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Kaiser Permanente Supports Covid-19 Prevention Efforts For People Experiencing Homelessness In Oakland

Published

5 years ago

November 19, 2020

Kiki

Dr. Noha Aboelata

Kaiser Permanente is supporting efforts to provide more COVID-19 testing to people experiencing homelessness in Oakland and raising awareness about how to prevent the further spread of the virus in the community.

A $150,000 grant to Roots Community Health Center – a full-service primary care clinic headquartered in East Oakland – will enhance the center’s Oakland Street Team Outreach Medical Program or STOMPTM. Oakland STOMP provides medical treatment and outreach services to people experiencing chronic homelessness who don’t otherwise have access to medical care.

The Kaiser Permanente funding will add one additional person to the Oakland STOMP team, which will allow the medical team to reach more individuals. The team consists of a physician, medical assistant/phlebotomist, and outreach worker. The grant will help the team provide more COVID-19 testing, flu vaccinations, and hand out more supplies such as masks and hand sanitizer to help prevent community spread of COVID-19.

Founded in 2008, Roots Community Health Center serves about 6,000 individuals a year in Oakland and offers a variety of medical and wrap-around services for people without other access to health care.

“It’s critical that we have this additional support for people who are unsheltered because there is so much more of a need now among our homeless population,” said Dr. Noha Aboelata, Roots’ chief executive officer. “To have our team supported with more materials and more staffing is crucial to helping us do more COVID-19 education and linkages to services during this time of need.”

Aboelata said the COVID-19 positivity rate is already high in East Oakland and is currently on the rise. Some of the most serious COVID outbreaks occur within congregate living settings such as shelters, Aboelata said. She added that the Kaiser Permanente funding will help provide the information and resources needed to contain some of the spread of the virus.

This is one of 14 grants Kaiser Permanente recently awarded to nonprofits and government agencies that serve homeless people in Northern California. Kaiser Permanente recognizes that individuals and families experiencing homelessness are at greater risk for COVID-19 because without a stable place to live, it’s nearly impossible to maintain good health.

Affordable housing and homelessness are a significant focus for Kaiser Permanente because housing security is crucial for a person’s physical and mental health. Kaiser Permanente has taken significant steps to preserve affordable housing, prevent homelessness, and house vulnerable seniors in our Northern California communities including:

· Since 2019, making impact investments of nearly $35 million to support the purchase of 37 properties in Northern California, ensuring that some 3,300 units of housing in those buildings remains affordable.

· Partnering with the San Francisco Foundation, a trio of nonprofit agencies, and the City of Oakland to launch Keep Oakland Housed. The program provides legal representation, emergency financial help, and supportive services to prevent Oakland residents from losing their housing and has served more than 3,000 households since its launch in 2018.

· Partnering with Bay Area Community Services in 2019 to house 515 formerly homeless seniors with a chronic health condition or disability.

· Investing $25 million in Project Homekey, a statewide initiative to turn underutilized hotels and motels across the state into interim and permanent housing.

“Kaiser Permanente recognizes stable housing is key to preventing the spread of COVID-19 among some of the most vulnerable residents in our community,” said Ed Chan, senior vice president, and area manager for Kaiser Permanente’s East Bay Service Area. “We are proud to support Roots Community Health Center as they increase access to medical care and expand COVID-19 testing among those experiencing chronic homelessness.”

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#NNPA BlackPress

Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

2 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

3 days ago

March 1, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke