January 2019
Water Equity and Climate Resilience Caucus: Results, Priorities, Partners
Baltimore Reckons with Its Racist Past—and Present
Crossposted from The American Prospect
Just over a century ago, in 1911, the Baltimore city council adopted the first residential segregation law in the country, forbidding black people from living in predominantly white neighborhoods. Though the Supreme Court ruled such policies unconstitutional seven years later, the consequences of the law, as well as the consequences of subsequent racist policies and practices like redlining, the displacement of black families, and mass incarceration remain. Today, Baltimore is one of the most segregated cities in the nation, where black residents make up a majority of the population but do worse than the average black American—and far worse than the average white Baltimore resident—on almost every measure of general well-being.
But over the past decade, Baltimore and other city governments have taken active steps to reverse the centuries of inequality that remain embedded in policy and practice. After all, if inequality was written into law, can’t it be written out?
Last week, Baltimore’s Democratic Mayor Catherine Pugh signaled that she would sign two bills that would incorporate racial equity practices into city government. One bill requires agencies to assess the equity of proposed and current policies and address disparities, while the other allows voters to decide in November whether an equity fund will be established in the city charter. Such a fund would provide money to projects fighting racism. The legislation received unanimous support from the city council, according to The Baltimore Sun.
Guiding Principles for Opportunity Zones
As the U.S. Treasury Department begins the process of implementing Opportunity Zones under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, it is essential that Opportunity Zones and Opportunity Funds benefit low-income residents and small businesses within the Zones — protecting the interests of those most susceptible to displacement that too often result from private investment.
Investments in Opportunity Zones should improve the lives of people living in or near poverty within the Zones, and allow all residents to fully participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. Using the following recommendations, city and state officials, equity advocates, philanthropic leaders, investors, and developers can ensure that investments are equitable and help prevent displacement.
We also encourage you to send your governor and/or the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury a letter to urging them to adopt these recommendations to ensure that investments in Opportunity Zones benefit low-income community residents.
August 2018
Counting a Diverse Nation: Disaggregating Data on Race and Ethnicity to Advance a Culture of Health
Overview
Racial and ethnic health disparities and inequities can only be eliminated if high-quality information is available by which to track immediate problems and the underlying social determinants of health. Such information can guide the design and application of culturally specific approaches to medicine and public health. Often, health outcomes are disaggregated only by broad racial and ethnic categories such as White, Black, or Hispanic. However, the great, and growing, diversity of the American population means that people’s actual experiences are much more specific. This project was a multifaceted investigation of the leading issues and opportunities for disaggregating data by race and ethnicity for use in furthering health equity. It recommends changes and improvements to the conduct of research and data collection and to the government and corporate policies that define priorities and allocate resources. This report was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
July 2018
All-In Cities Anti-Displacement Policy Network
Take Action: Oppose the Citizenship Question on the 2020 Census
The question about citizenship proposed for the 2020 Census by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross would create enormous problems and result in a systematic undercount in lower income communities of color that would significantly undercut fair political representation, allocation of federal funds, and our basic understanding of who lives in the United States.
Electoral districts for all Congressional, state, and local offices would be biased for a decade, and the needs and eligibility of key population groups for federal resources would be underestimated, at a point when major demographic changes are underway across the country. Recent evidence has shown that the plan for the citizenship question was not an earnest effort to help enforce the voting rights but just the opposite: a deliberate strategy to politicize and undermine the accuracy of the Census. The lawsuits brought by human rights and civil right advocates and state governments are an important defense against the citizenship question, but the government also needs to hear from all of us!
The Commerce Department is taking public comments through August 7, and the Census Counts campaign has created an online portal through which everyone can easily submit their views. Please take a moment today to join PolicyLink and hundreds of other organizations in defense of a fair Census that counts everyone. For further information, see PolicyLink Vice President Victor Rubin’s blog post, which includes many useful resources.