ARTÍCULO DE INVESTIGACIÓN
Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate
Resilience: Learning From Community
Responses in the Boston Area
Penn Loh1, Neenah Estrella-Luna2, and Katherine Shor1
1Tufts University Department of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning
2Principal, StarLuna Consulting
un acceso abierto
diario
Palabras clave: community-based organizations, solidarity, COVID-19 pandemic, assistance networks,
immigrant communities
ABSTRACTO
Community responses to the impacts of COVID-19 in working-class communities of
color in the Boston area are examples of resilience in action. Building climate resilience
is not just about hardening physical infrastructure but also about strengthening social
and civic infrastructure to reach and protect the most vulnerable. This article explores
the lessons learned from the pandemic for more equitable approaches to climate
resilience. We find that community-based organizations and networks are building
social capital through mutual aid networks rooted in solidarity, care, and reciprocity and
forging new collaborations with government, funders, and service providers. Estos
social capacities have saved lives and can also help transform the systems that produce
vulnerabilities and inequities in the first place. Our overarching conclusion is that
resilience is rooted in our abilities to work together, mobilize resources, and take care of
one another.
INTRODUCCIÓN
Before the pandemic, GreenRoots had been organizing residents against disproportionate
environmental burdens for more than 20 years in Chelsea, Massachusetts, a predominantly
working-class Latinx community. On March 11, 2020, 2 days before the pandemic shutdown
in Massachusetts, GreenRoots convened a call with 15 stakeholders to begin coordinating
emergency response among community, nonprofit, and governmental partners. That group
continued meeting for the next 65 consecutive days and became the Chelsea Pandemic
Response Team with 75 people and 10 working groups. This early coordination helped Chel-
sea transform from having the highest per capita rates of COVID-19 in Massachusetts in the
early months of the pandemic (Massachusetts Department of Health, 2020) to a model for
pandemic response, achieving some of the highest rates of vaccination among working-class
immigrant communities in the United States.
This community-led pandemic response in Chelsea and other working-class communities
of color in the Boston area was not just heroic, but an example of resilience in action. Though
GreenRoots was not a service agency and had no previous experience in emergency response,
they stepped up to catalyze citywide action by drawing on their deep relationships with
Citación: Loh, PAG., Estrella-Luna, NORTE., &
Shor, k. (2023). Pandemic Response
and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience:
Learning From Community Responses
in the Boston Area. Journal of Climate
Resilience & Climate Justice, 1, 8–19.
https://doi.org/10.1162/crcj_a_00006
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/crcj_a_00006
Autor correspondiente:
Penn Loh
penn.loh@tufts.edu
Derechos de autor: © 2023
Instituto de Tecnología de Massachusetts.
Publicado bajo Creative Commons
Atribución 4.0 Internacional
(CC POR 4.0) licencia.
La prensa del MIT
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
vulnerable populations and previous collaborations with government, service agencies,
hospitals, and funders. The social capital that they had been building was mobilized as a form
of resilience to weather the pandemic storm. Those who want to advance equitable
approaches to climate resilience can learn much from these grassroots community responses
to the pandemic.
COVID pandemic disruptions to housing, employment, salud, and access to services are
very similar to climate change impacts (such as flooding, severe storms, and extreme heat).
Whether responding to climate change or a pandemic, communities must rely on their social
and civic infrastructure to reach and protect the most vulnerable. This social approach to resil-
ience goes beyond narrow engineering conceptions of resilience that focus on hardening
physical infrastructure to “bounce back” to normal. Bastante, these communities are building
resilience to “bounce forward” and transform the systems that produce vulnerabilities and
inequitable impacts in the first place. The pandemic exposed long-standing structural ineq-
uities and systemic gaps in government and nonprofit services that make historically margin-
alized communities extremely vulnerable to a public health crisis or to being hit first and worst
by climate change.
