to us, listen and provide guidance,' Melton said. 'Whether you're dealing with financial stress, family challenges or just feeling overwhelmed, you deserve support for your mental health just as much as your physical health.' The health department's new behavioral health division is funded by $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds. When it became law in 2021, ARPA provided about $350 billion in additional funding to state and local governments, according to the Government Finance Officers Association. Eligible uses of funds include revenue replacement, COVID-19 expenditures, premium pay for essential workers, and investments in water, sewer and broadband infrastructure. The Gary Common Council had to approve all uses of ARPA funds by December 2024. Melton said Thursday that the behavioral health unit wouldn't be possible without the council's collaboration. With the ARPA funding, the city awarded grants to 10 local organizations dedicated to addressing mental health and addiction challenges. Those organizations will partner with the city to help provide behavioral health services, including emergency housing, youth addiction programs and crisis intervention, according to the city of Gary. According to a news release, the Gary Health Department conducted three listening sessions in January and February to inform providers on the request for proposals process. The department has used tracking systems for payment and transparent documentation through the grant funding process. Organizations receiving funding include: the Sojourner Truth House, City Life, Butterfly Dreamz, Crisis Center Inc., Faith Community Center, Flourish Community Hub, For the Love of the Arts Summer Camp, Edgewater Youth Addictions, Compassion Care Community and All Things Autism. 'This investment reflects our belief that Gary's recovery must include mental, emotional and spiritual healing — not just economic development,' Melton said. 'I'm committed to working with our partners, like the Interfaith Action Network, to keep building here and to help invest in our residents.' Rev. Rameen Jackson with Interfaith Action Coalition said Thursday that the organization was created five years ago to be available for Gary residents to talk about their mental health and receive needed help. 'We were able to come together and talk passionately about the needs of our community and what we want to happen within our community,' Jackson said. 'No work can be done by itself. No group can do anything by themselves.' Gary Health Commissioner Dr. Janet Seabrooks said Thursday that she's happy to take on the work that Melton has wanted since coming into office. She believes the behavioral health department will benefit residents citywide. The behavioral health division will continue to monitor community impact throughout 2025, and city leadership will look for ways to keep the program sustainable long-term. Through the department and funding, Seabrook believes the organizations receiving grants can network and learn how to best work together for the community. 'In sharing the knowledge they have — that institutional, organizational knowledge they have with patients — that's going to be a way they can better serve the community,' Seabrook said. 'That can help reduce harm and end the cycle (of mental health challenges).'
