Thumbs up, thumbs down
Thumbs up to organizations with similar missions launching a collaborative effort to achieve their goals. The new Coordinated Access Network, or CAN, was created to simplify ways for homeless teens in Connecticut to locate resources. CAN is a one-stop network unifying resources available through Family and Children’s Agency of Norwalk, Supportive Housing Works of Bridgeport and the Center for Children’s Advocacy in Hartford. It’s a smart recognition that the last thing children seeking shelter need is confusion and red tape. We hope to see these initiatives succeed so it can be a model for other nonprofits in the state.
Thumbs down to prison gerrymandering. This is the process where a state counts prison inmates as residents of the town where they are incarcerated instead of the town where they lived beforehand, and it can boost the political clout of largely white towns that have prisons while hurting cities with larger Black populations. State Sen. Gary Winfield of New Haven is again mounting an effort to put a stop to it, and with congressional redistricting on the table for the next decade’s races, the issue is paramount. It may be an uphill climb, but it’s an argument worth having.
Thumbs up, somewhat tentatively, to new cases of COVID-19 at Connecticut nursing homes declining by 23 percent weekto-week two weeks after the state completed its first round of vaccines. Officials say they can’t be sure those events are related, but we’ll take any improvement in the grim numbers as we approach the heart of the winter season. Either way, the staffs at nursing homes merit kudos for their ongoing efforts to stifle the spread of the coronavirus. The 238 new cases of the virus among nursing home residents was not only down 23 percent from the previous week, but almost half of the 483 cases reported Jan. 7.
Thumbs down to continuing economic pain from the COVID-19 pandemic. Connecticut lost 3,400 jobs in December, the second straight month of employment loss after a period of recovery late in 2020. Restaurants and the hospitality industry took the greatest hit, even as Department of Labor Commissioner Kurt Westby said in a statement, “It’s reasonable to assume many of these jobs will return once the pandemic is under control.” That could be a tall order, though. While demand will be high, many businesses are shutting down altogether, and won’t simply reopen once vaccines are widely distributed. The road back will be a long one.