Name: How COVID-19 is exacerbating Detroit's poverty and racial inequality
Uploaded: 2020-04-29T16:19:47.000Z
Duration: 8 min 41 s
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We turn our attention now to the low-income Americans who are bearing the brunt of the

John Yang explains how the pandemic is hitting hard families who are already struggling.

This reporting is part of Chasing the Dream, our ongoing coverage of poverty and opportunity

JOHN YANG: Detroit, already facing steep economic and racial inequalities, has emerged as a

Janine Cain (ph) is a mother of five on the city's East Side.

JANINE CAIN, Detroit: My husband actually was laid off immediately as soon as the pandemic

started, because he works in a restaurant. And I was working two jobs, and I was laid

JOHN YANG: Cain's worried whether she will be able to keep her job as a home health care

worker, the family's only remaining source of income.

JANINE CAIN: We are going to still have to operate as if we have the bare minimum.

JOHN YANG: She is also concerned about her family's safety as tensions run high their

JANINE CAIN: The neighbors have been fighting each other. It has not been easy to, you know,

just explain to the children that a lot of people are coping with this pandemic in different

JOHN YANG: The Downtown Boxing Gym, a local after school program, delivers food and supplies

twice a week. Now it's become a full-time crisis relief program for the entire community.

JANINE CAIN: If it weren't for the Boxing Gym, I'd probably be in tears every day trying

to figure out how we're going to eat or get supplies.

JOHN YANG: Both emotional and economic support are needed, says the head of the gym, Jessica

JESSICA HAUSER, Executive Director, Downtown Boxing Gym: It's pretty terrifying for just

about every family that we're working with. And they're trying so hard to keep their kids

in a good place and stable and not worry their kids, while their entire life is falling apart.

JOHN YANG: The Cain children still gather for the gym's nightly workout sessions, but

JESSICA HAUSER: It gives them a moment to connect with all their -- you know, their

friends and peers and see that everybody's OK and healthy.

JOHN YANG: Missing from those nightly check-ins, some of their peers who don't have home Internet

In Los Angeles, families pick up meals outside shuttered public schools.

Lisette Bonilla says every day is a struggle.

LISETTE BONILLA, Los Angeles (through translator): This happened from one day to the other. I'm

not prepared. And it's scary, because we don't know how long it's going to last.

JOHN YANG: Meanwhile, bills are piling up.

MARIA JORGE, Los Angeles (through translator): I'm cutting my spending as much as possible,

because I have to pay rent, bills, and with everything that's going on.

JOHN YANG: Not knowing how long the crisis could last adds stress for families and for

the schools the children had been attending.

Austin Beutner is the superintendent of the L.A. Unified School District.

AUSTIN BEUTNER, Superintendent, Los Angeles Unified School District: When we started,

we said it's two weeks and that we will share more as we know what the path forward is.

JOHN YANG: In Detroit, Janine Cain is struggling to provide a sense of normalcy for her family,

as the effects of the virus get closer and closer.

JANINE CAIN: People in the neighborhood are coming up saying, oh, I just lost a cousin.

I got a few co-workers that actually lost some of their relatives to it.

JOHN YANG: She doesn't know how long will her family be able to endure their new reality.

JANINE CAIN: I'm also hoping that this won't last long, and so that we don't have to lose

our jobs, without -- I don't know what the backup plan is.

JOHN YANG: Even before the pandemic, estimates were that 44 percent of the households in

Southeastern Michigan could not meet their most basic needs.

In the city of Detroit itself, that figure is even higher, 74 percent.

Darienne Hudson is CEO of the United Way of Southeastern Michigan. And she joins us by

Darienne, thanks so much for being with us.

We heard in the tape sort of a snapshot of one family in Detroit, what's going on in

Give us the bigger picture. What is it like for people on the ground in Southeastern Michigan

DARIENNE HUDSON, CEO, United Way for Southeastern Michigan: Well, thank you for having me here.

This is a time of great uncertainty, frustration. I would say that there is an overload of information,

and yet you still have thousands of people who don't know how to access it.

The numbers that you were just sharing are from our call center 211, and we have received

over 20,000 calls just this last month, based on the pandemic. But the main call that we

So, in spite of all the things we're hearing about the public health crisis, it is still

those most basic needs that people are trying to attain.

JOHN YANG: So it's still the basic problems they were having before this pandemic?

This pandemic has magnified the problems that people were already having, whether it's utility

assistance, rental assistance, trying to attain and sustain gainful employment. Now many people

are out of work, and it's just exacerbated the problems we have had.

JOHN YANG: And to what extent is this sort of -- sort of -- you say it's exacerbating

Is it sort of building on them? Is it exposing problems that already were there? How does

this compounding -- putting this health crisis on top of this -- ongoing economic problems

in these communities, how is that affecting it?

One, I will give you the example of the digital divide that we're seeing in our schools. Now

that our schools are closed through the end of the year, it's revealing just how many

families are without Internet access. Detroit is one of the least connected cities in the

In terms of health disparities, African-Americans, we are 14 percent of the state of Michigan,

but we are 41 percent of the deaths that have happened from COVID-19.

And so, when you compound poverty, when you compound systemic racism, and then you're

looking at what's happening with the pandemic, it is -- it's not a surprise, unfortunately,

that these are happening, these things are happening for us.

JOHN YANG: And this pandemic, how is it affecting the United Way groups that you work with,

the organizations that you work with? How is it affecting their ability to deliver services?

DARIENNE HUDSON: Nonprofit organizations, governmental entities have been deeply impacted,

We have actually galvanized with our corporate and philanthropic community to raise over

$8 million to help provide operational grants for many of our nonprofits. Now we have funded

But there are many people who are still on the front lines providing food, providing