Volunteer opp with Black Census Project, new Normal code of conduct, pre-Pride events at The Bistro: Central Illinois Dailies for 7-22-26

SPRINGFIELD — You have a chance to help ensure that Black Americans in Springfield are heard, by joining the 2026 Black Census Project. First conducted in 2018, then again in 2022 and 2023, the survey aims to help ensure Black Americans’ input on their own needs, concerns and values are documented. “Relying on partnerships with trusted community organizations, the project reaches people traditional polls often miss: rural residents, formerly and currently incarcerated people, LGBTQ+ folks, immigrants, and young people who have grown disillusioned with institutions that routinely fail them,” writes Kristin Powell, leader of Black Futures Lab (BFL), the group conducting the survey, in Scalawag Magazine. Organizers aim to record 300,000 responses this year, after gathering 200,000 in 2022 and 2023, and 30,000 in 2018. The training starts at 5:30 p.m. Friday at The Springfield Project, 1100 South Grand Ave. East. It also includes an all-day Saturday session on canvassing, phone-banking and more. Meals are provided; attendees need to arrange their own accommodations.  Capacity is limited to 35 trainees; register to volunteer here. BFL partners in the survey with the Faith Coalition for the Common Good, a nonprofit representing different faith traditions.

NORMAL — Concerns about the activities of unhoused people gathering around Uptown Station triggered the Normal Town Council Monday to ban camping, storage and other activities around the station,  in a new code of conduct (WGLT). More than a dozen members of the public spoke out against the change, which was approved by a 5-2 vote. Staffers had proposed the new code in response to what they said was an increase in the number of unhoused people storing their belonging at the train and bus station, “blocking entrances and exits,” reports 25 News. In addition to banning “camping-style activities, unattended personal property, and storage of personal property” at the station, the new code also bars “blocking of access points and excessive occupation of waiting areas.” The new code may have the unintended consequence of forcing the unhoused into more dangerous situations, and making it harder to be reached and helped, warned one commenter. Another, nonprofit leader and unhoused advocate Matt Burgess,  said the new code achieves little more than punish the unhoused “if they engage in basic functions of existence.” (photo by the City of Normal).