Please support Alexandrians for Palestinian Human Rights

As many of you may be aware, a growing coalition of individuals and groups, acting under the banner Alexandrians for Palestinian Human Rights, is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Specifically, they are calling for the Alexandria City Council to join cities across the USA by passing a ceasefire resolution. On February 5, 2024, Grassroots Alexandria voted to join this coalition.

Please Act: there is no time to spare

  1. Please support the call for a ceasefire by requesting a yard sign: https://bit.ly/m/ceasefirenow
  2. Please write to city council with a simple message: Please support human rights by calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
  3. Please sign a petition calling for an Alexandria ceasefire resolution: https://www.change.org/p/alexandria-calls-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-now
  4. Individual activists can join this growing coalition: http://bit.ly/alx4pal
  5. Organizations can join this growing coalition: https://forms.gle/zCceX1weKs
Continue reading “Please support Alexandrians for Palestinian Human Rights”

Current Medicare Enrollees Should Support Medicare For All: Here’s Why

by Cedar Dvorin

As a Medicare counselor, the most frequent question is “Why is it so complicated?” In my 20 years with the State Health Insurance Assistance Program, I’ve helped Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers with the many decisions and choices they are called on to make. A common problem is the continued high expense for those who need care for vision (other than eye diseases), hearing, and dental. My work shows that Medicare has become overly complicated for current enrollees. It needs a reset. If given a chance, currently proposed Medicare For All legislation would do exactly that.

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Is Antiracism Still Allowed?

by Jonathan Krall

In January 2023, Alexandria city announced a BIPOC Small Business Grant Program to address negative pandemic-era impacts on local businesses, impacts that were “particularly felt by Black, Indigenous and people of color (“BIPOC”) owned businesses due to structural barriers and discriminatory financial lending practices.” Sadly, an “equal protection of the laws” lawsuit alleged discrimination against White people, causing Alexandria “to scrap the grant program.” Reacting to this lawsuit, Meronne Teklu of the Economic Opportunities Commission told me that “City Council needs to push back without compromise; these people want us to believe that reparations of any kind are illegal.” Ms Teklu, and City Council, recognize that it is unjust to treat people “equally” in a society that routinely produces “tailwinds for White people and headwinds for Black people.” Shouldn’t we be allowed to measure and address the impacts of systemic injustice? In some areas of law, the answer is yes. We need to expand that “yes.” The key is to focus on, and push back against, the very real impacts of racial disparities.

As activists, it is up to us to choose where and how to spend our energy and how we frame our messages. In a nation where White people are implicitly raised to be ignorant of racism, how do we identify and oppose racism? How do we address systemic racism, where no specific person can be identified as the cause of the harm? In many instances, as in pandemic impacts on Black-owned businesses, we have numerical measures. As reported by ALXnow, in the USA, “Black-owned businesses were disproportionately hit by the pandemic, showing a 28% earnings decrease in 2020 compared to a 15% drop for White-owned businesses and a 17% overall decline.” The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia found that 79% of White-owned firms received all of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding they sought, compared to 43% of Black-owned firms. In our quest to push back against systemic racism, instances where we do have clear evidence of racially-disparate impacts seem like a good place to start.

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The Alarming Privatization of Medicare Should Alarm You Too

by Jennifer O. and Jonathan Krall

The ever-expanding privatization of Medicare should be of concern to Alexandrians who have Medicare. Alexandrians over age 50 cited aging-related health concerns as one of the community’s top health issues. More than a third of residents worry about paying rent or mortgage. Low-cost healthcare is even more important for low-income seniors and people living with disabilities. The more we learned about the privatization of Medicare, the more alarmed we became. Fortunately, there is hope. Growing nationwide support for universal healthcare suggests to us that Medicare should be expanded not exploited.

Requested action: Alexandrians can join the action by signing our petition: please tell City Council to pass a Medicare for All Resolution for Alexandria.

Continue reading “The Alarming Privatization of Medicare Should Alarm You Too”

We can, and should, hear the underrepresented people of Alexandria

by Jim Durham and Jonathan Krall

As we work together to support equity, we look for and support initiatives that increase civic participation for all Alexandrians. Fortunately, with the Duke Street in Motion project, Alexandria city staff has proven itself capable of effectively reaching previously-marginalized communities. Specifically, they used both Internet outreach (the usual method) and in-person outreach for the same project. They showed that only the direct method–several pop-up “tally poll” events at apartment buildings and public places in the project area–reached a population that represents both the project area and Alexandria as a whole. With this project, Alexandria city staff set a higher standard that should be followed in future projects. Put simply, all such outreach should be required to represent either the population of the project area, or Alexandria as a whole. Here’s how they did it for the Duke Street in Motion (DSIM) project.

DSIM concerns improved bus service, including dedicated lanes like those on Route 1, on Duke Street. To measure public priorities, Alexandria City Staff asked: “Is faster and more reliable bus service a priority, even if that means car trips on Duke Street take slightly longer?” They began with conventional outreach, using online polling and feedback forms to ask about travel time for buses versus cars on Duke Street. In a parallel effort, they visited the project area to conduct “pop-up tally poll” events, where people could enjoy snacks, ask questions about the project, and answer the central question: “Is faster and more reliable bus service a priority, even if that means car trips on Duke Street take slightly longer?”

These two approaches engaged very different populations. Here is the data:

  • Tally-poll votes: 410 responses, 59 in Spanish, 26 in Amharic, 325 in English. That is, 79% of responses were in English.
  • Internet poll and feedback form: 1228 responses; 9 completed in Spanish, 1219 in English; 99% of responses in English.
  • Results: 69% of tally-poll respondents, but only 41% of Internet-feedback form respondents, say it’s important to make the bus faster and more reliable even if that means cars take slightly longer.

    Using language data, we can compare the two respondent groups to Alexandria as a whole. We recommend that this type of analysis be applied to all such project outreach. In the tally-poll data, 79% of responses were in English. According to the census, 70% of Alexandrians speak English only. The other 30% speak languages other than English, including 11% Spanish. This suggests to us that the tally-poll data (69% in favor of bus lanes) is representative of Alexandria as a whole.

    Continue reading “We can, and should, hear the underrepresented people of Alexandria”

    What is Procedural Justice?

    by Jonathan Krall

    In our work, we often focus on injustice and inequity. We ask for policy changes, such as restorative practices, that reduce injustice. In these discussions we have not always centered the issues of dignity and respect. Thanks to a podcasted interview with Judge Victoria Pratt, author of The Power of Dignity, we now have better vocabulary with which to articulate the importance of dignity and respect. According to Judge Pratt, procedural justice is the recognition that dignity is a human right and that any system that does not treat people with dignity and respect is unjust. Here in Alexandria, we can apply this lesson by asking that our police officers, in non-emergency situations, always practice respect.

    Continue reading “What is Procedural Justice?”

    Duke Street Transitway: Frequently Asked Questions

    by James D. and Jonathan K.

    Grassroots Alexandria advocates for effective mass transit as a matter of economic justice and as a response to the climate emergency. Alexandria’s Duke Street In Motion project is a potential step forward.

    What is the Duke Street in Motion project?
    What is the purpose of the project? What problems is it trying to solve?
    Will this project include improvements for people walking and riding bicycles?
    How will a dedicated transitway fit on Duke Street along with car traffic?

    What is the Duke Street in Motion project?
    Duke Street in Motion is a concept design project for improved transit on a 4-mile section of Duke Street, from the Landmark Mall area to the King Street Metro station. The design effort follows a 2008 Council decision designating this section of Duke Street as a future high-capacity transit corridor, and a 2012 Transitway Corridor Feasibility Study. The 2012 Feasibility study recommended dedicated bus lanes in the six-lane sections of the Duke Street corridor, i.e. in about 2/3 of the 4 mile section, and a two-phased approach for the four-lane section in the middle of the corridor, from Jordan Street to Roth Street. The study recommended that transit operate initially in mixed traffic in the four-lane section and later in a dedicated reversible lane. Continue reading “Duke Street Transitway: Frequently Asked Questions”

    Housing: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself

    by Jonathan Krall

    In Alexandria and across the DC area, there is a basic fact that we must not ignore: it is currently impossible, even for a non-profit developer, to build housing for working class families without taking a loss. Thus, we have two types of affordable housing for working class Alexandrians: decaying buildings, where a landlord can make a profit by neglecting maintenance, and designated affordable housing, where the “loss” is covered by public or private subsidies. Recent public debate not only fails to elevate this basic fact, it fails to support the working class people already in our neighborhoods. Do we welcome them? Do we even see them? We say we value diversity, but our actions speak more impactfully than our words.

    For example, the Washington Post tells me that “Starbucks is departing Union Station on Sunday while citing safety concerns…” That is the first sentence of the article. The second sentence tells me that crime in Union Station is decreasing. The safety concerns they cite? Houseless people.

    Here in Alexandria, where the government is preserving green space by building taller instead of wider, I’ve learned that co-locating affordable housing and a school is a non-starter. It seems that people who live in affordable housing are a “quality of life” concern, even when the purpose of the project is to “provide affordable housing to teachers.” Continue reading “Housing: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

    Alexandria Needs Medicare For All: You can help

    By Isabelle A.

    The proposed expansion of Medicare to all Americans (and Alexandrians) would solve an important health problem in our community: nearly 10% of Alexandrians are currently uninsured. This matters because under-insurance disproportionately impacts our marginalized and undocumented communities. Medicare For All would alleviate this disparity by providing universalized care. At present, 25% of pregnant Alexandrians do not receive early prenatal care. With reproductive healthcare under attack in the United States, this is unacceptably immoral. Medicare For All is an antiracist and intersectional method of minimizing disparities for Alexandrians, and will support our local service economy; 69% of restaurant-industry workers lack work-provided insurance. You can help by taking action today. Continue reading “Alexandria Needs Medicare For All: You can help”