Kristen Sorth, director and CEO of the St. Louis County Library, remembers packed library parking lots during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s because people needed free Wi-Fi, and from the parking lots of county libraries, they could access it. For years, Sorth says, libraries have been providing computers, Wi-Fi, and printing services to those without them at home. So when the libraries closed to mitigate the spread of the virus, Sorth worried about the people who relied on them to do homework and apply for jobs. One of the first things the County Library system decided to do was leave the Wi-Fi on 24 hours a day and boost the signal from the buildings so people could use it, distanced and outside, from the parking lot.
It wasn’t ideal, Sorth says, but it’s just one of the ways that St. Louisans pivoted to address the digital divide, the gap between those who have access to the internet and computers and those who don’t. The internet is no longer just a source of entertainment. According to a recent journal article in NPJ Digital Medicine, digital literacy and internet connectivity should be considered “super social determinants of health” because they affect an individual’s access to employment, housing, and assistance programs. Angela Siefer, the executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance and one of the article’s authors, points out that whether or not someone is online can even impact one’s experience with COVID-19. “I use my phone to track the rates, so I know when I should be putting my mask back on,” she says.
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Now, a new report from the St. Louis Community Foundation and the Regional Business Council, prepared by the Center for Civic Research and Innovation and Ernst & Young, makes clear that almost 55 percent of the St. Louis population live in areas that are affected by two facets of the digital divide. Low-income areas often face three or more of these barriers. The two groups are now hoping to use this data to prepare a plan to address the divide.
As the report details, there are five key components that make up the digital divide:
1. Coverage, or the infrastructure that allows for high-speed broadband
2. Quality, or fast and reliable service
3. Service affordability, or a household’s ability to pay for broadband
4. Device affordability, or a household’s ability to purchase necessary computers or phones
5. Digital literacy, or knowing how to use those devices.
About 150,000 households in the city and county struggle to afford broadband, and about 90,000 households in the city and county cannot afford the devices they need. The type of device is also key. “We’ve all heard people say, ‘Everyone has a cell phone,’” Sorth says. “But it’s not OK to try and do homework on a cell phone. It’s not OK to apply for a job on a cell phone. Online applications are long and complicated.”
Amelia Bond, president and CEO of the St. Louis Community Foundation, likens broadband’s importance in the home to electricity. “It went from being a convenience to a necessity, whether it be used for health care, education, or workforce development,” she says.
The Regional Business Council and St. Louis Community Foundation see the digital divide as a challenge to the future of the workforce in St. Louis and the ability to build up that workforce in an equitable way. Without internet access, it becomes challenging to work from home, apply for jobs, and do other types of professional development or continuing education and training. The study found that children who don’t have access to high-speed broadband will go on to “have lower lifetime income, resulting in $22 billion to $33 billion annual GDP loss, which will continue to grow.”
And there are plenty of children who don’t have what they need. Part of the study looked at the digital divide and K–12 education. In school districts in North St. Louis County, including Normandy, Jennings, and Riverview Gardens, and Saint Louis Public Schools, 40 percent of households need an internet subsidy, the study found. Nearly 15 percent of homes in these communities do not have a computer. When the pandemic hit, Sorth and the county library were able to use CARES Act money to distribute 6,000 Chromebooks and 10,000 hotspots to county children who needed them, though it still wasn’t enough laptops, she says.
Kathy Osborn, president and CEO of the Regional Business Council, says the solution might not be as simple as distributing more laptops. She points out that once COVID-19 hit, everybody hustled to distribute computers and hotspots to schoolchildren. AT&T offered low-cost broadband to customers who had been economically affected by COVID. “The problem is, How do you provide that month after month, year after year to households that really can’t afford it?” she says. “Even if you say, ‘It’s only $25 a month,’ for many of these families, that’s prohibitive. They can’t do it. It requires a whole rethinking of how we deliver technology services.”