In this article, we explore lessons learned from the pandemic for climate resilience and
justice, based on a set of interviews and group discussions with 22 community-based organi-
zaciones (CBOs) in the Boston metropolitan area. These interviewees provided a remarkable
range and depth of response. La Colaborativa, Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI),
and VietAID turned their buildings into food pantries, serving thousands of families each week.
Mutual Aid Eastie delivered 5,000 meals a week at the height of the shutdown. New relief
funds were created, such as the MassUndocuFund that channeled more than $1.5 million to 3,400 undocumented workers and their families. The Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition brought 1,200 people out to the first weekend of mass COVID testing in Roxbury. In Chelsea, La Colaborativa and GreenRoots mobilized health ambassadors to do door-to-door and on- street outreach. CBOs provided hands-on support in multiple languages to assist residents and local businesses in accessing government aid. These responses stretched these organiza- tions beyond their regular operations and capacities. They took on the challenge because they are rooted in an ethic of care for and solidarity with their communities. A deeper understanding of these grassroots responses can help practitioners from CBOs, gobierno, service providers, and funders to advance more equitable climate crisis response and resilience strategies. We begin by reviewing approaches to defining resilience and exam- ine social resilience, equity, and mutual aid. Entonces, we describe our methods and community partners. Próximo, we detail stories of pandemic response and mutual aid and how these have impacted CBOs and social and civic infrastructure. We conclude with lessons learned and recommendations. SOCIAL RESILIENCE, EQUITY, AND MUTUAL AID Climate resilience frameworks and programs have emerged over the last decade as severe storms, flooding, and extreme heat have become more frequent. In the climate field, resilience has often been framed as an adaptation strategy, as opposed to mitigation. Resilience, cómo- alguna vez, is a broad concept that goes beyond climate with many definitions across various disci- plines, including ecology, engineering, and psychology. The climate field is heavily influenced by ecological systems theory, which defines resilience as the ability of an ecosystem to persist and absorb changes, as well as to come to new states of equilibrium (Holling, 1973). Sin embargo, a survey of government practitioners of resilience found that most defined it from a narrower Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice 9 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00006/2157230/crcj_a_00006.pdf by guest on 07 Septiembre 2023 Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience engineering approach, seeing resilience as the ability of a system to “bounce back” to a nor- mal state (Meerow & Stutts, 2016). The “bounce back” approach to resilience is critiqued in academic and practitioner liter- ature because it is about returning to the status quo, which ignores long-standing inequities and the particular needs of working-class communities and communities of color and leads to apolitical, technocratic strategies (DeBacker et al., 2015; Meerow et al., 2019). The ecological systems definition of resilience is more dynamic, allowing for a “bounce forward” to alternate states, which requires learning, adaptación, and inclusion of those who are impacted. Cómo- alguna vez, many researchers find that this ecological definition of resilience is still too focused on nonhuman natural systems, lacking a social and political analysis and ignoring uneven power relations that underlie structural inequalities (Matin et al., 2018; Meerow et al., 2019). A social resilience approach integrates political, económico, and ecosystems analyses. In their review of the literature, Meerow and Stutts (2016) identificado 16 characteristics of resil- ciencia, almost half of which are social factors (diversity, inclusion, equity, comentario, iterative process, transparencia, and adaptive capacity). While equity concerns from a natural systems resilience approach often focus on addressing disproportionate impacts after they happen, a social resilience approach also examines why there is vulnerability in the first place. The focus broadens to the socioecological systems that produce inequities in both “normal” times and the crises experienced during pandemics or as the climate changes. One example of a social resilience framework is the “people-centered approach to resilience” put forth in the Pathways to Resilience report, which has three core elements: deep democracy, economic transforma- ción, and an ecology that reimagines the relationship between humans and nature (DeBacker et al., 2015). A social conceptualization of resilience must also contend with structural racism and other deeply embedded and intersectional systems of oppression. According to Bonds (2018), a natural systems approach to resilience “conceals the political and racial nature of social sys- tems, obscuring the role of previous policies, institutions, and authorities in siphoning resources from poor neighborhoods of color in order to build resilience elsewhere” (pag. 1287). It also erases the social construction and racialization of “nature” itself, concealing the long history of creating protected open spaces as a means of exclusion and genocide (Quimby et al., 2020). Ranganathan and Bratman (2021, pag. 116) go a step further, arguing for a shift from resilience to “abolitionist climate justice” to decolonize climate change prac- tice and theory. An abolitionist ecology would recognize the deeply embedded racialization of our political and economic systems to go beyond White supremacist logics in conceptualizing nature, clima, and resilience (Heynen & Ybarra, 2021). Mutual aid is one resilience response that emerged and spread quickly during the pandemic across the United States and the globe (Carstensen et al., 2021; Solnit, 2020). Mutual aid is not a new phenomenon but as old as human civilization itself (Spade, 2020). At its most basic level, mutual aid is people taking responsibility to care for one another and provide for material needs. En los Estados Unidos, mutual aid can be found particularly in the histories of marginalized peoples, from Free Black societies first founded in the 1770s and Chinese immigrants defending themselves from racial discrimination in the 19th century to the fraternal and benevolent soci- eties serving European immigrants by the start of the 20th century (Maddox, 2022; Sen, 2020). En décadas recientes, mutual aid efforts have emerged in the wake of disasters like Hurricane Katrina (Nueva Orleans), Superstorm Sandy (Nueva York), and Hurricane Maria (Puerto Rico). These emergencies can spark a rise in social support, though these efforts can wane when resources and energy run out or can be undermined by government (Mao et al., 2021). Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice 10 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00006/2157230/crcj_a_00006.pdf by guest on 07 Septiembre 2023 Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience There is a long-standing tension between mutual aid initiatives and government, given that it is often because government has inadequate capacity or is unwilling to meet the needs of marginalized groups that mutual aid efforts start in the first place. One study of three COVID mutual aid efforts in Scotland found that they each progressed through various phases of being supplementary, complementary, or adversarial with government (Rendall et al., 2022). For some, mutual aid is about building more horizontal systems, as characterized by the phrase “solidarity, not charity” (Spade, 2020). A study of COVID mutual aid efforts in Colorado found three values underlying these ini- tiatives: reciprocity, shared humanity and interdependence, and community-driven care and redistribution of resources (Littman et al., 2022). Other research has identified various chal- lenges to mutual aid, such as who participates given digital access and exclusion (Soden & Owen, 2021; Wilson et al., 2022), how to meet immediate needs versus addressing structures of inequality (Soden & Owen, 2021), and how or whether to sustain efforts over time as the immediate crisis fades (Fernandes-Jesus et al., 2021; Soden & Owen, 2021). There are also many opportunities to strengthen community engagement and organizing through mutual aid. Several reports document how CBOs pivoted to provide mutual aid, as part of their work to address systemic racism and inequalities (Loh & Shor, 2022; Praxis Project, 2020; Rodriguez, 2020; Tallant & Ruggeri, 2022). We use a social resilience approach in this article to explore how communities are building capacities that can respond to a range of impacts and transform the systems that produce them. This approach frames the social processes that have produced inequities that make certain communities more vulnerable. We examine the ways that resilience capacities and strategies, including mutual aid, can remedy systemic and structural inequities, rather than simply return to “normal.” METHODS AND COMMUNITIES This project compiles findings from two studies of community-based responses to the pan- demic (Estrella-Luna & Loh, 2021; Loh & Shor, 2022). In fall 2020 and summer 2021, nosotros estafamos- ducted 38 interviews with individuals representing 22 organizaciones (ver tabla 1) that were involved in pandemic response in working-class communities of color in the cities of Boston, Chelsea, Revere, and