The Public Health Hazard of Urban Flooding—Jalonne White-Newsome—The Kresge Foundation

Senior program officer at The Kresge Foundation, Jalonne White-Newsome, joins the show to discuss equitable climate resilience and urban flooding and health.

Tune in to discover:

• What is meant by climate resiliency and how it relates to community health and equity
• How “sunny day flooding” affects low-income communities and how the effects of climate change arecontributing to this
• In what ways flood and water damage creates a host of other problems and challenges for those affected, and what barriers prevent access to resources for recovery  

The Kresge Foundation mission is to expand opportunities in low-income American communities through grant making, where the focus is to help build climate-resilient communities in ways that are grounded in equity.

This environmental program is where White-Newsome carries out most of her work at The Kresge Foundation. She explains that climate resilience is about reducing sources of pollution that drive climate change and helping people adapt to the new normal because of climate change. It’s also about making sure that those who are impacted the most are a part of the solution.

White-Newsome has been an integral part of The Kresge Foundation’s Climate Resilience and Equitable Water Systems (CREWS) initiative, which aims to address climate-driven urban flooding—the kind of flooding that doesn’t always make the headlines like the flooding that occurs during major national disasters. However, White-Newsome explains that the same level of anxiety and disaster can come from the flooding that occurs in urban environments, especially when it causes significant property damage, requires people in low-income communities to relocate, and leads to mental and physical health effects for those impacted.

“What has been underappreciated is the way we solve the problem; it’s not just…throwing up a levee or creating some type of physical infrastructure to…contain the water…the other critical piece is making sure that…we’re addressing the social infrastructure problem,” says White-Newsome. 

Press play for all the details of this important conversation, and learn more by searching for the CREWS initiative at https://kresge.org/.

Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK