The Citiesscape Part 5: B/N's 'Social Vulnerability' Exacerbated by State Proposal?

Social vulnerability is defined as “the weakened resilience of communities when confronted by external stresses on human health,” such as natural or human-caused health issues or disease outbreaks. Higher social vulnerability levels often track with racial diversity, low SES, old age, limited transportation, low-quality housing, and population density.

A recently released Not In Our Town: Bloomington-Normal study by Illinois State University students and ISU’s Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development cites numerous points of vulnerability for a key segment of the Twin Cities populace.  

And according to Louis Goseland, director of the Illinois Alliance for Retired Americans’ Caring Across Generations (CAG) campaign, nationwide trends, federal and state budget debate, and gubernatorial proposals to retool and cut funding for major Illinois home care could mean even greater vulnerability for low-income, senior, and diverse other Central Illinoisans.

CAG is a national movement of families, caregivers, people with disabilities, and aging Americans working to “transform the way we care in this country.” The movement uses online action, grassroots organizing, and “innovative culture change” work to improve health policies and practices, with an emphasis on “shifting how our nation values caregiving” and calling for solutions “that enable all of us to live and age with dignity and independence.”

Currently, Goseland and Co. are focusing on the Community Care Program, which provides home care services to nearly 90,000 seniors across Illinois, enabling them to remain at home and or in their communities instead of being forced into more costly nursing homes. The services provided by home care aides through the CCP include help with meals, laundry, housework, and errands, and costs to maintain individuals in the CCP program are $10,000 annually, versus nursing homes which cost in excess of $55,000.

But while the program has enjoyed bipartisan support, budget concerns have prompted Gov. Bruce Rauner to propose moving non-Medicaid seniors into a new “Community Reinvestment Program,” potentially imposing new hardships and costs especially on lower-income seniors and their families. Beyond slashing state funding for homecare services by $120 million, the governor’s plan would call on seniors currently accustomed to home care aides providing transportation to doctor’s appointments instead to take an Uber or other unfamiliar and questionably reliable transportation “from strangers.”

Proposals like that raise a variety of issues, from seniors’ technical capabilities and physical limitations to potential inconvenience and added costs for poorer working families. Overall, the CRP "really creates a more complicates system of care for people who aren't enrolled in Medicaid."

Goseland , who relocated from Kansas to Bloomington nearly two years ago, knows firsthand how dramatic health care/home care shifts can devastate a family.

“I have kind of a personal interest, because of the experience my family had when my grandmother fell ill, just realizing how just how much a lack of access to care impacts not just the person who is in need of that care, but also the entire family structure,” relates Goseland, who served as a professional community organizer for nearly 11 years, working on political campaigns, with college students, and in research into Trump administration appointees, before discovering CAG.

“When I was about 13, my grandmother, who had problems breathing, was in need of care, but in Kansas, there just wasn’t access to a sufficient sort of state-funded home care program. So my mom, who’d been happily employed at a union job, making a good wage, ended up having to drop that and move us to a rural part of the state in order to care for my grandmother. My mom had to take on whatever she could in terms of employment just to keep food on the table, but the work opportunities were so bad that she ended up taking on multiple jobs. My mom, who was part of what’s called the ‘sandwich’ generation, cared for her mother as much as she could while needing to be a mother herself and taking on multiple jobs just to try to make thing work.”

Goseland sees Illinois as fortunate in having the Community Care Program (“I wish we’d had that in Kansas”). It has grown by more than 105 percent over the past 10 years, and “demonstrates the critical need for the state to invest more into its aging population.”

But Rauner’s untested Community Reinvestment Program would remove 36,000 non-Medicaid seniors from CCP care and shifts many home and community-based services to regional or privatized systems which according to CAG would diminish quality of service.

All that with a “complicated system of vouchers and a revolving door of service providers,” and no guarantee funding would be available for non-Medicaid seniors in need of services, Goseland warned. The Illinois Department on Aging would be given unlimited authority to make program cuts at any time.

Instead of enabling home care aides to make healthy meals for seniors, the CRP would provide meal vouchers that might not provide some older Illinoisans reliable daily nutrition. Instead of a home care aide doing housekeeping and laundry, the state would contract new and unfamiliar laundry and housekeeping  services.

The Community Reinvestment Program lacks basic provider standards the Community Care Program imposes to protect senior safety and prudent funding use. It requires no licensure or certification requirements nor basic disclosure requirements for providers necessary to monitor or maintain quality of care.

