[Photo Credit: Pexels]

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For many neighbors, it is a top priority to stay in their Marin County homes as they age. Figuring out how to do so is a question keeping some of us up at night.

It was a focus of the Marin Organizing Committee (MOC) when it formed the Aging and Disability Team. The group is tasked with figuring out how to make that wish a reality. As a team member, I learned a lot.

Leaders Pledge to Keep Working Towards $26/Hr Goal

After 48 Marin Organizing Committee leaders participated in the Marin Board of Supervisors meeting, joined by numerous people online and supported by 50 letters/emails that had been submitted earlier, the Board of Supervisors voted to increase the salaries of In-Home Support Services (IHSS) caregivers to $18/hour.

Leaders delivered compelling testimony in-person and online, and were joined by allies  including InSpirit health care workers, care recipients and SEIU 2015 (who represents caregivers).  MOC leaders provided moving testimony about the limited nature of IHSS time allotments for each recipient. For example, transportation to and from a doctor’s office is allotted only 12 minutes per week, and if the client could theoretically walk into the office herself the caregiver would not be paid while waiting to drive the client home.

Over 70 MOC leaders recently assembled to launch an individual meeting campaign and plan next steps for a campaign to raise the wages of caregivers.  Leaders have been writing and testifying in support of lifting the wage floor from $16.96 per hour to a living wage. 

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"Caregiving work is skilled and dangerous. These same workers were applauded nightly during the pandemic for their willingness to show up at a time when there were no vaccines, when we had no idea how coronavirus spread, when they couldn’t find masks or gloves to protect themselves...

After two weeks of intensive mobilizing by COPA (Communities Organized for relational Power in Action), leaders secured a nine-month, $1.59M extension of the VIDA community health worker (CHW) program in Monterey County.  The 4-1 vote by the County Board of Supervisors extended the VIDA program at current levels to the end of 2022, preventing a reduction from 48 to 18 CHWs by the end of the month.

Prior to the vote, COPA leaders met with their district supervisors, telling stories about the impact of VIDA and asking that they support the extension.

At an online event drawing over 100 leaders, two County Supervisors and allies including the Community Foundation of Monterey County and the Grape Growers & Vintners Association, leaders taught attendees about the effectiveness of the program.  

Fr. Lucas, a priest from King City, shared how he narrowly avoided infecting 200 parishioners at a weekend retreat because Maricela Acevedo, one of the CHWs, and a member of his parish persuaded him to test everyone prior.  When one of the women on the kitchen crew was found to be positive, Maricela went to her house to test other family members.

Another woman, who speaks only Mixteco (an indigenous language in Mexico) got her questions about the vaccines answered only because one of the CHWs, Claudia, speaks both Mixteco and Spanish.  Claudia not only helped the woman register for a vaccination appointment, she came to the house when called weeks later to administer rapid tests and help infected family members quarantine. 

COPA first proposed the VIDA program to the Monterey County Supervisors, who voted unanimously in December of 2020 to allocate $4.9M to hire 100 CHWs.  VIDA is administered by the Community Foundation of Monterey County.

[Photo Credit: Daniel Dreifuss, Monterey Weekly]

As It Heads to the Board of Supervisors to Request Additional Funds, Here's How the VIDA Project has Impacted People's Lives, Monterey County Weekly [pdf]

Local Organizations Seek County Support to Extend VIDA Community Health Worker Program, Monterey County Weekly [pdf]

In Des Moines, Iowa AMOS leaders organized a listening campaign in which they learned how the pandemic was wreaking havoc on the mental health of their children.  They then launched a research campaign with 85 local officials and health system leaders to undergird the creation a new child crisis support system in central Iowa that includes: the hiring of two mobile crisis responders trained to work with children and adolescents by the Broadlawns Medical Center; a new Polk County Children’s Crisis Mental Health System including a warm line, community stabilization team, youth stabilization center; and youth-trained mobile crisis team.  At a delegates assembly, leaders furthermore secured commitments from the Des Moines Police Chief to hire a mental health clinician within 911 dispatch.

Each piece required careful consideration and mobilization of community leadership to demonstrate political support.  For example, 100 AMOS leaders appeared at a Broadlawns Medical Center Board Meeting to support the hiring of two mobile crisis responders trained to work with children and adolescents.  During the hearing, one of the Trustees declared, "Wow, that's a lot of people."  

AMOS leaders followed up on this and other plants of the program, inspired by thousands of Polk County residents who shared stories based on their experiences, conducted research, and organized postcard campaigns and neighborhood walks over 4 years to make new children's crisis support system a reality.

New Mental Health Resources Coming for Children in Polk County, Des Moines Register  [pdf]

Polk County Unveils New Mental Health Services for Children, KCCI Des Moines [pdf]

After 100 AMOS leaders appeared at a Broadlawns Medical Center Board Meeting to support an initiative expanding children and youth access to mental health services, Broadlawns Trustees voted 5-2 to hire two mobile crisis responders trained to work with children and adolescents.  Walnut Hills UMC leader Connie McKeen delivered testimony on behalf of AMOS in support of this momentous step forward for Polk County youth and their families.  During the hearing, one of the Trustees exclaimed, "Wow, that's a lot of people."  

20 AMOS leaders followed up in person within weeks, inspired by thousands of Polk County residents who shared stories based on their experiences, conducted research, and organized postcard campaigns and neighborhood walks over 4 years to make children's crisis services a reality.

In a related Oped, leaders Lindsey Braun and Benjamin C. Bell expressed, 

Anger has been the pilot light that has kept AMOS leaders doggedly pursuing the implementation of youth mental health crisis services for over four years.

