Disrupting Status Quo in COVID-19 Rapid Response

What others experience as cracks in the system, Black and brown communities experience as earthquakes. As I learned from my food access efforts in Newark, NJ during Hurricane Sandy, the structural challenges that exist before crises become too visible to ignore during it and afterwards. Post Hurricane Sandy, we saw the effects of our inadequate food system which had emergency food providers than large format grocery stores to begin with and made it difficult for our Black and brown communities to access the food they needed. Limited public transportation after the storm made access to food systems more challenging and also made it difficult for the 40% of Newarkers who relied on public transportation to get to and from work These conditions exacerbated food insecurity, already high with nearly a quarter of our residents relying on SNAP. While some NJ residents had kitchen pantries filled with canned foods that were undamaged by flooding and access to cars to search for open grocery stores, most of Newark’s communities of color did not have reserves or their own transportation. While we learned a lot to make our transportation and food system more resilient, today’s public health crisis is ripping off all the band aids. We can’t deny the damage that racial inequities have done to our social immune system to create the pre-existing conditions for this crisis.

Delivering services, protecting residents and governing in the time of COVID-19 means local government has to become more nimble and human-centered, while making swift decisions based on ever-changing data about the impact of the virus in their communities. At Living Cities, we are hearing of the many ways that our colleagues and front-line responders are making sure equity is at the center of their response.

Across the country, city halls are working cross-departmentally and with cross sector partners more than ever and more quickly. For example, the food recovery company Goodr is coordinating with school system and the City of Atlanta’s Department of Parks and Recreation to provide meals to students and groceries to families. Public servants are training up quickly and embracing technology to continue to provide services to their community. Certification Officers in the City of Houston’s Office of Business Opportunity are conducting virtual vendor site visits (via Zoom) to facilitate certification for small businesses. The City-administered certifications are required in order for Minority, Women, Small, and Disadvantaged Business Enterprises (MWSDBE) to participate as subcontractors for-credit on City projects. This allows the City to comply with social distancing guidelines and makes it possible for business applications to continue to be processed; therefore, allowing them to be listed as for-credit subcontractors on new bids / proposals that are being released for government purchases and projects. Local leaders are caring for their colleagues and staff in many ways, for example, the City of Sacramento quickly created childcare options to support their essential workers.

Living Cities has been working with local public servants throughout the country who have been identifying and addressing economic inequities that run along racial lines. For many of them, focusing on people, and disaggregating impact and investment by race has been a practice they have been working to scale across departments. The racial equity outcomes they have been working towards are not luxury goals in this crisis, they are doubling down, because they believe that the way we respond will be the foundation of our recovery. Here is a sample of what this looks like in action.

What are we willing to do?

City departments and agencies are making data and meetings more transparent such as the City of Austin’s board & commission first remote meetings for officers. This type of transparency used to be considered a challenge for local government, now it’s a chance to engage people more meaningfully.

Dr. Lomax R. Campbell, the Director of Community Wealth Building for the City of Rochester texted me, “my creativity and community organizing skills as well as my patience are manifesting in new ways.” In a follow-up conversation we talked about the evolution of efforts the City of Rochester worked on during their City Accelerator tenure to strengthen the local ecosystem for entrepreneurs of color. “What used to be in-person meetings with small business owners and community partners have gone virtual. I’ve been increasingly pushed into the driver’s seat in COVID-19 relief planning meetings focused on small businesses He shared eagerly about the engagement and increased participation he’s seen during virtual calls and in virtual Town Hall meetings. “These observations have inspired me to explore how this medium can be used to host small business community forums in partnership with our local Black and Latino business associations.” Dr. Campbell is witnessing the culture shift toward one where folks are willing to leverage their collective capacity towards shared results. Instead of focusing on the contributions of their own entrepreneur serving organizations,

“We are asking ourselves: what are we willing to do? and focusing on what we must collectively do for our local small business community.”

This culture of collaboration is extending beyond Rochester’s borders with regional partnerships in Syracuse and Buffalo.

Calling in my markers

Many are learning to lead remotely while they have non-essential staff working from home. Sarita Nair, Chief Administrative Officer to Mayor Keller wrote to me saying, “authority is different than power, and you learn that right quick in an emergency.” She reflected that true power comes from trust built over time with her colleagues, and through difficult conversations. Over the last year, when a decision had to be made on the spot Sarita would encourage staff “to tell me the truth and tell me I’m wrong in the moment and to my face.”

In the past month, she has had to ask people to step up and step down.

“I’ve asked for an incredible amount of grace and trust from my colleagues and the city’s workforce. I’ve called in many markers. And all of this while asking everyone to work harder, more, and as creatively than ever. And they have. Strong relationships grow from these experiences, and weak relationships break. I feel like our City government has grown ten times stronger because we trust each other enough to lean on and grow with each other, even now, especially now.”

No time for attachment to business as usual

For many, they are seeing to the alignment of resources and strategies to address the needs of “the most vulnerable.” Although some cities have yet to disaggregate the impact on the most vulnerable by race, they know the population that is both losing jobs or working the most hazardous ones are predominantly Black and brown people in their cities.

Like many of her peers throughout the country, convening colleagues across departments by virtual work platforms is one of the only ways to exchange critical updates on the social, health and economic impacts of COVID-19 on the City’s communities of color and assess the myriad responses to the impact that is happening across departments. For Deputy Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer, Nefertiri Sickout, it is imperative to build an infrastructure to support equitable decisions that are being made now to ensure the Mayor’s commitment to racial equity is embedded in responses to the crisis. Nefertiri says, “Under ordinary circumstances, racial equity work can advance by methodically securing buy-in, launching pilot projects and more incremental measures. The rapid injurious impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities requires a more urgent, elevated and organized approach.

“I am detaching from my own self-doubt and relying on the relationships and momentum built that made the passage of Executive Order 1–20 possible so that I can maintain our focus on equity, continue to challenge the status quo, and engage my colleagues to move expeditiously.”

We honor the ways in which public servants are unapologetically rising to embrace a mindset of abundance, provide visions for going forward, and leading from their “essential” and non-essential roles. We are going to continue to work with them to accelerate the adoption of their ideas and solutions that will lead to an equitable recovery from COVID-19. With and for them, we are developing a network to close the disparities that are only widening with each day the pandemic takes a life and social distancing measures are crippling local economies. As cities are figuring out what to do with the emergency and recovery aid from CARES Act, we recognize Lomax, Sarita, and Nefertiri, and many of their peers who are determined not to recreate the status quo.

To continue this conversation in dialogue with us:

Read our Invitation to Center Race in Government Responses to COVID-19

Consider joining an upcoming Closing the Gaps webinar to connect with a community of peers who are navigating a shared crisis, ground in a set of values that can inform a racial equity-centered approach to crisis response and learn a little more about the Network as a potential space for public servants to build relationships within and across cities and deepen their racial equity work now and in the future.

For more resources particularly for small businesses owned by people of color, check out my recent blog on Ideas and Resources for How Cities Can Attack the COVID-19 Crisis.