Giving Compass' Take:

• Brookings' article about the Birmingham Service Corps demonstrates how urban centers can combine health and economic solutions during coronavirus.

• What are you doing to support recently unemployed workers in your community? How does the Birmingham Service Corps address racial justice issues? 

• Learn more about the importance of jobs recovery programs like the Birmingham Service Corps.

Birmingham, Ala., the fourth-largest majority-Black city in the country, is especially vulnerable to the devastating effects of COVID-19. Infection and death rates are much higher in majority-Black jurisdictions than in majority-white ones, and unemployment rates in the Birmingham region skyrocketed from 2.9% in January 2020 to 11.9% in April.

This brief outlines a new program, the Birmingham Service Corps, which addresses COVID-19’s twin health and economic crises through hiring recently unemployed Birmingham residents to meet community needs. Launched by Bham Strong, a public-private initiative formed in response to COVID-19, the Corps has employed more than 300 residents to carry out a variety of projects meeting immediate needs, such as screening public housing residents for viral symptoms, making lunches for school children, and setting up and staffing test centers. The second phase of the Corps will incorporate skills training to prepare workers for future job opportunities as community health advisors.

The Birmingham Service Corps is a model for other cities, counties, and states in approaching the health, economic, and social challenges posed by COVID-19. It is a multisector effort, emerging from a civic initiative (Bham Strong) with broad representation from local business, philanthropy, nonprofits, and government. The Corps itself is supported by a mixture of public and philanthropic funds, and Bham Strong is well-positioned to engage employers and seek additional funding.

In other places, parallel civic initiatives could harness the energy and contributions of local actors to develop a service corps. The corps itself can scale to different sizes based on community capacity and need, and given the continued spread of the virus, it is likely that testing and economic supports will be necessary for some time.

Read the full article about the Birmingham service corps at Brookings.