Study Ties Abortion Restrictions to 'Significant' Jump in Suicide Rates for Young Women

We conducted the survey with self-administrated questionnaires. We trained human resources specialists of the factories and senior undergraduate medical students from each city as investigators prior to the investigation.

Understanding the Racial Wealth Gap

Black households in the United States have, on average, considerably less wealth than white households. In 2021, the average wealth of households with a head identifying as black was $160,000, while the corresponding level for white-headed households was $998,000, nearly 5.5 times greater. The fact that blacks, on average, have considerably less wealth than whites is troubling, not just because it is an inequality of outcomes, but also because it strongly suggests inequality of opportunity. The economic opportunities provided by wealth range from insuring consumption against disruptions to a household’s disposable income (such as surprise medical expenditures or unemployment spells) to enabling access to housing, good public schools, and postsecondary education. 

Because of the racial inequity upon which America was built and which is ingrained in American life today, when people see those Black and Brown lives being broken, people feel less empathy and pain than they would if the victims were white. American society’s tolerance for dysfunction (wrongful convictions, grossly excessive sentences, police brutality, and criminalization of addiction, poverty, and mental illness) is higher than it would be if the victims were considered by mainstream America to be lives that mattered: white lives.

Transgender Americans’ housing crisis

Get housing assistance for transgender individuals

Homelessness is the most extreme way LGBTQ Americans endure housing instability. In the case of LGBT youth, “The evidence shows that breakdown in young people’s families is the main driver of homelessness,” explained Laura Durso, vice president of the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress. Discrimination also makes finding stable and safe housing more difficult for LGBTQ Americans.

A study matched potential housing applicants, or testers, with people similar in every way except for sexual orientation or gender identity. The testers then made the same inquiries about available rental units and expressed the same qualifications and housing needs.

“The study found that landlords treated lesbian couples comparably with straight couples, but housing providers were less likely to show gay men available units and quoted them higher prices. 

Biden administration extends housing protections to LGBTQ people.

Same-sex couples and transgender individuals disproportionately experience housing discrimination and will now have access to recourse under federal law.

President Joe Biden’s Day One executive order expanding the Supreme Court’s June 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia — which found that federal protections against sex-based employment bias also cover discrimination due to one’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Enforcing the Fair Housing Act to combat housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s the correct reading of the law after Bostock,” Damon Y. Smith, HUD’s principal deputy general counsel, said in a statement. “We are simply saying that the same discrimination that the Supreme Court has said is illegal in the workplace is also illegal in the housing market.”

Striking UC graduate students picket human resources headquarters in Riverside

The ongoing strike is starting to disrupt undergraduate classes, research and grading at the University of California system's 10 campuses as they move toward final exams and holiday breaks. At the system's second-largest school, UC Berkeley, hundreds of striking academic workers picketed a main entrance while passersby cheered, and a supportive band jammed on the lawn.

Book Review: Winning the War to Secure Multiracial Democracy

When "What are you?" does come up — via strangers at the gym, on the bus, in Walmart — I take a deep breath and dive in. "Well, my mother's paternal grandmother emigrated to the U.S. from what would now be called Iberia," I begin, to the dismay of everyone involved.

As America becomes more racially diverse and social taboos against interracial marriage fade, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that majorities of multiracial adults are proud of their mixed-race background (60%)  and feel their racial heritage has made them more open to other cultures (59%). 

SLO County students’ test scores fall after COVID pandemic

For virtually every societal problem, there is likely to be a corresponding public policy. For example.
SLO County students’ test scores fall after COVID pandemic 

2023 Grant Round Open: African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund

2023 National Grants Now Available!
African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund
Today, the National Trust’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund opened the Letter of Intent (LOI) period for its 2023 National Grant Program. Grants provide a range of funding from $50,000 to $150,000 for ongoing preservation activities for historic places like sites, museums and landscapes that represent African American cultural heritage. Learn more about the 2022 grantees.

Through its National Grant Program, the Action Fund supports projects focused on African American cultural heritage, including capital projects, organizational capacity-building, project planning, and programming and interpretation. There are new priorities for this grant round. 

Apply here: African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund #TellTheFullStory

Last day to Register, California!

Today, October 24th, marks the last day to register. However, same-day voter registration will still be available on Election Day.

As we experience constant attacks on our democracy, it's so very important that we get everyone to the polls, and elect pro-choice candidates who are committed to fighting for our fundamental rights. 

