Equity & Opportunity – Page 9

ARP: Beaverton OR, Investing in a Equitable Economic Recovery

Mayor Lacey Beaty established a relief fund for small businesses with 25 or fewer employees using nearly $1.9 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan. The funding has helped 297 local businesses with a variety of costs including utilities, inventory, and rent. Of the businesses receiving assistance, more than half of businesses receiving grants (53 percent) were women owned, and two-thirds were BIPOC-owned.

“We really wanted to focus our ARP allocation on sustained relief for our community,” Beaty said. “We knew by supporting our local, small businesses that we were taking great steps towards an equitable recovery. Beaverton is proud of our thriving business community, and we are hopeful that with this first round of ARP investments, we continue to support both existing and emerging business owners.”

Update

Beaverton recently released a detailed impact report demonstrating the success of their business recovery grant program, which has now distributed over $6 million to 544 existing and emerging small business owners throughout the pandemic. Nearly 71% of all grants went to businesses to 5 employees or less, 64% of the grants went to BIPOC-owned businesses, and 53% of the grants went to women-owned businesses. In addition to the report, the city developed an interactive dashboard and website to tell the story of the program’s success to the

Impact Testimonial:

“The last few weeks of March were very frightening for us, not knowing how we would pay rent, our two employees, and other expenses due at the end of the month. We applied for the Beaverton grant & were approved within the week, what a relief,” said Vivian Lee, a business owner & Beaverton grant recipient.

ARP: Richmond VA, Using ARP Funds to Reinvigorate Public Housing

Problem

Before COVID-19, America’s housing system was far from perfect. The pandemic put a magnifying glass on issues that have been present for years, if not decades: high rents, unattainable housing prices, and insufficient affordable housing stock. As the NewDEAL Forum noted in January 2021, “these problems were especially acute for people of color. Black households are twice as likely to rent as white households, and housing costs account for a heavier cost burden: Among Black Americans, 55% pay more than 30% of their income toward housing compared to 40% of white Americans.”

Solutions

As part of Richmond’s Equity Agenda, Mayor Stoney will invest over $12 million in ARP funds to renovate and improve two of the city’s public housing complexes. One project will replace 504 existing old units, with up to 700 new apartments and homes for over 500 families. The funds for the other project will allow for the first phase of redevelopment and will ultimately result in 122 new for-sale homes.

ARP: Kansas City MO, Homelessness and Affordable Housing Solutions for Vulnerable Residents

Mayor Quinton Lucas, with the support of the City Council, allocated more than $15 million from the American Rescue Plan to address the dual issues of homelessness and affordable housing. An additional $12.5 million has been set aside for the City’s Housing Trust Fund to provide affordable housing, paying special attention to special needs housing for families, seniors, and vulnerable residents. According to the mayor’s office, the ARP funding represents half of the city’s $25 million investment in the Housing Trust Fund, which will help the city serve hundreds of residents.

Update

Having already set aside $12.5 million in the city’s Housing Trust Fund, Mayor Quinton Lucas introduced an ordinance in July that appropriated the first $8 million in funding to support more than 450 affordable homes. Fourteen projects were selected to receive funding, including rehabilitation projects that will provide units specifically for seniors and people with disabilities. Lucas helped establish the Housing Trust Fund while serving on the City Council and, as Mayor, has overseen the first significant investments in the program that will serve as a long-term dedicated funding source moving forward.

Formal Equity Audit of City Government Practices

Problem:

City and local governments often face challenges in addressing inequities within their institutions, and especially with knowing exactly what areas to target and address. Systemic biases against minority groups are institutionalized and long ingrained into city operations, and changing the existing system requires time, funding, and leadership willing to take on the challenge. The difficulty also lies in how to best present solutions that are quick enough to address community needs but are also genuinely efforts that will last in the long-term.

Solution:

Conducting a formal equity audit of city government practices will allow for better accountability to the Albany community and allow for city government to take a deeper look at current issues in order to develop solutions to address any lacking areas. This audit will examine hiring and promotional rates, allocation of city services, granting of permits and contracts, compliance with Minority and Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The audit will also assess internal operations for any evidence of systemic biases or inequities. A thorough city-wide audit by the Office of Audit and Control will allow for this in-depth analysis of city operations and grant time for city officials to examine the issues found and develop task forces or policy changes in response to them.

Novel Strategy to Address Mental Health and Homelessness

This week, Santa Cruz County, CA Supervisors, including NewDEAL Leader Ryan Coonerty, unanimously approved a new strategy for addressing mental illness among homeless individuals in the county. The “Mental Health Services Act Innovation Plan” aims to enroll approximately 600 people experiencing homelessness. The program will send field teams to meet participants where they are and provide clinical and case management services to both address mental health concerns and help transition participants into permanent housing. The program will help the County plot a permanent response that could serve as a model for other localities. Read more here.

Prioritizing Climate Equity

Problem:

Climate change impacts are felt all over the country and especially in underserved communities. In Wisconsin, rising heat threatens rich agricultural land and Milwaukee and Madison grapple with pollution-exacerbated injustices. As communities seek out solutions, it is important that leaders engage within the communities and ensure their voices are incorporated into building a greener, more resilient, and equitable future.

