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Sharon Kha and Deb Knox – Home Sharing
Over the course of the past year, the waiting list for rent-subsidized housing for seniors has nearly quadrupled. The specter of losing your home is stressful for anybody – maybe even more so for seniors.
This is a sweet story of a couple who have found one way to solve the aging-in-place, companionship, and house security trifecta. And it’s very personal to me because I’ve known one of the women for going on 3 decades. And they’re both my neighbors in Catalina Vista.
Home sharing is a way of sharing finances, household work such as cooking and cleaning, and it’s a way of filling some of the companionship gap many have experienced due to social isolation during COVID. Now, Tucson Home Sharing has formed as a way of connecting people to the concept, and perhaps to others who may be exploring the idea for themselves. You can find their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TucsonHomeSharing/.
The Pew Foundation produced this short video – a look inside Sharon and Deb’s experience of home sharing. Give it a watch – it might plant a seed that you can use in someone’s life in the days ahead.
Thanks to Basil from Rincon Heights for sharing the video. You can also find out more about the project through Pima Council on Aging at www.pcoa.org.
Vaccine Update
While the vaccination process is moving along at a decent clip here in the U.S., other parts of the world aren’t experiencing the same successes. Last week I shared the global map showing the stark difference between nations. Now we’re hearing that in Europe there are some challenges as well in terms of rolling out vaccines.
In Europe, they tried to get a broad consensus among EU partners on pricing strategies. The result was delays in making purchases of the vaccine until they had internally agreed on how to try to negotiate down the prices. That put them behind other nations in placing orders. In addition, there’s more vaccine hesitancy in the EU than on our side of the pond. Trying to lock in short-term pricing advantages, and that hesitancy is resulting in this interesting graph. The green arrows show drops in COVID infections. The red arrows show increases in infections. And along the left hand edge of the graphic are the rankings of ‘doses per 100 people.’ With a couple of exceptions, the trend is clear; vaccinations are correlated with decreases in infections.
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The journal Nature Medicine conducted a survey in which they asked residents of 19 countries if they would take a COVID vaccine if it had been ‘proven safe and effective.’ Compare the results to the graph above. In China, 89% of the people surveyed said that they would take the vaccine. In the U.S. it was 75%. However, in Germany (68%), Sweden (65%), France (59%), and Poland (56%), the results all correlate to increases in COVID. With the continued spread of the new variant strains, it continues to be important that we encourage vaccinations.
Please continue working the system and get yourself registered for doses. The TCC continues to chug along giving north of 1,500 doses per day. The same is true at county sites. And it continues to be true that we have the capacity to administer more doses than the state is allocating to Pima County. Pima County residents aged 65 and over, frontline essential workers, educators, childcare workers and of course our law enforcement/firefighters are all eligible to register.
One new wrinkle this week is the feds have made available up to 300,000 doses for what would be a state point of distribution (POD) to be located in Pima County. The feds have advised Pima County health that those would be new doses – allocated on top of what the state gets. The site would be out in the Kino/El Rio area, right where the infection numbers are high, and where many people have challenges in getting to some of the other PODs in the region. The wrinkle is that Ducey is saying ‘no’ to the offer. That, despite the fact that Pima County health and administration has told him that they’re ready and willing to operate the facility, just as they’re doing now, so that none of the staffing or logistical issues related to its operation would fall in the state’s lap. This graph shows the distribution chain of vaccines. And it shows how Ducey can be a bottleneck in them getting to us.
 This graphic shows why adding these additional doses is critical at this time. The state of Arizona has seen a recent decline in the number of doses being administered. If the feds are offering us 300,000 more, we should clearly take them.
It’s Maricopa/Ducey politics, and nothing else. And it places the health of our residents at risk. I know the county folks are working the issue through our federal delegation, and higher. If you see a new ‘state POD’ open up out at Kino, you’ll know the new administration, and the new make-up of congress had an effect on our local politics.
