The Core Blog

Since July 2023, prisons in Texas and across the nation have entered a new era. Students are now eligible to receive Pell Grants to finance their education while incarcerated. The U.S. Department of Education (ED) believes this avenue to funding one’s education could allow an estimated 760,000 new students to become eligible for financial aid. In Texas, over 60,000 individuals currently confined in Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) facilities could now be eligible to

I first heard about the school-to-prison pipeline framework in the class Introduction to Social Work during my first semester at St. Edward’s University. The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) refers to the policies and practices that push out historically underserved students from their classrooms and toward the juvenile and criminal justice system. I was shocked to learn about this happening in our schools. The next semester, I took an entire course dedicated to exploring the history of

So much of what we do on our mobile phones, online, and through apps is being tracked, captured, and even packaged and sold. These data collection practices can be invasive, compromise personal privacy, and enable scammers. In promising news, Texans were afforded new rights on July 1, 2024, to control their personal data through the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, which covers most businesses that collect our personal information. Under this new law, Texans

Internet de banda ancha es esencial para el desarrollo económico, la educación, la atención médica y para mantenerse conectado en el mundo digital actual. Para muchas comunidades rurales y marginadas de Texas, el acceso a Internet de alta velocidad sigue siendo un desafío, a pesar de los crecientes esfuerzos para cerrar la brecha digital. Con miles de millones en fondos federales dedicados a la expansión de la banda ancha, los tejanos tienen la esperanza de

Broadband internet is essential for economic development, education, health care, and staying connected in today’s digital world. For many rural and underserved communities in Texas, access to high-speed internet remains a challenge, despite increasing efforts to bridge the digital divide. With billions in federal funding dedicated to broadband expansion, Texans are hopeful that these funds will finally pave the way for comprehensive coverage across the state. However, significant barriers still hinder the effective deployment of

On August 26, 2024, Harris County and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that they had entered into a Voluntary Compliance Agreement/Conciliation Agreement that has the potential to make mandatory buyout programs, designed to move families away from environmental risk, more fair for Harris County homeowners. You can read the full agreement here. Since 2022, Texas Appleseed has been conducting a study to understand the impacts of home buyout programs on

So much of what we do on our mobile phones, online, and through apps is being tracked, captured, and even packaged and sold. These data collection practices can be invasive, compromise personal privacy, and enable scammers. In promising news, Texans were afforded new rights on July 1, 2024, to control their personal data through the Texas Data Privacy and Security Act, which covers most businesses that collect our personal information. Under this new law, Texans

If you’ve ever done anything online – from creating a social media account to looking up a new recipe – there’s a strong chance your information has been collected and sold by data brokers. That’s because every time we use our cell phones or computers, a wide range of data is collected about us – often without our knowledge or active consent – and used in ways outside of our control. Data brokers are businesses

This is the second and final blog in our two-part series on seeking record relief in Texas. You can access the first one here . Thanks for reading along! In Texas, every single adult must apply to seal or expunge their record, whether they are innocent, their charges were dropped, or they have been crime-free for years. With a record relief process as complicated as ours, most rely on some form of assistance. This can

This is the first of a two-part blog series on seeking record relief in Texas. Stay tuned for the second part next week! In Texas, a criminal record has far-reaching implications. It can prevent system-impacted people from securing housing and employment, necessary cornerstones for re-entry and a crime-free life. Nearly 75% of formerly incarcerated people remain unemployed after being released, partially due to barriers to job opportunities. Often, a record is not a measure of

It isn't news to most of us that rehabilitation services are lacking in the carceral system in Texas. We know that our system focuses almost exclusively on punishment, as opposed to treatment, with many believing that incarcerated individuals are a menace to society and cannot or will not recover. Texas is unique in that we have state jail felonies, the majority ( 45%) of which are low-level drug offenses, with many suffering from substance use

My most recent experience with overdraft fees happened a few years ago. One of my kids — a young adult — inadvertently made a handful of Venmo payments of less than $20 while on a trip with friends that exceeded the balance in the connected checking account. By the time we realized there was an issue, the overdraft and non-sufficient funds (NSF) fees, at $35 per payment, had ballooned to nearly $400 on payments that