After registering, you will
receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Topic: My Activities with
COVID-19 Response in Liberia
As many of you are aware, I have
been in Liberia for more than three months, where I redirected my volunteer
activities from the Roads To Health rural programs to assist with the COVID-19
response in Liberia as a volunteer consultant epidemiologist predominately with
the epidemiological surveillance team.
I just returned to the US but
continuing with the response services along with the teams.
I want to invite you all to
attend series of conference calls starting on Wednesday, June 10, 2020 at 5pm
Eastern Time to share with you what I and the epidemiological surveillance and
other teams at the National Public Health Institute/ Ministry of Health and the
World Health Organization, the Liberia Public Health Association as well as
many partners have been doing in the COVID-19 pandemic response.
The meetings will provide
general, health, political, social, community, and scientific
perspectives related to our work
and managing COVID-19. We will also discuss the roles we all can play as
stakeholders in managing COVID-19, other real and potential infectious
diseases, and global health issues.
We will have other professionals
to also answer your questions and guide you on how you can use targeted
resources help.
Thursday, June
18, 2020 10:30 a.m. –
4:45 p.m. EDT
Join SAMHSA’s Homeless and Housing Resource Network (HHRN) for a day of
learning from nearly two dozen national experts, policy makers, and
providers in large plenaries and smaller concurrent sessions.
No travel is required—attend directly from your own internet-connected
computer. Join us for the whole summit or drop in to only those sessions
that most appeal to you.
Continuing education credits are available at no cost to registrants.
Space is limited! See the full agenda and more event information on the registration page.
OPENING PLENARY:
Coming Together
What do we know about the highly diverse populations who are experiencing
homelessness? What works in terms of services and housing for these
clients? This inspiring session will set the stage for the rest of the
symposium with a focus on diversity in terms of culture, age, serious
mental illness, substance use disorders, co-occurring disorders, trauma,
and other individual factors.
·Anita
Everett, M.D., DFAPA, Director, Center for Mental Health Services, SAMHSA
·Joshua
Bamberger, M.D., M.P.H., Professor, Family and Community Medicine,
University of California, San Francisco
·Brian
Sims, M.D., Subject Matter Expert, HHRN/National Association of State
Mental Health Program Directors
·Moderator:
Carol Bianco-Miller, Director, HHRN/Co-Director, Center for Technical
Assistance, Advocates for Human Potential, Inc.
Track A: Customizing
Services and Supports for Specific Populations
Proven strategies for addressing unique needs of people experiencing
homelessness with complex vulnerabilities, ensuring they receive the care
and assistance they deserve
·Connecting
with Clients Beyond Cultural and Social Walls
·Coming
In: Addressing Homelessness Across the Life Cycle
Track B:
Transitions to Housing
Innovative and effective approaches, tools, and resources for bridging
the gap between homelessness and home for clients
·Moving
In: Accessing Permanent Housing
·Innovations
in Housing for People in Transition
Track C: Crisis
Services and Treatment
Specific approaches to reach, engage, and support individuals who are
experiencing homelessness and health, mental health, and substance use
crises
·Bringing
Crisis Services to People Living without Shelter
·Emergency
Responses at the Epicenter of the Opioid Crisis
CLOSING PLENARY:
Remaining Connected, Stepping Onward
Bring your hope and your action steps to this session, so we can share a
vision for the future! Speakers will share innovations in delivering
recovery-oriented services and supports to those at the intersection of
homelessness, serious mental illness, and substance use disorders.
·David
Covington, M.B.A, LPC, CEO and President, RI International, and
Behavioral Health Link Partner
·Deborah
(Deb) Werner, M.A., PMP, Technical Assistance Lead, HHRN/Senior Program
Director, Advocates for Human Potential, Inc.
·Moderator:
Carol Bianco-Miller, Director, HHRN/Co-Director, Center for Technical
Assistance, Advocates for Human Potential, Inc.
SAMHSA is a public health agency within
the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Its mission is to
reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's
communities.
Population of top 10 counties for disasters: 81%
minority
Thomas Frank, E&E News reporter Communities
with large minority populations are among the most vulnerable in the U.S. to
the effects of climate change and could become more threatened as the
coronavirus pandemic weakens their resilience to disasters, according to
experts and federal data.
Counties, cities and neighborhoods with large numbers of black and
Hispanic residents are more likely than others to suffer from events such as
extreme heat and flooding because they are often located in damage-prone areas
and frequently lack the resources to recover quickly from disasters.
It's the result of long-lived policies that clustered minorities
in undesirable areas such as floodplains and denied them amenities like green
spaces and tree canopies that can mitigate some effects of climate change.
County
Minority population
Projected extreme heat days in 2020
Perry
County, Ala.
71%
38
Brooks
County, Texas
94%
114
Chicot
County, Ark.
61%
58
Turner
County, Ga.
46%
36
Robeson
County, N.C.
75%
32
Allendale
County, S.C.
78%
41
Hardee
County, Fla.
53%
44
Hendry
County, Fla.
67%
55
Imperial
County, Calif.
89%
169
Alexander
County, Ill.
38%
33
NOAA's National Integrated Heat
Health Information System rates each county's vulnerability to a disaster by
analyzing data such as income and education levels, single-parent households,
race, and ethnicity that indicate a county's ability to recover from a major
disruption.
* Extreme
heat days occur when the temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit.Source: NOAA's National Integrated Heat Health Information System
"Communities of color and low-income neighborhoods
are disproportionately at risk from climate crisis," said Cate Mingoya,
who has studied the environmental effects of housing discrimination as director
of capacity building at Groundwork USA, a national nonprofit. "We can
really face the ugly truth that there were policies of intentionally putting
low-income people and people of color in neighborhoods that were
dangerous."
Federal data confirms the risks facing those communities.
In the 10 counties that are deemedmost vulnerable to disasters by the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the population is on average 81%
minority.
In the 10 counties that NOAA rates as the most vulnerable to
extreme heat, the population is on average 67% minority.
Minorities account for 39% of the U.S. population.
Both agencies define vulnerability as a community's resilience to
extreme events — not the potential exposure to disasters and pandemics — and
they measure it using data such as income and education levels, housing, and
minority population.
The rising risks of climate change for communitiees of color are
gaining recognition as the U.S. struggles with broad inequities against African
Americans in areas such as policing, housing and employment. The death of
George Floyd after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than
eight minutes ignited nationwide protests against police brutality on black
people.
The federal government's 2018 National Climate Assessment
underscored the risk to minority neighborhoods, saying that vulnerable people,
"including lower-income and other marginalized communities, have lower
capacity to prepare for and cope with extreme weather and climate-related
events and are expected to experience greater impacts."
Data collected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency suggests
black communities already have suffered disproportionately from hurricanes,
floods and other major disasters.
FEMA has distributed $22 billion in emergency funding since 2004
to people in areas that were hit by a major disaster and declared eligible for
federal aid.
County
Minority population
Brooks
County, Texas
94%
Dimmit
County, Texas
91%
Duval
County, Texas
91%
Luna
County, N.M.
70%
Zavala
County, Texas
95%
Cibola
County, N.M.
80%
Presidio
County, Texas
86%
Imperial
County, Calif.
89%
Evangeline
Parish, La.
33%
Culberson
County, Texas
76%
The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention rates each county's vulnerability to a disaster by analyzing
data such as income and education levels, single-parent households, race, and
ethnicity that indicate a county's ability to recover from a major disruption. Source: CDC
Nearly 24% of that money went to people in ZIP codes where
a majority of the population is black, according to an E&E News analysis of
FEMA records.
These majority-black ZIP codes account for just 6% of the overall
U.S. population.
The cash payments are separate from the money FEMA gives to states
for rebuilding damaged infrastructure. Their allocation reflects both the
concentration of damage in minority areas and the economic fragility of the
neighborhoods.
"If you are in an affluent area, you have insurance,"
said Beverly Wright, executive director of the New Orleans-based Deep South
Center for Environmental Justice. "Hurricanes can affect anybody and
everyone. But it is the ability to rebound that is so important."
In July 2010, when heavy rains and flash flooding swamped parts of
Wisconsin, FEMA and the White House decided that residents of Grant and
Milwaukee counties were eligible for emergency cash payments. The two counties
— on opposite sides of the state — have a combined population of 1 million that
is 25% black.
Yet 85% of the emergency cash — amounting to $62 million
altogether — went to people living in black-majority ZIP codes, according to
the analysis by E&E News.
FEMA gives households up to $35,000 to help pay for uninsured home
damage and other emergency expenses.
The concentration of FEMA aid in minority areas "is a
combination of need and the exposure or the impact," said Susan Cutter,
director of the University of South Carolina's Hazards and Vulnerability
Research Institute. "If you're looking at minority communities, chances
are that many of those households are going to be in the less desirable land
areas."
Minority neighborhoods also often have large concentrations of
vulnerable residents such as single-parent families, children, and people with
limited income and education.
"Just because you're African American doesn't mean you're
vulnerable. It's how that interacts with age, household status, gender,
income," Cutter said.
The coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating the vulnerability of
minority communities as the economic shutdown takes a disproportionate toll on
business sectors that employ large numbers of black and Hispanic people, such
as transportation, retail and local government.
The national unemployment rate was 13.3% in May — an improvement
from the 14.7% rate in April, according to figures released Friday. But for
black people, the unemployment rate increased between April and May, hitting
16.8% last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"There is an unambiguously disparate impact caused by
economic lockdowns," Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on
Equal Opportunity, told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
during a hearing Thursday.
"Living in this country has essentially made black Americans
sick," Blackstock added. The hearing examined racial health disparities
during the coronavirus pandemic.
The clustering of minorities in areas that are vulnerable to
flooding and other hazards dates back at least to the New Deal of the 1930s,
and "redlining" housing policies that segregated races and pushed
black people into dense urban housing.
Those neighborhoods, which continue to be home for many
minorities, are now prone to urban flooding and heat islands because they were
developed so thoroughly and have few parks, open space or tree canopies to absorb
excess water and cool the neighborhood.
"Folks in neighborhoods subject to federally sanctioned
segregation are more at risk of extreme heat and extreme wet," said
Mingoya of Groundwork USA. "Areas that were redlined in the 1930s are
hotter and wetter than other neighborhoods."
Mingoya led a report that overlaid NASA satellite
maps of heat islands and flooding on top of National Archives maps that show
how cities were redlined in the 1930s. The analysis of five cities — including
Denver; Richmond, Va.; and Elizabeth, N.J. — shows that temperatures in
redlined areas were higher than other parts of each city by an average of 4
degrees Fahrenheit, Mingoya said.
"What happened in the past is not in the past," Mingoya
said.
In New Orleans, Wright of the Center for Environmental Justice has
watched a tree-planting project help transform the city's gentrifying Gentilly
neighborhood.
"That's going in an area that for the most part is where white
people have gentrified. Black people don't live there anymore," Wright
said of the area where trees are being planted. Neighborhood beautification
"always seems to stop at the point where the income goes down and the
color of the people living there changes. It's just amazing how endemic racism
works. Somehow, it always stops just before it benefits us."
National Latino
Farmers & Ranchers Trade Association
