Blumenberg on Supporting Transit Rider Mobility

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Urban Planning Professor Evelyn Blumenberg spoke to the Fresno Bee about the impact that car access has on socioeconomic mobility. “There’s a very robust connection between having a car and having a job,” Blumenberg said. In Fresno, the commute times for bus riders are nearly double the commute times for car owners, and this makes it difficult to plan a sequence of trips to be on time for class or work. Blumenberg said the challenge is compounded for women, and especially mothers, who often carry the burden of taking their children to child care, school or the doctor. Fresno is working to increase the frequency of transit services to decrease commute times, but these improvements in service can have a limited impact in sprawling regions like Fresno. Blumenberg suggested building a denser network of housing and jobs, close to existing transit lines. This can help shorten travel distances, making transit more efficient and comparable to driving.

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Santos on Making Language More Inclusive

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Associate Professor of Social Welfare Carlos Santos spoke to Univision about the growing use of the term “Latinx” to refer to people of Latin American origin or descent. “Latinos” and “Hispanos” are commonly used to refer to people of Latin or Hispanic origin, and both terms are masculine, leaving many women and nonbinary individuals feeling excluded. Curiosity about the term “Latinx” spiked in 2015, with an increase in Google searches inquiring about its meaning. Santos said the term “is a way to speak about ourselves as a group that includes various individuals, including those who may not identify with the gender binary.” An informal survey of Spanish-speaking students at UCLA found that different students identify with the terms Latino, Hispanic and Latinx. “One of the biggest misunderstandings is that people think that they have to identify themselves as Latinx,” Santos explained, noting that the term is part of an effort to make language more inclusive over time.

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Weisburst on Impact of Expanding Police Forces

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An article in the College Fix highlighted research co-authored by Assistant Professor of Public Policy Emily Weisburst on how increasing the size of a police force affects crime and arrest rates. The researchers found that the hiring of an additional 10 to 17 full-time police officers prevented one new homicide per year — a decline that’s twice as large for Black victims in per capita terms. Yet with each extra officer came seven to 22 new low-level arrests for offenses such as liquor violations and drug possession. The research team analyzed police employment data for 242 U.S. cities with populations greater than 50,000 over a 38-year period. “This study provides an estimate of the historical trade-offs of investments in law enforcement and, critically, the resulting implications for communities of color,” the authors said. The findings, first published in a December 2020 working paper, will appear in a forthcoming issue of American Economic Review: Insights. 

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Koslov on New Approach to Disaster Relief

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Liz Koslov spoke to the New York Times about a new private lending program designed to fund disaster recovery and return victims to their homes. Federal aid programs can take years to get money to victims of natural disasters, including floods, wildfires and other catastrophes, which are becoming more frequent and severe as a result of climate change. Renters, who are more likely than homeowners to be people or color or have low incomes, often must wait even longer for federal aid. The new program, funded by financial giant Morgan Stanley and the housing nonprofit Enterprise, will pay owners of apartment buildings to rebuild without waiting for federal funds; the loans will be repaid by taxpayers, with interest. The new lending arrangement “responds to a real need,” Koslov said. However, she noted that is problematic as it falls into a broader trend of private companies that profit from disasters.

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Report Highlights ‘Atmosphere of Fear’ for Asian American Employees

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A KQED article featured new research from the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge on the rising incidence of anti-Asian hate crimes. The center collaborated with the California-based coalition Stop AAPI Hate to produce a report based on the findings of a national survey of Asian American and Pacific Islander employees. Those surveyed reported alarmingly high rates of hate incidents at their jobs, in addition to an overwhelming fear of being targeted at work. More than a quarter of the respondents said they experienced a hate incident at work in 2021, and more than 20% said they are reluctant to return to in-person work because they’re afraid they will be racially targeted. “It creates an atmosphere of fear when you go to work and you’re uncertain about what’s going to happen that day because you happen to be Asian American,” said Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and a co-author of the report.

