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In this roller-coaster election, the one thing that we could confirm early was that 2020 was a great year for young voters. Nationwide, 17 percent of voters were between the ages of 18 and 29. They were highly activated even before the election - 51 percent tried to get a peer to vote and 70 percent talked to friends about the election. This generation believes that they have the power to create change (83%) and, because of COVID-19, that politics shapes their daily lives (79%). In three battleground states, the youth vote contributed to the wins of Democratic senate challengers.

Across the country, young people are not only mobilizing to register and vote, they are seeking to expand the franchise by lowering the voting age through campaigns like Vote16USA. These efforts have led to municipal ballot measures in Berkeley, Culver City, Oakland, Palo Alto, and San Francisco. Sarah Cheung, 17, of the San Francisco Youth Commission’s Civic Engagement Committee describes this expanding movement: “During these past years, in unsure and politically tumultuous times, we’ve seen a lot of young people stepping up and getting politically engaged.” Proposition 18, which would have given some 17-year-olds the ability to participate in primary elections, failed to pass, by a lot (55% to 45%). However, based on the momentum behind this movement, it’s likely that they’ll be back, and that’s a good thing. Youth participation means a stronger democracy, a more involved citizenry, increased governmental accountability, and better representation.

What’s keeping youth engaged in politics, even after the election? Their top three issues are the environment, racism, and healthcare access and affordability. These issues represent the health of individuals, our society, and our planet - so, we’re in good hands for the future.

This growing anxiety not only stems from whether or not our preferred candidate won, it’s also the result of a climate of division.

The polarization that voters feel is further fueled by opposing views about the pandemic, racial justice, immigration, climate change, and more. We are a country at odds and in crisis, that’s not good for anyone’s mental health. All of this comes with ongoing COVID-19 containment measures exacting tolls of their own - including isolation and loneliness, financial insecurity, and rising rates of domestic violence.

In this difficult and unprecedented time, it is more important than ever that we take care of ourselves and one another. The Atlantic’s How to Build a Life column by Arthur Brooks, host of the podcast The Art of Happiness, offers tips for coping with the aftermath of the election and other challenges beyond our control. It suggests that we avoid rumination - replaying, over and over, what has already happened. It urges us not to personalize the election—it was not our own loss or victory, it was the candidates’. It tells us not to catastrophize by assuming things are permanent. And wisely reminds us not to overlook our communities - it’s hard to effect change at the national level, but at the local level, you can actually make a difference.

The people who have one of the most important functions in our society, caring for others, help form the foundation of our economy, and yet they often lack workplace protections, living wages, benefits, health insurance, and other basic necessities that enable them to lead healthy and sustainable lives. Under COVID-19, the entire care economy is collapsing, which not only limits our recovery, it leaves care workers?from childcare providers to nursing home aides?with few options.

How do we create a post-pandemic future with an economy that enables all of us, including care workers and their families, to do well? Supporting the care economy and creating pathways for economic mobility is a priority for the Foundation. But that is not enough. Another necessary step is to build a sense of connectedness and mutuality with the essential workers who hold our communities, and our economy, together.

These figures come from a groundbreaking August report on 1300+ survivors led by FreeFrom, one of our grantee partners working to dismantle the deep nexus between financial insecurity and domestic violence.

Despite these staggering numbers, providing financial relief for survivors isn’t the norm. As FreeFrom points out, this reveals an uncomfortable truth: that as a society we don’t trust survivors to spend direct-assistance money in the “right” way. FreeFrom bucked this convention, establishing the only open-application, unrestricted cash grant program available to survivors across the nation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as calls to domestic violence hotlines increased and the economy contracted.

Beyond the pandemic, FreeFrom imagines an alternate world: one where banks help survivors keep their money safe from abusers through enhanced fraud protections; one where survivors can contact their health insurance companies to get premiums waived for the treatment of injuries; or one where survivors can take time off from their jobs to relocate without worrying about having enough accrued leave. To this end, FreeFrom established a set of guidelines for banks to implement new systems, products, and training to help their customers keep themselves - and their assets - safe. Working to establish a more just and supportive set of financial systems can help survivors forge a path out of domestic violence.