Sharonica Hardin-Bartley, superintendent of the School District of University City, sees firsthand how students are impacted by the digital divide. Some live in areas where high-speed broadband isn’t available. For others, it’s an issue of lack of devices. “We have worked really hard to leverage our partnerships so we are able to provide hotspots and devices to our families,” she says. “We were grateful for those partnerships—but I can’t run wire. If they don’t have the service in their community, the hotspot and the device won’t work. What I see with my families is that they want to be connected, they want upward mobility, they want to be vibrant members and contribute and to be engaged in the workforce. I think that some of our communities are just so far behind from an equity perspective that it is a bigger issue.”
With federal money flowing into the state, it’s an unprecedented time to start to make changes. Under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Missouri will receive $681 million to invest in broadband in underserved areas.
Seeking Solutions
As the St. Louis Community Foundation and the Regional Business Council begin to consider how a plan can be put into action, how are other cities tackling this problem?
Consider San Antonio, Texas. In September 2021, SA Digital Connects—a group of public, private, and community partners that seeks to address the digital divide—formed. During the height of the pandemic, a group of private companies in San Antonio began purchasing devices for students after schools closed—except some children couldn’t use the devices at home due to connectivity issues. “That’s what paused the private sector,” says SA Digital Connects executive director Marina Gavito. “They said, ‘Let’s stop. We’re not hitting the root of the issue.’”
Similar to St. Louis, SA Digital Connects commissioned a study and found that more than 20 percent of households in San Antonio and Bexar County didn’t have adequate broadband internet. More than 10 percent didn’t have necessary devices. It also calculated that every $1 invested in digital access would generate $2.40 societal return on investment within one to two years.
SA Digital Connects put together a digital equity plan with four goals:
- Every household should have reliable access to internet with speeds of 100/100 Mbps
- Every household should have internet options with good quality at an affordable price (no more than 1 percent of household income)
- Every household should have access to devices that meet their needs
- Everyone should have access to digital literacy and language resources
The group estimates that it needs about $500 million–$600 million over the next three years to address these goals. The group itself doesn’t collect funds but rather works with other entities to earmark funds for digital inclusion.
As the St. Louis group starts to chart a course forward, it’s worth asking: How can money be used as part of a long-term solution rather than a stopgap, especially when technology is always changing. When asked how SA Digital Connects is looking at solutions long-term, Gavito says the study recommended a maintenance budget to account for replacing out-of-date devices. There’s room, however, for the private and nonprofit sectors to collaborate. Gavito says that some corporations in San Antonio that need to replace laptops and tablets every couple of years due to security reasons often give them to Goodwill. “They refurbish them, wipe them clean, and then sell them to the community at a super-cheap rate,” she says, making the devices more affordable to families in need.
Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, says longer-term solutions might have more to do with systems-level changes. “We won’t solve the digital divide,” she says. “It’s never going away, and the reason for that is because technology is going to keep changing. We might be able to make broadband more affordable. We might be able to get computers to be more affordable. We will never stop needing digital literacy and tech support. Those costs will never go away. Already, there are things where I’m like, ‘Ahhh,’ and I thought I was tech savvy.”
Budgeting funds for these needs is crucial. “The way it was described to me was, companies don’t have temporary IT departments,” Siefer says. “It’s the same thing in a social system. We will always need IT support.”
It’s helpful for cities to set up an entity dedicated to digital equity, Siefer says, such as the Digital Inclusion Alliance in Charlotte, North Carolina. “Most places do not have an organization devoted to digital equity,” she says. “In most places, it is an organization that does other things, and digital equity is a piece of what they do. So having an organization devoted to it is essential.”
Hardin-Bartley, the University City superintendent, thinks that the strategy—putting money toward immediate needs and considering more long-term solutions—should be a “yes/and.” The digital divide is intertwined with health care, education, and housing, and “the gap is so big,” Hardin-Bartley says.
“I think when people have a livable wage, they probably can afford to pay for their internet,” she continues. “But how do they get that? How do they get a livable wage if they have these inequities that are plaguing and hindering their ability from achieving that? We have to address it broadly. We need to be looking at quality schools, health care, affordable housing, and mental health supports. And yes, by the way, right now, I need to make sure that I can get a ClassDojo app, so I can know how my kid is doing in school.”
