Monday, October 19, 2020

 

Please Report If a Voting Drop Box and/or Polling Location is not Accessible!
Unfortunately, there still are various public facilities and services that are not accessible. Thanks to the assistance of a Disability Rights Maryland (DRM) friend who identified a trashcan obstructing the path to a ballot drop-off box in Frederick County, DRM successfully had the the barrier removed to insure accessibility.

Help DRM identify inaccessible drop box and ballot locations by contacting our voter hotline by phone at 443-692-2492; 800-233-7201 ext. 2492; TTY 410-235-5387, or by email at Voting@DisabilityRightsMD.org.

   And don't forget the DRM's 2020 Breaking Barriers Gala Awards Banquet on November 12, 2020 at 6:30-7:30 p.m. 

The Breaking Barriers Awards Gala is DRM's signature celebration where individuals, law firms and organizations that have demonstrated exceptional leadership, vision and achievement in safeguarding the legal rights of people with disabilities in Maryland are recognized and honored. Funds raised at the Gala will directly support DRM and expand their ability to provide legal assistance so that Marylanders with disabilities, regardless of income, age or race, can live full independent lives in the community.

At this event, the DRM will honor Floyd Hartley On Behalf Of CARS, Gayle Hafner Grassroots Advocacy Award; Wade Henderson, Judith Heumann Champion Of Justice Award; Judith E. Heumann, Presenter, Judith Heumann Champion Of Justice Award; and Andrew D. Levy, Lorraine Sheehan Lifetime Achievement Award. 


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Source: Disability Rights Maryland's DRM Spotlight, October 2020.

Friday, October 16, 2020

 

National Community Reinvestment Coalition
Special Event



Redlining And Neighborhood Health
October 20, 12:00 pm EDT - 1:30 pm EDT

In this webinar, National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) staff and other advocates will discuss their new redlining and health report, major findings, and the effects of redlining today in Baltimore and Rochester, New York. There also will be a demonstration of the web application that allows you to examine the relationship between redlining and public health in more than 140 cities.

Speakers:
  • Jason Richardson, NCRC
  • Jad Edlebi, NCRC
  • Bruce Mitchell, PhD, NCRC
  • Marceline White, Maryland Consumer Rights Coalition
  • Ruhi Maker, Empire Justice Center
Register Now
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Source: NCRC email, October 16, 2020.

Friday, October 2, 2020

 Study Finds Higher COVID-19 Risk Factors in Redlined Neighborhoods - Like Parts of Baltimore

"People of color are disproportionately contracting COVID-19, and because they are more likely to have underlying health conditions, are also facing an increased risk of severe illness and mortality from COVID-19 (CDC, 2020). While COVID-19 has pushed racial health inequities into the national spotlight, the underlying differences in social, economic and environmental conditions that have given rise to inequities in COVID-19 infection, transmission and severe illness are not new (CDC, 2020)."

The just-released Redlining and Neighborhood Health study of multiple cities - including Baltimore - by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), working with two researchers each from the University of Wisconsin and the University of Richmond, has found that:

"Further, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic’s disproportionate impact on the country’s Black population, Barber et al. (2020) examined racial residential segregation and COVID-19 cases in Philadelphia, guided by theoretical frameworks for studying structural racism. The HOLC’s historical practices of redlining and other discriminatory lending practices were instrumental in driving the stark segregation seen in Philadelphia today. While not explicitly measuring HOLC redlining maps, Barber et al. (2020) acknowledge how these historical processes established the physical, economic and social conditions that are giving rise to racial inequities in COVID-19. They illustrate how structural racism embedded in our interlocking social, legal, economic and political systems interact to drive disproportionate prevalence of COVID-19 infection, transmission and mortality in Black communities (Barber et al., 2020). Their results showed that the most segregated neighborhoods in Philadelphia were more likely to have structural susceptibility to COVID-19 (a measure encompassing neighborhood indicators that increase the likelihood of exposure and community transmission, limit ability to access testing and treatment, and capture economic hardship). Further, the COVID-19 case rate in the five most segregated neighborhoods was twice that of the COVID-19 case rate in the five least segregated neighborhoods. These findings suggest that segregation acts as a structural driver of racial inequities in Philadelphia and calls for both short- and long-term solutions that center structural racism and health equity in the COVID-19 response."

Concerning Baltimore, a comparison between the 1930 situation and 2020 indicates that almost all of the parts of the city that had high racial segregation have continued to have the Center for Disease Control's High Vulnerability Index census tract score regarding COVID-19 possibility. Read an explanation of how to interpret the SVI map of Baltimore. The SVI combines social and economic, housing and transportation, minority status and language, household composition, and disability to provide numerical area comparison. Since development in the 2000s, indices of social vulnerability have been an important tool for emergency planning and public health assessment. 

