Housing Expo: COVID-19 Awareness, Prevention and Programs Series

Zoom and Online Town Hall hosted by State Senator Sharif Street
Thursday, August 27th
6:00 PM

Join State Senator Sharif Street, Congressman Dwight Evans and State Representatives Malcolm Kenyatta on Thursday, August 27 at 6:00 PM for a webinar to hear about resources to help with rent and mortgage payments.
In addition, there will be a discussion from industry professionals about first time home buying assistance and mortgage foreclosure prevention led by the Affordable Housing Center of Pennsylvania.
Finally, Community Legal Services will provide information about how renters can appeal evictions and how homeowners can apply for tax relief programs offered by the city including the process to enter into payment agreements for arrears.

To register, please click here.

This event will be live-streamed on facebook and at www.senatorsharifstreet.com/live.

UPDATE!! Trash Pickup News.

Trash: One to two days behind

• Put out trash one day after your regular collection day.

• Residents should expect delays. We will provide updates if this changes.

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Recycling: Multiple days behind

• Put out recycling one day after your regular collection day.

• Residents should expect delays. We will provide updates if this changes.

• If cardboard or other materials get wet, they become contaminated and cannot be recycled. Learn more about what to recycle.

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When and how to report missed collections: We know it’s frustrating to leave trash and recycling in front of your house after your collection day. Thank you for your patience. We’re working hard to get to your block!

• Report trash that’s three or more days late.

• Report recycling that’s five or more days late.

• To report, call 3-1-1 or submit a request online.

APPLY NOW! OPEN until AUGUST 31

More details click here.

PHLpreK offers free, quality pre-K. Sign up today!

The City of Philadelphia’s free, quality pre-k program is now enrolling for the 2020-2021 school year, at over 130 locations throughout the city.

Enrolling is as easy as 1-2-3:
1- Visit PHLpreK.org or call 844-PHL-PREK to find a program near you
2- Contact the program of your preference
3- Provide proof of age and residency, and complete the PHLpreK application

Find a program and sign up today!

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FACE is here to assist families in navigating the School District, and we are proud to offer opportunities for families to actively take part in their children’s academic lives.
More here.

Need to register your student for school, this fall?
We will be opening registration for all grades K-12, on August 17.

More information coming soon! Learn more about the District’s updated reopening plan.

View the 2020-2021 Academic Calendar.

Stay Up To Date! SIGN UP FOR EMAIL UPDATES

Why can't I recycle that?

Let's talk about Philly's recycling system.

Online Live Stream
Friday, August 21th
12:00 PM — 1:30 PM

Philadelphia has a waste problem. Recycling is CONFUSING, between what can go in recycling bins - and can't, if the contents are ACTUALLY being recycled and why this happens. Join Green Philly with experts in Philadelphia's recycling system to understand why this system is broken, how we got here, and what innovations we need for a clean city.

More details and to register click here.

Citywide NAC COVID-19 Newsletter

NEW!!!


Thanks to Stasia Monteiro (HACE) and Rasheed Davis (South Kensington Community Partners).

View here the newsletter

SKCP COMMUNITY ZONING VIRTUAL MEETING

Wednesday, August 26th at 6.30 pm.

To register for the meeting click here.

You may also sign up by calling South Kensington Community Partners’ office at 215-427-3463 and leaving a message with your name and number. SKCP will provide reasonable accommodation to any neighbor that requests additional assistance with joining the meeting or otherwise submitting feedback on the project.

The sites to be discussed at the meeting are the following:

• 1327 N 4th Street, view here the plans.

• 1705 N American Street, view here the plans.

• 1700-30 N. Howard Street, view here the plans.

• 1819 Waterloo Street, view here the plans. 

Click here to view the details for each site.

We will have limited time for questions during the virtual meeting. To ensure your question is answered, please review project materials in advance of the meeting and submit any questions to rco@southkensingtoncommunity.org and include the project name in the email subject line.

GRIEVING IS HARD AND NO ONE SHOULD HAVE TO DO IT ALONE.

Do you or your loved ones feel lonely, stressed, sad, angry, or confused? Do you miss your friends and routines?

Philly HopeLine is a free helpline sponsored by Uplift Center for Grieving Children and the School District of Philadelphia. It is staffed by Masters’s level clinicians from Uplift, and is open to all School District of Philadelphia students & families.

Service is available in both English and Spanish.
Hours of Operation:
Monday – Friday: 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Holidays: 12 p.m. – 4 p.m.

