COVID-19 Doesn’t Only Threaten the Elderly, Reber Says

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Sarah Reber spoke to the Dallas Morning News about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 deaths on Latino and Black communities in Texas. While many believe that COVID-19 threatens just the elderly, working-age adults in Texas’ Latino and Black communities are dying at rates many times higher than those of whites, according the the story, which was reprinted nationally. “That discussion of ‘Oh, it’s all the really old people’ — that’s a white people’s story,” Reber said. The disparities in COVID-19 deaths have gone largely underreported because health experts were not initially focused on them. However, there are significant differences in the death toll when separated by age and ethnicity. In Texas, the COVID-19 death rate for Hispanics among those ages 25 to 64 is four times as high as that of non-Hispanic whites. Furthermore, Blacks in that age group are dying at more than twice the rate of white people.

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Yaroslavsky on What’s Next for Mayor Garcetti

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, weighed in on Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s future political prospects in a piece by Politico. An early supporter of President-elect Joe Biden, Garcetti served as a national campaign co-chair, helped to vet vice presidential candidates and serves as a co-chair of the committee planning the upcoming inauguration. While many presumed Garcetti would land a spot in the Biden administration, he did not, and the mayor has confirmed that he will stay put in City Hall as Los Angeles grapples with pandemic-induced health and budget crises, homelessness and a rise in violent crime. Some observers say Garcetti’s next career move is likely to be a mid-term appointment in the Biden administration. “This is not a time to write Eric Garcetti’s obituary,” Yaroslavsky said. “Biden remembers his friends, and Garcetti is his friend.”

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Akee on Historic Nomination for U.S. Interior Secretary

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Randall Akee co-authored an article for the Brookings Institution on the nomination of the first Native American to hold a U.S. Cabinet position. If confirmed, New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland would lead the Department of the Interior, which has oversight of federal lands and waterways as well as the plants, animals and natural resources located there and also manages the U.S. government’s relationship with Native American nations. “Rep. Haaland’s nomination marks a turning point in valuing the experiences, knowledge and leadership of Native American nations, which would have been unimaginable in previous presidential administrations,” wrote Akee and Robert Maxim, a Brookings research associate. They cautioned that “the day-to-day challenges many Native Americans face will be impossible to overcome through just a single nomination” but welcomed the opportunity to “move the Interior Department from a position of active harm toward Native American nations to one of mutual respect, partnership and understanding.”

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Leap on Finding Meaning in Loss

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in an episode of the UCLA “10 Questions” series exploring the question, “What is loss?” Leap explained that for the past 20 years, gang members have been her teachers about loss. “Loss is unavoidable,” said Leap, who shared the stories of four individuals and the different types of loss they experienced: death, loss of freedom, loss of childhood and redemption. After the death of one former gang member, Leap struggled to grapple with the suddenness of death and the terror that “this could happen to any one of us at any time.” She has found that authentic empathy and humility are the keys to establishing connections that bridge gender, age, race and ethnic divides. “We know we’re going to lose, and yet we attach so deeply, especially to the ones we love,” she said. For Leap, experiencing loss has made the love and the attachment all the more profound.

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Time to Invest in the American People, Torres-Gil Writes

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil co-authored a piece in the San Antonio Express News about the need for a new federal program to aid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic and ensuing economic recession have exacerbated existing inequalities in the United States. During the Great Depression, New Deal programs and private investment in public enterprises helped promote economic recovery. According to Torres-Gil, President-elect Joe Biden has an “opportunity to create new economic policies for a healthier America and a social compact in which we can all value equity.” Torres-Gil described a “massive federal infrastructure spending bill — akin to a Marshall Plan — that creates more jobs, helps small businesses, emphasizing green industry as well as the hardest hit health and senior care sectors.” He recommended designing a new social contract that assures all Americans basic health care coverage, minimum income in old age, employment and caregiver support.

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Newton on San Diego’s Unexpected Shift to Blue

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Lecturer Jim Newton spoke to Voice of San Diego about the city’s shift in support of the Democratic Party. After years of being a Republican stronghold, San Diego County has voted blue in the last four presidential elections. When asked in 1989 if deeply conservative Orange County would ever turn blue, Newton imagined it might happen sometime in his grandchildren’s lifetime. However, Barack Obama won San Diego County in the 2008 presidential election, and Orange County joined the movement in 2016 and 2020 by voting for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Newton pointed to the rise of the environmental movement and the increase in Latino voters for the shift. He explained that since the GOP drifted toward big business, “it’s hard to take the environment seriously and associate with the Republican Party.” He also noted that the GOP has become associated with deportation and intolerance in California. “It may take time, but political worlds shift,” he said.

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Blumenberg on Pandemic’s Impact on Transit Riders

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Urban Planning Professor Evelyn Blumenberg spoke to Time about mass transit systems across the country that are floundering amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Sinking ridership has fueled extreme budget shortfalls, forcing transit authorities to slash routes and delay scheduled expansions, the article said. Blumenberg, director of UCLA’s Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, said diminished transit services will severely impact Americans on the bottom rung of the income ladder. “Transit ridership has always been disproportionately low-income, non-white riders, immigrant riders,” Blumenberg said. “That composition is even more disproportionately poor, non-white and immigrants during the pandemic.” Congress is considering a new coronavirus relief package that is likely to include limited assistance for U.S. transit systems, the article noted, but it added that additional investments are needed to spur economic recovery and address inequality. 

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Manville on New Legislation to Combat State’s Housing Crisis

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A Courthouse News article on a new legislative package unveiled by California lawmakers to combat the state’s housing crisis called on Michael Manville, associate professor of urban planning, to provide context. The six-bill package calls for small apartments near transit centers, a new affordable housing bond, residential projects in existing retail and commercial zones, and a wave of new duplexes. Manville said that Los Angeles has had success with residential developments on major streets and boulevards. “It’s definitely much more palatable [for officials] to approve boulevard projects than having to go back to one of their neighborhoods and saying some changes are coming,” he said. Issuing new bonds to spur affordable housing for low-income families and the homeless is an important step, Manville said, but he cautioned that the bond money could go to waste unless zoning reforms are first put in place.

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Yaroslavsky on Newsom’s Chance to Reshape State Politics

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Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke to the Hill about Gov. Gavin Newsom’s opportunity to reshape California’s political hierarchy with his selections to fill high-level vacancies in government. In addition to choosing someone to fill Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’ seat in the U.S. Senate, Newsom must replace California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who was nominated as U.S. health and human services secretary in the Biden administration. Once the governor selects their successors, additional powerful posts in state government could open up. “There are a considerable number of possibilities for filling constitutional offices that no governor in the history of the state has had,” Yaroslavsky said, noting that Newsom’s choices will leave an imprint on both state and national politics. “It’s an unprecedented opportunity and responsibility that has fallen in the governor’s lap.”

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Taylor on Social Service of Public Transit

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Brian Taylor, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UCLA Luskin, spoke to Wired about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public transit services. Facing plummeting ridership, public transit agencies have cut services significantly to stay afloat. According to Taylor, transit usually serves two sets of people: those going into busy downtown areas and those who don’t have other transportation options. During the pandemic, ridership has declined among the first group due to stay-at-home orders, fears about transit as a vector for spread and the shift to remote work for many companies. As a result, the burden of public transit cuts has fallen on the people who need the system most, such as essential workers in the grocery, retail and health care sectors who continue to rely on public transit during the pandemic. “The social service aspect of public transit is even more prominent than it was before,” Taylor said.

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