To counter this, the study recommends:

  • Restore the Affirmatively Further Fair Housing (AFFH) rule that President Trump and Secretary of Housing Ben Carson have cancelled. This rule encouraged communities to identify and reduce concentrated areas of poverty.
  • Support inclusionary zoning that adds affordable housing choices outside of the redlined sections of the city and promotes the reduction of concentrated areas of poverty.
  • Expand the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to include non-banks and to modernize how this law is implemented.
  • Encourage locally relevant solutions such as expanded Section 8 and rent control/vouchers. Protect public housing.
  • Modernize and expand access to data and other information for local communities on lending and investment in their area.
  • Explore how reparations, housing and desegregation intertwine. Talk with residents about how best to preserve culture and community while moving towards a solution where one’s health is not detrimentally affected by the place where they were born.

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Source: National Community Reinvestment Coalition, September 10, 2020

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Scientists to Use Artificial Intelligence to Fight Online Anti-Semitism


By Kirsten Grieshaber | AP

September 21, 2020 at 1:45 p.m. EDT

BERLIN — An international team of scientists said Monday it had joined forces to combat the spread of anti-Semitism online with the help of artificial intelligence.

The project Decoding Anti-Semitism includes discourse analysts, computational linguists and historians who will develop a “highly complex, AI-driven approach to identifying online anti-Semitism,” the Alfred Landecker Foundation, which supports the project, said in a statement Monday.

“In order to prevent more and more users from becoming radicalized on the web, it is important to identify the real dimensions of anti-Semitism — also taking into account the implicit forms that might become more explicit over time,” said Matthias Becker, a linguist and project leader from the Technical University of Berlin.

The team also includes researchers from King’s College in London and other scientific institutions in Europe and Israel.

Computers will help run through vast amounts of data and images that humans wouldn’t be able to assess because of their sheer quantity, the foundation said.

“Studies have also shown that the majority of anti-Semitic defamation is expressed in implicit ways – for example through the use of codes (“juice” instead of “Jews”) and allusions to certain conspiracy narratives or the reproduction of stereotypes, especially through images,” the statement said.

As implicit anti-Semitism is harder to detect, the combination of qualitative and AI-driven approaches will allow for a more comprehensive search, the scientists think.

The problem of anti-Semitism online has increased, as seen by the rise in conspiracy myths accusing Jews of creating and spreading COVID-19, groups tracking anti-Semitism on the internet have found.

The focus of the current project is initially on Germany, France and the U.K., but will later be expanded to cover other countries and languages.

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Source: Washington Post, September 21, 2020.

     Fed Will Overhaul Bank Law to Benefit Poorer Areas

Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, moderates a panel discussion titled “Perspectives on Maximum Employment and Price Stability” at the Federal Reserve in Washington in October 2019.

Lael Brainard, governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve, moderates a panel discussion titled “Perspectives on Maximum Employment and Price Stability” at the Federal Reserve in Washington in October 2019. (Zach Gibson/Bloomberg News)
September 21, 2020 at 2:12 p.m. EDT

The Federal Reserve on Monday took steps toward revamping a 40-year-old law intended to ensure low- and moderate-income Americans have access to credit and banking services.

The move comes as the Fed is under urgent pressure to craft policies that lift all Americans, and in particular, reduce the long-standing racial gaps that are only widening in the current recession. Apart from setting monetary policy, the Fed could go further in building a more fair economy through its supervision of banks, which includes the Community Reinvestment Act, economists and lawmakers say.

The Community Reinvestment Act, known as the CRA, was crafted to encourage banks to lend in low-income neighborhoods. Under the CRA, regulators routinely look at banks’ lending practices for low- and moderate-income borrowers, so that those with less money also have access to loans to buy houses, cars and make other purchases.

“The CRA is a seminal statute that remains as important as ever as the nation confronts challenges associated with racial equity and the covid-19 pandemic,” Fed Gov. Lael Brainard wrote in a statement. “We must ensure that CRA is a strong and effective tool to address ongoing systemic inequities in access to credit and financial services for low- and moderate-income and minority individuals and communities...... ”

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Source: Washington Post, September 22, 2020, A20.

Friday, September 18, 2020

 


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Source: Beyond the Boundaries, September 18, 2020..

Thursday, September 10, 2020


New NCRC study finds More Chronic Disease, Shorter Lifespans, and Greater Risk Factors for COVID-19 in Segregated Neighborhoods Redlined 80 Years Ago


The new historical study, from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) - done in conjunction with researchers from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Joseph J. Zilber School of Public Health and the University of Richmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab - compared 1930’s maps of government-sanctioned lending discrimination zones with current census and public health data.

The study found that lower-income and minority neighborhoods that were intentionally cut off from lending and investment decades ago now have both reduced wealth and greater poverty, and also lower life expectancy and higher prevalence of chronic diseases that are risk factors for poor outcomes from COVID-19, a new study shows. 

This study confirms the previous research that many of today's most economically struggling neighborhoods in urban areas are the same places that had intentional, systematic segregation and lending discrimination in past decades. For example, a 2018 NCRC study found that three out of four neighborhoods marked “hazardous” in the HOLC's 1930 maps were still struggling economically.

The new study further establishes the very strong correlation between redlining and health outcomes in those same neighborhoods: more chronic illnesses like asthma, COPD, diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, kidney disease, obesity and stroke. 

View maps and read the full report

View maps and read the full report here.

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Source: NCRC release, September 10, 2020.