The majority of young children living in the United States today are children of color, cared for by parents and caregivers across a spectrum of identities. These children face increased economic insecurity as their parents navigate the high cost of leaving work to care for them or assume crippling child care costs, all while earning stagnantly low wages. Their families may also experience considerably unequal challenges to living in safe and secure housing, enrolling in affordable and high-quality early learning experiences, and accessing healthy food. Additionally, the emergency triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, with its significant impact on families’ health and economic well-being, threatens to widen these gaps, especially for families of color who are disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and its economic fallout. This brief looks at how to leverage and expanding public funding to support a more equitable recovery for young children, families, and child care workers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created a set of dire public health and economic challenges for communities across the country. The crisis strikes our most vulnerable communities and communities of color even harder, magnifying existing racial disparities in health, housing, and economic security. This brief is designed to help local government leadership and staff design public processes that use this crisis as an opportunity to further racial equity and build community capacity.

This process guide:

• Outlines the reasons for pursuing an inclusive process (even in times of crisis)
• Describes a developmental path that moves from simple, but ineffective, public engagement to authentic and meaningful community partnership
• Provides real-world examples of steps that communities are taking to ensure that traditionally excluded communities have a real seat at the table when it comes to planning Covid-19 recovery efforts
• Illustrates specific strategies and tools (both online and off) that local government agencies are using to effectively facilitate public input in the absence of face-to-face public meetings

Our companion guide, Strategies to Advance Racial Equity in Housing Response and Recovery: A Guide for Cities during the Covid-19 Pandemic, outlines policy and program design actions that communities can take to support an equitable recovery and advance racial equity in housing during and after the coronavirus pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has created a set of dire public health and economic challenges for communities across the country. The crisis strikes our most vulnerable communities and communities of color even harder, magnifying existing racial disparities in health, housing, and economic security.

This brief provides a set of recommendations to advance racial equity in housing through the implementation of Covid-19 relief and recovery strategies, organized into four areas of action:

1. Prevent evictions and protect tenants.
2. Address homelessness and advance housing as a human right.
3. Sustain and increase community ownership and permanently affordable housing.
4. Divest from the police and invest in racial equity.

Our companion guide, Inclusive Processes to Advance Racial Equity in Housing Recovery: A Guide for Cities during the Covid-19 Pandemic, outlines principles and steps local government leadership and staff can take during this time of crisis to design public processes that further racial equity and build community capacity.

In recent years, public space advocates and park conservationists have become increasingly vocal about the need for “park equity,” or the idea that all residents should have reasonably equal access to quality park space. Much of the emphasis on park equity focuses on access, funding, and the degree to which residents perceive public space to be welcoming and inclusive. Without  a critical analysis of power dynamics in the decision­-making process and how differing visions and concerns are considered, conversations about parks perpetuate and sometimes accelerate historic structural inequities in low-income communities of color. These dynamics can be observed in this case study of Philadelphia Chinatown and the Rail Park, an ambitious adaptive reuse project which recently completed its $11 million first phase of construction. This report offers guidance for the broader field of community development practitioners and planners working in gentrifying neighborhoods on this critical question: How can public spaces contribute to equitable development?

Download the report, the summary, and translated summary in Chinese.    

Over a span of less than three months, the COVID-19 pandemic has radically upended the lives and livelihoods of millions of workers and their families. But while the pain has been widespread, it has not been equally shared: workers of color and immigrant workers are being hardest hit by the loss of jobs and income, and women of color especially are disproportionately employed in the lowest-wage, essential jobs that place them at risk of contracting the virus. In order to inform equity-focused relief and recovery strategies, this report offers a comprehensive, disaggregated analysis of the labor market effects of the coronavirus in the United States and ten metro regions: Boston, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Miami, Nashville, San Francisco, and Seattle. This analysis was produced through a partnership between the National Equity Atlas and Burning Glass Technologies. Read the report and download the underlying data.

Media: Mounting Unemployment Crisis Fuels Racial Wealth Gap (Politico), COVID-19’s Economic Fallout Is Hitting The Black Community Hard, Too (HuffPost), Here's How The Coronavirus Pandemic Changed The Way Columbus Residents Spend Money (Columbus Business First). 

PolicyLink, FSG, JUST Capital, and Living Cities invite corporations, racial equity experts, funders, investors, and other experts to support and collaborate with us in developing guidelines that can guide businesses in analyzing their impact on racial equity. This article presents an invitation and roadmap to help companies understand and address the intended and unintended consequences of all their products, policies, and practices on people of color, and by extension, our economy and democracy. The blueprint provides actions in three key domains: 1) inside the company, 2) within the communities where the companies are headquartered and conduct business, and 3) at the broader societal level.

Fines and fees have devastated the lives of millions of Americans, trapping them in a cycle of poverty and punishment — with the harms overwhelmingly falling on people of color and people living on low incomes. State and local governments can support residents by eliminating fines and fees, and by creating sustainable ways to balance their budgets that don’t put the burden on residents. 

The Roadmap to Equitable Fine and Fee Reform shares approaches and practices to advance fine and fee reform. This guide is a distillation of the curriculum provided through the Cities & Counties for Fine and Fee Justice national network, and shares insights and direction for anyone interested in fine and fee reform, particularly leaders in cities and counties who are eager to address the widespread challenges presented by excessive fines and fees in their jurisdictions.

While Congress has taken some important initial steps, the relief packages so far have not done enough to address the challenges facing the one in three people living in or near poverty in the US. This brief, “Federal Policy Priorities for an Equitable COVID-19 Relief and Recovery,” outlines a number of specific policy recommendations for Congress to include in the next relief package to meet the needs of all people while building a bridge to a more equitable and climate-safe future.

Our op-ed on a federal job guarantee (NYTimes), authored by Angela Glover Blackwell and Darrick Hamilton, outlines how a public option for a job with living wages and full benefits can help households while addressing long-neglected community needs. This is the sort of bold action we need Congress to take to ensure an inclusive recovery and a more resilient future economy.

Download the report for additional policy priorities that must be part of the next COVID-19 relief package.