Each week through the Bloomberg COVID19 Tracker I track how the state is doing with vaccinations . The nationwide vaccination rate is just under 2.4M doses being given per day. At that pace it will take another 5 months before 75% of the population is vaccinated. That’s the herd immunity target many in the health care field are aiming for. Unfortunately we have to back out of that goal the large number of people who have said they’re not going to get vaccinated. If some of the surveys we’re seeing on vaccine hesitancy are even nearly correct, we will not get to the 75% figure, even in 5 more months.
Here’s this week’s Arizona total. That “20%” coverage is not for both doses. It’s the number of doses that have been administered, vaccinating that percentage of our population. That means ‘some level’ of immunity – not fully vaccinated.
If you need a hand with the Pima County registration process, please call either 324.6400 or 222.0119. Things change every day with this program, so don’t hesitate to call them if you’re unsure at any point in the process.
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Variant Strains
In the past week we jumped from just over 4,000 new cases of the various new strains nationwide to now over 6,000. The dominant one is the U.K. version. It’s believed our vaccines are effective with that variant. Here’s the map showing how the spread has evolved. It looks like Oklahoma is avoiding this, but the map only shows the U.K. strains. Oklahoma has over 150 cases of the Brazilian strain. Nobody is avoiding this. In Arizona we have both the U.K. and the Brazilian strains present.
Keep an eye on Florida. They may cause the CDC to have to come up with a new color code. They’re at 882 cases of the U.K. strain. With spring break happening on their beaches, it’s predictable that they’ll push past the 900 upper limit for the dark blue coding they’re using.
International Vaccine Rates
A couple of weeks ago I shared a map of the world that showed how each nation is doing with respect to vaccination rates. I’ll share this updated map – it still paints a picture of significant disparities in who’s getting the vaccines.
The darker the color, the more vaccines have been distributed. For example, in the U.S. we have just over 19% population coverage. In the U.K. they’re at about 21% population coverage. In Chile they’re at about 22% of the population. Compare those numbers to some of the African subcontinent nations – Algeria at 0.1% of the population, Nigeria has given only 8,000 total doses and is also at about 0.1% of their population, and South Africa is at 0.3%. From the perspective of equity, and from the perspective of controlling new surges of the virus internationally, this is a serious issue.
I know the World Health Organization is advocating for more broad distribution. There are logistical constraints in many of the nations that do not now have the vaccines. And there are political realities where instability exists and deep divisions prevent wide outreach. I don’t present this here with any grand solution, but it’s something we need to keep an eye on if we’re going to get our arms around the whole COVID and it’s variants issue.
Student Housing Saturation
A while back I shared parts of the UA internal housing study that showed the market for student housing towers was nearing saturation. I have been one of their persistent pests when it comes to advocating they build density within their campus border. But it’s easier for the UA to allow the private sector to take the downside risk and just let the towers affect the surrounding residents. That has been Robbins’ mode of operation. Last week we saw a report that indeed the market for towers is peaking.
Cadence was one of the first student towers to be built in Tucson. They were one of the companies who ‘won’ in a UA-sponsored outreach back in 2013. It’s a 6 story, 196 unit complex that houses rooms ranging from studios up to 5 bedrooms. Yes, the UA sponsored a Request for Proposals. No, they’re not on campus. What Cadence ‘won’ was to be named in the UA off-campus housing guide.
Now, 8 years and thousands of off-campus student housing beds later, enter Cruachan Capital. They’re a Salt Lake real estate developer who owns more than 6,000 apartment complexes across the country. They’ve proposed to the Rio Nuevo District a $15M investment into Cadence with the goal of turning it into apartments – not to be leased by the bed as group dwelling, student housing units are marketed. The proposal is to add 60 units, increase the retail component on the ground level and convert the place into apartments for young professionals.