Solution:

Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes is leading Wisconsin’s efforts to take big climate action through community engagement. As chair of the state’s new Task Force on Climate Change, Barnes brought together a diverse coalition of business, community, labor, youth, and Indigenous leaders to participate in the task force and the group scheduled listening sessions to gather ideas from constituents on how to best reach the ambitious climate goals to go 100% carbon-free electricity by 2050. As COVID-19 tore across the country, the Task Force quickly pivoted to virtual meetings that convened a broad swath of residents, including Indigenous organizations working on climate adaptations, organizations developing green jobs in predominantly Black neighborhoods, and tribal nations working on food sovereignty. These conversations are creating space for dairy farmers, rural constituents, and low-income communities and communities of color to advocate for their needs as the state continues to build a robust, climate-friendly, worker-focused economy and ensure that no Wisconsin community is left behind in the transition to a clean economy.

Police Reform for Mental Health and Misconduct

Problem:

As police-led shootings and misuses of force have trending upward, communities of color are disproportionately impacted. Increases in police use of force can be traced to multiple causes, one likely source is the fact that officers have a job that is physically, mentally, and emotionally strenuous, yet they often lack the necessary support to care for their mental health. Consistent stress without appropriate treatment can lead to poor decision making. Another cause is the failure of police departments to provide the records of officers fired for misconduct to other departments, allowing them to be hired elsewhere.

Solution:

Pennsylvania Representative Jordan Harris joined colleagues to champion two police reform proposals to address these serious issues, which passed the PA House unanimously as part of a police reform package in June 2020 and signed into law in July 2020. The bills require officers to be evaluated for PTSD following a lethal use-of-force event, and create a database to track police misconduct to facilitate communication between departments and keep unethical officers from being rehired elsewhere.

Reducing Racially-Motivated Calls to Police

Problem:

False phone calls against people of color have been somewhat commonplace for years, but the prevalence of social media today has contributed to increasing awareness of the underlying racism that allows for many of these instances to go unaddressed by the law. Most recently, a specific case that has now inspired the public and lawmakers to address the issue was a white woman calling the police on a black man in Central Park – the caller, who was identified over social media within hours, was charged with a misdemeanor for filing a false report to the police, although the charge was ultimately dismissed. While the caller in this case publicly apologized, no definitive legislative action was taken to ensure that a similar event would not occur again. While social media has led to the identification of such callers and a trial in the court of public opinion, at the very least, little if any action is taken legally, indicating that the systemic and structural changes necessary to address the far-reaching impacts of racist behaviors are still lacking, and that institutional changes are needed.

Solution:

AB-157 was introduced in response to the surge of false and discriminatory phone calls made on people of color, particularly African Americans.This bill will allow victims to sue the callers in civil court and collect damages. The bill was passed by the Nevada legislature and signed into law by Governor Sisolak as of May 2021, after being amended to include more specific language on what qualified as false calls. Discriminatory false callers that violated the bill would incur a $1,000 fine, as well as any other damages awarded by a jury.

#OaklandUndivided

Problem:

The lack of broadband access disproportionately impacts individuals and families of color and those whose incomes are below the federal poverty threshold. According to existing research, just 71% of Black and 65% of Hispanic adults have home broadband compared to 80% of white adults. The lack of internet access can negatively impact health outcomes, employment opportunities, and education attainment.

Solution:

Under the leadership of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, #OaklandUndivided, the city’s initiative to connect every student, partnered with Education SuperHighway to successfully pilot a replicable model of providing free WiFi to disconnected students and tenants in five subsidized low-income apartment buildings. The initiative involves installing and maintaining a single WiFi network for the entire building, similarly to a hotel, at a low monthly cost for the landlord and no cost to the residents. Additionally, this effort led to the creation of broadband adoption centers to provide one-on-one support and enrollment assistance programs to help residents sign up for the apartment WiFi and other available resources. The program has successfully connected 96% of Black students and 97% of Latinx students in the Oakland Unified School District.

Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund

Problem:

One of the clearest examples of systemic and structural prejudices has been the issue of pay inequity across the United States – despite being acknowledged and more openly discussed in recent decades, the legislative approach on how to address the issue itself has varied. Studies have shown that black women in Georgia make 63 cents on the dollar in comparison to white men, and are twice as likely to be below the poverty line as their white counterparts. Overall, black and brown communities in Georgia, which also tend to be lower-income, have endured lasting impacts from the 2008 recession and experienced the slowest recovery, and the lack of effective equal pay initiatives has kept the minority population from their full potential of economic growth.

Solution:

The GRO Fund aims to address the pay inequities amongst black women in Georgia by providing a guaranteed income of $850/month to those who qualify at or below the federal poverty line. The program, one of several developed by a task force coalition of 28 community members, elected officials, and policy advocates, is one proposed strategy to focus on the root causes of racial disparities and economic instability among minority communities in Georgia. With roughly $13 million to distribute, the GRO Fund is one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. Proponents of the initiative hope to expand beyond the initial batch of qualified applicants as 2022 progresses and potentially serve as a successful example for other local governments to model their own programs off of.

ARP: Beaverton OR, Investing in a Equitable Economic Recovery

Update

ARP: Richmond VA, Using ARP Funds to Reinvigorate Public Housing

Problem

Solutions

ARP: Kansas City MO, Homelessness and Affordable Housing Solutions for Vulnerable Residents

Update

Formal Equity Audit of City Government Practices

Problem:

Solution:

Novel Strategy to Address Mental Health and Homelessness

Prioritizing Climate Equity

Problem:

Solution:

Police Reform for Mental Health and Misconduct

Problem:

Solution:

Reducing Racially-Motivated Calls to Police

Problem:

Solution:

#OaklandUndivided

Problem:

Solution:

Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund

Problem:

Solution:

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