Transcripts For SFGTV COVID Recovery A Conversation About Ec

Please introduce yourself and tell our audience what you are currently working on the covid issues in your field. We can start with carmen. So good afternoon everybody, so glad to join all of you today for this great panel. I want to thank you megan for helping to host this and making sure this important conversation comes forward. I serve as San Francisco elected assessor. Like many of you, we had to quickly change to a remote work scenario with our office when we had the shelter place be put in place in march. We were able to do that relatively quickly and 98 of our operations is happening off site and not in person. Weve been working hard to make sure we try to continue to do our work, primarily because we know that the revenue impact of our work has been very, very large and disperse impact to the city, from the types of programs were able to support people with us specially during covid19. Were continuing to do that. I think on another note, i think i also serve as the Economic Recovery Task forces cochair, so very much excited to speak to you about the work of the task force coming up in our additional conversations and the last thing ill say in terms of introduction is that im a brand new mother of a 14yearold i mean 14monthold, not year old, but she is growing very quickly and i think more than anything i really am truly seeing and appreciating what it means to be part of a working family, especially during covid19 because there are so many different challenges associated with worklife balance among other things. I want to recognize that i consider myself in a very fortunate place because i have my health, i have a job, and i think that is so much more than a lot of people are facing at this moment. I think we always have to count our blessings in terms of things we do have and recognize that there are many people who need much more in terms of help than where we are. Im happy to be part of this conversation and i look forward to hearing from the co speakers today as well. Thank you. Thank you carmen. Lets go to joy next. Good morning everyone, my name is joy jackson morgan. Im the executive director. Im a unicorn in the city, a San Francisco native. During this time third street has really focused on our young people in addressing the needs that youth have been coming up with, primarily with housing. That has been a huge issue for our young people and food has also been an issue. Weve gone from having our food pantry to having food delivery for our youth and their families. Were currently serving about 50 youth and families per week. Were also trying to keep our young people engaged. This has been a hard time for them adjusting to Distance Learning and not having the certain outlets that theyre accustomed to. So we continued our Youth Development program. We have been keeping our young people engaged, and active, and connected to their peer groups. This is not the norm for any of us. We are use to be being able to go outside and going where we want and now were confined to zoom or many of the platforms we come to be recognized with. Its been difficult for young people, i think, because this is their time in development where theyre suppose to be social and not having these normal things has really taken a toll. So weve been trying to make sure that our Behavioral Health services is available to them, our clinic has been closed since march, and were in the process of trying to get our clinic reopened in the next few weeks so we can start delivering some of our medical services as well. So really trying to stabilize our young people the best way we can and help them through this difficult time, both economically, food, sheltering, heal health. Definitely, thank you joy. Last but not least, veronica. Good morning everyone. Good morning to my panelists. My name is veronica shepherd. Im with the San Francisco department of Public Health. My primary work is around Food Security and racial equity. I support primarily the African American faithbased coalition. Its a coalition of 21 plus churches across the city of San Francisco with primarily African American congregants. Covid19 through the population of people were put into a whirlwind. Shelterinplace hit and there were not a lot of city plans on how people would be sustained. The coalition i work with, because of its infrastructure, we developed a partnership and was able to provide meals immediately across the city. As of todays date, they have delivered over 110,000 meals across the city. Theyre feeding almost 1,000 households each week. Its been quite a challenge. For those of you listening that dont know, the African American community, joy kind of spoke to it. We have been suffering precovid and theres been huge disparity issues between racial inequities. So the shelterinplace and the coronavirus had just added another additional issues on top of what was already going on, on top of the heightened Racial Climate. Its like this stew of a lot of issues that people are facing. We have seniors who this isolation is impacting them mentally and emotionally. We have hunger, issues that hit immediately but were addressing that. We have children in households that cant go out as joy was talking about. I have families where there are ten people in a household and only one person is working. I mean there are so many issues that are spiraling all at the same time so part of my work and role is to support people, help them to stay safe, provide resources and information, and continue to just be that light as a beacon for people who were living complex lives precovid and continue to live complex lives in this pandemic. Thank you veronica. Thank you everyone