Cruachan believes the market for off-campus student housing towers has ‘run its course.’ Many of us who have been telling the UA to build their density on-campus have been watching this saturation condition develop over the past 5-7 years. During that time, the UA built 2 new towers on their campus. During that time 10 have been built off-campus, and there’s a fluid conversation happening about a possible 11th.
Maybe there’s a method to the UA madness in keeping these off-campus. Think of the COVID testing requirement they’d have owned had all of the 10 towers that are off-campus been within the UA perimeter. They did mandatory testing only for students living in on-campus dorms, and left hands-off those towers out in the community. There were financial benefits to the UA not owning the facilities. And now the first domino related to a saturated market is falling. I wish Cruachan well in flipping this and marketing young professionals in the downtown core. If we continue the progress we’ve been making with COVID, by the time they get around to signing leases, we might all be somewhat more out-and-about together.
Hotel Occupancy
And on a similar note, last week our partners at Visit Tucson shared some good news about how our local hotels are doing. Last July, during the summer COVID surge, the average occupancy in the Tucson area was just over 42%. Since then there has been a slow and steady climb. The February occupancy was 52%. While that is not anywhere close to what they need to stabilize costs and revenues, seeing a 10% increase since last summer is certainly a good sign.
It’s just one more indicator that we’re headed in the right direction.
Downtown Haiku Hike
Another sign that things are slowly turning around is the 2nd annual downtown Haiku Hike. The theme is ‘Living in the Present Moment.’ It’s poetry, and a little exercise – out in public, distanced, but with others.
Haiku is a 3 line poem that contains 17 syllables in total. There are supposed to be 5 on the first line, 7 on the second, and 5 on the third line. They’re traditional Japanese poems that do not rhyme, and they were often used to celebrate nature. Try this – I ‘wrote it’ during my run this morning:
Ya, ok – so I don’t do poetry. But you counted the syllables on your fingers, didn’t you?
In line with the ‘nature’ piece, the Downtown Tucson Partnership and the UA Poetry Center are presenting this year’s Haiku Hike as a sort of ‘rite of Spring.’ What you’ll find are poems printed on acrylic signs that’ll be placed in some of the planters on Congress and Stone. The first ones went up last weekend – the first day of spring. There were over 700 submissions. Twenty were selected by Tucson’s poet Laureate, TC Tolbert. Take a little time to get out and stroll through downtown, enjoying the poetry and art, and supporting some of our local businesses during your hike. You’ll find COVID safety notices as reminders, and hand sanitizer stations located throughout the area.
Violence Against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Just before COVID hit a friend called me, upset that some of the lines in a ‘Shakespeare in the Park’ play contained language that was offensive to members of the Asian community. I put her in touch with the play director who immediately recognized the issue, and corrected it. It was a teaching moment that I felt was innocent, and likely an anomaly. Turn on the news now and we see nearly nightly examples of abuse directed at our Asian American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters. It’s wrong, disgusting – and it has been fueled by rhetoric surrounding COVID.
Sadly the issue has taken a deadly direction, the most recent example coming last week with the shootings in a series of massage parlors in Georgia. Of the 8 people killed, 6 were Asian. The killer had frequented the places and so he knew exactly who his victims would be.
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Between the beginning of COVID last year and the end of 2020, Stop AAPI Hate had recorded over 2,800 incidents of racism and discrimination that targeted Asian Americans in the U.S. The incidents ranged from verbal assault, to coughing/spitting, physical assaults, and now murder. It’s happening on street corners, workplaces, refusals of service from establishments, transit – and the data show women are attacked nearly 2.5x more than men.
I often wonder what we’re turning into. Clearly the past year of ugly politics has uncovered an underbelly of bigotry, the level of which shocks me. It’s yet one more reason we simply have to dial back the hateful rhetoric that surrounds so many issues that are politically charged. Where we do disagree, we’ve got to do it with a level of respect for the people we’re trying to engage with.
