The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 by Alice C. Hill

Author:Alice C. Hill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2021-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

“Plan with us, not for us”

It’s not just women and children who deserve special attention when it comes to dealing with climate change. It’s also people with disabilities. The United Nations estimates that worldwide there are one billion individuals living with disabilities. People with disabilities and older adults are two to four times more likely to die in a disaster. During the first weeks of the pandemic, over 7,000 residents of nursing homes in the United States died. The facilities became “death pits.”12 By November 2020, the number of deaths had grown tenfold to more than 70,000. People in long-term care facilities accounted for about 6 percent of all coronavirus cases and 35 percent of all deaths from the disease in the United States, even though less than 1 percent of America's population lives in such facilities.

Research has shown that in the aftermath of hurricanes, including the hurricanes that hit the United States in the years leading up to the 2020 pandemic, nursing home residents and those relying on life-sustaining medical equipment also suffered disproportionately.13 When utilities fail, electricity-dependent medical services also fail. New York City’s treatment of Coney Island residents illustrates these risks.

Coney Island is one of New York City’s poorest neighborhoods. When Superstorm Sandy struck in 2012, one in seven Coney Islanders was unemployed. According to census data, the average household earned $31,000 a year, and one in four residents fell below the poverty line.14 Many Coney Islanders who were older and/or suffered from disabilities lived in high-rise public housing units. After the storm knocked out power, they found themselves stranded without electricity, heat, or elevator service, “effectively held hostage on the upper floors of their apartment buildings.”15 Temperatures dropped to near freezing, and still there was no power, heat, or hot water. The city housing authority, overwhelmed by the disaster, took weeks to even assess the status of the Coney Island residents (Figure 4.2). One of the wealthiest cities in the world did not provide assistance when some of its most vulnerable residents needed it most.

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