A groundbreaking partnership of labor, government, business, and nonprofits in Washington State is reinventing the home care industry to improve wages and opportunities for workers, meet employer demands for new skills, and provide high-quality services to consumers.

Sponsored by a labor-management partnership including SEIU, the State of Washington and private industry, the SEIU Healthcare NW Training Partnership has created the nation's first large-scale career pathway program for home care aides — one of the fastest-growing, lowest-paid occupations in America and a field vital to job creation and economic growth, especially in immigrant communities and communities of color. The program trains 40,000 aides a year in 200 classrooms across the state and online, offering instruction in 13 languages.

The partnership also runs the nation's first registered apprenticeship for more advanced training. It has won praise from the White House for committing to serve 3,000 apprentices annually in five years, up from 300 now.

By earning certification while strengthening their capacity to handle the increasingly complex needs of clients, graduates of the SEIU Healthcare NW Training Partnership can command higher pay, opportunities to advance, and greater respect for their work.

After completing the program, Home Care Aide Glenda Faatoafe received a $4-an-hour raise, to $15.03, and was invited to apply for a job at a local hospital. Although she loves working one-on-one with clients in their homes and intends to keep doing it — at age 52, she has done this work for 20 years — she is thrilled to realize she has career options.

"I didn't realize how employable I would become," she said. "We're overcoming what's always been one of the biggest challenges in our industry — having people realize this is not just a job but a career that can go somewhere."

A new direction in policy

Nationally, about 900,000 people — overwhelmingly women, many of them immigrants and women of color — care for ailing or frail elders, people with disabilities, and others who need assistance at home. The care workforce is projected to grow by nearly 50 percent in the coming decade, as the population ages and as more complex health problems are handled at home instead of in health care settings.

At $10 an hour, the median pay for a home care aide is considerably lower than the $16 average for all U.S. workers. About 45 percent of the nation's home care workers live in households with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

Job training is generally minimal. Turnover is high, with estimates ranging from 25 percent to more than 200 percent a year. This is expensive for employers and disruptive for families, which means we all have a stake in developing a stable, valued workforce in this sector

Why has the arduous job of caring for our ill and disabled loved ones been marginalized and underpaid? A major reason is federal policy. Until this year, home care aides along with other direct care workers like personal attendants were exempt from federal wage and overtime guarantees. It was a throwback to New Deal legislation, which viewed the work as companionship, as opposed to real work.

The Department of Labor has at last taken a step forward in recognizing the value of direct care. As of January 1, many direct care workers are entitled to receive at least the federal minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, and overtime pay.

A market-based case for raising the floor

States have always been able to extend their labor standards to home care aides. Washington has led the way in doing so, thanks in large part to advocacy and organizing by SEIU 775. In 2011, voters overwhelmingly approved a union-sponsored ballot initiative to strengthen training requirements for aides and require certification. The union campaigned on a potent economic message: Home care aides add value to the health care chain by helping to keep people healthy and out of emergency rooms and hospital beds; they should receive the training to contribute even more and they should reap a fair share of the financial benefits that accrue to the system.

"It's a market-based view of raising the floor," said Charissa Raynor, executive director of the training partnership. "We're not talking about winning a 50-cent differential for aides. We're talking about widespread adoption of the view of home care workers as trusted, influential members of the health care team. They're not just compassionate individuals who help older people and people with disabilities stay at home, but professionals who are skilled and competent at helping people stay out of the emergency room, which saves the system a lot of money."

The partnership's basic program provides the 75 hours of training that the state requires all home care aides to complete. The apprenticeship program offers more advanced training, continuing education, and peer mentorship. Glenda Faatoafe has graduated from both programs and hopes to become a mentor for a new generation of home care professionals.

"My quest for us to get better training has become the focus of my life," she said.

Equity:  just and fair inclusion into a society where all can reach their full potential.

President Obama's $4 trillion proposed budget, which he delivered to Congress this week, includes elements that move the nation closer to achieving equity.  In its focus on place-based strategies to develop, improve, and sustain the communities where people live, in the tax-based efforts to relieve burdens and provide supports to working families, and in the commitment to rebuilding the nation's infrastructur—creating new jobs in the process—the President's budget reflects the words he spoke during his State of the Union address: "Expanding opportunity works...this country does best when everyone gets their fair shot."

