Community Living Campaign

Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.

Cultivating connections to help seniors and people with disabilities age and thrive at home.

Marie Jobling

Ensure Equity in Aging – Be Culturally Aware

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The development of the California Masterplan on Aging is an important step for California.  As part of the development , the California Department of Aging is hosting a series of Webinars toward greater cultural awareness and humility.   Sessions are free and available on regularly, with sessions recorded in case you miss one. Over the next several months, CDA will host an Ensuring Equity in Aging webinar every first Wednesday, from 10-11am. Presentations will cover a range of topics including the value of cultural traditions and harnessing community strengths and assets. They will also detail how historic and systemic discrimination and internal biases harm the wellbeing of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), LGBTQ, disabled older adults, and in different ways, all Californians. Speakers address how we can work together to address the resulting inequities through culturally responsive policy, program, and service planning and delivery.

Upcoming Programs: 

If you missed the first few, you can still join in with these recorded sessions. 

This and other important information is posted on CDA’s Equity in Aging Resource Center.

The Transition from Hospital To Home – San Francisco Must Do Better

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The transition from hospital to home has always been fraught with peril.   Now has  become even more so in the era of COVID-19.  The limits on caregivers and advocates visiting and supporting a patient in the hospital, the over stretched hospital staff, including social workers and discharge planners, and the significantly reduce options for transitional care are major barriers.   But many of the problems existed before the pandemic.  In fact, a  Transitional Care Blueprint released in San Francisco in 2008 documented the issues and provide a wide range of improvements needed.  A few were implemented and remain, others were implemented and then disappeared when funding was cut.  The rest are still good ideas that could be implemented locally with strong advocacy.   

As more and more of the neighbors we meet through the Community Connector networks and our other programs face increasing illness and disability, this issue has resurfaced as a critical one to address.  One of our earliest neighborhood networks created a team that called itself the “Keep Helen Out of the Hospital” .  A Community Connector enlisted neighbors and health professionals alike to support Helen in this goal.  It included both a good discharge plan but a commitment to prevent re-admissions which are often result from  an unsafe discharge.   CLC is working with the California Alliance for Retired Americans (CARA) to expand its Safe Hospital Discharge workshops and provide thousands of wallet cards about who to call if you or your loved one is not getting a good discharge.   

CLC will be presenting a workshop at the next OWL meeting on your patient rights in a Navigating Hospital and Beyond.  It will be held Saturday, February 27 from 11:00 to 12:00 on Zoom.  Participants will receive a packet of information via the mail from CLC as well as the Hospital Discharge Wallet Card shown here.  In the meantime, if you would like us to mail you this card, send your address to  info@sfcommunityliving.org.  

To connect with CARA for. workshop near you or if your organization would like to sponsor one, contact jreid.cara@gmail.com.  Or download some of the information  that will be available to those who attend these workshops.

 

Postal Workers Deserve, And Get, Our Thanks

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Community Connectors show their appreciation for Postal Workers, who this year had to battle heat and smoke, bad air, a blizzard of political mail and ballots, and of course COVID 19 to bring the mail to our doorsteps.  Please take a minute to thank the mail carrier who keeps those cards, letters and packages coming.

Keep Us Connected Campaign moving along

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We continue to do advocacy and to share updates with those involved in the Keep Us Connected Campaign.  Attached is a  Presentation we made on November 19 on the CLC Activities Zoom line.   

We have learned the importance of doing a good assessment of need and priorities before deploying equipment and more is on the way.  We wanted to share the Internet and Digital Knowledge Self Assessment Pre -test form  that  we are using so that the process with each and every each and every device that goes to a good home is a good match and makes a difference. 

Hadley Dale Hall Was A Man to be Honored

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We mourn Hadley’s recent passing and want to honor him and share his story.   Hadley remained a force to be reckoned with from his earliest days at San Francisco Home Health to his advocacy for Openhouse.   He was a long time visionary in the field of elder care and long term care services and supports.  Among his many accomplishments, he was a strong advocate in getting in-home supportive workers their first benefits, saw 30th Street Senior Center open its doors to a full array of programs, was a key figure in the developing Coming Home Hospice, and helped lay the groundwork for Openhouse’ growth as it developed services, social support, and affordable housing. 