Somerville. These organizations work in some of the areas of Massachu- setts hardest hit by COVID. They range from newly formed to long established, and included informally structured community-based efforts, formal nonprofits of various sizes, and funders (public and private). In addition to interviews, we conducted two convenings in fall 2021 with eight CBOs to discuss their experiences and share their learnings. These CBOs are all smaller nonprofits, with less than a dozen paid staff prior to the pandemic. All engage working-class communities of color, including immigrants that identify as Latinx, Chino, Cape Verdean, or Vietnamese. While some CBOs provided some services prior to the pandemic, others explicitly did not. All engage in advocacy, civic engagement, and organizing to address a range of persistent and structural inequities facing their communities. COMMUNITY PANDEMIC RESPONSE The pandemic responses of the CBOs that we interviewed and their allies were heroic, but also tremendously challenging. These groups were not primarily service providers, but rather orga- nizers and advocates. Todavía, these CBOs shifted almost overnight to emergency aid response. They provided direct aid (alimento, financial, and other), support to access government assistance Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice 11 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00006/2157230/crcj_a_00006.pdf by guest on 07 Septiembre 2023 Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience Table 1. List of Organizations Interviewed Organizations Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition (including Next Leadership Development Corporation and BEJI) Geography or Community Served Black/ African American community Type Network/ Coalition in Boston Black Economic Justice institute (BEJI) Black/ African American community CBO Boston Resiliency Fund (City of Boston) Chinese Progressive Association City of Revere in Boston Boston Boston (Chinatown) Revere Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (DSNI) Bostón (Roxbury, Dorchester) El Centro Cooperativo de Desarollo y Solidaridad (CCDS) Bostón (East Boston immigrants) Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council Boston (Mattapan) Green Roots Jericho Movement Boston Jobs with Justice La Colaborativa Mass Redistribution Fund (MRF) Matahari Women Workers’ Center Chelsea Boston Workers in Massachusetts Chelsea Massachusetts BIPOC and immigrant women workers in Massachusetts Municipal Funder CBO Municipality CBO CBO CBO CBO CBO CBO CBO Funder CBO Mutual Aid Eastie (including NUBE and Eastie Farm) Bostón (East Boston) Network/ Coalition Neighbors United for a Better East Boston (NUBE) Bostón (East Boston Latinx) New England United for Justice (NEU4J) Bostón (Dorchester, Mattapan) Revere COVID Ambassadors Solidarity Supply Distro Revere Boston Unitarian Universalist Mass Action Network (UUMA) Massachusetts VietAid Welcome Project Vietnamese community in Boston (primarily in Dorchester) Somerville (immigrants) CBO CBO Municipal program CBO Funder CBO CBO (including language services), health services, business and worker assistance, tecnología, and mutual aid. At the beginning of the pandemic shutdown, groups focused on meeting basic needs, as many in their communities lost work and others were forced to continue as essential workers. Almost all became involved in food distribution. DSNI, La Colaborativa, GreenRoots, and VietAID established food pantries with weekly, or more frequent, operations that served over 12,000 families per week at the height of the pandemic. Several groups formed food delivery services for those with limited mobility or with a family member with COVID. Other material aid was also provided, such as personal protective equipment, diapers, toys, and winter coats. Journal of Climate Resilience and Climate Justice 12 Descargado de http://direct.mit.edu/crcj/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/crcj_a_00006/2157230/crcj_a_00006.pdf by guest on 07 Septiembre 2023 Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience Financial aid became increasingly important as the shutdown continued and many were not eligible for federal COVID relief payments. Groups serving immigrants who have insecure immigration status (and/or do not have a federal tax ID) established their own funds. Welcome Project’s immigrant relief fund supported 1,200 people in one year. The Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) and VietAID helped establish the Asian Community Emergency Relief Fund with other partners, raising more than a half million dollars for almost 2,000 households. GreenRoots and La Colaborativa cofounded the One Chelsea Fund and distributed $1.4 mil-
lion to impacted Chelsea residents. DSNI provided $25,000 to Boston-based artists and over $300,000 in gift cards to residents.