And from a taxpayer standpoint, CAG argues Rauner’s plan could incur higher long-term statewide costs. “For every senior who is forced into a nursing home, the state could end up paying $15,600 or more annually than it would pay for that senior to remain in the Community Care Program,” Caring Across Generations maintains.

That’s amid what CAG sees as an already “unprecedented Elder Boom” -- every eight seconds, another baby boomer turns 65. That’s four million Americans per year and almost one in five Americans by 2025. By 2050, the number of Americans who will require some form of long-term care and support will double to 27 million.

Aside from "countless" Medicaid-eligible Illinois seniors who aren't enrolled, cost of care is expected to increase significantly for those whose income stream precludes Medicaid eligibility. "They're still facing a significant economic hardship" under the CRP, warned Goseland, who argued CCP funding "if anything should be supplemented" before the state institutes a privatized, voucher-based system.

"This is also a question of values," he said. "Are we as a state going to treat the growing longevity of our citizenry as a burden or a blessing?"

Not only seniors and families are impacted by the ongoing health care crunch -- the home care workforce makes a meager average $13,000 a year, leaving many caregivers to rely on public assistance.

The ISU/Stevenson Center study cites “overrepresentation of (health) services on the Eastside of Bloomington-Normal and the clustering of services along Veterans Parkway, Main Street, and Market Street.” Immanuel Health Center on Morris Avenue currently is the only health clinic located within Bloomington’s West Side.

West Side residents “in general are further removed from services than their East Side counterparts,” the team concluded. Public transportation can deliver residents to those services, but these trips often require seniors to make multiple transfers and can represent an additional economic and time cost “some residents cannot afford,” researchers concluded.

“Health care services in Bloomington-Normal were classified as hospitals, clinics, minute/quick clinics, psychiatric hospitals, orthopedic doctors, optometrists, dental offices, physical therapy centers, cancer care centers, and assisted living (including nursing homes and hospice),” the study details. “This abundance of services is helpful for the Bloomington-Normal residents, but there is a clear disparity in access to these services for all citizens.”

At the same time, the ISU report notes a higher prevalence of industrial sites and sources of pollution on the Bloomington-Normal’s west side. Most of Bloomington’s black population lives within the most vulnerable areas, subjected to more acute environmental hazards and sources of noise, smell, and air pollution.

Further, many areas of West and Southwest Bloomington are at a higher risk of flooding, while a major railroad junction runs through West Bloomington, surrounded by a number of industrial facilities and exacerbating both safety and health risks.

The Citiesscape Part 4: Bias Before the Bench, Behind Bars?

Minorities would appear to be “on the downside” of McLean County’s criminal justice system, according to a new study for Not In Our Town: Bloomington-Normal.

In a study conducted by Illinois State University students and the ISU Stevenson Center for Economic and Community Development, researchers uncovered apparent racial as well as gender disparities in McLean County incarcerations.

“On any given day, the McLean County jail population is majority white,” the ISU team noted. However, it is also 32 percent black, “highly disproportional to the population.” Research findings indicate that “there is still work to be done to ensure that minorities are not wrongfully targeted and incarcerated.”

“So if we’re 8 to 9 percent African-American, in the jail we’re about 36 percent African-American,” Stevenson Center study coordinator Frank Beck relates.

The study also indicates a disproportionate frequency in traffic stops and related searches for black motorists, as detailed in Part 3 of this series.

ISU researchers examined patterns in McLean County Jail and court files. Each local booking had a code, frequency, and percentage, and the team focused on each frequency that was higher than five thousand, enabling members to narrow analysis to the most frequent charges.

Students then researched each code to obtain the name of the charge (e.g., domestic battery, possession of drug paraphernalia, first time and previous DUI convictions, and key traffic violations including driving without a license or with an expired license).

Of the 22,157 persons in the jail on felony charges under the study, 17,481 were men, and4,676 were women. Men spent an average 35 days in jail for felony charges, while women spent half as many days in jail.

For overall convictions, blacks and Latinos spend more time in jail than whites. Blacks spent nearly twice as many days in jail than whites, while Latinos fell between the other two groups. That pattern was consistent for both felonies and misdemeanors.

“Future research can hold constant conviction status and charge severity to further determine where disparities are most pronounced,” the team suggested.

The research team also studied the frequency of each group booked on drug charges, identifying a disparity between the races during the late teen years and early 20s. Whites are booked more frequently for drug charges, but frequencies for whites and blacks converge around age 27, which researchers found “extremely significant.”