Community Living Campaign and his colleagues honored him in 2014 with the Norma Satten Community Services Innovation Award.  That award was created for those with the qualities of Norma, the first President of CLC’s Board and herself an amazing leader.  Their leadership was marked by inclusion, innovation and a commitment to aging with dignity and human rights.   We recorded a short video of Hadley sharing his thoughts about Norma and this movement.  

 Listen to Hadley and others as they talk about Norma Satten when this award was first created.  Hadley closes with saying “We need more Normas”  and we say we need more Hadleys.

Read more about Hadley in CLC’s Norma Satten Award Program Book 2014. Find recollections from Bill Haskell, Adele Corvin, Valorie Villela, Marty Low and Bart Aoki, and former mayor Art Agnos, as well more good wishes. Enjoy a few photos from Hadley’s youth and professional journey!   

 

 

 

Inner Sunset Community Fosters Holiday Connections

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The Inner Sunset Community Connector Networks gathered on December 23rd to share food, conversation and a lively raffle.  Community Connector Marina Lazzara with her daughter and friends as a back-up crew, help make for a lovely party after the regular Always Active Exercise class.   Special thanks to Judy Goddess and other leaders in this community for make this past year such a success.  This includes local leaders who have offered to provide a 100% match to donations up to $10,000.  You can help by visiting this link and making a donation.  

And enjoy some of the pictures from the party!


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Holiday Turkeys and Fixings Head for Good Homes

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The most recent San Francisco Food Security Report found that one of every three San Franciscans is food insecure. If you are food insecure, you sometimes run out money before you can buy the nutritious food you and your family need. This makes for hard choices between food and other necessities. San Francisco’s high cost of living is pushing more and more people on fixed incomes into food insecurity.  

CLC has weekly grocery delivery programs that brings nutritious food to  seniors and adults with disabilities in the Bayview, OMI and other southern neighborhoods. Once a year,  we are proud to help organize a special delivery of turkeys and fixings to  1550 household. It comes with happy greetings from their neighbors.  This is possible, first and foremost, with generous support from Glide Memorial, the S.F. Department of Public Health, and A. Phillip Randolph Institute.  

In the OMI, CLC Community Connector Deb Glen and her team along with Patty Clement-Cihak help organized distribution in the OMI and Cayuga.  In the Bayview, Veronica Shepard and her colleagues in the SF Department of Health, CLC Grocery Delivery Coordinators Chester Williams and Vernice Ross and members of HPUNITI for helping bring this special holiday gift to those in need.   Chester is also a member of the San Francisco Food Security Task Force, co-chaired by Paula Jones, DPH Director of Food Security.  This Task Force works to address food inequities by helping to strengthen the food safety net and expand access to food programs. Take a look at their most recent report here.

Take a few minutes to see the hard work of the people and organizations who are tackling food insecurity during the holidays and all year long.


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St. Francis Square Community Celebrates

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St. Francis Square Co-op was the first neighborhood network, inaugurated with the support of CLC and the Board of St. Francis Square Co-op.  The Community Living Campaign Committee of the Board and network members celebrated their first ten years with a special event on December 8th.   Early founders greeted many new neighbors and remembered those who have passed on who helped create the community ties.  Music, poetry and a visit from Supervisor Valli Brown highlighted the afternoon.  A photo collage brought back memories of activities over the past 10 years that helped weave community.    Take a look below…


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Cayuga Community Celebrates the Holiday in Style

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Cayuga Holiday Potluck is an annual community gathering rich with food, fun raffle prizes, music and of course, Santa.   Thanks to Patti Spaniak and all the leaders and neighbors who pitched in to make this a grand gesture of community living.   Enjoy the pics!


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