On March 8, 2020, several members of the Hudson Street Potluck listserv
met at Andrea's house to discuss actions
that we as a neighborhood can take to prepare
for the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus.
People who attended:
- Hila B.
- Andrea H.
- Pagan K.
- Tim M.
- Karen M.
- Alexandra T.
Overarching goal: Set a community tone of calm, preparedness, and mutual care.
We identified three main areas for action:
- Establishing communication within the neighborhood
- Communicating with and/or lobbying the government for resources
we can't provide for ourselves
- Figuring out resource needs and availability
that will help each of us prepare,
and identify ways in which we can help each other out
Preliminary task allocation:
Tim, Andrea, Elissa, Karen: to work on communications
Hila and Pagan: to work on government liaison, advocacy
Alexandra: 1) Locate websites listing main items each household should
have on hand to prepare for illness and / or quarantine, 2) bottom-line
the creation of an executive summary of the meeting to share on the
listserv
Details:
- Establishing communication within the neighborhood
- Goals:
- Baseline is to ensure that everyone in the neighborhood
has ways to ask for, and offer, help
- Make sure that there is a way to distribute important news,
e.g. PSAs to community, MRC (Medical Reserve Corps) trainings,
getting people connected to other information sources
- Establish ways to communicate "up" to government, etc.,
enabling us to "lead from below" (see B)
- Communicate "out" to nearby communities
- Numerous possible modes of communication
- Hudson Street Potluck listserv - this is our starting point,
and it will be good to build on this
- Shared contact-information document
- Create a Facebook group?
- Next Door (https://nextdoor.com/ )
- Phone tree
- Low tech: going door-to-door, or in cases where contact
needs to be avoided having neighbors put signs in the window
- A number of neighbors are working on gathering
contact information through flyering, postering, and
knocking door-to-door
- Elissa M. has drafted a preliminary flyer/form
for neighbors to complete and return to her,
this draft can be distributed to the working group
before we start going door-to-door
- Revised version of flyer should include:
question about languages spoken (both primary and secondary),
URL for the website Tim is setting up, QR code for website
- Note: Andrea is retired and is happy to do repetitive tasks
such as data-entry
- Tim is setting up a shared spreadsheet document
and online questionaire
- It is also possible to distribute flyers electronically
and invite extended community to print and distribute
in their communities, but we should be thoughtful
about geographic scope (see below)
- A website of communication resources can serve as a central hub
- Can use to point people to listserv subscription information
- Can also provide basic information, e.g. on how to self-isolate,
sanitize, what supplies to keep on hand
to prepare for both quarantine and/or illness
- We need to establish clear geographic scope
for our communications infrastructure
- We decided a starting point would be the same geographic scope
as the Hudson Street Potluck listserv, i.e. Hudson Street itself
- We should attempt to establish communication
with every house on Hudson Street
- In initial stages we might also include Benton Road
and Waldo Street, which are shorter streets
and with only a few households
- After we've gotten a sense of how much work it is
to get communications set up for Hudson Street,
we can consider branching out to Albion and parallel blocks
on Highland as well
- Non-Hudson neighbors who are on the listserv are of course welcome
to participate and might bring in additional neighbors if desired,
but for now we won't proactively try to be exhaustively inclusive
of any other streets
- We should make special effort to make sure
that resources are available to non-English speakers as well
- Key starting point - make sure that neighbors are aware of
SomervilleHub website,
which provides materials in 17 languages
- There are some known non-English-speaking households in
the neighborhood, including three houses all speaking
different Chinese languages
- Communicating with and/or lobbying the government for resources
we can't provide for ourselves
- Key issue seems to be availability of test kits for high
vulnerability communities, e.g. nursing home residents -
can Massachusetts leverage its numerous bio labs toward
increasing availability
- We might also advocate for better telemedicine resources,
although some of this might come down to educating
residents about when to phone doctors versus going in
(goal: avoid overtaxing medical infrastructure and minimize
unnecessary exposure)
- Website and possible eventual blog might be a way to keep
city and state officials informed of what is going on
without overtaxing their resources
- Figuring out resource needs and availability
that will help each of us prepare,
and identify ways in which we can help each other out
- Many resource needs will be best identified
by setting up communications infrastructure and seeing
what people ask for, e.g. we might not be able to anticipate
how much need there will be for:
- Food delivery
- Child care
- Physical assistance
- Rides, etc. ...but if communication infrastructure is in
place, requests can be made as-needed
- Right now, the important thing for most households is
storing up food, medicine, and other essentials,
so that they can safely self-isolate whether as a precaution,
as part of a required quarantine, or because they are ill
- There are numerous websites that offer guidelines
on what kinds of things you should be storing;
Alexandra can identify one or two that look legitimate
and distribute them
- Note that needs will be different if you are actually sick
- Another part of this is setting up norms
of self-isolation and sanitation measures, for example
- Avoid touching face casually: either keep tissues on hand
for touching face or make habit of cleaning hands carefully
after touching face
- Learn good handwashing technique
- Keep mental track of what has been contaminated by your own germs
and what might be contaminated by other people's germs
- Carry spray sanitizer (this can be a spray bottle
of rubbing alcohol) to clean hands frequently
when handwashing is impossible
- Maybe carry alcohol wipes for subway poles, etc.?