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Study Finds Challenges in Identifying Smaller At-Risk Groups for Pandemic Relief

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Delivering COVID-19 vaccines and other pandemic relief to certain small ethnic populations in California may be a particular challenge for a somewhat ironic reason: Many members of those groups do not live in neighborhoods that have been identified as being highly vulnerable to virus transmission. A new UCLA study looked at five ethnic groups — American Indians, Pacific Islanders, Cambodians, Filipinos and Koreans — which, current data suggests, have higher-than-average rates of COVID-19 infections or deaths. Led by Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, the study examined four data models that public policy and health policy officials typically rely on to decide how to distribute resources. Researchers found that the models do not properly consider factors such as underlying racial inequities and socioeconomic status. “The data we’ve been compiling show that Pacific Islander and other smaller Asian groups are two to three times more likely than non-Latinx white workers to be essential workers, who are at a higher risk of being exposed during a pandemic,” said Ninez Ponce, director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, a partner in the study. “But they have received less attention because their numbers are fewer.” The study concluded that officials should look beyond geographic measures to address specific pandemic-related goals and relief efforts. “It would be great to pinpoint for state and local policymakers where the vaccines should go to help these vulnerable populations,” Ong said. ”Unfortunately, it’s not that easy, because they are a hidden diaspora and not tied to a geographic place.” — Elaiza Torralba

 

Research Guides Search for Solutions in Housing Crisis

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A Streetsblog L.A. article on Project Roomkey, a program that repurposes vacant hotel rooms to provide 90 days of shelter for people experiencing homelessness, cited research from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy. City and county officials in Los Angeles have struggled to meet their goal of housing 15,000 people through Project Roomkey. Their efforts received a boost when the Biden Administration announced it would reimburse cities for efforts to shelter the homeless during the COVID-19 pandemic. The II&D report “Hotel California: Housing the Crisis” called for bold action including the use of eminent domain to shelter the unhoused. Professor Emeritus Gary Blasi of UCLA Law, one of the report’s authors, also spoke with the Associated Press about a court hearing, held at a Skid Row shelter, that was centered on Los Angeles’ response to the homelessness crisis. And II&D’s research on the looming threat of evictions in the region was cited on NBC’s Today Show.

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Tilly on What It Will Take to Improve Retail Jobs

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The U.S. retail industry has been rocked by COVID-19, but the momentary spotlight on essential workers shows little sign of bringing lasting improvements to their work lives, according to an article co-written by Urban Planning Chair Chris Tilly. Only regulatory pressure promises to strengthen protections for retail workers, Tilly and co-author Françoise Carré concluded in the piece for the Good Companies, Good Jobs Initiative. The COVID-19 shutdown, along with rapid technological change, has triggered high levels of unemployment and undermined employer interest in basic job improvement measures, they wrote. On the tech front, “the e-commerce boom is most obvious, but a less visible — and quite ominous — shift is the spread of worker surveillance,” which has led to complaints that faulty systems have been used to discipline employees unfairly. Tilly and Carré are co-authors of the 2017 book “Where Bad Jobs Are Better” and collaborated on a chapter in 2020’s “Creating Good Jobs: An Industry-Based Strategy.”

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Yaroslavsky on Role of Unwieldy Government in Vaccine Rollout

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In a Los Angeles Times article about California’s chaotic distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, spoke about the role played by unwieldy county governments. “The weakness of the county governance structure reveals itself when there’s a life-and-death issue like coronavirus,” said Yaroslavsky, a former Los Angeles County supervisor. Most California counties are governed by an elected board of supervisors, meaning there is no single executive in charge. In the early days of the vaccine rollout, L.A. County’s enormous size — 10 million people — created an additional hurdle. Yaroslavsky said strong, decisive leadership is key. “You have to have someone in charge who is the field general who says, ‘We’re marching this way. I’ve taken into account all the evidence,’ ” he said. “And everyone marches in lockstep.”

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Study Assesses Tools Used to Prioritize COVID-19 Resources

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A new study by the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) at UCLA Luskin assesses four vulnerability indicators used by public agencies to identify neighborhoods most in need of pandemic-related resources and services. The choice of indicators used in prioritizing the COVID-19 interventions has implications for how many people of color and minority neighborhoods are served, the study found. Race and ethnicity are important because people of color encounter multiple dimensions of inequality that are only partially reflected in the indicators, said CNK Director Paul Ong, who led the research. The study aims to help ameliorate a policy dilemma. “Despite the reality that African Americans and Hispanics have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19, the 1996 Proposition 209 prohibits the state from explicitly using race as a factor in the provision and distribution of pandemic relief and coronavirus vaccines,” Ong said. Of the four indicators assessed, an index measuring pre-existing health vulnerabilities is the most likely to be inclusive of people and neighborhoods of color, the study found. It also recommended that public agencies develop new indicators tailored to the unique policy goals created by the pandemic. The research was conducted in partnership with the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the UCLA BRITE Center for Science, Research and Policy, and the public interest research group Ong & Associates.