Mail Ballot Drop-Off Map – San Bernardino County Elections – Registrar of Voters 

Hard truths about deinstitutionalization, then and now

By1975 board-and-care homes had become big business in California. In Los Angeles alone, there were “approximately 11,000 ex-state-hospital patients living in board-and-care facilities.” Many of these homes were owned by for-profit chains, such as Beverly Enterprises, which owned 38 homes. Many homes were regarded by their owners “solely as a business, squeezing excessive profits out of it at the expense of residents.” Five members of Beverly Enterprises’ board of directors had ties to Governor Reagan; the chairman was vice chairman of a Reagan fundraising dinner, and “four others were either politically active in one or both of the Reagan [gubernatorial] campaigns and/or contributed large or undisclosed sums of money to the campaign.” Financial ties between the governor, who was emptying state hospitals, and business persons who were profiting from the process would also soon become apparent in other states.

The majority of mental hospitals in California closed in the late 1990s, when former Republican Governor Pete Wilson formed a task force to examine state hospitals operations. The task force discovered that the populations of many state hospitals had dropped drastically and the per-capita cost had skyrocketed to over $100,000 annually. 

SB 145 Myths and Facts

California's 2020 Senate Bill 145 aims to eliminate inequality in sex offender registration requirements, fact-checkers report

In September, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 145 into law. The bill prevents young adults engaging in non-vaginal sex with a minor within 10 years of their age from being automatically added to the sex offender registry, and allows a state judge to make that decision instead, PolitiFact explains. The bill was described by Senator Scott Weiner as an "anti-discrimination law" as it protects LGBTQ people from facing automatic registration as sex offenders. Senate Bill 145 does not legalize pedophilia, fact-checkers from The Associated Press, Reuters, PolitiFact and Snopes report.

The student debt relief application is LIVE

Did you see the news? The Biden administration’s Department of Education has officially launched the online application to apply for up to $20,000 in student debt relief.

Over the last weekend alone, more than 8 million Americans applied via the beta version of the application.

You have until December 31, 2023 to submit your application. It only takes a minute to complete and no supporting documents or your Federal Student Aid (FSA) ID are required. To qualify, individual borrowers must make less than $125,000 a year. Families who make $250,000 a year are also eligible.

If you received a Pell Grant, you may qualify for up to $20,000 in loan relief. If not, you may qualify for up to $10,000 in student debt relief.

Take a minute to officially apply for up to $20,000 in student debt relief.

President Biden’s decision on student debt relief will eliminate federal student loan debt for roughly a third of borrowers. Without the burden of student debt, many Americans will finally be able to start building the lives they’ve envisioned.

This historic moment couldn’t have happened without organizers and activists like yourself. You shared your stories, signed petitions, and showed up online and on the ground to hold President Biden to his promise of canceling federal student loan debt. The actions of President Biden and Democrats show us that they’re listening — and delivering results. 

Submit your application to receive up to $20,000 in student debt relief. It only takes a minute!

Together, we’ve proved that young people have the power to create transformative change and improve the lives of millions of people — and we’re just getting started. 

P.S. Already applied yourself? Share this post with your friends and family who may still need to apply for student debt relief.

LIVE NOW: We're live now

Webinar: Post-Foreclosure Options

Webinar: Post-Foreclosure Options


Join tomorrow at 1:00 pm to learn about post-foreclosure options in the latest webinar in the Help for Homeowners series.

RSVP Here

A troubling tale of a Black man trying to get his first mortgage

 Over 70% of Black mortgage applicants surveyed believe they have faced “stricter requirements because of their race”

Of the Black applicants rejected, the vast majority cited a high debt-to-income ratio as a factor, along with a low credit score. Black households are more than twice as likely to have student debt with a median $40,000 student debt load. Racism may also play a role.

Mortgage denial rate for Black applicants is 84 percent higher than for white applicants, according to data from Zillow in 2020, the most year the data was available. This is an increase from 2019 when the denial rate was 74 percent higher.

Overall Black ownership is up at 44 percent, but it is still below the peaks it hit in the early 2000s. The highest being 49.7 percent in 2004.

We already know the homeownership gap for Black people was low compared to other demographics in the United States and it will take an extreme amount of work and effort to ensure that there is equity among Black homeowners.

Interestingly, the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey plus an NAR-conducted survey that 8,000 homebuyers took in 2019 and 2020 – shows that 10% of Black mortgage applicants were rejected. That compares to 6% Hispanic applicants, 4 % white and 4% Asian applicants.

Forty-one percent of Black mortgage applicants responded that they believed to have faced “stricter requirements because of their race” compared to 27% of Asian homebuyers surveyed, 19% of Hispanic respondents and 16% of white households.