Many of the programs in the FY 2016 budget are essential to ensuring opportunity for all. The millions of people searching for good-paying jobs will be aided by the creation of work supported through public/private investment funds, enhanced educational opportunities at the community college level, and the  $478 billion, six-year surface transportation reauthorization proposal to improve the nation's infrastructure, which—while creating new  jobs—will also improve roads, bridges, and transit systems that are critical for connecting struggling local economies to opportunity.

People of color and residents of low-income communities will also benefit from big investments in clean energy and the jobs those investments will produce. The expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) will put more money in the pockets of low-to-moderate income individuals and families and improve overall financial security  for over 13.2 million workers, boosting wages for 16 million families with 29 million children.  

Just as these programs provide support enabling low-income working families to succeed, others like Choice Neighborhoods— in the budget at $250 million; Promise Neighborhoods—at $150 million; and the Healthy Food Financing Initiative—nearly $50 million in combined grants from two government agencies—can enhance places, bringing much-needed opportunities, health and well-being, and services to communities too often left behind.   

Promise Zone tax incentives to stimulate growth and investments in targeted communities are proposed again in this budget. A new initiative would support innovation to help families reach the middle class. The Upward Mobility Project would allow selected communities to combine funds from existing block grant programs to test and validate promising approaches to help families become more self-sufficient, improve children's outcomes, and revitalize communities so they can provide more opportunities for their residents.

The President's budget could make significant differences in the lives of working Americans, and those struggling to work, especially those who are of color. With its subtext of building an all-in economy, where opportunity exists and everyone can realize their potential, it is one that will be debated and challenged.
Resources to propel us to a more equitable future will be a challenge, but one that we must pursue. The FY 2016 budget lifts up this nation's best values and honors the goal of realizing a just and fair future for all: equity.  
 

How can poor rural communities escape poverty? In her acclaimed 1999 book, Worlds Apart, author Cynthia Duncan examined rural inequity through detailed portraits of communities in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and northern New England. In a newly released second edition, she revisits these places and finds each confronting new challenges, including new political leadership, economic restructuring, and pervasive drug addiction. With a new foreword by PolicyLink Founder and CEO Angela Glover Blackwell, Worlds Apart: Poverty and Politics in Rural America shares new insights on the economic, demographic, and political realities reshaping poor rural communities. Duncan spoke with America’s Tomorrow about what she learned in going back to these rural places 20 years later.

What does your book tell us about poverty in rural America?

Like poor urban families, the rural poor are socially isolated, cut off from participating successfully in the mainstream — in school or the workplace, in civic life. Perception of poverty is wrapped up in ideology. Those on the right say it is all about bad decisions, bad behavior that cuts off opportunity. Those on the left say it is all about larger systemic problems, like racism, sexism, how opportunities for education and work are distributed across places and across classes. Worlds Apart shows how people’s decisions and behavior are shaped by the community and environment they are growing up in — not just their own immediate family and networks, but also the politics of the community and the way in which the powerful prevent change and opportunity.

How do power and politics shape opportunity in the places you studied?

In poor rural communities political power is tightly held by the few families who control the jobs and own land and other resources. The status quo works for them, so they prevent change that might bring new opportunities and they look out for their own families rather than investing in the whole community. For example, in the Mississippi Delta, everyone could name the few White families who ran things in the 1990s. Their grip was very tight on jobs, political office, everything. They made things hard for people who wanted to help the Black community and sought to bring about change. They could blackball those who dared to challenge their economic and political control.

But when you went back, things had changed.

When I went back in 2013, casinos had come to the Delta area, bringing jobs in housekeeping and restaurants as well as gaming tables. These new employers broke up the stranglehold that the White farmer families had over jobs. Twenty years ago, it was hard for a Black candidate to win elected office, despite the fact that 75 percent of the population was African American. In 2012 all the county supervisors elected were African American. Several of these leaders have been working with young people for decades, coaching and mentoring. Now they no longer face harassment and they control significant revenue from the casinos. If they can bring current spending under control, they can invest more in the Black community.

Everyone, White and Black and even the Catholic sisters, would say that the coming of the casinos opened up opportunities. Nonetheless, the legacy of racism and lack of educational investment is deep. The schools still struggle, and poverty is 30 percent today. The new leaders face huge obstacles as they try to take advantage of the jobs and revenue the casinos bring.

Are jobs the key to ending poverty and racial inequity in rural America?

The availability of jobs that pay a decent, family-supporting wage has a profound impact on not just individual livelihoods but also the way the whole community works. We’ve seen this across the country. Communities are struggling to adapt to the restructured economy, find new economic activity and jobs, and, this adjustment is happening at the same time that we’ve cut back on public investment in education and other institutions that can provide people the skills to do the middle-skill jobs that are now available. Jobs that pay decent wages are important, but so is investment in human capital and the institutions where it is acquired.

