We are nearly one month into California’s shelter-in-place order in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. And it looks like, in the Bay Area at least, we’re seeing some payoff from our early efforts to socially distance; hospitals have not seen the number of patients initially expected, and public health experts are tentatively declaring our success in flattening the proverbial curve.

In spite of these successes, the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown America’s inequalities into even sharper relief. Those who are most exposed to risk are the poorest among us, the undocumented, the unhoused, the under-or un-insured, and those whose incomes have suddenly disappeared as non-essential businesses have closed down.

Talk Policy To Me hosts Colleen Pulawski (MPP ‘21), Sarah Edwards (MPP ‘20), Reem Rayef (MPP ‘21) and Khalid Kaldi (MPP ‘21) assembled on a video call for the podcast’s first ever virtual roundtable, to share learnings about the ways in which the crisis has both exposed and exacerbated gaping inequality in the US—and what policymakers, organizers, and communities are doing to protect the vulnerable among us.

In this episode we discuss all things COVID-19. How does the federal government’s stimulus bill risk cementing economic inequality? What does shelter-in-place mean if you don’t have a home? How should governors and mayors talk about the pandemic, when the president doesn’t appear to take it seriously? And what are the dangers and benefits of talking about silver linings?

Transcript

Colleen: [00:00:02] Boop.

Khalid: [00:00:02] Okay.

Reem: [00:00:04] All right.

Colleen: [00:00:04] Hey, everybody.

Khalid: [00:00:13] Howdy.

Sarah: [00:00:14] Hey Colleen.

Colleen: [00:00:15] Here we are recording remotely because we're all social distancing because of COVID 19. It's totally crazy. And our worlds have all been flipped upside down. And I think we're all really individually grappling with our new reality. But as policy students, I think we're also all pretty engaged in the policy conversations that are coming out of this crisis. And so I thought we all thought that it would be really great to sit down over our computers and chat about the thoughts we've been having and the many things that I'm sure we've all been reading and how we're thinking about policy responses to COVID 19 in the short, the medium and the long term. Because I think I think those are all a little different. I'm really happy that we're all here together and that we can just have a conversation about some of these ideas and thoughts that I'm sure have been really bouncing around as we've had lots of time to sit around and social distance. So just to kind of kick us off, I thought we could just start with talking about what are some of the most immediate and pressing issues that you've been thinking about that public policy really needs to solve, like pretty quickly and probably pretty innovatively.

Khalid: [00:01:28] The most immediate thing that I've been thinking about a lot and I've been reading about a lot is what the economic policy response needs to look like in order for the public health response to work. There are so many people who aren't able to work from home, and social distancing can't work if people can't afford to stay home.

Reem: [00:01:49] I haven't done a ton of reading on this, but I'm seeing on Twitter at least I've seen a lot of tenants who are organizing their neighbors to stop paying rent, especially in apartment buildings and doing calling for a rent freeze basically from the landlord.

Khalid: [00:02:03] Yeah, there's this whole piece of like what kinds of relief policies we need to do given the economic freeze. And housing has been a tremendous cause for people for the past decade and increasingly so. The cost of living is very, very, very high. And a lot of people, even though they're working full time, are struggling to survive. And there's a lot of things that the government needs to do in order to orchestrate a successful social distancing.

Colleen: [00:02:31] One of my questions and thoughts for you is, since you've been spending time thinking about this 30 minutes ago, the House just passed the stimulus bill. What are your thoughts on that in terms of its ability to provide for the kind of economic measures that you're saying are going to be so important to our recovery and our ability to distance? What are your thoughts on that?

Khalid: [00:02:53] The most important priority is to just get cash to people fast in whatever way possible. And the way that typically that our social safety net in America is structured is it's very targeted. But in a crisis like this, those kinds of policies are suboptimal because they take time. It takes a lot of form filling. It's expensive to check, you know what, who needs what. So first and foremost, we need non targeted immediate cash aid. And luckily, the Senate has expanded, you know, things like unemployment insurance and they are doing a one time direct payment of 1200 dollars to every working adult who makes under $75,000 a year. I don't know how you all feel, but to me, that sounds very minuscule. 1200 dollars one time like that's that's less than my rent. So we're talking people have talked about social distancing for 3 to 6 to 8 to 12 months. I don't know what 1200 dollars is going to do. What do you all think?

Reem: [00:04:00] I want to rent freeze.

