• Apr 10, 2020

COVID-19 and the Unfunded Black Belt Commission

April 10, 2020
Greg Kaufmann, Facing South

The American South is particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemic. The author points out the potential for economic development assistance via proper funding of the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission. The SCRC has never been appropriated more than $250k per year, although it has been authorized to receive over $30 million a year, while the Northern Border Regional Commission has received steady funding.

The resources that the SCRC should have received for the past 12 years were sorely needed before, and there is palpable desperation now. The South contains approximately 84 percent of the nation’s persistently poor counties…

SCRC investments in health care facilities and a more diversified economy…could be making a difference right now as Southerners confront this public health crisis.

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