CBOs also helped community members access government programs, including rental
asistencia, unemployment, and food stamps. Even in nonpandemic times, applications for
these programs can be challenging. Individuals from many immigrant communities experience
language barriers and confusion over how to fill out applications. Many hesitate to apply at all
due to their immigration status. CBOs helped to overcome some of these barriers by providing
interpretation and translation. Most groups offered one-on-one assistance to help individuals
fill out forms and follow up with agencies. DSNI already had capacity in the four major lan-
guages of their neighborhood: Inglés, Español, Cape Verdean Creole, and Haitian Creole.
GreenRoots was bilingual in English and Spanish but established capacity to serve residents
in another four languages. The Welcome Project, which had already been running English as a
Second Language classes and training youth interpreters, began offering translation services for
government agencies and mutual aid groups.
In response to the health crisis, CBOs mobilized access to COVID testing and vaccines. El
Black Boston COVID-19 Coalition brought 1,200 people out to the first weekend of mass
COVID testing in Roxbury. Groups provided translation and helped get people out to vaccine
town halls. La Colaborativa played a lead role promoting the health response to COVID in
Chelsea, which achieved some of the highest rates of vaccination among cities in the United
States with similar demographics. They hired 10 promotores de la salud (health promoters) a
do outreach and education and encourage residents to get tested and vaccinated. Ellos
reached people in Spanish and English on the street, door-to-door, and at mobile testing
centros. To help counter the false information that was spreading on news and social media,
particularly among Spanish-speaking populations, they posted their own videos on TikTok and
Facebook.
The shutdown severely affected workers and businesses. CPA, DSNI, GreenRoots, and La
Colaborativa all hired workers who were unemployed due to the pandemic to support food
distribution and public health outreach. DSNI established a small business relief fund, distrib-
uting $10,000 to local businesses. CPA provided more than 200 households with vouchers to
Chinatown restaurants and bakeries to support those businesses and address food insecurity.
The City of Boston reached out to CPA to use the Boston Resiliency Fund to connect residents
who had been laid off with jobs in the city’s food distribution program. CPA worked with sev-
eral other CBOs to serve as a kind of temporary employment agency, hiring 80 people and
bringing on four coordinators who could speak the four main languages spoken by the new
hires to orient them and support their transportation needs. These new workers helped pack
and distribute food through the YMCA and public schools, while CPA rapidly figured out how
to manage the complexities involved in using city funding and handling payroll for these
workers.
The physical distancing and isolation requirements of the pandemic pushed many to
acquire and learn new technology and software. CBOs built their capacity and trained others
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
to use video conferencing platforms like Zoom. Many CBO staff provided one-on-one support
to ensure that participants could engage fully in virtual meetings. VietAID, New England
United 4 Justicia (NEU4J), and Welcome Project received donations of laptops, tablets, y
hotspot devices for internet access to distribute to community members. Neighbors United
for a Better East Boston (NUBE) shared their Zoom account with community members by
creating meetings on their behalf. Además, NUBE, as part of Mutual Aid Eastie, created a
Community Chat on WhatsApp for members to share resources and information, as well as sell
goods, ask for assistance, and communicate with each other.
CBOs also built new models of civic engagement and empowerment through wellness and
mutual aid efforts. Many groups conducted wellness checks, particularly on those most vul-
nerable and isolated in their communities. These checkups were often done over the phone
and included surveying needs and making connections to resources. These groups also rec-
ognized that beyond material aid, many community members needed emotional support.
Many lost family members, felt isolated, and/or needed help accessing information and
resources. En respuesta, the groups formed committees, pods, and circles for peers to support
one another. Por ejemplo, NEU4J made calls to 85,000 gente, holding more than 5,000 estafa-
versations in the first year of the pandemic.