Sarah: [00:04:02] Finally. I mean, I think it's it's really it's really interesting because it's definitely something that has not been done before. And I think while you're right, it is definitely in these longer term scenarios, it's totally just a drop in the bucket. I think I've been thinking about it from the longer policy term lens. It's a mechanism that we can turn on and turn off in times of crisis. I think that's a really, really interesting way to think about it in this scenario of like something that can be turned on when everyone needs something. Right. There's definitely people who are more vulnerable and need more. But I think it's really interesting to see this play out in a way that I had never thought it would.

Reem: [00:04:42] I think some of the criticism that I read of this is that part of the reason why folks are taking umbrage to this 1201 time payment is that this how small it is in comparison to the corporate bailout that it sounds like. Also, it came with the bill and it's just like the ratio of support that we're providing to individual people who need the most help relative to corporations who are like now in our inbox being like, please continue to buy stuff from us. Please. We're struggling. And it's like, I don't need to hear this from you unitedly.

Colleen: [00:05:17] Yeah, that's something that I've been thinking a lot about in terms of the stimulus package is these bailouts that you mentioned, Reem, and I've been reading a lot about those, largely from this guy. His name is Matt Stoller. He's a fellow at the Open Markets Institute and he studies monopolies and he wrote a lot about the stimulus package. And I thought it was really interesting. He noted that a lot of folks on Wall Street are actually calling this a $6 trillion bailout or even some are calling it a $10 trillion bailout. And everyone else is calling it a $2 trillion bailout. And so it's like what gives there? Why are people why are there different figures? He kind of brought to light a lot of these like slush funds essentially that are in this bailout for Wall Street. And to them, this is this is just such a bigger package than it is. You know, just exactly to your point, like people are getting 1200 dollars one time and it's a drop in the bucket. It's not enough. It's insufficient, as we've already said. And something that I worry about in this kind of like long term view that Sarah was talking about is just is this going to be a repeat of 2009 and just another opportunity to further cement inequality? I really worry about that.

Reem: [00:06:31] Yeah, it's just like a demonstration that we continue to subscribe to trickle down economics, which we absolutely know does not work.

Sarah: [00:06:47] I have been thinking about this situation in a way of like it really, really highlights some of the current inequalities in our system. Vulnerable groups are made all the much more vulnerable. One of the biggest things is we're asking people to shelter in place. But what does that mean if you don't have a shelter? Right. Particularly for the unhoused community, there's been just so many challenges that those individuals are facing. In some ways, I think it can be there's some potential positive aspects in terms of like there's just been a huge push to find places to house people. You know, they're talking about trying to temporarily house people in like hotels and motels and use them, has been trying to put a lot of funding towards this. But it seems like it's been really slow going. It's also crazy to think about if there is a shelter and someone tests positive, they need to hypothetically, they need to quarantine everyone in that shelter, which is just logistically and in so many ways just so, so challenging. There's also been some really unfortunate stuff that I've seen in terms of just increasingly like dehumanizing rhetoric of the people who are already in such challenging situations to like see them as a as a greater risk rather than a population that needs more support because they are at risk.

Colleen: [00:08:11] I was reading something this morning actually from Calmatters about how California has actually secured leases or like long term rental situations on several hotels and motels, but a lot of them are still empty because I guess just the logistics there might be able to speak to this more, but the logistics of moving people from the streets and then into these spaces has proven quite difficult. I think from just like a practical measure of like how do you actually just get folks into these spaces to also some, I think, like bureaucratic red tape issues. But from what I was reading, a lot of these spaces that have been secured are still empty, which is pretty unfortunate.

Sarah: [00:08:52] This is something that particularly in California, they've been working really hard to make a priority. And I think Newsom has put a big chunk of funding into securing these hotels and motels as places to temporarily house people. But I think it's it seems like it has been really slow going. I think some of that is the logistic challenge. There's also a reporting that's just showing that encampments aren't being given information about this. The people who are living there don't necessarily have the news of what is happening or what the current plan is or like they've heard that they should be moving, but they have not been given the information to understand what is actually happening. Another pre-existing vulnerability that I've been thinking about has been the people who are food insecure and rely on local resources to support them. Thinking about kids who receive free and reduced lunch at their school and now they're not going to school. Right. And so they aren't they don't have that avenue to be receiving it. This does seem like a good area that there's been efforts to be responding to it. Right. The National Guard has been coming to support food banks. People more than ever need food banks.

