By Mona Shah, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, October 28, 2020
When Harris County voters approved a $2.5 billion bond to pay for more than 500 local flood-control projects, it seemed like a sound response to Hurricane Harvey. In 2017, the storm dropped 50 inches of rain in the Houston region, flooding some 166,000 homes. Based on a traditional return-on-investment analysis, it might also have appeared reasonable to spend that bond money in neighborhoods with the most expensive properties.
But county officials understood what that would mean—little protection for communities living with the most inadequate social, physical, and economic resources—many of whom are communities of color. And so, they chose a different policy approach. They gave preference to projects that ranked higher on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index, which uses socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic status, household composition, housing, access to transportation, and other metrics to uncover potential vulnerability. The result: funds for flood control prioritized towards low-income communities and communities of color, those least able to recover from disasters.
Actively confronting assumptions that allow public investments to favor wealthier and whiter communities can help dismantle the legacy of racism. In a new call for proposals, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and its Policies for Action (P4A) program are inviting researchers to study the impact of local, state, and federal policies intended to promote racial equity in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities. You will be helping us gather and share evidence in support of racial justice.
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