Many CBOs also helped form mutual aid networks. NUBE had already been experimenting
with decentralized ways of organizing neighbors in East Boston prior to the pandemic. Cuando
COVID infections spread, NUBE asked people to serve as block captains to get in touch with
their neighbors. With several other groups, they started Mutual Aid Eastie as a way for people
with abundance to share with those in need. Food distribution became a main activity, crecer-
ing to 5,000 meals delivered each week at the peak of the crisis. There were also efforts to
ensure reciprocity. Everyone receiving aid was required to do an orientation around the values
of the work and sign up with a WhatsApp mutual aid chat list, to help match offers and needs.
IMPACTS OF PANDEMIC RESPONSE ON SOCIAL AND CIVIC INFRASTRUCTURE
The grassroots pandemic responses in the Boston area show that CBOs played a critical role in
helping their communities to “weather the COVID-19 storm.” These groups are led by and
comprised of residents. They have built community organizing and civic engagement capac-
ities to reach vulnerable and marginalized populations, and they have developed high levels
of trust and cultural competency within their communities. This social capital is a key
component of the social resilience that helped people to survive and overcome barriers and
deficiencies in existing public and private service systems. Because these groups are deeply
connected to the people in their places, they understood the need for emergency response and
immediately pivoted their work and resources when the pandemic hit.
These CBOs are small organizations, allowing them to be nimble and flexible. Todavía, ellos son
also perennially underresourced. During the pandemic their capacities grew but were also
stressed in various ways. All shifted some of their work to remote, requiring new technology
y entrenamiento. But direct services still required in-person engagement. As one DSNI staffer
noted, “I have been in the office all this time. Our doors were really never closed. People know
how to reach us via email and phone; [nosotros] gave out cell phone numbers. People understood
that if they needed us, we are here.”
Some groups brought on more staff, often hiring residents, to meet needs such as staffing
new food pantries and providing language services. La Colaborativa grew from about 15 a
más que 60 mostly part-time and/or temporary staff members. New programs were created.
An El Centro Cooperativo de Desarollo y Solidaridad (CCDS) leader reflects, “[W.]ho thought
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
at the beginning of this year that we had to do an emergency fund, and how to establish an
emergency fund? We didn’t have any idea of that. So even just establishing an emergency
fund, learning how to do it, how legally we need to be responsible, having an advisory com-
mittee to actually approve the donations. All the structure that was needed to actually be able
to do this, it was capacity that we gain[ed] internally that we didn’t have before. And we had to
learn in doing it.”
This growth had its own challenges. One group experienced some “systemic chaos
because we have expanded so quickly.” For GreenRoots, the challenge was “staying intersec-
tional but not losing focus.” They wanted to address resident needs but recognized that “we
can’t do it all.” With such overwhelming need that persisted for months and is still ongoing in
some ways, CBO staff were exhausted physically and emotionally, experiencing some burnout
and turnover. A CPA leader estimated that they would “have to increase staff by three-fold” to
sustain everything they started during the pandemic. They were able to do a lot during the
pandemic “because of dedication of staff and volunteers and activists, some of whom we’ve
helped over the years.”
These CBOs also played a major role in forging new collaborations and strengthening pre-
existing partnerships among service agencies, gobierno, and funders. The strongest or most
impactful response efforts were those that were coordinated by individuals or organizations
that were part of preexisting networks, such as in Chelsea with La Colaborativa and Green-
Roots. People who had worked together before, or who had known about other people or
organizaciones, were more likely to coordinate, largely because there was a preexisting well
of trust to draw upon. One aid project led by a consortium of nine CBOs used funds from
the City of Boston Resiliency Fund to assemble wellness kits for families with COVID-positive
members across Boston. Instead of buying commercially available masks, they sourced 2,500
masks from the sewing cooperative that CCDS had been supporting in East Boston.
In addition to deepening collaborations with preexisting partners, CBOs also strengthened
work with government and larger service organizations, sometimes setting aside past differ-
ences or conflicts. Por ejemplo, DSNI deepened its relationship with the Food Project, a
long-time partner, to supply fresh produce for its food aid, but also began working for the first
time with YMCA. “We united and put our opinions to the side,” according to a DSNI staff.
