At the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, the City of Chicago launched the COVID-19 Recovery Taskforce (RTF) to advise city government on economic and public health strategy, and to develop policy recommendations in an effort to curb the impact of this crisis on Chicago communities. The taskforce, Co-Chaired by Mayor Lightfoot and former White House Chief of Staff Sam Skinner, gathered experts from a wide range of industries, regional government leaders, community-based partners, and policymakers to provide critical insights to help the Mayor create a robust and equitable health response to the virus. Heartland Alliance president, Evelyn Diaz, was among those leaders and joined the taskforce as a co-chair and member of the Mental & Emotional Health working group, utilizing her years of leadership and expertise.
Through their weeks of work, the task force developed 17 recommendations to target a set of outcomes, as well as a detailed advisory report to provide critical insights to help Mayor Lightfoot and her administration create a response focused on helping impacted communities, like those that Heartland Alliance serves every day.
“The communities hardest hit by the pandemic are the same ones that have experienced decades of poverty, violence, community disinvestment—and have lacked access to housing, healthcare, food, education, and jobs. And every one of those things has to be present in order for people to be healthy mentally and emotionally,” said Diaz. “That is why we wanted to make recommendations that would be truly transformational. And that includes serving hundreds of thousands more, by embracing technology, like online and telehealth platforms, to reach people at times, in places, and at a scale we haven’t been able to reach before. The most transformational thing we can do to rise out of this pandemic is to focus on execution of the mayor’s vision and to create plans and program designs, prototyping, a scaling strategy, and public/private resources that move quickly.”
In order for Chicago to recover, we need to focus on addressing the inequities in our city and the needs of our communities so that we can advance goals and accelerate bold, equity-driven ideas. That is why we are committed to standing together with leaders, like those on the RTF, to deliver comprehensive solutions that will help create a stronger economic future for our participants and the entire Chicago community.
Read the full advisory report, Forward Together: Building a Stronger Chicago, to learn more and view our resource page to learn about the work our organization is doing in the fight against COVID-19.