for those good introductions. I also wanted to quickly note that anyone watching from home, you can feel free to leave a question in the chat box or if youre watching on facebook, leave a question there for our panelists and well get to those at the end. So i wanted to shift it over to carmen. If you can talk more about how was the Economic Recovery Task force created and what is the purpose of this task force . Sure, absolutely. So the i think maybe folks may have heard that the task force is a convening of the mayor, as well as the president of the board of supervisors normen yee. I think as we started to learn more about the pandemic, learn more about the disease and how it was spreading, i think the picture has become that much more complicated and i think you see that with the most recent resurgence with covid19 and the Health Indicators coming back to a negative when it comes to hospitalizations, as well as the number of people who are contracting it. So, it is going to be a big challenge in terms of how it is that we deal with it as a city. I think in general, San Francisco has been really trying to take a measured approach on how it is we have been thinking about economic recovery and making sure were grounding how it is that we are approaching both where were directing or services, house were making sure that were providing different support, based on information on the ground. So actual data, statistics, information that helps us understand whats happening from a health perspective. I think as veronica and joy mentioned also, i think there is a really strong recognition that covid19 really is, is even though the disease does not discriminate, what were seeing is some of the underlying inequities that exist are being exacerbated by the disease. We are seeing instances where people who have the least income security, the people who are at least able to take a break from their job, people who are not able to tell commute, people who dont have savings or have poor Chronic Health conditions who are the ones that are the most impacted by covid19. So we see this from the latinx community, where they are 15 of San Franciscos population, but they make up half of the people who are testing positive in terms of covid19. We seen a disproportionate amount of deaths being asian, pacific american, and the impacts to the African American community and were also seeing in the asian community, a rise in terms of xenophobia, a lot of people being blamed for the creation of covid19 and the spread of it, even when we all know that thats untrue. So i think we see some of these disparities. I think one of the partners we have Going Forward in our w challenge and recognizing women is the department. Im not sure if folks have seen but they put out a report that was telling which spoke to how covid19 is exacerbating inequities amongst women. So again, women tend to be concentrated in lower wage jobs and jobs that may not have as much ability to do telecommuting or some of these other options that people currently have. We are also typically people who will be primary caretakers for young children, and our seniors, and our children, and there is a disproportionate impact among women. Were concentrating on what kind of policy decisions can we be pursuing as a city to enable recovery and think of equity while were at it. If we will have scarce resources, we need two different programs to support our workers, families, and san franciscans as a whole, where should we put that understanding there is a disproportionate impact on how covid is miimpacting our city. S there this is such a significant challenge to us. A lot of the work in terms of spre spreading and food securities are some of the other things. We still have to think of intermediate term. Thats what the Economic Recovery Task force is trying to do, putting the on the ground experiences together, coming up with a coherent plan and strategy on how the city may want to approach reopening going into the future. Definitely, very impactful. I want to bring it to veronica and knowing that Health Disparities are tied to systemic racism and this is a Public Health issue that disproportionately effects people of color and black and brown bodies, what can our leaders do and those in power do to change this tide . I dont think we have enough time. [laughter] ill give it my best shot, okay. Its a loaded question. For our community and im specifically talking about African Americans, we as leaders in this city, particularly at the higher level has to be honest about the Structural Racism and violence thats been perpetuated by our people ever since slavery. We have to be honest on how it looks and how it shows up in each of our systems. We have enough data on the black experience to build cities about, but we dont seem to shift on how the racism and its structure is continuing to keep these barriers and these hurdles high so our communities cant thrive unless we change the Program Project mentality. Were not really pulling out the roots of the racism. Were just doing check boxes. Theyre always like a band aid. They never really resolve the problem because were not going deep enough and were not being honest enough to say were putting systems in place that perpetuate the inequity. Until we as leaders all come together at the highest level and have honest conversations that will be very uncomfortable, because t going to reveal how our own biases stand in the game, to be honest. We have to own up to the fact that a lot of the systems in place, were protecting them at the highest level. People who make up 5 of a population, but have the highest Health Disparities, the worse education outcomes, the highest rates of mass incarceration, i