Dr. Tracee Perryman, Executive Director and Co-Founder of Center of Hope Family Services in Toledo, Ohio, joins Emily Fromke in a discussion about juvenile justice advocacy, diversion programs in Ohio and hope for the future.

Chattanooga, located in the southeastern corner of Tennessee, made national headlines in late May after a deadly shooting occurred in the city’s downtown riverfront area. The most disturbing detail of this shooting, without a doubt, is that it was a victimization of the city’s youth, by the city’s youth. Six teens were shot and two were sent to the ICU at the hands of their peers. Regrettably, this would not be the last tragedy of the summer: three months later, in mid-August, a sixteen-year-old was shot and killed — again, by one of his peers. Even more regrettably, these shootings find themselves lost within a larger narrative — one which tells a story of a city where gun violence, gang violence, and crime plague its youth. But there is hope, still. The story has yet to end because the city refuses to abandon its youth to this epidemic.

I typically try to avoid unnecessary eye contact while in public, but occasionally my eyes meet those of someone else despite my efforts. This time, the elderly man I had made eye contact with appeared further weathered and weary from having no home to provide him shelter from the Texas summer heat. He asked me how I was doing. “Just fine. How about yourself?” “Just waiting for them to come out,” he said, indicating the large wooden doors at the top of the steps. On that June Sunday morning, we were standing on the corner of 10th and Brazos in downtown […]

Across the United States, millions of Americans are at a higher risk for housing insecurity, while those experiencing homelessness have fallen deeper into its vicious cycle as they strive to adjust to the ‘new normal’ rapidly catalyzed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 Annual Homeless Assessment Report published by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that the unsheltered homeless population count remained stagnant across a sample of 138 U.S. communities with minimal improvement. In fact, the number of unsheltered individuals increased in rural communities and large urban Continuum of Cares (CoC), with unsheltered individuals in families increasing […]

Do you know your neighbors? Do you really know them? If you were asked to write down the names of the people who live on every side of you, how many of them would you be able to name? This is the question, posed during a church service, that sparked Mark Ferguson’s journey to get to know his neighbors better and to think beyond ordinary definitions of what it means to love one’s neighbor as oneself.  Ferguson joked that in response to this sermon, he started to get to know his neighbors by being “that weird neighbor” who was always hanging […]