“And then when you think about how we address violence, it often uses the same tools: we control to try to end violence, we use power to try to end violence. But ultimately, are you really going to end violence using the tools that create violence?”

Mayerson implores us to rethink this entirely, and instead use the language of safety. Connection, belonging, economic prosperity, leadership and agency, positive identity — these are the core tenets of prevention and the building blocks of a society that can successfully end domestic violence. This month, we are speaking to many leaders like Mayerson to hear how they envision a world without domestic violence and how we can begin to more effectively describe it. We will have more to share from these conversations soon.

Over the last two years, Blue Shield of California Foundation has launched and supported Reimagine Lab, a human-centered design lab where 16 fellows across California collaborated to develop new solutions to break the cycle of domestic violence in their communities. A number of promising prevention-focused ideas stemmed from this creative initiative. For example, a group of fellows formed Anti-Violence Ventures to break the cycle of violence in the Black community through a series of community conversations with a focus on engaging Black men and boys. Another group developed Got Your Back (GYB) to teach youth about healthy relationships through a mobile app that flags unhealthy language and behaviors. Other fellows formed History Reimagined, which focuses on youth at risk of incarceration, and aims to build confidence and resilience by helping them reclaim their community and family histories and share them through storytelling. Influencers4Justice is another model where local, connected leaders - often in communities of color - leverage their networks and platforms to educate and advocate for domestic violence prevention in their communities. You can read more about each of these unique initiatives and more about Reimagine Lab here.
 

“What we see with the heat wave, the wildfires, the COVID pandemic, is a compounding of disasters,” said Michael Mendez, a professor of environmental policy at the University of California, Irvine, in a piece by CalMatters about these colliding crises. “And with that compounding of disaster we see cascading health and economic impacts to migrant communities and other low-income communities of color.”

As the CalMatters story details, the Central Valley had some of the state’s worst air quality even before fire season. It is surrounded by freeways and agricultural fields, and spattered with oil and gas production. Mountain ranges around the valley also trap soot and smog-forming pollutants.

Outside of the valley and across the state, Californians are battling the effects of the fires. KQED tells the story of 11-year-old Ta’Kira Dannette Byrd, who was diagnosed with asthma at age five and lives with her mother and two brothers in a low-income housing development in Vallejo.

The family already has made several frightening asthma-related trips to the E.R.—and they are not alone in their struggle. Black children like Ta’Kira are disproportionately impacted by asthma and are more likely to be hospitalized for it, especially in low-income neighborhoods. As John Balmes, professor of medicine and environmental health sciences at UCSF and UC Berkeley told KQED, this is because of higher exposure to air pollution, but also indirect factors including discrimination, poor housing, and poverty.

Blue Shield of California Foundation’s partnership with the Public Health Institute’s Regional Asthma Management and Prevention Program (RAMP) aims to reduce the burden of asthma with a focus on health equity. Its work has led to policy solutions across housing, health care, schools, and the environment—generating positive outcomes for low-income Californians well beyond asthma.

In a recent LATimes op-ed, Joe Lumarda, board chair of the California Wellness Foundation and a senior vice president at Capital Group, reflects on his parents’ lives as essential workers.

His parents were employees of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange and beloved members of an extended family, not as workers, but as essential members of a human community. After decades of service, the convent continued to support his parents in their retirement. The Mother Superior told Lumardo, “You should know that you will never have to worry about your parents.”

This is a dramatic contrast from the conditions of most essential workers today. Across the country, essential workers are paid far less than average wage. In California, they earn $3,170 per month. In a state where the median monthly rent for a studio apartment is $1,950, they expend much of that on housing. A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that one in four essential workers reported difficulty meeting basic household needs. Their conditions and challenges have only been compounded by COVID-19.

Consider the childcare field, which is often staffed by women, immigrants, people of color, and emerging entrepreneurs. Their careers have been upended, and, in many cases, ended by the pandemic. Kirsten Hove, a childcare provider in San Francisco told the LATimes “I really had no idea how bad this pandemic would be. I thought we’d go shelter in place and it would be over and we’d reopen again.” Her business, which her mother started 30 years ago, has closed two of its three locations. Even before COVID-19, providers were struggling to make ends meet and 60% of Californians lived in childcare deserts. Today, after the closure of over 1,200 childcare centers, that percentage is even higher.

