19 Jun

New IDs for undocumented immigrants in Palm Beach County

Posted by in Minority Rights, PEACE Palm Beach

June 19, 2019. WPTV

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Undocumented immigrants have a new opportunity in Palm Beach County to get IDs.

The Community ID Program, sponsored by the Legal Aid Society of Palm Beach County, does not provide government issued ID cards, but it does offer a form of photo Identification recognized for city services in West Palm Beach, Lake Worth, and Belle Glade.

Maribel Gonzalez has lived as an undocumented immigrant in Palm Beach County for seven years.

“I want to be part of the community,” Gonzalez said.

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09 Apr

Leaders, advocacy group discuss solutions to homelessness, police/community relations

Posted by in Criminal Justice Reform, Homeless Services, Minority Rights, PEACE Palm Beach

April 9, 2019. WFLX.COM

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Three major topics for Palm Beach County’s marginalized talked with leaders who could change laws: addressing homelessness, community ID’s and police relations with the community. They met at the Palm Beach County Convention Center Monday.

On homelessness, PEACE or People Engaged in Active Community Efforts, says the here more than 4,000 children without a home in Palm Beach County.

To spur action, they invited Palm Beach County Commissioners to present their solution: speed up the construction of the county’s second homelessness shelter.

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08 Apr

Homelessness, racial profiling to be addressed at annual PEACE meeting

Posted by in Homeless Services, Minority Rights, PEACE Palm Beach

April 8, 2019. The Palm Beach Post.

Homelessness and racial profiling are the focal points of this year’s annual PEACE Nehemiah Action Assembly, to be held 7 p.m. Monday at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach.

PEACE, which stands for People Engaged in Active Community Efforts, is a social-justice ministry organization founded in 1991 and is composed of 18 congregations in Palm Beach County. The group expects more than 2,000 people to attend.

To address these issues, the group will ask the Palm Beach County Commission to promise to speed the process of building a second Homeless Resource Center and to preserve part of a $25 million pot of tax revenue to address the housing need for residents most in need.

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07 Apr

Point of View: By shunning PEACE rally, county leaders ignore chance to address community concerns

Posted by in Criminal Justice Reform, Minority Rights, PEACE Palm Beach

April 7, 2019. The Palm Beach Post.

“Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of light and air, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.” — Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.; Letter from a Birmingham Jail

For the past five years, PEACE (People Engaged in Active Community Efforts) has held a Nehemiah Action Assembly, with more than 2,000 in attendance. The purpose of these rallies is to expose the “boils” which must be cured in our community – horrible injustices around which the members of our 19 congregations have cried out, and then seek from our public officials serious commitments to address these injustices.

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18 Apr

PEACE calls for community IDs, slams commissioners who skipped meeting

Posted by in Homeless Services, Minority Rights, PEACE Palm Beach

April 18, 2018. Palm Beach Post.

WEST PALM BEACH — More than 2,000 people attended a community meeting at the Palm Beach County Convention Center Monday evening, but organizers were miffed that figure wasn’t a little larger.

Officials from the social activism group People Engaged in Active Community Efforts called out six of the county’s seven commissioners for skipping the gathering, saying the commissioners’ absences underscored the county’s lack of progress in addressing homelessness and the creation of a community identification card that could be used by immigrants who don’t have a government-issued one.

“Are you disappointed that six of our seven county commissioners did not see fit to meet with well over 2,000 of their constituents?” Jason Fairbanks, pastor of the First Congregational United Church of Christ, asked audience members. “Our community needs to know who stood with us and who did not.”

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