Pandemic Shines a Spotlight on Some Causes

The coronavirus and the response to it has focused national attention on many areas of American society that often go unnoticed.

As our systems are pulled and stretched by the economic and health consequences of the pandemic, inadequacies, fault points, and weaknesses are being exposed. Homelessness, public health, hunger, poverty, low wages, and many more issues that affect the most vulnerable in society are suddenly getting attention. The nonprofits that focus on these issues face a crisis as communities are impacted. But they also see an opportunity to reframe their issues and advocate in new and potentially more powerful ways. Among the issues that will get more attention:

Sick Leave

Public-health experts say that keeping sick people home from work is a basic step to curbing the spread of disease: Those without sick leave are far more likely to come to work when sick than others. But a quarter of people who work in the private sector — and 70 percent of the lowest paid workers — lack sick days.

The National Partnership for Women and Families has been working to extend paid sick leave to workers of every kind — particularly those in service industries and low-wage jobs as well as gig workers — for more than a decade. It’s an issue that is getting a lot of attention because of the coronavirus.

Sarah Fleisch Fink, the group’s vice president for policy and strategy, says state legislatures have been reaching out to her organization for advice on how to craft emergency sick-leave legislation to help employers and workers — a welcome change from having to reach out to them.

The group’s experience, knowledge, and research have allowed it to react quickly with the information policy makers need.

She is also working with private-sector companies to help them with emergency policies. “There’s been a huge influx of questions and interest and a huge uptick in the amount of education that we’ve been doing over the past couple of weeks on this issue,” says Fink.

But Fink knows that there is no guarantee that any of these policies, if they are enacted, will become permanent. They are more likely to be tied to this particular crisis. But even that presents an opportunity, she says.

“People are going to see that providing sick time is an incredible benefit to their workers’ economic stability at this time, that it did not hinder business, and that it benefited public health,” she says. “It will become more of a no-brainer. It’ll be an example of why having something like this in place before the next crisis is so critical.”

Brynn Anderson/AP Images

Homelessness

In mid-March the first homeless person died of the coronavirus. And it has become increasingly clear that homeless people are particularly vulnerable to the virus. They often live in tightknit encampments for safety, which increases their risk of catching the virus. Many are older and have underlying medical conditions, making them more vulnerable to the most severe symptoms, and even death.

Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, noted that so far there has been little federal aid to help the homeless get through the coronavirus crisis. “There’s nothing to help keep homeless people safe, and particularly to make more housing available, to make shelters that provide private spaces available,” he says.

But the threat has brought more groups together who are concerned about homelessness.

Advocates are meeting with mayors. Health-care companies have shown interest, in part, because the crisis has highlighted the ties between homelessness and health care. And that has the potential to bring more voices to the issue in the long term.

“If the health-care sector steps up and says, ‘We are on the side of the homeless’ and advocates, that will make an impression on decision makers,” says Berg. “It will get the health-care industry used to the idea that this is something they should work on.”

Childhood Hunger

With so many schools closing in response to the virus, more people are learning about childhood hunger. Free and low-cost breakfasts and lunches are available most weekdays to low-income children at their schools. But when schools close, as they have across the country in recent weeks, that system for distributing food is disrupted. And local governments are rushing to find new ways to distribute meals.

The No Kid Hungry campaign, a program of the nonprofit Share Our Strength, is working to ensure that meals continue to get to children, says Billy Shore, founder of Share our Strength. It is working with federal policy makers to waive some regulations to give local governments more flexibility in getting meals out and with local groups to come up with new delivery systems. It has announced that it will make $1 million in grants, and that is just the first phase of what it thinks will be a multimillion-dollar effort. “It’s a herculean challenge,” Shore says.

But he has also seen an increase in donor support. Verizon contributed $5 million, and by mid-March, the group had already received more than 1,900 unsolicited donations.

He hopes the attention will bring a longer-term benefit. “Hopefully there will be a renewed focus on some of the issues of inequality that lead us to a position where children need help to feed themselves in the first place,” he says.

The Low-Wage Work Force

The crisis is also bringing needed attention to low-wage workers who may themselves become homeless if they lose work, says Dorian Warren, president of the Community Change, which works with 200 community groups across the country on social justice for low-income communities of color.

He is concerned that the Trump administration — which already refers to the coronavirus as the “Chinese virus” and a “foreign virus"— will use this as an opportunity to further demonize immigrants. There has already been violence against Asian Americans. It may also further complicate the census, which many fear will undercount immigrants because they fear deportation. Immigrants may also worry that if they seek out health treatment, they may be arrested by ICE agents. “These are all our constituents and all things that we’re trying to engage in in terms of rapid response,” says Warren.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

His group advocated for provisions in the emergency federal law that provide paid sick leave and advocated for the government to send money directly to people. He says that is the best way to help those who may be out of work or losing hours. He encouraged policy makers to halt evictions, something the president has ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to do, and has pushed the government to pay utility bills for those who need it. His group has taken out a $500,000 million line of credit to provide emergency funds to its partners.

He expects groups that work on this issue will start to get more creative with digital storytelling so they can better communicate with the public and policy makers. It will help them in the short term when face-to-face contact is discouraged and will continue to be helpful long after the emergency passes.

Despite the clear challenges faced by those he advocates for, Warren remains hopeful. “This is a moment that can really unite this country in a way that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression or World War II,” he says. “We have to shift the narrative from fear and xenophobia and chaos to making this a moment where we unite. We’re making sacrifices for our neighbors and friends. We recognize that we all have to hang together.”

The Public-Health System

As the public-health crisis unfolds, public health itself is receiving attention for both its successes and its failures, something that presents a challenge for the American Public Health Association, which advocates for additional resources for public-health groups.

“At the end of this all, it will probably be good for us. It’ll be good for the nation,” says Georges Benjamin, the group’s executive director. “I don’t think that anyone will not know the words ‘public health’ after this.”

Public-health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have been neglected in recent years. From 2002 to 2014, public-health spending in the United States fell by 17 percent, according to a study by researchers at the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College.

Benjamin worries that the many stumbles in the government response to the coronavirus — the lack of tests, conflicting information, and overall shortcomings in preparedness at the CDC may sour the public’s view of public health. “We were not really well prepared in a public-health sense for this, and there may be a sense that public health is not doing the job that we had wanted it to,” says Benjamin. That will require public-health organizations to do a better job of talking about how quickly they develop tests and other achievements.

One benefit, he says, is that members of congress are taking public health more seriously. “We’re seeing members of Congress who are self-isolating,” he says. “This disease is brutal. It’s global. And I think people are finally getting the message that we can fix this thing.”