CU-CitizenAccess.org (https://www.cu-citizenaccess.org/tag/champaign/)
Children are among the most traumatized by gun violence in the community, and that trauma can affect their mental and physical health, behavior and academic performance. Lee Gaines looks at what schools and community groups are doing to help.
The development of student apartments in Champaign-Urbana has not slowed down over the past five years, despite two separate federal housing analyses describing the rental market as oversaturated.
Champaign Unit 4 Schools have implemented a curriculum based around coding, beginning in kindergarten and going all the way up through high school. The students have designated time each week to learn how to code through the programming language Scratch.
As debate continues in Congress over the future of healthcare, just what has the Affordable Care Act meant for people in Champaign County?
From restaurant inspections and complaints about Housing Authority complexes to every arrest in Champaign-Urbana and tax incentive agreements, CU-CitizenAccess has provided much-needed transparency to a number of issues involving East Central Illinois in the past few years.
From campus town bars to Italian restaurants, 20 restaurants were closed or failed for serious health code violations during the last part of 2016.
In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2016, the city’s public works department responded to 329 pothole service requests from residents — a slight decrease from the 397 service requests in the previous fiscal year.
In an analysis of Champaign’s most recent city pavement database from 2015, three sections of White Street have a or pavement condition index (PCI), below 10 — more than any other street in the city.
“The state of Illinois expects us to spend more than half a million dollars and maybe – or maybe not – get reimbursed for it in this fiscal year,” said Isak Griffiths, the executive director of Courage Connection. “That’s a huge burden to put on a social service agency.”
CHAMPAIGN-URBANA: Since the housing market crashed in 2007, the cities of Champaign and Urbana have received more than $2 million in state and federal dollars to combat vacant and nuisance housing. Yet the number of empty houses is still climbing. As of 2014, one in every 10 housing units in Champaign County sat vacant, according to the most recent U.S. census data available. That total number, 8,700, was nearly double the number of vacant housing units in the year 2000. Each year, Champaign puts at least $20,000 into demolishing homes across the city.