UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge

The report focuses on mandated shelter-in-place policies, a key public response to the COVID-19 crisis, and shows how the capacity to shelter in place safely and easily varies across neighborhoods, thus revealing structural inequalities. The Shelter-in-Place-Burden Index, devised by Professor Paul Ong and his colleagues, reveals the strain and stress carried by low-income and minority neighborhoods, a pattern that is becoming starkly evident across the United States and that perpetuates existing systems of spatialized disadvantage. We invite you to read and disseminate the report and to consider its implications for advocacy and action.