Christopher Gil
Associate Director of Marketing and Communications
Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA)
(415) 282-3334 ext. 152
cgil@medasf.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2021
MEDA Receives Health Equity Through Housing Grant from California Department of Public Health
Aims to address the root causes of the disproportionate and devastating impact of COVID-19 on San Francisco’s low- and moderate-income Latino community
SAN FRANCISCO — The Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA) has announced that it will be the recipient of a Health Equity Through Housing grant of $293,782 from the California Department of Public Health. MEDA was one of 19 awardees of such grants from the state.
With this funding, MEDA will engage and empower a cohort of Latino community leaders to develop a Community Action Plan for immediate and long-term housing, plus planning changes that improve community-defined health outcomes and address the underlying inequities in living conditions.
The pandemic laid bare long-entrenched systemic inequities. Latinos are only 15% of San Francisco’s population, but throughout the 15-month course of the pandemic they have comprised 40-50% of the positive COVID-19 cases in the city. There were disproportionate challenges for the Latino and immigrant community, who were mostly frontline essential workers living in overcrowded conditions that afforded little opportunity to isolate. Many were compelled to choose work over health, the immediacy of putting food on the table and paying the rent paramount to the possibility of falling ill to the virus.
The work will focus on the San Francisco neighborhoods of the Mission, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley, Bayview-Hunters Point and the Tenderloin. The effects of this replicable model, which aims to better state and national health for Latinos and immigrants, will be measured by the following outcomes: greater community awareness for infectious-disease prevention; increased prioritization for equitable housing solutions; augmented health professional awareness; more affordable housing; reduced overcrowding living conditions; and lower infection and death rates.
“MEDA thanks the California Department of Public Health for trusting MEDA to push forward this equity movement around health and housing,” said MEDA Policy Counsel and Director of Advocacy Norma P. García “Our nonprofit looks forward to partnering to create a Community Action Plan that ensures no future crisis disproportionately affects the low- and moderate-income Latino community of San Francisco and others like ours, no matter where they are.”
MEDA’s implementation of the state’s Health Equity Through Housing program will commence on July 1, 2021.
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About Mission Economic Development Agency (MEDA)
Rooted in San Francisco’s Mission District, MEDA is advancing a national equity movement by building Latino prosperity, community ownership and civic power. We envision generations of Latino families choosing where to call home, thriving economically, succeeding in learning opportunities, and leading policy and social change toward a more equitable society.
medasf.org
About California Department of Public Health
The California Department of Public Health is dedicated to optimizing the health and well-being of the people in California.
cdph.ca.gov
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