What else is needed?

Economic development in really remote places is very tough. But we can provide quality early childhood education and do more to support decent schools. Great research shows that providing early childhood education and support for fragile families in the long run really pays off.

Economic diversity also is important because it both protects against downturns and generates a more equitable, politically inclusive community overall. A more equitable community has greater trust, a stronger civic culture of cooperation and investment in inclusive institutions. New business and industry are attracted to communities that work for everyone and are not burdened with high poverty.

What did you find in the other communities when you revisited them?

The mills are gone in the northern New England community, but the civic culture is intact, and people still work together and are generally inclusive. Like much of rural America, the new jobs are as prison guards, in recreation facilities that attract outdoor enthusiasts, in the health-care and education sectors, in green energy projects. Fewer jobs that pay less, but provide some stability.

In the coal community one young man we interviewed in 2013 who had been a miner said that while it is not easy to let go, there is no denying that "coal is over." He now earns half what he did as a miner working for the county as a groundskeeper. You have Friends of Coal stickers and license plates everywhere, pushed by outside coal promoters, but jobs are way down and people are leaving. I found outmigration, pervasive painkiller addiction, high dependence on disability, and those who stay hunkering down with family for mutual support in a job-scarce community.

How are demographic changes playing out in rural areas?

We’re seeing a growing diversity across rural America, especially Hispanic newcomers. It is a very positive sign, not just because of demographic and economic growth, but for the vitality and energy coming into communities where coffins have been outnumbering cradles, as demographer Ken Johnson puts it. While there have been tensions, there are also great examples where newcomers are wrapped into the community through library programs and soccer teams.

There also have been important positive impacts with the return of African Americans in communities throughout the rural South. Their experiences and education elsewhere prepared them to become community and political activists. They saw a world where there was greater opportunity and more democratic politics, and they brought that back with them.

What are the lessons for rural America and the country as a whole?

Much of rural America is really struggling these days as the economy continues to change and communities try to adjust to new conditions, fewer jobs, less revenue to invest in infrastructure and local institutions. Communities that are inclusive and invest in public institutions that serve people from all social classes, that have a rich civic culture, offer a better life not only to the poor but also to the middle class.

When a community is more equitable, then everybody wins.

Read the rest of the January 8, 2015 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

Cross-posted from Rooflines

There is an invisible culprit in the great scandal of inequality in America: your Econ. 101 textbook.

Go ahead, dig it out from that storage chest, and undoubtedly you’ll read that inequality, while we might not like it, is good for economic growth and progress. This idea has undergirded decades of policymaking, and is still widely accepted by the public and elected officials making decisions about whether and how to invest in housing, transportation, education and the other elements of healthy, thriving communities.

To make real strides toward an equitable economy, the paradigm must shift. Thankfully, a slew of new research is adding up to a serious takedown. And now it’s time for practitioners, advocates, and policymakers to apply this new economic thinking to gain broader support for strategies to build more inclusive communities.

Two economists figure prominently in the textbook story about inequality and growth: Simon Kuznets and Arthur Okun. In the 1940s, Kuznets' theory of inequality and economic growth cast inequality as an inevitable growing pain of the development process. He said that as countries develop, inequality rises, but it then falls as growth takes off and standards of living rise. A few decades later, Okun, President Johnson’s chief economic advisor, released Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff. In it, he described how inequality creates positive incentives for people to work and invest, and made the case that policies to address inequality, while they might be socially desirable, will take a toll on economic growth.

For decades, these theories—perfectly aligned with ideas about trickle-down economic growth—dominated the field of economics and set the terms of policy debates. Yes, policymakers have the tools to do something about inequality, but it will cost us in growth. Better to invest in growth at the top that would eventually lift up those at the bottom.

Now a new consensus is emerging. Over the past several years, economists from mainstream institutions like the IMF, the OECD, even Morgan Stanley and Standard & Poor's are looking at the latest data and finding that inequality, far from promoting growth, has a dampening effect on it. And policies to increase equity and inclusion are not only the better moral choice—they are necessary to bring about growth that is robust, sustained, and shared.

The latest contribution comes from an OECD working paper released this month (full study here). Crunching the numbers on inequality and growth across 31 developed OECD countries, economist Federico Cingano found that rising inequality has a “negative and statistically significant impact on subsequent growth.” According to his analysis, GDP growth in the United States would have been 7 percentage points higher between 1990 and 2010 if inequality hadn’t increased.

