The VPM Daily Newscast contains all your Central Virginia news in just 5 to 10 minutes. Episodes are recorded the night before.
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Here’s a recap of the top stories on the morning of Nov. 18, 2024:
Brown v. Board scholarship committee considers expanding eligibility
Reported by VPM News’ Megan Pauly
The Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Program was established in 2005 to fund education for students affected by “Massive Resistance” — a period in the 1950s and 1960s when a handful of Virginia school districts chose to close their doors rather than follow desegregation orders mandated by federal courts.
Eligibility for the scholarship was expanded last year to include the descendants of those former students. Marcia Walker is pushing the scholarship committee to open the doors further and grant scholarships to people who are not enrolled in Virginia schools, like her daughter.
Walker’s daughter was denied because she attends a college in Alabama. She told the committee that when her father — who was an elementary schooler in 1959 when Prince Edward County closed its schools to avoid desegregating — found out that his granddaughter had been denied the award, the news sucked the wind out of him.
“His exact words were: ‘Marcia, they are doing exactly to my granddaughter what was done to me,’” Walker told VPM News.
Richmond opens cold-weather shelter amid growing unhoused numbers
Reported by VPM News’ Megan Pauly
The city of Richmond’s inclement weather shelter is now open each day from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. through April in the same Northside location where it operated last year: the Salvation Army at 1900 Chamberlayne Ave. The shelter will provide 100 inclement weather beds for single people: 60 for men and 40 for women.
According to a July point-in-time count conducted by the nonprofit Homeward, 585 people in the greater Richmond region were experiencing homelessness. More than 300 people were in a shelter bed and 267 were unsheltered — sleeping in places outside or not meant for human habitation like a car, tent or building doorway.
Homeward Executive Director Kelly King Horne told VPM News that she thinks more resources should be poured into preventing homelessness — and helping people find permanent housing and job opportunities — before the city determines whether additional shelter beds are needed.
“You can't fix decades and decades of under investment in both affordable housing and housing affordability with a shelter on its own,” Horne said. “That’s the challenge.”
In other news:
- Plans to restore 1776 Commission recall efforts to revise Virginia’s K-12 history standards (Virginia Mercury)
In case you missed it:
- How did 'forever chemicals' show up in 30 Sandston drinking wells? (Richmond Times-Dispatch)*
- The mysterious Virginia mansion allegedly bought with stolen Nigerian money (The Washington Post)*
*This outlet utilizes a paywall.
