Innovation Ecosystem

When life gets in the way

ONE Neighborhood Builders launches a Central Providence Conquers COVID-19 initiative, with a focus on community needs

Image courtesy of ONE Neighborhood Builders

A family featured in a recent YouTube video produced by ONE Neighborhood Builders, entitled, "Building Opportunity Through Homes + Health."

By Richard Asinof
Posted 8/10/20
Allegra Scharff, the Health Equity Project Manager at ONE Neighborhood Builders, talks about the innovative work by the community development corporation to build a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, from the bottom up, focus on community needs.
Where is the proper place for the collision of ideas between bottom-up and top-down innovation to occur in Rhode Island? Will Gov. Raimondo be willing to spend some of her communications capital to promote the work being done by ONE Neighborhood Builders? How much is Gov. Raimondo willing to invest in Health Equity Zones as part of the state budget and make that amount transparent? What corporate executives from large companies doing business in Rhode Islander are willing to invest in funding the work of community health workers?
The vibrancy of our neighborhoods and communities is often left out of the conversation of economic recovery in a post-pandemic world. As those who toil in the community recovery movement in response to the ongoing substance use epidemic in Rhode Island will tell you, one of the key factors is connectedness, a sense of belonging, of not being alone.
The missing ingredient in how the Governor and her team often talk about economy recovery is what the community wants and what the community needs, which is different than defining oneself according to the job you have.
The spin masters of public relations and communications, with their six-figure salaries, do not spend much time in the neighborhoods most disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic – Central Falls, Olneyville, and the West End, among others.
The new incoming dean at the School of Public Health, Dr. Ashish Jha, would do well to avail himself to take what is known as the “Simon Tour,” led by retired pediatrician Dr. Peter Simon, offered to incoming students, to learn more about the communities his researchers and scholars will be serving.

PROVIDENCE – Much hoopla has been made, particularly by the national news media, about recent plans announced by Gov. Gina Raimondo to retrain and support between 5,000 to 7,000 Rhode Islanders “for good jobs in the new economy,” using a $45 million investment with federal stimulus funds. The Governor used a sports metaphor, “with the promise of a job at the finish line, and [coaching] supports along the way to help you see it through,” to hype her approach.

The initiative is called “Back To Work RI,” to address the current unprecedented unemployment in the state, with the emphasis on job training, working with private partners, including many of Rhode Island’s top corporate employers, to help those currently unemployed secure good-paying jobs.

The Governor’s initiative was featured in an hour-long Facebook video, one of the “ new normal” daily barrage of communications streams she has employed to get her messaging heard widely, including daily emails through Constant Contact, which always conclude with a postscript: “Information is our greatest weapon in the fight against COVID-19.”

In her analysis, the Governor shared statistics from feedback of the reasons why participants drop out of current job training programs in Rhode Island: “Life gets in the way [emphasis added],” Raimondo said, saying that the “lack of transportation and the lack of childcare” had often prevented folks from completing job training programs.

Translated, the Governor’s top-down, public-private partnership, with its emphasis on creating a pathway to better jobs through training and wrap-around supports, acknowledged that the basic bare necessities such as transportation and childcare remain the biggest obstacles to achieving better economic outcomes.

Walk down my street
Meanwhile, with much less fanfare, a local community development corporation, which serves many of the meanest streets in Providence, put out its own plans to address the scourge created by the COVID-19, with a determined focus on health equity.

“The communities in 02908 and 02909 [ZIP codes] have been exceptionally hard hit by COVID-19,” said Jennifer Hawkins, executive director of ONE Neighborhood Builders, in a news release announcing an initiative to fight back against the pandemic. “In fact, these two ZIP codes report the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the entire state.”

Hawkins continued: “This is unfortunately not surprising. Due to high-rent relative to low-wages, many residents are forced to live in overcrowded housing, which results in the inability to safely quarantine.”

Further, Hawkins said: “Low-income residents are often fulfilling essential worker positions that do not allow them to work from home, and/or do not offer adequate paid sick time. We know that if a person has chronic disease, they have a higher risk of suffering a severe case of an infectious disease, and our neighborhoods have high rates of hypertension, diabetes, and asthma.”

Under the new initiative, “Central Providence Conquers COVID-19,” a team of 11 community health workers will conduct a “Social Determinant of Health” screening and, based on results, connect residents with resources, including information on testing sites, contact tracing, food pantries, unemployment benefits, and more. In addition, community health workers are also delivering masks and food to families who are facing food insecurity, according to the news release.

The goals are to prioritize three strategies: increase testing in ZIP codes with the highest rates of infection; increase effectiveness of contact racing in this ZIP codes, and ensure that quarantined individuals in these ZIP codes have access to basic needs. The neighborhoods targeted are Olneyville, Hartford, Federal Hill, Valley, Charles, Wanskuck, Smith Hill, Elmhurst, Mount Pleasant, and Silver Lake; the ZIP codes targeted are 02904, 02908, and 02909.

Clearly, the efforts by the Governor and the ONE Neighborhood Builders are not mutually exclusive; in the best of worlds, they would be seen as complementary. But, the odds are that you have not heard much about the ONE Neighborhood Builders initiative.

To help remedy that, ConvergenceRI reached out to Jennifer Hawkins, the executive director at ONE Neighborhood Builders, with a series of questions. Here are the responses, put together, by Allegra Scharff, MPH, the Health Equity Project Manager at ONE Neighborhood Builders.