Colleen: [00:10:00] Sarah, to your point of thinking and talking about like innovative policy solutions, because we're going to need to be like rapidly iterating in the face of this crisis. I, you know, I read an article about how schools because they're shut down, folks who work in the lunchrooms are still coming in and have been trying to turn the lunchrooms into takeout kitchens. And so they're still making meals and they're figuring out systems to use busses or other transportation to deliver these meals to families who aren't going to school, things like that, where we're taking these systems that have a really set way of operating day to day. And they're just really rapidly transforming how they go about their day to day operations in the face of this crisis I think is really inspiring. And I think we see that in a lot of sectors and a lot of domains. And in the midst of all this devastation and all this crisis, I do think there's something to be to be looked at and in how quickly so many institutions are innovating and how can we carry that over to times when it's when we're not facing a public health crisis? We've proven that we can innovate, we can be responsive, we can do so many things that people are calling on for so long. But it's like, Oh, the government can't do that, or oh, government is too slow or we can't do it. We don't have enough money, but we do and we're creative and we're innovative. And I'm inspired to think about how lessons learned about how we're innovating in real time now can be held over to when things stabilize a bit more.

Khalid: [00:11:29] To me, there's two complicating elements, which is a lot of people live in food deserts, so they don't have grocery stores nearby them. And in a situation where transit agencies are closed or reducing hours or if there's no transportation, then. How are people going to get to the grocery stores if they don't have any around them? And in addition to that, if they are able to get to the grocery stores, how are they going to be able to afford the food if they are out of work or if they are seeing their income decline? Those are two very, very scary thoughts. [00:12:04][34.9]

Reem: [00:12:05] Colleen, it's like a two sided coin and that like sweetness of seeing institutions, but also just communities really being there for each other has been really just like a total wonderful thing to see. Neighborhoods are finding ways to, like, signal through like pieces of paper on their windows of like, I am good or I need help. Like please come and check on me, which is very cool. But at the same time, it just like puts into sharp relief like we shouldn't have. Like, it's wonderful that we do this for each other and can do this for each other. But it shouldn't. It shouldn't be up to like the kindness of individuals to, like, fill basic needs for everyone around them.

Colleen: [00:12:50] You know how we're learning about how communities care for each other and how we're seeing how institutions can create systems to do that work. And so that burden doesn't fall on individuals or on in communities. I think this points toward broader policy questions and lessons that are emerging in real time, and it's revealing some fault lines or some cracks in our systems. And or maybe it's revealing strengths in our system that we're not capitalizing on enough. And so like, how do we unpack these things? I have been thinking and reading about how governors have really stepped up to lead the response efforts and that it's just it's been very interesting to see that the level of government that has become most appropriate for responding to the crisis has been the state level. And it's been really fascinating to see how responses vary from state to state at this governor level. And I wanted to just bring up one governor in particular that I've been reading about, which is Andy Beshear in Kentucky. He was just elected into the governorship in November, and he has now become this sexy meme for big government. I don't know if this is appropriate, but the kind of tagline for Andy Beshear has been Govern me Daddy. There are so many, like interesting public management lessons to be had here. Just a few examples are like he's been using some like behavioral tactics, phrasing their social distancing measures as healthy at home. And you can compare that to how California has has labeled it shelter in place. And they just feel so different, like telling constituents like you are healthy at home versus you must shelter in place or just like very different governmental approaches, even though they're kind of nudging in kind of small, but also other things he did. Was he like they quickly re reconfigured how they were going to be managing the unemployment insurance log so that they wouldn't have a backup and so that people could get their UI really quickly. And so what they did was they said, okay, every day we're going to process a certain set of last names. So they didn't have a backlog. They were able to go through UI much more quickly.

Sarah: [00:14:55] And I'm sure people knew what to expect then too. Right?

Colleen: [00:14:58] Exactly. And so there was a lot more transparency there. Just some other awesome things that I think he's been doing, like shout out to Andy Beshear. He's been doing these nightly press conferences where his tagline every night is, We're going to make it through this. And he's just really this calming presence. He talks about mental health and the importance of mental health. He's been destigmatizing public benefits and telling people there's no shame in getting on to public assistance. That's what government is here for. He's been pushing businesses to do better. He's been shaming them when needed. There was a business that was essentially gloating about offering six weeks of unpaid leave to their workers, and he kind of shamed this business and said, that's nothing to celebrate. You need to be doing so much more. There were bingo halls that were remaining open for elderly residents, and he really, like, lovingly, firmly insisted that these businesses close.

