Open Communities Alliance Introduction
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Transcript of Open Communities Alliance Introduction
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+Open Communities Alliance is a new civil rights non-profit dedicated to ensuring that everyone in Connecticut has access to the building blocks for success in life.
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Where you live can have a significant impact on your family’s quality of life. Your zip code can predict health outcomes, education and job access, exposure to crime, and food security, among other factors.
Place Matters
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Connecticut is one of the most racially and ethnically segregated states in the country. This segregation is closely linked with patterns of concentrated poverty.
Racially Concentrated Area of Poverty• > 50% minority population• 3x regional poverty rate
RCAPS = < 1% of the areas of Connecticut (39 square miles)
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But does segregation connect to access to opportunity?
6+We can measure “opportunity” using standard data.
+ 7Opportunity mapped for Connecticut looks like this…Darkly shaded regions are rich in resources. More lightly shaded regions are under-resourced.
+ 8The connection to racial and ethnic segregation is clear.Green dots indicate the population of color.
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Where do we live?Opportunity by Race and Ethnicity in CT
Living in Lower Opportunity Areas
Blacks: 81%Latinos: 79%Whites: 25%Asians: 44%
+ 10Opportunity disparity helps explain deep divides in outcomes by race and ethnicity in Connecticut.
Education: Connecticut is home to some of the most severe disparities in school performance between White children and Latino and Black children in the nation.
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Unemployment
Connecticut has some of the widest gaps in unemployment rates by race and ethnicity in the country. In 2012, while the unemployment rate for Whites was around 8.4%, it is about 17.3% for Latinos and 17% for Blacks. Connecticut has the second widest gap in the U.S. in unemployment rates between Latinos and Whites and the 10th widest gap between Blacks and Whites.
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Health Disparities in CT
Both Black and Hispanic adults are twice as likely to be diagnosed and die from diabetes than White adults.
Black children are 4.6 times and Hispanics children are 5.2 times more likely than White children to visit an Emergency Room for asthma.
Black infants born in Connecticut are more than three times and Hispanic infants are almost twice as likely to die as White infants
Black children under 6 are 2 times as likely to have elevated blood lead levels as White children of the same age.
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So how did we get here?A major contributing factor was government policies that fostered segregation.
RedliningRacial Covenants
Exclusionary Zoning Imbalanced housing policy
+ 14So what do we do? Two-pronged approach…
Who is doing this? Our partners:
The Urban League of Greater Hartford
Connecticut Association for Human Services
Mothers for Justice
And many others…
Through housing that does not concentrate poverty
Through school choice
Through transportation
Invest in struggling areas
Link historically disenfranchised people to
thriving areas
15+Why start with housing?
Affordable and subsidized housing is overwhelmingly located outside of thriving areas.
Blacks and Latinos in Connecticut earn less than half of Whites.
Unless we change our housing policy, we will never generate true access to opportunity for everyone.
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What works?
Balancing hard unit subsidy placement
Promoting housing choice
Fair Share Housing
Better Housing Data
Click for more information…
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Different choices will be the right choices for different families.
Right now true housing choice does not exist because affordable housing is not diversely located.
We also need to be investing in neighborhoods that are struggling to make sure resources are available for families who chose to stay.
It is All about Choice
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Help us make a change!
Join the coalition!
Join the mailing list!
Volunteer!
Contribute!
Tax-deductible contributions can be sent to:
Open Communities Alliance207 Washington StreetHartford, CT 06106