New Mental Health Resources Coming for Children in Polk County, Des Moines Register  [pdf]
Polk County Unveils New Mental Health Services for Children, KCCI Des Moines [pdf]

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[At the beginning of the pandemic] members of community groups 'Mujeres en Acción' and 'Communities Organized for Relational Power in Action' (COPA) began meeting twice a week at the onset of the pandemic to figure out what community needs were after seeing the virus negatively impact their neighborhoods. They began making hundreds of phone calls to locals, going to their respective churches, schools and other places of gathering, building a list and figuring out what people needed to stay safe – and financially afloat – as the pandemic progressed.

“What we were finding is people almost knew that they have symptoms or believed that they were infected but they couldn’t afford to stay home,” says Maria Elena Manzo, program manager for Mujeres en Acción....

Organizers made a list of things they believed were needed to slow the spread of the virus in the hard-hit farmworker community. The list included better communication from employers about potential exposure and wage replacement for those who miss work due to self-quarantine.

Organizers met with Monterey County Health [officials, and] later began working with a wider group of community leaders, including representatives from the agriculture and hospitality industries and Community Foundation for Monterey County, called the Covid-19 Collaborative.

In December 2020, they presented to the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, who voted to approve a $4.9 million budget for a community health worker program. That program, called VIDA (for Virus Integrated Distribution of Aid), is currently funding over 110 community health workers across 10 organizations, Mujeres en Acción among them, to provide resources to people in the communities that are hardest hit. One of the groups, Centro Binacional para el Desarrollo Indígena Oaxaqueño, is providing information in Triqui, Zapoteco and Mixteco, indigenous languages from the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero in Mexico that are all spoken in Monterey County.

“One way to stop the spread was to hire people from the community as trusted messengers to talk to people to help them understand the need of being safe, using masks and distancing and all that,” Manzo says.

[Photo Credit: Jose Angel Juarez/Monterey County Weekly]

Fielding A Virus-The Agricultural Season is Ramping Up For the Second Time During a Pandemic. Is the County Ready?, Monterey County Weekly [pdf]

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Interfaith leaders hand-delivered letters to Mississippi legislators Wednesday urging them to look again at supporting the expansion of health care access to 300,000 Mississippians.

The Mississippi legislature balked at Medicaid expansion this year in a state ranking last for health care performance, with 13% of its residents lacking health insurance.

Working Together Mississippi — an organization building a constituency for increasing health care access through Medicaid with Affordable Care Act funding — is looking to reverse those trends.

The organization is backing an option to expand health care access for Mississippians where 90% of funding would come from the federal government, and the remaining 10% required match would be funded by a self-tax paid by hospitals. They want the support for this plan from the state legislature. 

"When you look at what happened when Medicaid was not expanded, the amount of hurt and pain, suffering, that occurred across Mississippi is not just a health issue that's a moral issue,"Bishop Ronnie Crudup, of New Horizon Church International, said Wednesday, standing in the Capitol rotunda. 

[Photo Credit: Mississippi Clarion-Ledger]

Mississippi Faith Leaders Deliver Letter to Legislators Urging Greater Health Care Access, Mississippi Clarion-Ledger [pdf]

Clergy to Deliver Letter to Governor and Legislature Urging Medicaid Expansion, Mississippi Public Broadcasting [pdf]

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The novel coronavirus is devastating Latino communities across the country, from California’s Imperial Valley to suburban Boston and Puerto Rico. Workers at Midwestern meatpacking plants and on construction sites in Florida are getting sick and dying of a virus that is exacerbating historic inequalities in communities where residents, many of whom are “essential” workers, struggle to access health care. The undocumented are largely invisible.

Latinos, who are not a racial group and come from diverse backgrounds, make up an increasing portion of deaths from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. More than 36,500 Latinos have died of the virus, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by The Washington Post.

“If you look at all the negative factors, risky jobs or unemployment, unsafe housing, poor air quality and preexisting conditions, it’s all people of color,” said Carlos E. Rodriguez-Diaz, an associate professor at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.

Angela Orea, a community organizer with The Metropolitan Organization of Houston, said each day she receives desperate calls from families trying to get tested or find care. Many struggle to find transportation. Some who aren’t sick are moving out of their homes or apartments because they lost jobs and can no longer afford rent.

Every day, Amelia Averyt sees coronavirus patients at Legacy Community Health Clinic in Houston who waited too long to seek help after home remedies failed. The results can be particularly tragic for the undocumented, she said. When a family gets sick, she said, members vow to defeat the disease and take care of each other with minimal medical intervention. The repercussions can be devastating.

[Photo Credit: Sergio Flores/Washington Post]

‘It’s Just Too Much to Handle,’ In Texas, the Burden of Coronavirus on Latinos is Diverse, With an Impact That is Almost Certainly Underestimated, Washington Post [pdf]

Leaders representing over 100 institutions from across Mississippi gathered with leaders of Working Together Jackson to launch a strategy to bring healthcare reform to Mississippi. In coordination with the Mississippi Hospital Association, Mississippi IAF is mobilzling to encourage lawmakers to pass the Mississippi Cares Plan, which would  expand healthcare access to the working poor of Mississippi at no cost to the state.  Because of the suspension of the state legislature due to COVID 19, leaders need to get the proposal on the legislative calendar before the end of July. 

While Mississippi is one of 13 states to not have enacted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, it is the one with the least healthy population and routinely shows up at the bottom of national lists tracking obesity, diabetes, and lack of access to health care.