If you’d like to get more information on what our AAPI brothers and sisters have been experiencing, go to www.stopaapihate.org.
Hate Crimes and Trafficking
The first time I saw a report on the Georgia shootings, I said to my bride that whatever else drove the guy to the murders, the women were also trafficking victims. As it turns out, the investigation into the motives for the killings is uncovering some complexities inside the guy. They were victims of his demons and discrimination, and they were victims of trafficking.
The son of one of the victims was quoted as saying his mom often didn’t come home from the place for weeks at a time, was made to work excessively long hours, and received little pay. The investigations of these killings will uncover what was going on inside the massage rooms, but those workplace conditions describe a victim who is being trafficked – and it’s happening in some Tucson massage establishments.
Since my office began working on trafficking issues, we’ve also been working with TPD leadership on changes we can make in our codes and licensing to give us a greater chance of identifying the illicit establishments, shutting them down and getting the victims the help they need. On April 6th we’ll have a study session that I’m hopeful will give us the tools necessary to make positive change in the lives of the victims. Here’s the agenda request I’ve submitted, with the support of both Council Members Lee and Fimbres.
There is considerable support from legitimate massage establishments for the changes we’re going to make. They include things such as requiring proof of State licenses for every employee on the premises, examples of illicit sex services that are prohibited, licensing each establishment separately, and soliciting on sites that are clearly selling sex. Those sites are all over the internet – and the establishments we’re concerned with regularly advertise on them.
One of the reasons we’ve got such strong support from legitimate massage establishments for these changes is their employees sometimes get customers who wander in expecting something other than a massage, giving the whole industry the reputation of dealing in illicit sex, and human trafficking. That’s not accurate. I hope with these changes to have a positive effect on that, and most importantly to be able to get some of the women being victimized into services they can benefit from.
Reid Park Zoo Master Plan
The Mayor and Council voted to suspend the planned Pathways to Asia project and allow 45 days to gather more public input. The vote was based on this motion:
My option for compromise was presented at the council meeting. Here it is again – added water features, increased number of trees, ADA accessible, educational components related to water conservation, increased turf area by removing existing asphalt, and the possibility of adding amenities for events such as weddings or quinceaneras. I expect it to be included in what’s discussed in the upcoming meetings.
Staff is also collecting comments from the community. Use these links to get into the portal and offer your input.
This item will be coming back to M&C in early May for further consideration.
Asylum Seekers
The news now has a regular nightly feature describing the increasing numbers of asylum seeking migrants at the border – many of whom are passing through Tucson. This week we’ll see if changes are going to be made to what’s called Title 42 – a law that gives border agents the ability to immediately expel everyone but children, for public health reasons. It’s a 1944 public health law that closes the border to everything but ‘essential’ travel. We’ve seen under Ducey how open to definition that term is. Trump invoked Title 42 to close the border. Biden said he’d take a fresh look at how it’s being implemented. That fresh look may come this week.
One part of the reporting that isn’t getting proper coverage is the claim that we’re seeing a surge of ‘unaccompanied minors.’ That is a phrase-of-art with Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It means that if a minor arrives at the border with anybody other than one or both parents, the kid is classified as ‘unaccompanied’. When I challenged that description with a DHS representative, he fell back on the formal definition. The reality is that minors are showing up with grandma, grandpa, older siblings, aunts, uncles or just friends. They’re being separated under the guise of being unaccompanied. So keep that in mind as you see data related to this influx of kids alleged to be traveling alone.
Many of the people we’re now seeing are not from the northern triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Now they’re coming from Cuba, Brazil, Venezuela and Ecuador. Many of the Central American people who arrived at the border are still being kept in unsanitary and inhumane conditions in Mexico. The Trump-era ‘remain in Mexico’ policy is also under review. So changes to that, coupled with changes to Title 42 may result in considerable changes in the number of people we see coming to the Alitas Center for assistance. This graph shows the trend. COVID has reduced the capacity we have at Alitas, so the increases in numbers of people is what’s driving DHS talk of bringing in a large ‘soft sided’ (tent) facility to the Tucson area.