Blacks comprise roughly eight percent of the total McLean County population, and when the frequencies converge it does not mean the demographics are changing (such as whites “suddenly moving out of the area in droves”). “Around age 27, blacks are booked on drug charges at a rate even more disproportional to the population,” the team concluded.

“Charge severity is even between whites, blacks, and Latinos,” Beck observed. “African-Americans are not likely to be booked on things that are more violent. African-Americans are far less likely to be booked on DUIs. Driving under the influence is very much a white thing – less so Latino, and far less so African-American.”

The Citiesscape Pt. 2: 'Desert' Life Unhealthy for Twin Citians?

Is West/Southwest Bloomington a “desert,” where lower-income residents and students especially may be virtually stranded far from healthy foods and drawn to retail “oases” that may foster serious or even lethal health risks?

According to a recently released NIOTBN-sponsored study by Illinois State University students and ISU’s Stevenson Center, the West Side exhibits disturbing desert-like conditions.    

The “disparities in access to healthy food correlates with many social factors,” including race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and income level,” concludes “A Community Report on Intolerance, Segregation, Accessibility, Inclusion, Progress, and Improvement.” A diet of “primarily unhealthy products” — including junk food, tobacco and liquor products, and fast food — can cause cardiovascular disease, liver cirrhosis, obesity, and multiple forms of cancer.

In mapping the Twin Cities, the ISU team quickly realized that Bloomington-Normal possesses many more convenience stores than grocery stores. Convenience stores stay open long hours, offering a small variety of household goods and “unhealthy” foods. With high convenience store accessibility and lower grocery store accessibility comes the tendency to rely on unhealthier convenience store options rather than the relatively healthier grocery store offerings, the study asserted.

Further, the majority of Bloomington-Normal's supermarkets and grocery stores are located along major roads, with Veterans Parkway, Market Street, and Main Street possessing the clear majority of store locations. On the map below, The areas shaded green are within one mile of a grocery store; unshaded areas are more than one mile from a grocery. The green and red dots indicate disadvantaged persons.

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Additionally, layering the fast food/convenience store/grocery store locations over the map’s U.S. Supermarket Accessibility layer shows reason for significant concern in West and Southwest Bloomington. There are quite a few red dots more than one mile from a grocery. This becomes more concerning when considering walkability. Most of the grocery stores are located along high traffic roads that are difficult for pedestrians to navigate while carrying groceries. So, efforts to improve food security in West and Southwest Bloomington may be beneficial to disadvantaged community members.

“There are also far more fast-food restaurants than grocery stores in Bloomington-Normal,” the team noted. “In all, unhealthy food options are more available than healthy ones.

“Distance to, prevalence of, and accessibility of healthy food options are directly related to a person’s overall health. Neighborhoods which lack these nutritious and affordable food options are called food deserts. While located in urban and rural settings, food deserts are found predominantly in low-income communities of color.

“Individuals in these food deserts will face a higher density of tobacco stores and fast-food restaurants with few, if any, healthy food options. When people and families have to expend more energy and resources to get fresher, healthier options than food found at convenience stores or fast-food restaurants, they will often choose to buy more readily available and less healthy food. Fast-food restaurants and tobacco companies target low-income and minority populations in their advertising—such as fast-food companies offering free prizes and more kids’ meals in lower income neighborhoods than higher income communities.”

Middle school and high school students walking to school are confronted with many “concealed dangers,” students advised. On the way to and from school in some neighborhoods, students may pass by multiple fast food establishments as well as alcohol and tobacco stores. According to several studies, more than fifty percent of U.S. schools that are mostly minority have both fast food and tobacco stores in close proximity, and low-income and minority students have a greater chance of taking routes to and from school that can expose them to fast food, alcohol, and tobacco stores.

Latino students are more likely to go to schools that are in areas including multiple alcohol, tobacco, and fast food establishments. Having these establishments near schools can increase the rates of obesity seen in school children as well as higher rates of teenage smoking, and children who pass these places everyday on their way to school are more likely to be offered alcohol, tobacco, or even other drugs.

“It is encouraged that students walk to school, but the dangers of kids passing these businesses can lead to unhealthy habits,” the ISU study warned. “Compared to middle schoolers, high schoolers have a higher chance of being affected by encountering these businesses daily. In sum, the literature points to a clear association between socioeconomic status and the chance of passing by these types of establishments.”

