Goddard Riverside and Rockabill Development announced last month that they had secured the funding to begin transforming a Morningside Heights illegal hotel into affordable and supportive housing.

New York City Council member Shaun Abreu presented a $2.5 million check to P.S. 125 The Ralph Bunche School, Columbia Secondary School, and KIPP S.T.A.R. College Prep Middle School on Thursday to fund the renovation of its pool following New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams call for expanded city-wide pool access as a matter of justice.

Morningside Heights Community Coalition’s JUST Housing Committee presented Columbia University administrators with a proposal aimed at increasing accessibility of affordable housing units in Morningside Heights. The proposal demands that Columbia maintain rent-regulated apartments even after current residents vacate, and that 35 percent of newly constructed and renovated buildings be reserved for low- and moderate-income persons.

After participating in CareerWise New York, some high school students in New York City have received full-time offers at companies including JPMorgan Chase within a year of graduating high school.

Since leaving a Manhattan shelter one year ago, Samantha Coleman has lived with her seven-year-old son in the Harlem River Houses, a public housing project located between West 151st Street and West 153rd Street. She has faced numerous problems while living there, including roaches, inconsistent heating, and a lack of hot water. Yet, as management of the housing complex is turned over from the New York City Housing Authority to a private partnership with the promise of improvements, Coleman faces a new problem: uncertainty as to whether or not she and her son will be allowed to stay in the Harlem River Houses at all.

As Carmen Keels considered what school will look like next fall, she spoke strongly in support of requiring the COVID-19 vaccine for public school students.

When the surge of omicron variant cases of coronavirus first broke out in New York City in early December, Phoenix Madera, the director of the School’s Out NYC after-school program at Columbia Secondary School, noted how similar the fear of parents, students, and school workers was to that of March 2020, describing it as “a very tough time.”

To this day, one of Carmen Keels’ biggest regrets is having signed her daughter up to take the screening exam for New York City’s gifted and talented program six years ago.