Stepping up: PHAR welcomes a new executive director

For Shelby Marie Edwards, serving her community comes naturally. Edwards grew up watching her mother, Holly Edwards, advocate for low-income residents as a parish nurse for the Jefferson Area Board for Aging and as program coordinator for the Public Housing Association of Residents. Now the younger Edwards is following in those footsteps as PHAR’s new […]

Call for help: Human Rights Commission asks for more city support

Charlottesville’s Office of Human Rights and Human Rights Commission have an intimidatingly broad mission: to reduce discrimination in the city.   So perhaps it’s not surprising that the office and its volunteer commission, which are tasked with both investigating individual complaints of discrimination and reviewing city polices for systemic discrimination, have received their fair share of […]

$84K assistant: Human rights office not being gutted, says Jones

Three years ago, local activist Walt Heinecke was elated when, after years of task forces on human rights, City Council finally approved a human rights commission with enforcement power and put $197,000 into funding an office. Today, Heinecke accuses City Manager Maurice Jones of “killing” the Office of Human Rights by cutting its staff while […]