CPA, because of its support for workers, has sometimes had conflicts with small businesses,
yet collaborated with the Small Business Administration and Local Initiatives Support Corpo-
ration to provide workshops for small businesses to apply for federal aid. Similarmente, Welcome
Project reported more collaboration with groups “we sometimes butted heads with,” such as
the business sector.
En tono rimbombante, CBOs became more publicly recognized and valued during the pandemic as
critical bridges to vulnerable communities. Government, larger service providers, and funders
all came to CBOs to help channel aid to those most in need. Por ejemplo, as described above,
the City of Boston came to CPA to help hire laid-off workers to staff food distribution programs.
Funders approached CBOs with new resources and flexibility. According to GreenRoots, “that
was one of the really great things about COVID: funders allowed flexibility. They said, ‘Do
what you got to do with your community, and we’ll talk to y’all later.’ That was amazing.
And that was how we were able to pivot.” One of NEU4J’s funders created more flexibility
by allowing them to just fill out a Google form instead of a lengthier application; according
to a NEU4J leader, “we have proven we can move this work without a ten-page grant.”
During the pandemic CBOs also innovated new forms of civic engagement and organized
in tandem with services that enabled them to expand their reach beyond their typical
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
constituencies. A GreenRoots leader said that “our community engagement shifted to making
sure that those residents who were most disconnected could get connected. We speak
Español, but there are 30 languages spoken in Chelsea. We knew there were people who wer-
en’t being reached.” NUBE “split up all of our neighbors by streets. We asked them to call their
neighbors and see if they are interested in signing up for WhatsApp.” They had 300 gente
active on WhatsApp. La Colaborativa used TikTok to counter false information about vaccines.
As a result of their pandemic response, these groups engaged and served many new people
whom they had not previously reached. VietAID compiled a database of more than 1,000
individuals, 80% of whom were nail salon workers. CPA found that there was a far larger num-
ber of Chinese Uber and Lyft drivers in their community than they had previously recognized
until these drivers called them for help.
CBOs have had to navigate tensions between services and empowerment. NEU4J devel-
oped an approach that they call “wellness-to-organizing” where they engage with people first
through services but use those opportunities to do education and outreach and provide ways
for people to become engaged in campaigns for change. For a NEU4J leader “it’s not just
about getting the service. If they sign up for rental assistance, they hear about housing justice.
If filing for unemployment, they hear about worker’s rights and the struggles. This is a vehicle
to continue our organizing.” NUBE, as part of Mutual Aid Eastie, tried overcoming a culture of
“service-ism” by bringing all who receive aid into a WhatsApp group where they are not only
accessing what they need but also offering what they have (including their time and labor).
One NUBE leader found that to shift from the culture of charity, “we had to redefine it as
reciprocity and being in relationship with each other. It’s saying I have enough. Our folks
say I don’t have anything to give, yet our people were saying I made tamales and can sell
or give it.” NUBE believes the new mutual aid infrastructure was made possible by existing
social capital.
LESSONS LEARNED
For those committed to building climate resilience and justice, these community responses to
COVID offer valuable lessons.
1.
An equitable approach to resilience requires addressing historical social and racial
inequities that create vulnerability in the first place.
Vulnerability to climate change impacts and pandemics is rooted in historical inequities.
De este modo, building equitable climate resilience must be people-focused and intersectional. Uno
leader with the Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council expressed that “there’s so much
money that has been spent for nine months at the federal, estado, and city levels. It’s astounding.
… But with all that has been spent, it just exposed the fact that a lot of the systems people were
depending upon were actually, truly broken to begin with.”
2.
The social capital of CBOs and their networks are a primary resource for resilience.
