When she became a Senator for the State of Illinois in 2020, the educator raised in the Puerto Rican neighborhoods of Chicago presented the legislation that her community designed as a protection measure against gentrification, captivating the interest of her colleagues and achieving their approval.
After running and winning 26th Ward for the Democrats in Chicago, she is still skeptical of that party and has her feet firmly anchored in her community.
Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism and feminist media outlet Todas launched the Gender Investigative Unit, a new collaborative project that seeks to produce in-depth investigations and reports aimed at changing the reality of systemic gender violence in Puerto Rico and train journalists from the island to do better coverage of these issues.
When looking for short-term accommodations on Puerto Rico’s northern coast, in the town of Manatí, for example, 45 alternatives come up on the Airbnb platform. Clasificados Online shows only seven properties for long-term rental and two ads seeking affordable rent that accepts subsidized housing vouchers. When a survivor arrives at an emergency shelter, an individualized plan is created for her outlining the services she needs to stabilize her life after a traumatic experience of violence. Once she receives the services and her life is, under the circumstances, more normalized, the process of identifying housing begins. That’s how the survivor’s independence and self-sufficiency is developed.