While a trio of new groceries has emerged in Bloomington over the past two years, two are located on the Veteran’s Parkway strip, and two, including the Green Top Grocery on the near West Side, are specialty retailers featuring organic, “natural,” and other trait-identified products that often are out of the basic price range of lower-income families. Green Top is a co-op grocery, where customers can purchase shares in the store to receive discounts and rebates – a model which according to Stevenson Center study coordinator Frank Beck may not fit the conventional “cultural dynamic” or consumer preferences of lower-income and minority consumers.

Kroger’s location at College and Emerson serves both Illinois Wesleyan students and West Siders. But Aldi’s, a discount food outlet, operated on Market Street, serving a West Side clientele, for roughly nine years before moving to the western city fringe near Walmart and opening a second location on Veteran’s bordering Normal’s east side Walmart – in either case, a drive or bus ride for the West Side’s poorer or older residents. A Latino grocery operates in the former Market Street location, with fresh produce but a tailored product selection.

While chains like Walmart have been making inroads into populous metropolitan inner city neighborhoods, securing a major new grocery in or adjacent to Bloomington’s lower-income neighborhoods is a daunting challenge.

“There’s a whole science out there of, ‘Should we build it, and where should we built it?’” Beck related. “Those folks that are going to spend those millions of dollars know that science back and forth. At the community level, by rough estimates, these days, you have to have a population of about 3,000 to make ends meet, if you’re the owner of a grocery store. Some small towns have thought of co-ops and other things – food deserts are not just in urban; they’re in rural as well.”

ISU Study: Problems Persist in B/N, 'Less' Today With NIOTBN Help

This is Part 1 of a multi-part examination of Bloomington/Normal's challenges and successes in bridging social, economic, racial, and cultural concerns.

ISU's Frank Beck reviews conclusions of student researchers during a NIOTBN Steering Committee review of the study at Moses Montefiore Temple.

Key problems persist in the Twin Cities, according to a study by ISU students with the Stevenson Center for Economic and Community Development. But significant progress is being made, in part through efforts by NIOTBN and other local groups, "A Community Report on Intolerance, Segregation, Accessibility, Inclusion, Progress, and Improvement" concludes.

The Not In Our Town chapter in Bloomington-Normal recently asked two classes of students at Illinois State University to document intolerance, discrimination, segregation, disparities of access, and disparities in the criminal justice system in the twin cities. In this report, using archival material, secondary data, and primary data, the students examine these issues from the mid-1990s to the present. Not In Our Town also wanted to understand their position in the community and some strategies for future success, through an analysis of other organizations in the country similar to Not In Our Town.

The conclusion: “Bloomington-Normal was and is intolerant; discrimination did and does take place in this community; we are segregated. The community is also less of these things than it used to be and is less of these things than other places — thanks in part to the efforts of Not In Our Town.”

Interviews and focus groups document difficulties, progress, and hope for the future among community leaders, social service agencies, elected bodies, advocates, and law enforcement. Residents discuss systemic issues and the role of Not In Our Town in addressing them. Residents shared experiences of discrimination and intolerance from police, employers, and other community members. Some of the quotes drawn from the conversations “are powerful and are evidence of work yet to be done,” the study stressed.

Discrimination by law enforcement and a lack of access to quality food, health care, and employment are highlighted. Persons promoting racial equality, LGBTQ advocates, and residents provide ideas for future balance.

For example, data on traffic stops in eight Central Illinois cities and from the McLean County Detention Facility show inequities. Blacks are stopped more often and arrested more often than their share of the Bloomington-Normal population would predict. Vehicles driven by blacks are searched more often, yet drugs are more often found in vehicles of White drivers. Normal police stop vehicles at a far higher rate than police in the larger cities of Springfield or Peoria; the pattern is "quite stark." Without taking into account severity of charge, blacks that are arrested spend more time in the jail.

Bloomington-Normal is segregated, but far less than other Central Illinois communities, the students found. The index of dissimilarity for Bloomington-Normal shows that approximately 40 percent of black households need to change their residence in order to integrate each neighborhood to the same extent, across both cities. Since at least 1980, this number declined for Bloomington-Normal. Champaign, Decatur, Peoria, Rockford, Springfield, and Urbana experienced declines in their segregation too, but their values are still higher than Bloomington-Normal. We find that Springfield is the most segregated of these cities; the interaction index also shows Springfield to be the community where blackss are least likely to interact with a White person and vice versa.

One team of students mapped diversity in Bloomington-Normal against locations of health care facilities, tobacco and liquor stores, groceries with fresh produce, predatory lending establishments, banks, schools, and transit routes. There are disparities in access to these community attributes and the disparities differ by diversity of the neighborhood. In all, West Bloomington suffers from a lack of access to health care and fresh produce. Diverse neighborhoods have more access to fast food and convenient stores than they do quality grocers. Transit routes connect patrons to health care offices/facilities, banking, schools/community college, etc., but the costs in time are high. Predatory lending establishments are located on the community’s main routes, but proximate to economically disadvantaged populations.