Cingano also looked into what type of inequality mattered for economic growth: inequality at the top or inequality at the bottom? He found it was the widening gap between the poor and lower middle class (households in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution) and everyone else that had the biggest negative impact on growth. In contrast, and countering the general focus on the 1 percent pulling away from the rest, the growth of incomes at the very top had no impact on growth.

The reason why inequality at the bottom stunted overall growth? Unequal educational opportunities. Children of parents with low educational levels do progressively worse in terms of educational attainment and skills as inequality levels rise, while inequality has no impact on the education of children from more educated families.

Instead of an equity-growth tradeoff, the analysis found that reducing inequality is a win-win all around. “Policies to reduce income inequalities should not only be pursued to improve social outcomes but also to sustain long-term growth,” writes Cingano. He warns that focusing on growth alone, without thinking about who gains from it, could undermine growth in the long run.

Policy-wise, the paper advocates more equitable tax policies to ensure the benefits of growth are broadly shared (echoing a recent IMF study that said redistributive policies, when designed well, can be growth-enhancing). It also recommends policies to increase educational access and opportunity for low-income children and broad social investments to increase access to services, skills development, health care, and child care for low-income and vulnerable lower middle-class households.

This OECD analysis adds to the mounting evidence base that suggests it is time to rewrite those textbooks. But paradigms shift slowly, and the academic debate will no doubt continue. So, it is up to us doers to put this new knowledge about economics to work, and there is no time to waste. The crisis of inequality shows no sign of abating, and it is placing all of our communities at risk. So say it more and say it loudly as you promote strategies for racial and economic inclusion: inequality is bad for everyone.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

For most Americans, the Civil Rights movement has been the touchstone for dynamic, passionate, organized protests that inspire the nation to take a hard look at its moral decay and begin to change. The movement's genius was in being able to simultaneously connect the mistreatment of Black individuals, to injustice toward Black people as a group, to the shame of a nation.  
 
The sustained protests we are witnessing in these last months of 2014 feel like the long awaited next installment along the "arc of the moral universe." As hearts cry out for lives callously lost, young people determinedly remind everyone that #blacklivesmatter. Marchers chant "I can't breathe," and instantly link a specific, unjust killing to the oppression being suffered in isolated, vulnerable communities of color all across the country. And these young activists are demanding justice and redress of grievances from a nation that, despite civil rights gains, has continued to allow racial bias to thwart the aspirations and stunt the trajectories of countless Black and Latino youth.
 
Change is coming. The naysayers can neither turn back the clock nor deter the march toward equity. Given the nation's demographic transformation (by the end of this decade the majority of children under 18 in the United States will be of color), the gains being sought by the latest conclave of heroic Americans will accrue not just to them, but to the nation as a whole. As people of color succeed, so does the nation.

Cross-posted from Rooflines (Shelterforce)

As housing and community development practitioners, you need little convincing that dismantling racial barriers to economic opportunity—from policing practices to exclusionary zoning—is critical to building stronger, more cohesive communities.

But what about the economic cost of these persistent racial inequities? Might segregated regions not just undermine the country’s moral fabric, but also hinder its long-term economic success, especially as we bolt toward a more multiracial future?

That’s a line of thinking that we’ve been exploring for the past few years with professor Manuel Pastor and his colleagues at the Program for Environmental and Regional Equity at the University of Southern California (PERE); and we just released a new analysis that adds some numbers to our assertion that “equity is the superior growth model.”

We asked the question: How much higher would total earnings and economic output have been in 2012 if racial differences in income were eliminated and blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and other communities of color had similar average incomes (and income distributions) as whites?

Our top-line finding: America’s annual GDP would have been $2.1 trillion higher with racial equity—a 14 percent increase. That’s about the size of California’s economy, the eighth largest in the world.

Drilling down to metros, we found even more dramatic potential gains. The country’s largest 150 regions could collectively grow their GDP by 24 percent by addressing racial inequities, compared with the national gain of 14 percent. Los Angeles stands to gain the most: $510 billion per year. But even the smallest potential gain—in Springfield, Missouri where the population is 91 percent white—is still in the hundreds of millions ($287 million).

In other words, the economic return on racial equity is enormous. What’s more, this “equity dividend”—for people, places, and the nation—will only continue to grow as people of color become the majority.