Khalid: [00:15:49] Governors being, you know, very present and talking to their constituents every day and like talking about the mental health and just like being very aware of all the ways that this is a sudden and severe shock in people's lives. And there's so many things that people are dealing with right now. And this is like not this is unlike anything we've ever experienced. And government needs to be there for folks.

Reem: [00:16:15] And it's so I so appreciate the challenge of communicating. And I think that this is something that we have seen like even gasp the challenge of communicating the urgency of this problem while also communicating resilience and trying to foster some kind of continuation, just like for the sake of our will to carry on. And then also just being sensitive and being like, yeah, this is really, really hard and sad and we're all morning and. In grief. And lonely. And scared. And confused. Finding a way to tailor messaging. To hit all of those things and not be tone deaf and be sensitive and be helpful is really hard.

Sarah: [00:17:13] Oh. I think this is another example of like the current situation, like eliminating some of the inequities that we have when we think about like places that are saying, okay, we'll transition to remote learning. There are a lot of assumptions baked into that, which is access to some kind of a digital device and access to a stable Internet connection. And there are a lot of people in this country that don't have that. I put some stats. The kind of the biggest thing that stood out to me is 15% of households with school aged kids don't have Internet access. That means that those kids don't have the opportunity to continue through remote learning, but also for a lot of school districts, that means that they cannot have a systemic way to continue educating people because they have to make sure that people have the same opportunities. And if some of their students can't, that means that they won't continue with this same level of remote learning as districts that maybe have all of their kids with Internet access. There's been a few like positive pieces of light within this. Two things that stood out to me. South Bend, Indiana, turned their school busses into traveling Wi-Fi hotspots, which I think similar to what Colleen was saying about the cafeterias, like completely using the resources they have and just like turning it on its head to meet the current need. I think this is a really interesting idea. Kids aren't riding their school busses, so they're turning them into mobile Wi-Fi hotspots. And I think each one can cover a 300 foot radius so people can still social distance distance, but be able to access that essential remote learning.

Colleen: [00:19:05] Also, I just want to scream on the mountaintops municipal broadband.

Everyone: [00:19:10] [Laughter].

Colleen: [00:19:10] I think so many things, but I think this really highlights the need for municipal broadband. I've never seen this figure before. Thank you for bringing it to lights. There are like 15% of households with school kids don't have internet access. That's an insane statistic. I don't know. This is just another opportunity for me to see, you know, to try and find silver linings and nice things coming out of this is that like, I hope it incites paradigm shifts for kind of these public interventions that have maybe flown a little bit under mainstream politics for a while, Because I just feel like it's really putting into stark relief how much we really need these and that these these cracks that have always been there are now just like gaping chasms. If we come out of this saying, you know, everyone being excited about municipal broadband, I think that that's a great thing. I mean, I think talking about municipal broadband is bringing us to this idea that there are just some policy lessons and policy ideas that are coming out of this that are probably solutions that exist on a longer time horizon. I already mentioned I'm thinking about how this crisis is helping to incite paradigm shifts that can help us build more resilient, more progressive policy and programs for the future. And yeah, Reem, I want you to just school me in all things climate and transit.

Reem: [00:20:26] I'm sure you guys have been seeing this too, but as, as we were kind of brainstorming this episode, I was thinking about how I'm seeing all these, like, stunning, gorgeous, like aerial photos of San Francisco and Los Angeles without smog because people aren't leaving their houses and driving in their cars. And there have been, like no traffic. Air quality monitors are just giving really great clear readings of clean air. And so people are like, wow, this is how life could be without cars. Like how beautiful, how gorgeous. Look at San Francisco's beautiful skyline from the East Bay. Wow. So great. What a wonderful silver lining. And then sometimes that's fine, but then sometimes that leads to the conclusion humans are the virus. Humans are not the virus. Capitalism is the virus. And so I, I think that there is in like the climate corner of Twitter, there is kind of been this muddled messaging of how do we take a look at what's happening right now in terms of air quality and in terms of reduced driving and like see how good things can be without saying like death and poverty is fine and an okay means to this end. So that's been challenging. I like feel complicated things about the silver lining conversation because it is nice that there are some like co-benefits to having fewer people on the road, but the costs are so, so like the cost of human life, first of all, should never be quantified. And also it can be something that we include in our cost benefit calculation remark.

