The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare structural inequities we know have long existed. Not only are we facing a staggering loss of life due to the coronavirus, but we’re simultaneously facing an economic collapse with the potential to be worse than the Great Depression. Both this loss of life and the depth of this economic fallout were preventable. Where politicians have failed to take sufficient action that matches the severity of this crisis, grassroots organizations across the country are stepping up to fight for progressive legislative action to protect the safety, dignity, and economic security of working class families.
In Chicago, 50+ community organizations and elected officials have joined the Right to Recovery campaign, a coalition working on legislation to ensure public health, safety, and aid to the people of Chicago and Illinois during the COVID-19 pandemic and other future public health emergencies or disasters. These demands center working class Black and Brown communities, who we know are more vulnerable to contracting and dying from the coronavirus due to lack of access to quality healthcare, workplace protections, over-incarceration, and more. You can read these demands here.
United Neighbors of the 35th Ward is proud to join the Right to Recovery campaign, along with many of our longtime allies in organizing. The demands we are fighting for echo our longstanding fights. We demand lifting the ban on rent control so we can enact a rent and mortgage freeze. We demand a path towards Medicare for All so everyone can receive life-saving medical treatment without fear of cost. We demand an end to ICE check-ins and the closure of detention centers, so that families can seek shelter and safety with one another rather than being separated and held in unsanitary, unsafe concentration camps.
We’ll continue to update our membership base via our email newsletter about ways to get involved, but if you want to take action for Chicagoans’ #RightToRecovery, visit our campaign website, where the “Take Action” page will be updated daily with 5-minute actions you can take (many from the safety of your own home as we continue to social distance). Additionally, we’re working with Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa to promote his office’s Mutual Aid Network, which you can sign up to volunteer for here. In this time, we must demonstrate solidarity with our neighbors–not just in the 35th Ward, but across Chicago.
The economically and politically powerful are calling for a return to normalcy–but we know that even in “normal” times, the needs of our communities have been neglected. We have an opportunity and an obligation in this crisis to fight for the better world we know is possible–one where everyone has access to education, healthcare, homes, jobs, and livelihoods as human rights. We hope you’ll join us in fighting for that world.