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Mayor Turner establishes Complete Communities Improvement Fund to accelerate initiative’s progress

DEFENDER NEWS NETWORK — Mayor Sylvester Turner today accelerated the progress of his Complete Communities initiative by announcing the establishment of a fund to receive private donations and pledges for neighborhood improvements with an initial $25 million fundraising goal.

Published

7 years ago

April 2, 2019

Oakland Post

By Defender News Service

Mayor Sylvester Turner today accelerated the progress of his Complete Communities initiative by announcing the establishment of a fund to receive private donations and pledges for neighborhood improvements with an initial $25 million fundraising goal.

The initiative focuses on increasing mixed-income housing stock, providing micro-lending and mortgage down-payment assistance, teaching job skills, awarding college scholarships, and growing retail and other forms of economic development. Residents identified 371 improvement projects and programs in the five pilot neighborhoods and collaborated with city planners to prioritize the work to be done.

“Our bank is proud to work with a program that’s focused on leveling the playing field and creating more inclusive prosperity across Houston, said Mark Jacobs, Region Bank’s Houston market executive. “One of the most powerful ways we can make a difference at Regions is by connecting more people with financial skills that can help them save more, spend wisely and achieve financial security. We believe financial education leads to financial empowerment, and our local team is excited to connect with people through this initiative to help them define their financial futures.”

The fund was started to identify and secure public and private resources to implement the residents’ action plans. It will be administered by the Greater Houston Community Foundation and guided by an advisory board appointed by Mayor Turner. In the photo above, from left, are advisory board member Laura Jaramillo of Wells Fargo; Harris County Treasurer Dylan Osborne; council members David Robinson and Karla Cisneros; advisory board member Raamel Mitchell of Microsoft; Mayor Turner; Complete Communities Director Shannon Buggs; advisory board member David Kim of the Urban Land Institute; advisory board member Murphy of Cadence Bank; advisory board member Jacobs of Regions Bank; and Council Member Martha Castex-Tatum.

“It’s an honor and a privilege to serve on the Complete Communities Improvement Fund advisory board, said Kim, executive director of the Urban Land Institute. “My colleagues on the advisory board and I are committed to being good stewards of the fund’s investments into the Complete Communities and to making wise decisions about how to use these funds to serve the best interests of the these neighborhoods’ residents and the entire city of Houston.”

Additional fund donors include Wells Fargo, AT&T, United Arab Emirates, Houston Endowment, Comcast, Jack and Jill of America Foundation, and Cities for Financial Empowerment.

Some of the accomplishments of the Complete Communities initiative include:

Down-payment assistance and home-buying education events hosted separately by Wells Fargo and the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America.

The debut of the Gulfton Story Trail Mural Project, a showcase for 12 murals that celebrate the diversity of culture and food of the area.

The Houston Building Institute Acres Home Training Program, thanks to a grant from the global manufacturing company Norbord. Young men and women ages 18- 24 years old completed 12 weeks of training to start their careers in the construction industry.

Microsoft-hosted YouthSpark in Schools events sharing cutting-edge technology and teaching techniques with educators training the next generation of coders and engineers, as well as providing digital literacy workshops for parents, career-transitioning professionals and other adults.

AT&T’s sponsorship of workshops on job-seeking skills to prepare Complete Communities residents for upcoming job fairs. AT&T also provided access to hiring managers who could fill jobs on the spot.

The national Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund’s selected Houston to receive grant to establish a Financial Empowerment Center that offers professional, one-on-one financial counseling as a free public service.

With funding from Wells Fargo, a single-family home development in Acres Home, a micro-lending program in Gulfton, college student internship stipends and renovation planning for the East End YMCA in Second Ward.

Mayor Turner recently announced the creation of the Office of Complete Communities and named Shannon Buggs as director. Her position is funded by Houston Endowment.

For more information on the Complete Communities initiative or to view each community Action Plan, visit online at http://www.houstontx.gov/completecommunities/. To contact the Mayor’s Office of Complete Communities, call 832-393-1085.

This article originally appeared in the Defender News Network.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

6 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

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1 week ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke