Curve is flattened; next, let’s crush poverty

San Antonians have done an extraordinary job working with city and county leaders to reduce the effects of the coronavirus in our area.

As a result, San Antonio, the seventh-largest city in the nation with 1.5 million people, and surrounding Bexar County have recorded, as of this writing, 62 deaths attributable to COVID-19, the lowest among the 10 largest cities in the nation.

We have learned some things about our community over the past few months.

First, we are far more interdependent than we understood. So many things are interrelated in our city, linking together people at every level of the societal pyramid. When people are laid off because tourism shuts down, they cannot pay rent; soon the owners of the rental properties cannot make their mortgage payments; banks must then record nonperforming loans to bank examiners assessing the condition of banks; in turn, our financial system is endangered.

The point is that in ordinary times, we think of working people at the bottom of the pyramid and powerful, wealthy institutions at the top. But, it turns out, we are dependent on each other, from top to bottom, to keep our society functioning. In the years ahead, I hope we will remember how closely we are linked.

Second, related to this, is the role of the people who have stayed on to work as we shut down our economy. In normal times, they are invisible and we tend to take them for granted; in times like these, we call them essential workers. But essential also means they are exposed to the virus more than those of us who stay safely at home.

These are the people who process our food, transport it, and work in the grocery stores and takeout eateries so we all have enough to eat. They are the health workers, the doctors and nurses, but also the hospital orderlies, custodial workers, hazardous materials handlers and staffers. They are public safety personnel — police, firemen, emergency medical technicians and security guards.

To these we must add the bus drivers, mechanics, construction workers, cargo truck drivers, maintenance and repair workers, water and power technicians, gas station and store operators, and many others. We have found symbolic ways to thank them, but it will be important to act on the ultimate acts of respect and appreciation: understanding their wage needs and working conditions as the emergency passes.

Third, we have heard for years that for many Americans, poverty is as close as missing one paycheck. We saw what that looks like in San Antonio in the lines at our Food Bank, which has done an outstanding, heroic job.

When this is over, we will have a lot of work to do to regain our city’s momentum, but I would recommend that Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Judge Nelson

Wolff consider bringing together all the key organizational leaders who drive our anti-poverty agenda to reimagine, reorganize and reinvigorate a 21st-century attack on the pernicious poverty that holds our city back.

We have deployed a lot of resources and have engaged many organizations, but we tend to be uncoordinated and too often ineffective. The first step has to be a consensus concerning precisely the kinds of poverty we confront: Is it low wages because of inadequate training? Is it low incomes because of health disabilities? Is it intergenerational poverty and unstable ladders of upward mobility? Is it new arrivals with low skills pulling down wages? Is it the structure of jobs and firms in our economic base? Is it continuing discrimination and low expectations? Is it a mix of all of the above?

We need to come to a postCOVID-19 consensus and target our efforts with renewed energy and effectiveness. COVID-19 pulled the scab off our societal arrangements, and the wound is too glaring to ignore.

We have a lot to work with as we go forward. On the plus side, we are a growing city of opportunities. We showed we can be resilient and action-oriented, and we have a culture of cooperation that other cities envy — the socalled “San Antonio way.” It is not majority and minority; it is not radical left and reactionary right; it is not Anglo, Tejano, African American or other heritages. It is the San Antonio way. Our people recognize it and miss it when they go elsewhere. So let’s put the San Antonio way to work to build a post-COVID-19 future.

I read recently that during the blitz of London in World War II, Winston Churchill sought the help of the United States as a Nazi invasion of Britain seemed inevitable. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent one of his most trusted advisers, Harry Hopkins, to London to bring a personal recommendation.

Hopkins toured bombed-out neighborhoods and burned-out buildings. On the last night of his visit, Churchill orchestrated a chance for Hopkins to speak at a working dinner to gauge his reaction and commitment. Hopkins hesitated, choked up and then quoted the Book of Ruth: “Whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge; Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God, even to the end.”

That is the spirit I detect in my fellow San Antonians today. We can do this! We will do this!