$2.6M Fund Going Toward Racial Equity In Coronavirus Recovery

MADISON, WI — A new program, accompanied by $2.6 million in funding, aims to address racial disparities in Wisconsin's coronavirus recovery.

The initiative, called Just Recovery for Racial Equity, was announced by Gov. Tony Evers, Lieutenant Gov. Mandela Barnes, the state's Department of Health Services and the University of Wisconsin's Population Health Institute.

In a news release, Evers said communities of color have been harder hit by the coronavirus with Black communities having a 3.5 times higher death rate than white communities. Similarly, Latinx communities show a case rate that is 3.3 times higher than white communities.

According to the release, the program aims to identify solutions that help communities respond to the coronavirus, recover well and create resilience in the face of the pandemic.

“COVID-19 has had a devastating and disproportionate impact on communities of color across the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said in a statement. “We must take urgent and meaningful action to change that, and the Just Recovery initiative gives us the opportunity to mobilize community-based organizations to partner in this important work.”

The funding will be used to provide grants for community-based organizations and bolster staffing, translation services and program evaluation.

“We have been grappling with significant health and economic inequities in our state for years, and COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on Black, Latinx, and Indigenous communities have only made the situation more dire,” Barnes said in a statement. "It’s critical that our recovery from this crisis is inclusive and equitable, so we must start by supporting the work that community-based organizations are already doing to address these systemic inequities and connect the dots in their own communities.”