Fresno is the fifth most populous city in California, the largest metro area in the Central Valley, and it faces some of the greatest economic and racial disparities in the region. Fresno residents are struggling with the rising cost of living alongside housing insecurity, limited employment opportunities, and multiple threats to health and safety.

New America, in partnership with Fresno’s DRIVE Initiative, is working to change this by ensuring more inclusive economic growth for Fresno’s diverse and vibrant communities. They began by conducting human-centered research grounded in the understanding that workers, as the “end users” of public policy, are essential voices in the development of solutions for economic growth and inclusivity. Through a series of interviews, New America was able to better understand the struggles and lived experiences of Fresno residents in their own words. The workers spoke of economic precarity due to lack of stable, well-paying jobs and automation, housing insecurity, and health issues stemming from poverty that affect both their mental and physical health. Most interviewees also reported experiencing racial discrimination, often limiting their opportunities for economic mobility.

Through their research, New America developed recommendations - including ensuring that workers are able to change industries in response to automation by investing in the development of transferable skills. The thoughtful recommendations highlight the need to ensure that community voices influence policy in order to create a more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous Fresno for all of its residents.
 

What’s essential, Dr. Pastor says, is that we see and correct past patterns of racialized opportunity and asset stripping and that we try to involve people in the design of new programs in a much more democratic and equitable way.

Dr. Pastor is the author of the State of Resistance, a book about how California has shown itself to be a leader in resistance to unjust policies that exacerbate inequity. You can watch him speak on these topics here, at an event supported by the Foundation.
 

Amid these dual pandemics, we have witnessed some important glimmers of hope in the pursuit of equity. In the past month, the Supreme Court ruled that federal law prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The Court also ruled against the termination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which has allowed almost 670,000 undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. while they were children to stay in the only home they have ever known. Vox interviews three LGBTQ DACA recipients in the wake of these two decisions — both momentous but also illustrative of the work that is left to be done in the fight for equity. The DREAMers’ candid reflections and personal stories paint a portrait of lives replete with resilience — and, ultimately, hope.

Artists have an important role in helping us see the world around us — the tensions and conflicts, the scars and stretch marks, and the dreams and possibilities that are within our reach. In these times, artists are helping us navigate social change by producing powerful art that is freely accessible in communities, sometimes using boarded-up windows as their canvas.

A powerful photo essay by Verge captures the language and stories of protest and resistance and the growing call for justice and safety through community art. The artwork documents the police violence that Dr. Leandris Liburd, associate director of the minority health office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described as “...exact[ing] a trauma on the community that we have yet to really address.”

The Center for Cultural Power has published a comprehensive cultural strategy activation guide for artists and activists. It describes the important intersections of these two groups of cultural workers and the opportunities for them to create a more inclusive society by telling a shared story about who we want to become.

In her day job with the Chula Vista Community Collaborative, Meza helps people with chronic health conditions address nonclinical needs.

Meza recalls how desperate for help her clients were during the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many immigrant families were avoiding social and healthcare services because they worried that using these services could violate the Trump administration’s new public charge rule. However, they were comfortable looking to her for answers. In highlighting this important role Meza plays in providing culturally responsive services, the piece shows why many advocates are calling for the creation of a “community health corps” staffed by tens of thousands of CHWs who could conduct COVID-19 testing, distribute necessary resources (such as food, masks, and hand sanitizer), provide information, and perform contact tracing, which involves identifying and counseling people who may have been exposed to the virus.

There is data on this that backs up the effectiveness of CHWs. Various reviews of a 10-year-old program, the Center for Community Health Workers at the University of Pennsylvania, show that CHWs improved health outcomes and reduced hospitalizations. The piece also highlights a recent study in Health Affairs that demonstrated cost-savings, tools, and an evaluation from the CDC that found “strong evidence” that using community health workers as part of multidisciplinary teams “improved health-related outcomes” in people with chronic disease.