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Torres-Gil on Long-Term Care for an Aging America

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Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Fernando Torres-Gil co-authored a commentary in The Hill about the growing demand for caretakers as the U.S. population ages. According to one study, the United States has an unmet need for 2.3 million home care workers. Congress is currently debating legislation to improve affordable care by expanding Medicaid coverage for home care services for seniors and people with disabilities, among other measures. Torres-Gil and co-author Jacqueline Angel from the University of Texas, Austin, noted that middle-class and working families are most likely to shoulder the burden of caring for family members, and these populations are most likely to suffer from burnout and caregiver stress. Eventually, the authors hope to see the implementation of a universal long-term care policy, such as those in place in the European Union, South Korea and Japan. “We can do better here in the United States,” they wrote.

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Holloway Calls for Safety Precautions on LGBTQ Dating Apps

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Professor of Social Welfare Ian Holloway spoke to Insider about the importance of safety precautions to protect users of LGBTQ dating apps such as Grindr. These apps have proven to be useful platforms for people to connect with one another, especially during the pandemic, but some have safety risks. Holloway noted that apps like Grindr “could be taking further steps to protect users.” For example, he suggested stronger staffing to help review profiles and monitor reports of improper behavior. “There’s often very little vetting because of the sheer volume of guys using these apps,” Holloway explained. At the start of 2021, Grindr reported having over 13 million active users worldwide, with only 100 customer support and content moderation staffers. “There is not enough content moderation on these platforms,” Holloway said. “And there’s really nothing that I’ve seen that allows users to escalate a case where they can get to an actual person.”

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Callahan on the Future of High-Speed Rail

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Colleen Callahan, deputy director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, spoke to the Washington Post about federal funding for new infrastructure projects and the future of rail transit in the United States. President Biden has signed a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill into law, and $65 billion is earmarked for rail projects. However, Callahan expressed doubt that the new package will go toward high-speed rail. “This package is not the silver bullet for the bullet,” Callahan said. “We won’t see much of it go to high-speed rail.” Bullet trains are popular around the globe and can unite cities hundreds of miles apart without excessive carbon emissions. However, the federal funding for rail projects is expected to go largely to the federally owned Amtrak. Many transportation experts predict that Amtrak will use the funding to address problems on its traditional lines instead of investing in new high-speed rail projects.

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Leap on Supporting Survivors of Domestic Violence

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in a PBS NewsHour report on the importance of programs that support female survivors of domestic violence. The National Resource Center on Domestic Violence estimates that 70% to 80% of incarcerated women are survivors of domestic violence. Yet very few programs exist to ease trauma for these women in prison or after they are released. A New Way of Life is a program that offers subsidized housing, legal help and therapy to formerly incarcerated women who are survivors of domestic violence. “Reentry programs like this are the exception, and more are needed,” Leap said. “The best programs give women a sense of community, that they’re not alone, that there are others who have been victims of sexual abuse, victims of domestic violence, that other women know and understand what they have gone through, and they support one another.”

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New Paper Analyzes Impact of School Closures on Families

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Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor and doctoral student Kate Watson collaborated on a new paper highlighting the needs of children and families during school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper, published in Social Work, analyzed responses to a nationwide survey of 1,275 school social workers who reported on their clients, including schools, children and families, during the COVID-19 school closures in spring 2020. While other reports have focused on academic challenges facing students during the pandemic as well as the effects of online learning on academic success, the authors identified a knowledge gap in understanding the needs and difficulties of K-12 students and their families from a social work perspective. In their responses to the survey, school social workers indicated that the children and families they served had significant unmet basic needs, including for food, health care and housing. “Poverty and mental health compounded pandemic difficulties, which were associated with the sociodemographic makeup of schools,” wrote Watson, the paper’s lead author, with co-authors Astor and colleagues from Hebrew University, Cal State Fullerton and Loyola University Chicago. Based on the survey results, the authors identified several policy and practice implications for the future. They highlighted the need for “additional services for students and families, a plan to address structural inequities in our schools and communities, coordinated outreach to reengage missing students, and recognition of the strong work being done by school staff coupled with a need for additional supports and resources to combat persistent inequality.” — Zoe Day