SEPTA trains and buses have great airflow — which means less coronavirus risk for riders

Along with mask-wearing, health officials say ventilation is key to avoiding infection.
Michaela Winberg, BillyPenn

Airflow matters when it comes to preventing the spread of coronavirus. Turns out SEPTA cars are a pretty safe place to be, relative to other indoor spaces. Philly’s transit authority is stocked with vehicles that are capable of ventilating frequently. New air refreshes cars on both the Broad Street Line and Market-Frankford Line every 2 to 3 minutes — and there are similar rates across the system: on buses, Regional Rail and trolley cars.
In general, public transit has proven itself low-risk for transmission in cities all over the world. With solid ventilation, there’s reason to feel comfortable riding SEPTA, health officials say, so long as you’re also wearing a mask and keeping your distance.
It works like this: Vents at the top of all SEPTA’s subway cars are constantly pushing air in and out in tandem with the natural movement of the vehicle. The train’s airflow is always in flux, leading to a full exchange of air every 2 to 3 minutes, agency officials estimate.
SEPTA’s other transit lines boast similar systems. On buses, there’s a hatch at the top of the vehicle that can be opened in good weather to increase airflow. An added bonus: Even more air circulates when the doors open and close.

Read here.

PPD Citywide Crime Prevention and Violence Reduction Action Plan

Commissioner Danielle M. Outlaw

This action plan will indeed serve to strengthen and more fully commit all efforts to our three organizational pillars: Organizational Excellence, Crime Prevention and Violence Reduction, and Community Engagement and Inclusion. It reflects a holistic and collaborative approach to addressing violent crime, and abides within the framework of the City’s overarching Roadmap to Safer Communities.

Click here for PPD Commissioner Outlaw's June 26th Press Statement regarding this Action Plan. View [pdf] the Action Plan here.

City launches program to provide free internet access to 35,000 families.

Lauren Wiley, The Notebook

The city and the Philadelphia School District are tackling the digital divide with the launch of PHLConnectED, a $17 million program to offer free Comcast Internet Essentials service to 35,000 families of K-12 students for two years.

The program will be paid for by public funds and private donors. Officials said Comcast is contributing $7 million to the effort. The city will use $2 million in local CARES Act funding, $1 million from the William Penn Foundation, and additional grants from the Neubauer Family Foundation, the Philadelphia School Partnership, and others. The School District and a number of charter schools also are investing in the project. So far, $11 million has been raised. The city hopes to secure the funding to extend the program beyond two years. Mark Wheeler, Philadelphia’s chief information officer, said this effort addresses “an immediate need,” adding that the city is engaged in a longer-term effort to bridge the digital divide with the goal “to address the needs of all households beyond K-12 and make it permanent.”

More here.

‘They’re cutting 30% of the time that we have left’: Census outreach goes into overdrive

Ximena Conde, WHYY

Census advocates in Philadelphia and Camden are working overtime after learning that their deadline has been moved up by a whole month. Outreach workers, who were already canvassing around the clock in intense summer heat, received another in a long series of blows this week when the U.S. Census Bureau announced it would end all counting efforts by Sept. 30.
“They’re cutting 30% of the time that we have left, and that’s a big deal,” said Stephanie Reid, executive director of PhillyCounts. Right now, 66% of Pennsylvanians have filled out the census, while only 52% of Philadelphians have done so — a disparity seen in other large cities.

More here

Become a Poll Worker

Be a champion of democracy! Become a poll worker in Pennsylvania.

Elections in Pennsylvania are made possible by thousands of regular citizens serving as poll workers across the Commonwealth. We all depend on responsible workers to run smooth elections.

Get involved today!

Click here on How to Become a Poll Worker

GRANTS for Small Business Available!!

LISC Small Business Relief Grants

Grant Application: Application period for round 5 is now open. Before applying, please review the grant information and FAQ here.
Applications must be submitted by Monday, August 3rd at 11:59 p.m. EST.

More details here.

APPLY NOW

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IMPORTANT APPLICATION NOTICE FOR THE PA SMALL BUSINESS GRANT PROGRAM

FINANTA is one of 18 CDFIs that make up the PA CDFI Network and is administering the COVID-19 Relief Pennsylvania Statewide Small Business Assistance Program. The application window for the first round of the program is now closed. Grant decisions for the first round will be made in the coming weeks on a rolling basis. The second round is expected to open in August.

For more information or to prepare for the second round application window, Click Here

Craft Business Survey

The impacts and hardships brought upon our creative economy during the first half of 2020 will have long-lasting effects. To understand and better serve Philadelphia’s craft and making community, we need to hear from you. The questions in this survey aim to –

• Quantify Philadelphia’s craft business and small-batch manufacturing sector

• Identify existing support programs that can serve makers

• Advocate for the development of new services that will support and grow this network

More information about the survey, click here.

