Professor Kathleen Hoke continues to be actively involved in solving the myriad public health issues presented by COVID-19 in her role as Director of the Network for Public Health Law-Eastern Region (the “Eastern Region”), and as Director of the Legal Resource Center for Public Health Policy (the “LRC”). Through the LRC, Hoke provides assistance to Maryland state and local public health officials on issues related to emergency public health powers during the COVID-19 crisis. As Director of the Eastern Region, Hoke continues to advise on issues such as how COVID-19 impacts populations experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity, tobacco control regulations, food insecurity, and mask enforcement. Professor Hoke explains that “COVID has taken existing gaps between those with and without resources] and made them giant canyons.” Her team is working on these important issues through their research and writing, public education, clinical assistance for individuals, and advising public officials.
Housing Insecurity
Hoke is concerned with the public health crisis in the city, state, and nationwide associated with people not being able to stay in their homes because of evictions. The Eastern Region’s pandemic response in this area builds on their previous work to keep families in their homes, while amplifying its importance and difficulty. Prior to the onset of COVID-19, Kerri McGowan Lowrey ’99, Deputy Director of the Eastern Region, was writing and working on issues of housing insecurity, particularly as it relates to school children. This work has led to expanding her work on eviction assistance for those affected by the pandemic into the law school clinics, where she is piloting an interdisciplinary virtual clinic with Professor Sara Gold’s Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic, as well as other law school clinical students, and the School of Social Work. Thanks to a grant from UMB’s Center for Interprofessional Education, the team is working with Prince George’s County and Baltimore City Public School students and parents on “Addressing Acute Housing Needs in the Wake of COVID-19.” Through this grant, law and social work students, with their faculty supervisors and translators, as needed, work with families virtually to advise on housing crises. The group is providing legal information and advice, referral to legal representation through their partners, social resources, and mediation services. Depending on the need, and if and when students are able to appear in court, law students may also do some direct representation. Lowrey’s work in this area, in the time of COVID-19, includes ongoing research into CDC’s Eviction Moratorium Order. Lowrey also recently spoke on this topic at the Network’s 2020 Public Health Law Virtual Summit and continues to write about the moratorium as updates occur. In addition to this work, Hoke, Lowrey, and other Network attorneys continue to focus on other wide-ranging causes and effects of housing insecurity, including tenants’ right to counsel at eviction proceedings, eviction expungement, rent control, and local legislation preventing income discrimination.
Education
The Network recognizes that “the COVID-19 pandemic has presented unique and unprecedented challenges for schools, forcing local education entities and institutions of higher learning to make difficult decisions about how to educate their students while respecting physical distancing requirements and state and federal privacy laws, meeting the needs of students with special educational or language needs, and addressing existing disparities in access to technology for remote learning (the so-called “digital divide”).” Professor Hoke addressed these issues in her presentation at the Public Health Law Summit on “Deciding How To Educate Children During a Pandemic,” which you can watch here. Hoke spoke about “Education as a Social Determinant of Health” by examining federal and state regulation in the area, COVID-19 related school closures, and CARES Act funding and litigation related to education. Hoke also touched on other ways students’ public health is implicated by such closures, including inequalities in access to broadband internet access, health care, and nutrition. Learn more about how Education is an important part of COVID-19 and Health Equity here.
Food Insecurity
Mathew Swinburne ’08, Associate Director for the Eastern Region, also spoke at the Summit, on “Using SNAP to Address Food Insecurity during the COVID-19 Pandemic,” which can be found here. Swinburne has written extensively on food inequality, including a paper by the same name published in “Assessing Legal Responses to COVID-19,” a comprehensive report published by Public Health Law Watch in partnership with the de Beaumont Foundation and the American Public Health Association. In his writing and presentation, Swinburne describes how the economic impact of COVID-19 is likely to push over 17.1 million Americans into food insecurity, on top of the more that 37 million Americans already facing this precarity. He offers potential solutions for leveraging the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the nation’s largest nutrition program, and making other adaptions to protect families facing such insecurity during the pandemic. Swinburne is also working with Public Health clinic students to develop ways for students to access school breakfast and lunch programs to maximize the value of such programs. He has also written on how the pandemic is affecting the food security of Native Americans.
Public Health Official Safety
In light of the recent news about the planned kidnapping attempt on Governor Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, the threat to public health officials in the wake of COVID-19 restrictions is increasingly visible. Professor Hoke and Brooke Torton ’13, LRC Deputy Director and Senior Staff Attorney, Eastern Region, are working to evaluate state statutes designed to protect public officials. Currently, only 35 states have such laws. Hoke and Torton will be presenting on these statutes and crimes against public health officials at the National Association of County and City Health Officials in November. Torton also spoke about “Public Health Official Safety” at the Network Summit in September. The goal of this research is to educate public health employees on criminal statutes aimed at punishing those who threaten them, identify gaps in those state laws, and offer proposed legislative solutions to respond to assailants.
The work mentioned above is just a snapshot of the important work the Network does, and COVID-19 continually presents new challenges. Looking ahead, Professor Hoke and the Eastern Region team will host the 2021 Public Health Law Conference, Building and Supporting Health Communities for All, in Baltimore, September 21-23, 2021. The Conference will address many public health issues including how to ensure an equitable COVID-19 recovery.