Now, it's important to note that these are estimates. We were conservative in that we did not include the inevitable “multiplier effect” of increasing incomes for people of color. In reality, more money in the pockets of low-wage workers of color would increase local spending, bolster neighborhood businesses, and create jobs. We also did not factor in the costs of moving toward equity. While some strategies to achieve racial economic inclusion—like removing the question about conviction history from job applications—would cost very little, others—like upgrading public education systems—will certainly have a higher price tag, but are smart, strategic investments.

Though these figures are just estimates, they are useful because they start to reveal just how much stronger America’s regions and states would be with equity. For years, advocates, practitioners, and government officials have asked us for a way to quantify the economic benefits of racial equity.

Now, these figures—and a host of other demographic and equity indicators—are available for all states and the largest 150 metros through the National Equity Atlas—a first-of-its-kind data and policy tool for those working to build a more equitable economy. PolicyLink and PERE built the Atlas to provide community leaders and policymakers with the data they need to advocate for the policies and investments to build a new economy that is inclusive, resilient, and prosperous.

What can be done with the Atlas? Here are a few ideas:

• Pull up a quick snapshot of demographic change and equity in your region or state here. Host a community roundtable to discuss demographic change and your community’s economic future using this information, or start with a staff meeting about this topic.
   
• Access data on your region or state’s housing burden by race, how it changed between 2000 and 2012, and how it ranks here. Download these charts to include in your next conference presentation.
   
• Find out racial differences in homeownership in your region or state, and whether the racial gap is increasing or decreasing here. Share these charts with your social media followers.
   
• Help us evolve this living resource. We plan to add more indicators, geographies, displays, and analyses to the Atlas and are on the lookout for indicators that are available at the regional level and can be disaggregated by race/ethnicity. Share your dream indicators with us.
   

Join us for our launch webinar. On Tuesday, November 18, 3-4 EST, we’ll tour the site and share ideas about how to apply this tool to your work. Please register here.

Data can, and should, play a central role in urban planning. In Denver, CO, the Denver Equity Atlas overlays educational, income, health, and other equity metrics on the new transit network to paint a picture of how transit impacts equity. As a result, the Denver Equity Atlas has helped advocates fight for better transit access, strengthened existing partnerships as well as engaging new partners, and is an important tool for organizing communities.

Using Data to Advocate for Transit

Transit routes that help connect people to the places in which they work are particularly important for low-income families, who heavily rely on public transportation. Using data from the Atlas, advocates were able to save a bus route that served low-income residents but had been slated for closure when the city’s new light rail service opened.

Bringing Partners Together

Mile High Connects, the creator of the original Equity Atlas, see their Atlas as one of the most fundamental tools in forming their equity collaborative. A partnership between private, public, and nonprofit organizations that are committed to developing inclusive, affordable and livable communities within walking distance of public transit, Mile High Connects engaged new partners through the original Atlas. As Dace West, Director of Mile High Connects says, “The first Atlas was a static map and it was instrumental in bringing people to the table, especially the philanthropic community, which hadn’t been as involved in equity work until then. It was a way to invite our public sector partners to take a look at some of the other actions taking place around the region.”

The Atlas is now in its second iteration as an online interactive tool that creates custom maps and summaries of statistics for particular interest areas in the region. The online tool was launched in partnership between Mile High Connects and the Denver Regional Council of Governments, the regional planning office. A Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sustainable Communities Initiative Grant allowed the planning office and Mile High Connects to deepen their relationship and have joint ownership over the Atlas.

The Atlas also facilitates data sharing and coordination between the two, a benefit that will lead to more equitable long-term planning. “The Equity Atlas is a piece of the story and through the Sustainable Communities Initiative Grant there are a number of ways we are interacting with our MPO, including a longer term Memorandum of Understanding to preserve the work we have done together,” said West. “Over several months, we’ve had the opportunity to explore more ways in which we can work together that go even beyond the Atlas.”

Now that the Atlas is online, Mile High Connect is looking to respond more directly to the interests and needs of their partner organizations, especially when it comes to the data they are most interested in and that they access most frequently. The maps created through the Atlas help provide a visual tool to help advocates make the case for areas that need fresh food or transit connection from housing to job centers, for example. West say, “The Atlas has really provided the ability to visually represent where some of those mismatches are happening.”

A Tool for Organizing Communities

The Atlas can also be an important tool in organizing communities. Stephen Moore, a policy analyst at FRESC, uses the Atlas with community leaders so they can map their own communities and see what impact developments can have on their communities. When a development is proposed, Moore can show community leaders what happened in similar communities. Moore said, “We can show the displacement caused in other communities and say, ‘here’s some information about what these communities used to look like and what they look like now. The median house cost has increased and demographics have shifted. Looking at that neighborhood and looking at your own, what do you think about the kind of displacement that is likely to take place?”

By providing a visual understanding of the change taking place in the City, the Denver Equity Atlas is helping advocates shape how they want their communities, and city, to look and advancing equity through smart, community based urban planning.

We're thrilled to announce the launch of the National Equity Atlas — a unique data tool for those working to transform America's economy into one that is equitable, resilient, and prosperous.

Developed by PolicyLink and the University of Southern California's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE), the Atlas is a comprehensive online resource that puts data on demographic change, racial inclusion, and the economic benefits of equity into your hands. With a click of the button, you can access key indicators on the largest 150 regions, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the nation as a whole.

"Dismantling racial exclusion is critical to secure the nation's economic future," said Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink. "Understanding the state of equity — region by region, state by state — is the first step."

Beyond providing data, charts, and maps, the Atlas shares policy ideas, examples of how communities are using equity data to drive policy change, and much more.

View it and explore the state of equity in your region at www.nationalequityatlas.org.
 

Houston-Galveston is characterized by overall economic strength and resilience, but wide racial gaps in income, health, and opportunity coupled with declining wages, a shrinking middle class, and rising inequality place the region’s economic success and future at risk.

Our analysis showed the region already stands to gain a great deal from addressing racial inequities. If racial gaps in income had been closed in 2012, the regional economy would have been $243.3 billion stronger: a 54 percent increase.

Download the equity profile, summary, and addendum with the GDP analysis.
 

• Read the letter on WashingtonPost.com (also en Espanol) or read the text below.
   
• Stand with the  signatories of this letter and urge President Obama to address the issues of police and community relations with communities of color across the country. 
   
• Add your name to the growing demand for accountability, transparency, and trust;  and ask President Obama what's #BeyondFerguson? 
   
• Share this letter on social media and encourage others to do the same. Here is a sample tweet:  "From policing to incarceration, it is time for the country to counter systemic racial bias: http://plcylk.org/1tNIxrO #BeyondFerguson" 

• Training: Racial bias is real. Whether implicit or explicit, it influences perceptions and behaviors and can be deadly. Law enforcement personnel in every department in the country, under guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), should be required to undergo racial bias training as a part of ongoing professional development and training.

• Accountability: Police departments should not be solely responsible for investigating themselves. These departments are funded by the public and should be accountable to the public. Enforceable accountability measures must be either established or reexamined for impartiality in circumstances where police shoot unarmed victims. DOJ must set and implement national standards of investigation that are democratic (involving independent review boards broadly representative of the community served), transparent, and enforceable.

• Diversity: Police department personnel should be representative of the communities they serve. Police departments must adopt personnel practices that result in the hiring and retention of diverse law enforcement professionals. Using diversity best practices established in other sectors, DOJ must set, implement, and monitor diversity hiring and retention guidelines for local police departments.

• Engagement: Too often law enforcement personnel hold stereotypes about black and brown youth and vice versa. Lack of familiarity breeds lack of understanding and increased opportunities for conflict. Police departments must break through stereotypes and bias by identifying regular opportunities for constructive and quality engagement with youth living in the communities they serve. The Administration can authorize support for youth engagement activity under existing youth grants issued by DOJ.

• Demilitarization: Deterring crime and protecting communities should not involve military weaponry. Effective policing strategies and community relationships will not be advanced if police departments continue to act as an occupying force in neighborhoods. The Administration must suspend programs that transfer military equipment into the hands of local police departments and create guidelines that regulate and monitor the use of military equipment that has already been distributed.

• Examination and Change: It is possible to create police departments that respect, serve and protect all people in the community regardless of age, race, ethnicity, national origin, physical and mental ability, gender, faith, or class. The Administration must quickly establish a national commission to review existing police policies and practices and identify the best policies and practices that can prevent more Fergusons and vastly improve policing in communities across the nation.

• Oversight: If somebody isn’t tasked with ensuring the implementation of equitable policing in cities across the country, then no one will do the job. The Administration must appoint a federal Czar, housed in the U.S. Department of Justice, who is specifically tasked with promoting the professionalization of local law enforcement, monitoring egregious law enforcement activities, and adjudicating suspicious actions of local law enforcement agencies that receive federal funding.