Mutual Aid Unites NYC Neighbors Facing COVID19

By Elizabeth Lawrence
Kaiser Health News

‘It’s about love and solidarity’: Mutual aid unites NYC neighbors facing COVID

Nancy Perez, a 45-year-old resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, contracted COVID-19 in March. She stayed quarantined in her room for a month to isolate from her two sons and grandson.

A few days before she got the virus, she’d met a volunteer with Bed-Stuy Strong — one of the many mutual aid groups around the country that have rallied to provide help in the face of the pandemic. Bed-Stuy Strong assembled an army of volunteers to help vulnerable neighbors with food deliveries and basic supplies. While Perez was in isolation, volunteers regularly delivered cooked food for her sons, ages 17 and 20, and her 4-year-old grandson.

“If it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have survived my quarantine and any other stuff that’s been going on,” said Perez, who receives disability benefits and scavenges the city for items she can sell to help cover the family’s and others’ expenses.

Perez, who since recovering has been helping deliver food with other volunteers, found herself getting to know neighbors she never would have met before and staying in constant communication with other volunteers.

“I say it so happily that my tears are coming out right now. Because it’s so refreshing,” she said. “There is no age, there is no color, there is no race within Bed-Stuy Strong.”

People are hurting financially and medically from the coronavirus pandemic. Millions of Americans are unemployed and 1 in 4 are food insecure. The struggle is widespread, overwhelming public welfare programs in some cases. Many people are looking to their next-door neighbors for help.

New York City has seen an influx of mutual aid groups — a website called Mutual Aid Hub reports 59 operating in the city now. Though the concept is not new, such efforts have gained energy and attention during the pandemic. Mutual aid involves ordinary people volunteering their time and resources to help one another, rather than relying solely on the government or large institutions for relief […]

Via https://khn.org/news/its-about-love-and-solidarity-mutual-aid-unites-nyc-neighbors-facing-covid/