Click here to take the survey if you are a maker, service provider or patron

Ya Fav Trashman!!

Ya Fav Trashman’ gives an inside look at Philly trash pickup on Instagram and the city is listening

Stephanie Farr, Philadelphia Inquirer

As the controversy over delays in Philadelphia’s trash collection began to mount in June, sanitation worker Terrill Haigler heard residents’ anguished and, (this is Philly) sometimes angry, cries about the garbage piling up on city streets. “People were yearning for an understanding and an answer to why their trash is the way it is,” he said. So he created an Instagram account — @YaFavTrashman — to give people “an inside look at the daily habits of a trashman,” a profession he believes is “probably the most underrated job in America.” More here.

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Trash piling up? Here’s where you can take it.

Grace Dickinson, Philadelphia Inquirer
Yes, the current trash situation is frustrating for everyone, and we’re all tired of staring at soggy pizza boxes outside the front window. But until the Streets Department gets collection schedules back on track, there are centers where you can dispose of your own trash.
They’re called Philadelphia’s Sanitation Convenience Centers. There are six located throughout the city.
Here is more about Philadelphia’s Sanitation Convenience Center drop-off process, and What’s accepted.

The closest one is located at Port Richmond: 3901 Delaware Ave.

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Why are Philly’s streets full of trash during Covid-19? City’s former Zero Waste and Litter Director weighs in.

Nicolas Esposito, GritPhilly

Our City Sanitation system is broken. It was broken before Covid-19 and the cracks are now beginning to give way to a full breakdown of the system due to the pandemic as both trash and recycling pickups are consistently delayed. The reason my former office, the City’s Zero Waste and Litter office, was created in 2016 was because we needed to reduce waste in the City, but also because obvious problems existed in the Sanitation department. So it’s frustrating that one of the primary excuses the Streets Department provided in this statement and Commissioner William’s op-ed is a major increase in residential waste now that people have been staying home during Covid-19. This statement represents the perpetual mistake that the Streets Department and many private and public sector service providers make. Rather than take a hard look at the failings of the system, they blame users for the breakdown of the system.

Read here.

Trash and Recycling Schedule

ALERT (07/23/2020).
Streets Department Updates Trash and Recycling Schedule for the Week of July 27, 2020.

The Department will return to a normal recycling schedule on Wednesday July 29th, 2020. Residents should continue to expect delays throughout the week as crews work to pick up materials. Residents are encouraged to utilize the six Sanitation Convenience Centers located throughout the City to drop off trash and recycling at any time throughout the week to avoid collection delays.

More here.

Reversing course, Philly now plans to begin school year 100% online

Avi Wolfman-Arent, WHYY

The School District of Philadelphia plans to open the school year fully online after staff and parents blasted an earlier attempt to offer some in-person learning.

The revised approach, released Tuesday afternoon, calls for all students to learn online until at least November 17.

More here.

PHLpreK offers free, quality pre-K. Sign up today!

The City of Philadelphia’s free, quality pre-k program is now enrolling for the 2020-2021 school year, at over 130 locations throughout the city.

The City of Philadelphia’s free, quality pre-k program is now enrolling for the 2020-2021 school year, at over 130 locations throughout the city.
All children who live in Philadelphia and will be 3 or 4 years old on September 1 are eligible. There are no income requirements for participation in this pre-K program.
Enrolling is as easy as 1-2-3:
1- Visit PHLpreK.org or call 844-PHL-PREK to find a program near you
2- Contact the program of your preference
3- Provide proof of age and residency, and complete the PHLpreK application

Please note: All childcare and pre-K providers are following new safety and cleaning protocols, in compliance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. These include:
- Mask requirements
- Social distancing and limited class sizes
- New cleaning protocols
The safety of PHLpreK students, families, and staff is our top priority. Learn more about our COVID-19 safety plan at PHLpreK.org.

Find a program and sign up today!

Virtual Community Advisory Council Meeting

Wednesday, August 12, 2020
10:00 AM to 11:00 AM EDT

It is our top priority to continue to serve Philadelphian's by providing the most up to date information on PGW's programs and services. Please join us for our Virtual Community Advisory Council Virtual Meeting to discuss topics such as;

• How to Apply for Utility Assistance Grants

• Payment Options during COVID-19

• Residential Service Safety Program

• Upcoming Pipeline Improvement Projects

• New Customer Bill Design

Zoom link will be sent to all registrants prior to the event. Register Now!

I can't make it