The work of seven aspirational organizations from across the country is presented in the report. Based on the strengths of Not In Our Town, the Best Practices group identify characteristics of these model organizations that can further the local chapter’s efforts. From bylaws to organizational structure and activities, recommendations are made to increase participation, capacity, and credibility. Therefore, this project can help Not In Our Town identify its next steps.

“As community developers know, there is much to learn when we speak to one another about the state of affairs in our communities; not only can we better understand the situations our neighbors are experiencing, we can gather in collective action to work toward improvement and progress,” the study concludes. “This is the essence of Not In Our Town’s work and dedication.”

Study: Income Security Key for Formerly Incarcerated Women

Through a sociology class project, Illinois State University Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development graduate students are assisting previously incarcerated women in Bloomington-Normal in regaining their independence and attaining a consistent income.

Through a partnership with Labyrinth Outreach Services, organized by Illinois State Professor Joan Brehm and supported by a Pohlmann Family Development grant, students have been researching issues relating to previously incarcerated women in the community. Caroline Moe, a Peace Corps Master’s International student, maintains that the project is a step in the right direction for this underserved portion of the community.

“Unfortunately, there is significant income inequality and lack of opportunity for those living below the poverty line,” Moe said. “In McLean County, 14.2 percent of the population live below this line, including many of the women Labyrinth serves. This partnership provides an opportunity for us to gain real-world experience in community development as well as feeling like we are actually accomplishing something.”

The 18 students formed two groups: a microbusiness research team and an employment hiring practices team. Despite their grueling school schedules, both teams worked hard to bring hope for these struggling women.

“This project has been a great insight into the collaboration involved in executing community development projects,” said Peace Corps Master’s International student Jessie Linder. “We’ve gotten to network and collaborate with members in many different sectors of the community and gotten to see firsthand how exciting a project can be when you get community members involved. I’ve found that it isn’t nearly as important to have the answer, as it is to figure out what the community’s answer is.”

Some students, like Peace Corps Fellow Nick Canfield, have never experienced formal community development research. Thanks to this all-encompassing project, students like Canfield have been able to broaden their knowledge base in order to serve others.

“Although I had done community development programs during my Peace Corps experience in Pohnpei, Micronesia, I had not worked integrally with a large group toward presenting important and meaningful research to organizations,” Canfield said. “This project is directly geared towards creating methods to answer big questions which have real-world implications, and it has greatly improved my knowledge of research methods, project implementation, and community development.”

The students have been seeking donations to raise $5,000 so that Labyrinth can launch a social enterprise, the Clean Slate Project. The goal of the Clean Slate Project is to empower the women to make positive changes in their lives while gaining valuable professional skills in preparation for transitioning into the workforce. Individuals interested in making a donation should contact Linder.

Linder, Moe, and Applied Community and Economic Development Fellow Mel Johnston-Gross are project coordinators for this outreach effort. “To begin this portion of the project, we had to look at the starting group and the feasibility of this actually working,” Moe said. “This has proven to be very difficult, but we know it will be worth it in the end. Sometimes, it really is the little things like finishing a request for donation letter that really makes us feel good about our work, even when we are feeling overwhelmed.”

The students presented their research findings to Labyrinth December 8 at a public forum.

“I hope the findings will help them to better assist formerly incarcerated women to successfully re-enter society,” Canfield said.

According to the study, incarcerated women tend to be involved in non-violent crimes, have a
history of abuse and/or drug use, and tend to be of a lower socio-economic status. The crimes
women get arrested for most often correspond to their lower social and economic status.

"The racial divisions are also stark," the analysis stated. "One study reported that black women are over seven times more likely to be incarcerated than white women. On average, women earn lower wages and are less likely to be employed.

The study focused on three key case studies that show how a social enterprise model might work and be successful. The three case studies students chose were the Women’s Denver Bean Project, Thistle Farms, and the Delancey Street Foundation.  All three organizations are applicable to Bloomington's Labyrinth because they focus on similar populations and use a social enterprise model.

"Chronic unemployment may be explained in part by a lack of educational attainment which
keeps them from being competitive for living-wage jobs. One study found that less than half of
the incarcerated women in the study had completed high school. The implication for women reentering the community is a return to the same social circumstances
which influenced their original criminogenic behavior."