Documentary Zeroes In on Canceling College Debt

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A documentary about the growing movement to cancel student debt, co-produced by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D) and released by The Intercept, features insights from the Luskin School’s faculty and staff. “You Are Not a Loan” shares the experiences of activists, academics and debt-burdened students as they strategize across class and cultural lines to bring about the right to free college for all. The film was shot in February 2020 following an II&D- hosted conference urging a fresh vision for financing higher education. Within weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down campuses nationwide, stepping up the urgency to create an equitable system of education. Joining the conversation are II&D Associate Faculty Director Hannah Appel and Deputy Director Marisa Lemorande, as well as Marques Vestal, who will join the School’s urban planning faculty in June. Vestal will also take part in a Jan. 30 virtual Q&A about the documentary as part of the Sundance Film Festival.

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Yaroslavsky on Frustrations Over Vaccine Rollout

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Los Angeles Initiative Director Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to the Daily Breeze about frustrations surrounding Los Angeles County’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout. While thousands of people were able to sign up to receive the vaccine, many were blocked, battling a severely limited supply, extraordinary demand for the available slots and a flurry of technical challenges. Yaroslavsky said much of the confusion stems from muddled messaging from federal, state and local authorities. “There’s been a total communication failure on the part of all levels of government,” he said. “To the average person … not savvy to the jurisdictional issues, they are just saying, ‘What are the rules?’ and ‘Hey, I’m 70 years old. Am I eligible or not eligible? The next day I hear something else from my local officials,’ ” Yaroslavsky said. “Everybody’s culpable on this, starting with the White House on down, and hopefully this is going to change in the days ahead with the new leadership.”

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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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Study Finds Inequities in Distribution of Federal Stimulus Assistance

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Neighborhoods in California whose populations are majority Black, Latino or Asian benefitted less from the $500 billion in forgivable loans distributed nationwide through the Paycheck Protection Program amid the pandemic, according to a new UCLA report. The findings, published by the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative and the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin, found that the lack of federal support will likely widen economic inequality in communities of color, which already had fewer small businesses and jobs than majority-white neighborhoods. The analysis was based on data from the Small Business Administration, the Census Bureau ZIP Code Business Patterns Dataset and the American Community Survey. The researchers write that future federal pandemic relief efforts should earmark a percentage of funds to directly benefit businesses in disadvantaged communities, which the report finds generally have higher concentrations of residents of color. The report found that stimulus funds helped majority-white neighborhoods retain 51% of their pre-pandemic jobs, compared to 44% in majority-Latino neighborhoods and 45% in majority-Asian neighborhoods. Although the program helped retain 54% of pre-pandemic jobs in Black neighborhoods, that figure is somewhat misleading because those neighborhoods typically had a smaller job base to begin with. When standardized on a per-resident basis, the federal loans supported 5.8 jobs per 100 residents in Black neighborhoods, compared with 8.1 per 100 residents in white communities. The authors also found that Latino and Black neighborhoods received less funding per capita than white neighborhoods. Latino neighborhoods received $367 per resident; Black neighborhoods received $445 per resident; white neighborhoods received $666 per resident; and Asian neighborhoods received $670 per resident, the study found.

 

Yaroslavsky Defends Right to Access the Justice System

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Director of the Los Angeles Initiative Zev Yaroslavsky co-authored an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times about threats to cut funding for legal self-help service centers, which provide free assistance to Angelenos who cannot afford legal representation. These services are used by 150,000 people a year in Los Angeles County, particularly those in poverty, experiencing homelessness, facing domestic abuse or with limited English proficiency. A decline in sales taxes due to COVID-19 has put the existence of these centers in peril. “We cannot afford to let this happen,” Yaroslavsky wrote. Self-help centers have always been “a place that residents can go to get information they trust and the free legal help they need.” Protecting legal self-help centers is “morally and fiscally the right thing to do,” he concluded. “We must use every tool at our disposal to reach those who need our help, and self-help legal access centers are a key part of that strategy.”

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