mean i can go on and on. Something is intentionally wrong there. Half of the Homeless Population is black and there isnt even that many of us. What structures continue to perpetuate this and how are we protecting it that it keeps going . We got to be honest, otherwise we are going to continue to Fund Programs that are not sustainable because theyre not designed to be. Theyre not going to dig out the deep root of the problem. The entire country has been functioning in systemic Structural Racism and violence against black people. Now we just got to own that. So it comes back to checking ourselves with our own bias i cant say biases, and you cant tell your community were here to help you and you need a heart transplant, but you give me a band aid. How does that help my community . Yet we continue to do this. So somehow until we as leaders at the highest level can sit down and be honest about what were actually doing to black people and particularly right now with the Racial Climate that were living in, its been unleashed and against us and yet were fighting to get basic needs, food, housing, struggling to get testing out here in our community and yet as karmen spoke, the need is huge. Were not being honest. I think weve been so conditioned to operate in our different slices of the pie, we dont see the whole picture. We dont see how the ingredients are combined to create the recipe we want to build. We need to have conversations that dismantle the racism and make sure that everything were doing is connected to some policy or some ordinance that dismantles the barriers against African American. Absolutely, thank you. Joyce speaking on that, i know that you spoke a little bit in your intro about how this effected your organization right now. How has covid affected your ability to provide Behavioral Services to youth . Both carmen and veronica, i dont know how i get to come after both of you. You spoke so well about this. I think Health Starts in community. It is a community response, a neighborhood response, right . When you start to take away some of the things that were accustomed to, to have this sort of response, on top of the social determinants of health we already had, it definitely puts us at a disadvantage. We need to acknowledge the roles and how that relates to the disbursement of resources and the response from the city. As veronica eluded to before, we are scrapping for resources, for testing. We had to do all telehealth for our Behavioral Health services. Thats not a community model, right . We depend on relationships. We depend on each other for our needs. We build a rapport with you and then that gets taken away. They trust us. Its like were a boutique clinic. It was designed and created by the community and youth to be the beacon for their needs. So i think when we talk about policy, i think we need to look at how there is racism in the Decision Making and that we need to look at whos at the table and who has the power at the table to make these decisions and to help Bring Community to the table so theyre at the forefront of the Decision Making, the solution and the progress. How do we hold the city accountable for try to address our needs without the community there . So when we look at these things moving forward, as veronica said and carmen said, we have to put our leadership and the Community Leadership to help with some of these policies and Decision Making Going Forward. Thats the only way were going to crawl ourselves out of this hole were in. Yep, definitely. I hear that and agree. Speaking about policy and good policy, but just often the foundation of good policy. I want to open this question up for all three of you. How have you seen this city or your organizations budget effected by this pandemic . Can i just start by saying i want to appreciate what veronica and joyce said. I truly think that when we talk about economic recovery, i agree with joy in terms of the Community Based approach. Its really important there are community leaders, network, and existing relationships that can only strengthen and either make that work or not work. I think that is really important to acknowledge. I think to veronicas point as well, i really appreciate the comment she said about how we need to be willing to confront those Difficult Conversations because i really feel whenever it comes to the conversation around race, its really, it is very hard to talk about. Its very hard to be vulnerable and talk about what you dont know or to be fearful of saying the wrong thing and then that makes the conversation around race hard. When we start to see the outcomes that we talked about, whether its economic outcomes, health outcomes, so on. Theyre tied to race. So how do you say that its not connected . So i do think that its important for us to begin taking those steps. Its hard to do, but im hopeful that were going to start to have more conversations and the more conversations we have and sustain conversations, not just for this month or next month, that we can actually see progress. I hope thats going to be the case. I know that its going to be the leadership of the city, but also in our community and how we all interact and what kind of personal responsibility we can all take with dismantling the system we have. In terms of budget, you know, budget is incredibly tough for the city right now. You know, i think what were seeing is a 1. 7 billion deficit because a lot of the revenue has been drying up, all these things tied to Economic Activity has pretty much stopped. So i think thats been a big challenge for us from our organizations point of view. Were trying to figure out the best way possible to continue our work because for folks who dont know, the Assessors Off