The CBO networks that connect people in the Boston area and foster trusting relationships
allowed for rapid response to the pandemic and will be crucial in climate emergencies. CBOs
are at the intersection between resources and those in need. As expressed by one Revere
COVID Ambassador, “the first thing that I learned from my experience working as an ambas-
sador and [ser] a Revere resident is that we have to build the trust between us and our
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
neighbor. … Then we decided to have a WhatsApp group so we can communicate. If some-
thing happened, like a hurricane, we can reach each other, check in on each other.”
3.
In crisis response, there is an opportunity to shift from a service culture toward mutu-
ality, solidarity, care, and reciprocity.
In the pandemic, it became clear that public and private service providers were not able to
reach everyone in need. Many CBOs are explicit that they are not service providers but rather
are building local capacities and leadership to fix the broken systems that produce vulnerability
and inequities. Todavía, shifting the deeply embedded culture of service-ism and competition-based
charity is not easy. A Boston Resiliency Fund staff member remarked, “one of the barriers that’s
really hard to break down is the feeling [de] competition for funding. [Si] I’m referring my ten
friends who are also doing great work, does that mean that ultimately my organization will get
less money?"
4.
Building social resilience means investing in CBOs and community-driven initiatives
that build social capital and that can build back better from crises.
CBOs were able to meet the moment in remarkable and heroic ways but often operate with
insufficient resources. Though funders became more flexible and trusted more in CBOs to use
resources effectively, much of the pandemic-driven funding has now ended. According to
Next Leadership Development Corporation, when funders look at CBOs, they “will say, ‘Oh
Bueno, they’re not ready’ or ‘They don’t have the infrastructure’ or ‘They don’t have this. Ellos
don’t have that.’ Well, there’s a reason they don’t. Because funders have not invested in those
cosas. Funders only invest in programmatic, operational stuff. And so, por supuesto, they don’t
have the infrastructure and the systems and the processes and all the stuff because that’s not
what gets funded.”
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
“We will very likely have more crises like COVID. … We can’t exactly say how these crises are
going to unfold. We learned that we’re not prepared. We’re not ready to handle it. The city
isn’t. The state isn’t. And people just had to somehow scramble and get their act together,"
observed a leader with Eastie Farm. The pandemic is a wake-up call for building resilience
and fixing inequitable systems to prepare for future pandemics and a changing climate.
Our overarching conclusion is that resilience is rooted in social capacities to work together,
mobilize resources, and take care of one another. Climate is not a separate issue siloed from
other ones; it is part of an intersectional set of issues. As Solidarity Supply Distro said, “we do
not think about our work in terms of the climate or the environment. We think about [él] en
terms of people.” As a Matahari leader put it, “groups who are doing democratic organizing or
building community leadership development, we are in essence building capacity for people
to survive climate change.”
The pandemic has created new opportunities for CBOs to integrate services with organizing in
mutual aid and wellness-to-organizing models. CBOs should sustain new language capacities
and support flexibility and care for its staff. CBOs can also build on the heightened recognition
of their roles to strengthen collaborations with government, funders, and large service providers.
Government, funders, and service providers should invest in and partner with CBOs as a
major strategy for building resilience. They should continue to build the relationships and trust
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Pandemic Response and Mutual Aid as Climate Resilience
that were advanced during the pandemic. They can provide longer term core funding to sup-
port organizational infrastructure and sustainability of CBOs. Funders can allow more flexibil-
ity for how CBOs use resources and decrease the barriers for obtaining support. Community
engagement and organizing should be seen as a core strategy for improving services and
building overall community resiliency. Most crucially, these partners should listen to and fol-
low the lead of communities most impacted.
While “we rose to a challenge we had never seen before,” in the words of one DSNI staffer,
we all need to take this opportunity to build and sustain an infrastructure of community care
and support. Mutual aid networks help build this infrastructure through reciprocal relation-
ships rooted in solidarity. CBOs do not want to be heroes in the next crisis; they want to be
more ready and resilient. Just meeting needs of the most vulnerable is not enough. An equi-
table approach to resilience (including climate) should also help “bounce forward” toward
more just and sustainable communities.
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