ConvergenceRI: In the news release, you discuss your efforts around increasing access to testing for the coronavirus by zip code. First, where are you getting your data for your analysis regarding testing access by zip code? Are you, for instance, coordinating your efforts with Open Door Health and Clinica Esperanza and Providence Community Health Centers, which are the primary folks doing the testing in Providence at the neighborhood level? If not, why not?
SCHARFF: The R.I. Department of Health is providing us with heat maps that show where there are COVID-19 hot spots in our neighborhoods without providing any identifiable information. Our community health workers [CHWs] are using this information to target their efforts, with a specific emphasis on enrolling residents from these areas in the CHW program.

‘Enrolling’ requires completing an extensive screening that helps CHWs identify residents’ needs, including any barriers to testing.

After identifying these barriers, our CHWs work with individuals to increase testing by addressing the barriers. This could look like a CHW helping a resident set up an appointment, a CHW helping a resident connect with appropriate transportation to a get to test site, or more.

First and foremost, we will be encouraging residents to go to existing sites such as Clinica or PCHC. If we identify a barrier that constantly cannot be met by existing testing sites, we will advocate with the Department of Health to create additional sites that will meet the needs of our communities.

ConvergenceRI:Have you been contacted about collaboration with the folks involved in producing the second annual RI Life Index, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of RI and the Brown School of Public Health?
SCHARFF: Representing the Central Providence Health Equity Zone and ONE Neighborhood Builders, I participated in one of BCBSRI/SPH’s focus groups that informed the second annual RI Life Index.

Generally, BCBSRI and Brown University School of Public Health are both partners of ours. BCBSRI has supported multiple initiatives for ONE Neighborhood Builders – most recently funding a pilot to get air conditioners to families with chronic conditions who could not afford them.

Professors at the School of Public Health have spoken to our collaborative on public health topics ranging from how neighborhood disorder can impact rates of chronic disease, to disproportionate effects of climate change on our area.

The School of Public Health is currently working with us to conduct research on Women’s Cancer Screening disparities in the Providence area. I sit on the School of Public Health Curriculum committee, sharing my perspective on what MPH students need to work in the health equity sphere.

ConvergeneRI: How are you capturing the stories, not just the data, around what has happened in the neighborhoods you are serving? Is there the possibility of creating an oral history of what has been involved in assisting residents survive during a time of pandemic?
SCHARFF: Our community health workers are living in the neighborhoods we serve and working with many of their neighbors. From them, we regularly hear stories about how the pandemic is affecting our communities – be it through case notes or bi-weekly meetings.

This summer, we also had a Brown “Iprov” intern, Mimi Sanford, who we tasked with interviewing our CHWs on how their work has changed since the start of the pandemic. Mimi has written a blog post about this that will be up on our website in the coming weeks.

ConvergenceRI: Can you talk about the value of the philosophy of bottom-up innovation from the community level?
SCHARFF: Our work is grounded in resident need as identified by residents in our communities. We get this information from community-wide needs assessments and through continuous feedback loops from our community health workers, who are both residents themselves and working with their neighbors every day. There is so much that we learn from the people that we serve, and I cannot imagine doing true, community development without this information.

ConvergenceRI: If you were asked by the Legislature and the Governor's team where to invest “scarce” dollars in the state's budget to help recover from the disruption caused by coronavirus pandemic, what do you see as the top priorities for investments?
SCHARFF: Everything is intertwined making it is hard to pick one priority – but I will give you a few. We have seen now, clearer than ever, the important role that community health workers play in addressing resident’s needs and helping them stay healthy in safe in this time of crisis.

However, their work is still grant-supported and therefore unsustainable. I would advocate for directing funding to sustain community health worker programs wholeheartedly.

Additionally, as I have said on repeat for the past few years – we MUST invest in more affordable housing. Even before the pandemic, 49 percent of our 2019 needs assessment respondents [n=354] said that there was not enough affordable housing in their neighborhoods and with the unemployment rate much higher than it was pre-COVID, even more residents are now struggling to pay their rent/mortgage.

Lastly, it has been made abundantly clear through this pandemic that that having access to high speed Internet is a basic need. Without it, kids struggle to learn virtually, families are unable to receive telehealth care, people who were laid off can’t easily apply for other work – and more.

ONE Neighborhood Builders is fundraising right now to bring community Wifi to Olneyville – but initiatives like this shouldn’t have to be at the mercy of donors and should really be funded by the state.

ConvergenceRI: How long are the waiting lists for the properties that you are managing?
SCHARFF: Wait list times vary by the type of apartment that you are seeking. Unsurprisingly, our apartments that are designated for those with the lowest incomes have the longest wait. We have designated 15 apartments for chronically homeless individuals and prioritize these individuals given the pandemic. Right now we have zero vacancies – and our turnover for 2020 has been the lowest we have ever experienced.

ConvergenceRI: What is the status of the lottery for the small homes project?
SCHARFF: The small homes are still accepting applications. We have four applicants that are currently being evaluated for the first two homes that we are selling – and that will be ready for occupancy this fall.

ConvergenceRI: How important are strategies around improving access to open spaces and developing more tree cover to improving community outcomes?
SCHARFF: Once again, it was brought to light through the pandemic how important it is for all families to have a safe place to play – even if they do not have a backyard.

When the city created the “slow streets” initiative blocking most traffic on designated streets so families could recreate safely, it was good start, but also a temporary fix to an issue in need of a permanent solution.

Open spaces provide areas for physical activity and these spaces help reduce stress. Trees, specifically, have numerous health benefits from improving air quality to helping reduce heat. They are also proven to relieve stress. We have worked with the Providence Neighborhood Planting Program and Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council to plant and continuously care for trees in Olneyville and will continue to partner with them going forward.

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