Twin Pandemics
I attended the Twin Pandemic's forum from 12:10pm to 1:50pm on Thursday, and this was panel 3 which was titled, "Activism, Social Movements, and Change in Pandemic Times." One of the topics in this session that struck out to me was the topic of housing justice in the Bay Area. The Bay Area has high costs of living as well as the most income inequality in the state of California. One of the panelists mentioned how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting this inequality in income, and she explained that the coronavirus is worsening this inequality as more and more Californians are becoming unemployed. There is also some racial inequality that can be seen through the statistics on income inequality. For example, the rate of unemployment is a lot higher in Latin and black families, and these groups tend to have more people in jobs that pay less. Another thing that I thought was interesting to learn about was the Facebook Village. Facebook is building homes to help workers that are unable to pay the high costs of housing in the Bay Area. I had no idea that large companies like Facebook were trying to help with the housing crisis, so it was really interesting to me. I also really liked how one of the panelists shared her story about the grief that she has felt as COVID-19 has caused her father's death. I think her story was really emotional, and it made me think about how the news seems to focus on the number of deaths, but what we might forget to realize is that these are real people that are dying.
I also found the panelist who shared her personal story with covid very engaging. I found it very emotional, and was drawn in to what she had to say. I had yet to hear a personal account of someone who had dealt with a family death through covid, so it was tough to hear the story.
ReplyDeleteI was also intrigued by the concepts such as Facebook Village, Google Housing and Starcity to provide affordable housing in the Bay Area. They seem like formidable options during the ongoing housing crisis. It's discouraging to see that as COVID-19 drives unemployment house prices down, more and more people are having trouble finding financial stability in these uncertain times.
ReplyDeleteThere is a long history in America of "company towns" especially in industries like mining or lumber. Unfortunately, these towns tended to exploit the people who lived there and who also worked for the company who owned the town. I hope these new experiments won't repeat those same problems.
DeleteI agree with what you said at the very end. When the number of people dying is so high and deaths are so frequent, we can become desensitized to it. But like you said, these are real people with real lives who are dying to this virus, and we can't forget it.
ReplyDelete