Colleen: [00:21:57] Reem, how do you feel like the, you know, if there are lessons to be learned here, what do you feel like we need to do to come out of this with those lessons in a really like salient way?

Reem: [00:22:08] Yeah, So maybe a good example of this is something that I saw was happening in Minneapolis, which is that they are closing down some kind of like major thoroughfares to cars to make way for people to walk and exercise in a way that gives them space to social distance. And so they're closing down those streets. And that's like making city is more pedestrian friendly and oriented around pedestrians and cyclists is something right now that is allowing us to exercise and social distance at the same time, but also is something that we were doing before COVID to say, hey, like cities are places where we should be able to walk safely and it shouldn't just be optimized to make it very quick for a car to move through. And there are affordability benefits to that and there are also GHG emission reduction benefits to that. And so that's something that we could learn from is like, okay, like this is a way in which we could make a city more pedestrian friendly, we can make it greener, we can reduce the orientation of a city around the car. And we learned that through this nightmare COVID situation. Props to Minneapolis for doing that. That's awesome. Especially because I don't know if you guys have experienced this. It's kind of hard to maintain six feet of distance unlike a regular sidewalk. If you're crossing if you're passing someone like I have like thrown myself into the street to avoid getting too close to someone. And what if we shut it down for now and also shut it down for later? It's only for pedestrians. And like maybe all of the businesses on that street would see much more traffic and, you know, like we'd have less smog in the air. So there's that progress. And also an intern at an environmental NGO. And I've been kind of encouraged that the work hasn't come to a complete stop. But also the work acknowledges the insane circumstances that we're under. So it's just like it's not like the climate issues don't matter anymore, but it's like we can't talk about climate right now without also talking about COVID. We can't talk about anything without talking about COVID. So right now, one of the main major initiatives that we're working on is trying to decarbonize buildings. By transitioning all heating and cooling functions and like cooking functions and water heating, cooling and cooling functions to electric appliances rather than gas. Some innovative ways that people are thinking about continuing to promote that is by being like, hey, now we have now contractors have time to get training on installation of electrical heat pumps online. So like, let's do that and let's pay them to do that and support them to do that so that when things open back up again, they're able to they're like trained up and ready to install electric heat pumps in new homes. Another one is saying while businesses are closed right now, they also have the space to do some retrofitting and turn their businesses electric instead of relying on gas. Obviously, there is some financial costs there, but that's where the government can step in to incentivize that and make that affordable. So it's kind of been heartening to see how we're making kind of the best of a pretty bad situation and trying to continue to do this work.

Khalid: [00:25:15] Reem, there's there's something I want to talk to you about, about how the similarity between COVID and climate, because I remember like a month ago when COVID was like mostly a news thing that we were seeing in China and around the world. People were like still going about their day. Like it didn't feel real, it wasn't salient. And then three weeks later, everybody is sheltering in place. It feels very real. It's scary and people are changing their lifestyles to accommodate it. Climate in the same way where like we know it exists. This is a problem that's going to hurt people, but it doesn't feel salient. People aren't changing their lifestyles to respond to like how they would need to change their lives in order to, like, reduce the threat of it. How can you make climate feel more salient so that people respond to it accordingly?

Colleen: [00:26:03] Yup. Yup, yup, yup. But the last policy issue that I want to cover is bread policy. Has everyone made a sourdough?

Sarah: [00:26:08] I have not. But I've been seeing or I have not, but my partner has been seeing all over Twitter. Everyone's new sourdough starter pets. Yeah, I hope that everyone is finding like fun, interesting ways to pass the social distancing time. Think just maximum dog time like all of the rules about like not being on the couch. All of those have gone out of the window and like, Kiwi runs our house now and it's as it should be. Everyone's pets must be so happy, right? Oh, what a great time for parts of the world.

Reem: [00:26:41] Go ahead. So they could hang out with us.

Colleen: [00:26:44] All right. And I want to let you get to your phone call. I'm really glad we all got to chat. And thanks, everybody for sharing your thoughts and perspectives during this wild time. And stay safe and stay healthy and wash your hands and encourage everyone to also do those things. I look forward to continuing to virtually see you all. I also look forward to the next time where we all get to share a room together. Yes. Yes. Love you guys. Bye.