I was reminded of this day at court later, when I started a position as a research assistant for Dr. Rebecca Entress, an Assistant Professor of Public Administration interested in emergency management policy. For one project with her, I used the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) to examine how different demographics of people fare in the wake of a variety of natural disasters. The index attempts to describe the extent to which a person can be vulnerable to hazard based on factors like income, race, age, and type of housing (rent/own, multi-unit/single family home), etc. None of these factors cause someone to be affected by a natural disaster. However, these factors are correlated to risks that people face based on their access to emergency preparedness resources, and looking at the risks together, researchers can predict who is more vulnerable to the consequences.  These kinds of risks—such as lack of access to transportation for evacuation, the inability to afford home insurance, or reliance on community aid programs—also translate to disparities in how people interact with local government policies, including ordinances and fines. In this way, local government processes can cause or extubate existing inequities.  

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While local governments have the potential for major harm, they also have the most potential for effective interventions. Last semester, I took a course called Homelessness in South Carolina (HNRS 330), in which we discussed that many effective interventions come from city government initiatives and the removal of harmful city ordinances (like nuisance ordinances and the criminalization of homelessness). In a blog post for the course (Artifact 2), I examine the idea that though most local politicians have framed the issue of homelessness in the same way, there is not always positive action from city councils. One reading we did for the class, Noy (2009), explains that material resources and political capital are necessary for a coalition to carry out desired policy in local government, even if most politicians agree upon the facts and presentation of an issue. In other words, a coalition of city counselors tried to pass legislation addressing homelessness that was agreed upon among left-leaning politicians and centrists (a majority), but the smaller right-leaning coalition was able to retain the support of centrists because of their superior funding and political capital at the time. This concept, the necessity of resources and shared framing for the passage of legislation to address homelessness, also applies more broadly to issues of social justice and inequity in city government.