Helping Vulnerable People: Occupy City Hall Organizers Find Out How Challenging This Important Work Can Be
On recent nights, about 100 homeless people have typically slept in tents and on the ground in the NYC park, organizers said. They're getting free meals and other care as protests wane. Other news on the medically vulnerable is on racial disparities, prison inmates, foster children and more, as well.
The New York Times:
Occupy City Hall’s New Life As Homeless Camp: ‘Not Pretty All The Time’
When it first kicked off last month, the activist encampment that billed itself as Occupy City Hall was viewed as the latest wave of the city’s George Floyd protests — an innovative political space that, under summer skies, attracted peaceful crowds to speeches and teach-ins focused on a narrow goal: cutting $1 billion from the New York Police Department’s budget. In the past week, however, the number of protesters has dropped off sharply and those who have remained have taken on a new responsibility: caring for dozens of homeless people who were drawn to the compound for its free food, open-air camping and communal sensibility. (Feuer and Kim, 7/9)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Homelessness Is Surging In Bay Area Suburbs. COVID-19 Is Making It Even More Visible.
Once thought of as a predominantly urban issue affecting cities like San Francisco and Oakland, homelessness has hit Bay Area suburbs like Pacifica hard in the past few years, pushing into the corners of every county across the region. Some suburbs registered exponential increases between 2017 and 2019 in the biennial point-in-time counts of the homeless population in each county. Yet the suburbs have historically been less prepared to handle the homeless, with less emphasis on affordable housing, political pushback on safe parking and fewer social services to address some of the reasons people landed on the streets in the first place — job loss, substance abuse, mental health issues and family crisis. (Tucker, Christian and Trumbull, 7/9)
CIDRAP:
Black People In Chicago Twice As Likely As Whites To Have COVID, Study Shows
In yet another study demonstrating racial disparities in the pandemic, a University of Chicago analysis has found that black people are twice as likely as whites to test positive for COVID-19. (7/9)
State House News Service:
COVID-19 Data Among Black Cape Residents Underscores Need For Emergency Sick Time
Citing new county-level data acquired and published by The New York Times last week, members of the Cape Cod Reopening Task Force warned during a Thursday press call that Black residents are overrepresented in confirmed COVID cases compared to their population in Barnstable County. (Lisinski, 7/9)
CIDRAP:
US Prison Inmates Among Those Hit Hard With COVID-19
COVID-19 cases in US federal and state prisons were 5.5 times higher—and death rates three times higher—than in the general population from Mar 31 to Jun 6, according to a research letter published yesterday in JAMA. (Beusekom, 7/9)
ABC News:
California's San Quentin Prison Using Tents, Warehouse To Treat Inmates Infected With COVID-19
San Quentin State Prison in California has erected tents and is converting a warehouse to treat a coronavirus outbreak that's infected more than 1,800 inmates and staff. Aerial footage shows nine tents on the institution's baseball field, part of the prison's efforts to treat inmates with COVID-19 right on the grounds while opening up space for social distancing, quarantine and isolation in the crowded facility. (Deliso and Longo, 7/9)
In other news —
AP:
Kansas Settles Foster Children Civil Rights Lawsuit
The state of Kansas settled a class-action lawsuit filed by child care advocates who accused the state of not providing foster children with adequate mental health care and moving them too frequently between homes. (7/9)
Politico:
Women, Minorities Disproportionately Reliant On Jobless Aid, Data Shows
Women and racial minorities are disproportionately reliant on unemployment insurance, economic data shows, leaving them most vulnerable if Congress decides not to renew the expanded benefits that are set to expire at the end of the month. (Mueller, 7/9)
