Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked lawmakers to pare down their legislative wish lists and focus on the state’s coronavirus response. But state Sen. Jim Beall plans to forge ahead with his mental health care proposals, including a measure to create a state mental health parity requirement.
San Francisco Mayor London Breed won nationwide praise for taking drastic early measures against COVID-19. But her hesitation over how to care for the homeless came back to bite her.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom charged into 2020 with ambitious — and expensive — proposals to increase health insurance coverage, reduce homelessness and tackle drug prices. Then came COVID-19.
As a national movement for better access to menstrual products gains steam, “period equity” activists in Colorado are finding the path to change isn’t straight. Although Denver last summer repealed sales taxes on menstrual products and the state now requires supplies to be provided in prisons, an effort to repeal the statewide sales tax on the products failed. So, activists assemble supply kits to donate to those who need them.
As homelessness among older adults increases, a movement is afoot to use a powerful 3D printer to construct affordable and durable housing.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom dedicated nearly all of his State of the State address Wednesday to homelessness. To fix that problem, he said, the state must address another one: mental health care.
Communities across California, frustrated with the growing number of homeless people living on public property, have tasked police and sanitation workers with dismantling encampments they say pose a risk to health and safety. The routine cleanups have spawned another public health concern: the loss of the displaced people’s personal possessions, including medicines.
Nearly a decade ago, Dr. Jeffrey Brenner and his Camden Coalition appeared to have an answer to remake American health care: Treat the sickest and most expensive patients. But a rigorous study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows the approach doesn’t save money. “We built a brilliant intervention to navigate people to nowhere,” Brenner tells the “Tradeoffs” podcast.
Some of California’s most prized rivers, bays, beaches and streams are contaminated with levels of fecal bacteria that exceed state limits, threatening human health. While aging sewage infrastructure is largely to blame, homeless encampments are also a probable source of contamination.
“Street medicine” programs seek out people living in back alleys and under highways. It’s a public health approach designed to build trust and eventually connect homeless patients to other services.
