News

February 9, 2022

Overcharged and Undervalued: How Blackness Colors the Worth of a Home

Join the Homewood Community Engagement Center for a virtual panel exploring discriminatory home valuation. Learn about home valuation disparities in Pittsburgh, PA. Panelists will discuss the barriers to equitable taxation, how we got here, and what we can do to repair the broken systems.

Home value estimates play an important role in property taxation system. However, throughout U.S. history and up to present day, biased home evaluation practices and intentional price manipulation have produced a property tax landscape that favors the white and wealthy at the expense of all others.

Register to Attend

Registration is available on the Homewood CEC website. Participate in the conversation virtually (via Zoom) or in-person (at the Community Engagement Center in Homewood or the Mattress Factory Museum).

Additional Information

Overcharged and Undervalued: How Blackness Colors the Worth of a Home is part of a series of virtual programming around Sed Valorem, an installation by Harrison Kinnane Smith currently on display at the Mattress Factory Museum in Pittsburgh, PA as part of the making home here exhibition.

This event was organized by the Mattress Factory Museum in collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh Community Engagement Center in Homewood and the University Art Gallery.

News

June 4, 2020

Anti-Racism Tools

As caregivers, community members, and early childhood educators, we have a responsibility to ensure each child, family, and caregiver is safe from racism and discrimination and has equitable opportunities to thrive.

In order to do this, we must begin with ourselves. Set aside time in your day to do a personal inventory. What thoughts, feelings, and behaviors have you contributed to upholding systems of racism? What assumptions are you making? What actions or inactions have you taken that contribute to systems of oppression?

Next, consider your family and your friends—what behaviors, statements, or jokes have gone unchecked? What actions or inactions have you taken within your interpersonal relationships that have contributed to an unsafe community for our black and brown children, neighbors, and colleagues? How might you begin to lead by example within your own family or community?

Anti-racism work is something that has to be attended to in an ongoing way. In order to support you in this work, we have compiled the following resources. Note that this list is not exhaustive.

Resources for Adults

Resources for Educators

Resources for Discussing Racism and Violence with Children

Children’s Books

Resources for Social/Emotional Development

News

May 2, 2019

2019 PA Community Alliance Summit

The Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council invites you to a day of networking, discovering alliances and collaboration building among diverse organizations throughout Pennsylvania led by and/or supporting underserved/unserved populations who experience marginalization and oppression.

About the Summit

Oppression affects many of us, for different socially constructed reasons: racism, ethnicity, age, gender, sexual identity and orientation, disability, economics, rural/urban location, religion, and so much more. Although our discrimination experiences may be different, we can be a valuable support and resource to each other in our struggles for equality, inclusion, and social justice.

Join the Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Council on May 21 and 22 to participate in the discussion. This year, the Summit will focus on the goal of meeting and engaging new potential allies, stimulating learning from one another, and exploring opportunities for partnerships and collaboration.

Download the Summit agenda.

Registration

Registration is free and may be accessed via the event page. Availability is on a first come first serve basis.

More information on the event, hotel accommodations, travel, and more can be found on the event page.

Questions

For questions, contact Dana Thompson at 717.214.8103 or danathomps@pa.gov.