 And to further break down those categories, this graph shows the change in just the youth they’ve separated from someone else ‘unaccompanied’.
The city was briefly approached by DHS and asked if we had a facility they could use to house the minors. A few suggestions were offered, but it was clear they’re not interested in the humane option when a temporary tent has seemingly already been decided on by leadership in the agency.
Donations are increasingly important. Thanks to the folks down in Rancho Sahuarita for the very generous donations they gathered and delivered to the W6 office last week. I helped one of their residents unload a carful of goodies. It’s all now out at Alitas. The most important items continue to be the hygiene products, sunscreen, and things that’ll help out during travel. Diapers are good. Small kid’s toys are good. Costco or Walgreen’s gift cards are good in lieu of food or cash. Contact me at steve.kozachik@tucsonaz.gov to coordinate meeting here at the office.
The folks out at Alitas continue looking for volunteers. If you’re reluctant to go out to the center to help, there are several ways you can help the cause even remotely. Being a Spanish speaker is helpful, but is not required for many of the roles they’re filling. To check into that, email at volunteers@casaalitas.org. And this link will connect you for other ways you can support their work:
Thanks for all that you continue to do in support of the families we’re seeing. From my direct contacts with many of them, I know the gratitude they have for your generosity.
COVID on Campus
I mentioned above the concern I have over spring break and the new COVID strains that are popping up in Florida. Caution continues to be important on and around college campuses. This message was sent to Duke U students last week, demonstrating that things are not stable when it comes to the virus:
Their quarantine ended yesterday, but the message to their campus, and to communities across the nation is that COVID may be declining, but it is not defeated.
Please continue your vigilance.
COVID Risk in Pima County
We had some really promising daily counts last week – and then the numbers started to reverse themselves again as the weekend arrived. The changes from day to day also highlight the need to keep a single day’s number in perspective. They’re often subject to change due to lag times in reporting. Here’s the 4-week trend in daily counts for new cases in Pima County that I’ve been keeping.
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We’re doing significantly better than the days of 1,000+ new cases we saw in January. I see a lot of restaurants and bars full of people. Masks are rare in those places. And of course the states such as Texas and Florida that have reopened completely will serve as test cases for new surges. In Idaho last week, the city council shut down and went virtual due to new outbreaks. And the mayor of Boise issued a new public health alert that mandates certain business restrictions, limits on group sizes, distancing, and mask wearing for people out in public places. We’ve been there. It’d be nice if we didn’t have to go back there.
 The Harvard Global Health Institute map has more changes this week. This is what I had in the newsletter last week. But none of this is static.
 Here’s what the Harvard folks have this week. In Arizona, there was some slight improvement in the northern parts of the state, but around our region, we went into the red risk level.
 Most school districts are now moving to at least a hybrid teaching method; students in class parts of the week, in small class sizes, and learning from home other days during the week. All 9 measurement categories are now either in the yellow or in the green. That’s good progress.
Here’s our statewide map. I’ve been sharing these weekly for nearly a year now. Thankfully, minimal change from a week ago.
The infectivity rate for the UA area, Pima County and the state all increased over the past 2 weeks. Here’s what I had as of 3/5.
Compared to last Friday.
The Pima County 0.80, and the UA jump to 0.75 may be the reason the Global health map showed our area as moving back into the red risk category. Broken record alert – do not think we’re out of the woods.
Please keep focused on getting a vaccine, and continuing to practice safe habits. We can see the finish line, but we’re not there yet.
For the NY Times data sets, use this link:
The State Department of Health site is at this link: www.azdhs.gov.
Sincerely,
Steve Kozachik
Council Member, Ward 6
ward6@tucsonaz.gov
City of Tucson Resources
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