TITLE
Recommendation to request City Manager, or designee, to work with appropriate departments to report back to City Council within 30 days on funding a MI VIDA CUENTA COVID-19 Latino Health Initiative. The MI VIDA CUENTA initiative should include sufficient resources for providing continuous health education, equitable vaccine distribution, appropriate food distributions, and mental health care for the Latino Community including undocumented residents.
DISCUSSION
COVID-19 has been plaguing the country for over a year now and Long Beach has done an amazing job of reacting to this unprecedented pandemic. However, COVID-19 has done one thing more than anything: highlight our city's inequities.
The Latino Community has been the hardest hit and data shows that it aligns with the low income areas of our city. Data has also shown that these communities are also the least likely to have access to internet, city services, and proper health care. This is not a new problem but rather one that has been exacerbated and highlights by the pandemic.
What is a new issue is that Latinos have born the brunt of the unemployment crisis caused by the pandemic. The Latino Community makes up the majority of workers in the hardest hit industries and thus make up the largest population losing their jobs, available income, ability to pay for basic needs like rent, food, or healthcare. The data also shows that Latinos who are fortunate enough to remain employed are in essential jobs that require working on-site. Without the luxury of being able to work from home they are at a higher risk of exposing themselves to COVID-19.
Latinos Contra Covid was a task force created with community-based organizations and Latino leaders within City Staff with the purpose of finding solutions to stop the spread of COVID-19 among the Latino Community. So far this task force has been able to identify challenges unique to the Latino Community in regards to COVID-19 spread, caused issues, and barrie...
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