How Will History Judge Us?
How Will History Judge Us?
BY DONALD J. DEW
President/CEO, Habilitative Services and Organizer,
Counting on Chicago Coalition
There are moments in life when we are called to summon all of our strength and fortitude; to find our resolve as we stand at the base of a mountain that we are not sure we can climb.
For everyone in Chicago who is concerned about the vulnerable and the disenfranchised, this moment feels like standing at the foot of a mountain whose peak can’t even be seen.
It begins with the health crisis. Black and brown people are disproportionately infected and dying from COVID-19. Across Chicago, 70 percent of all COVID-19 deaths are occurring among African Americans.
Long-standing health disparities between racial groups – such as chronic diseases and access to medical care – are now rearing its ugly head in the most tragic way possible.
The health consequences of this pandemic also extend beyond the infected and hospitalized. Isolation and untreated chronic conditions can be just as dangerous. Habilitative Systems serves persons with developmental and intellectual disabilities in programs and clinics that have had to shutter. We are doing our best to mitigate the impacts as best we can.
This moment is also an economic crisis and we all know who is enduring its full force: the poor and disadvantaged. It is the Uber drivers and dishwashers, the bell
hops, and janitors. These are the people, living paycheck to paycheck, who were already struggling to balance on the shaky tightrope of life inside a fundamentally flawed social system, and now are the most likely to fall off.
In a cruel irony of timing, this is all happening at the exact moment of the decennial census on which decisions of funding to human services will be made. If making sure everyone is counted in Illinois was monumentally important before, it is absolutely essential now. As a leader of the Counting on Chicago Coalition, Illinois’ largest Census Regional Intermediary, I am focused urgently on reaching hard-to-count populations in this moment of social distancing.
Thankfully, the human service agencies within the Coalition are strategically positioned to engage and support this at the grass roots level.
Everyone Needed
In the face of this trauma and threat, lurks opportunities to come together. But it will take everyone.
It will require politicians at all levels to forgo gamesmanship and recognize the essential role that government must play. Further, any policy promulgated must be effectuated at the community level so the benefits actually gets to the intended recipients.
It will require the news and media industry to focus more on the real world, everyday impacts this crisis is having on the most vulnerable population rather than the horserace of political jockeying.
It will require large corporations, who have longed supported community-based human service providers, to step in and increase their support.
It will require those of us in the human service provider community to redouble our efforts to rebuild society’s social fabric and continue serving as a valuable economic engine.
It will require those with financial security to help the less fortunate with contributions, volunteerism and advocating to your representatives that a safety net is important to you as well.
It will require the vulnerable and those in need of services to do everything within their personal power to reduce the demand on the human services system.
And, very importantly, it’s up to ALL of us to stand up and be counted in the 2020 Census. Our voice, our enfranchisement has never been more important.
Our children and grandchildren will look back on this moment and take stock of how we did as a society. How did we stand up for vulnerable? Did we allow society to blame the victims and let only the strong survive?
How well did we rise to the crisis?
Let us be sure that history judges us well.
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