An unsuspecting room is filled with anything but unsuspecting power players. Healthcare systems and hospital CEO’s, key mental health providers, doctors, key directors and leaders from every social services department in Sacramento County, County CEO, in addition to representatives from the City of Sacramento’s housing and homeless team - with the meeting lead by District Two County Supervisor Patrick Kennedy, who convened this special meeting.
Kennedy delivers an impassioned introduction about the devastating impact of H.R. 1 on the most vulnerable populations in Sacramento County and how the people in the room have the influence to lessen the impacts of such a cruel piece of legislation. Getting all these heavy hitters in the same room is just the first hard fought battle – identifying the gaps in the system where people will fall through, the weaknesses in communication that are currently being lost in translation, the confusion of a system that was never designed to be navigated by a single individual – these are the problems to solve.
This meeting is just another example of the County leading change and the conversation into regional collaboration, systemwide changes and improvements and the importance of open dialogue toward meaningful and lasting service provision to the residents of Sacramento County. Not surprisingly, the air is filled with compassion and determination to protect our most vulnerable residents.
The crisis of how H.R.1 impacts residents of Sacramento County is bigger than just Cash and Food assistance. It’s bigger than homeless response or mental health response or Medi-Cal. It is each of these, but it is also all these programs and services and how they work together, and independently to improve the lives of people who utilize them to get them through very difficult personal times.
When people have the most basic of needs cared for, it allows them to focus on more complex needs such as building income, job training, childcare, reliable transportation – stabilizing the elements of their life that they can build on. What happens when people lose government support that keeps them fed, housed or covered by medical and dental care? Higher rates of homelessness, deep generational poverty, illness, childhood hunger, greater socioeconomic disparity widening the gap generation over generation.
The complexity of the system, of the people that need the most help, is not lost on anyone. But the determination to create a safety net as legislation out of local control leaves people in a free fall is fueled by the compassion of a social service heart – braced by the collaboration of County, City, health and private sector partners working to better our communities.