Free laptops going to 900 children in suburban Cook
Hundreds of school-age children in suburban Cook County public housing will get free laptops paid for by federal coronavirus stimulus money startingWednesday, as part of an ongoing effort to ensure digital access after the COVID-19 pandemic upended in-person learning.
About $ 270,000 of CARESActmoneyallocated to the Housing Authority of Cook County will be used to purchase laptops for 900 students who live in the public housing complexes to keep and otherwise would struggle to complete remote learning.
The giveaway is part of Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s efforts to address long-standing racial inequities that have intensified under the grip of the coronavirus.
“A majority of those who do nothave access aremembers of our Black and brown communities,” Preckwinkle said at the Richard Flowers Apartments in south suburban Robbins.
“This is inequity, needless to say, and this doesn’t give our residents, especially our children, the tools they need to learn, grow and succeed. It relegates them to secondclass citizenship. Andthat to me is not acceptable.”
In September, all families with school-age children in HACC buildings or possessing a voucher were invited to join a free broadband internet program under a partnership with Comcast that also was funded by federal CARES Actmoney.
The target for that initiative added up to nearly 14,000 children in more than 6,500 households and followed a series of promises Preckwinkle announced inMay to jump-start recovery in areas hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, beginning with 20 children at Richard Flowers onWednesday, students will receive the free laptops in the next few weeks. HACC Executive Director Richard Monocchio said the new program was an “incalculable investment” because unlike electronic devices loaned from some school districts during the academic year, these laptops don’t need to be returned.
But outside the two HACC programs, the need for digital access in the south suburbs remains, Preckwinkle said. About 1 in 5 Cook County residents lack broadband internet access, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and Preckwinkle estimates that figure is higher in BlackandLatino areas that have faced disinvestment.
She said more announcements on extending broadband internet access in the south suburbs are coming.