California Health Report

Wiping the slate clean

The Clean Slate Practice at the East Bay Community Law Center in Berkeley aims to increase employment opportunities for individuals with prior convictions by dismissing their criminal records after they demonstrate rehabilitation. The group has urged lawmakers to ‘ban the box,’ or exclude inquiries on prior convictions, on employment applications. They argue that such remedies will make our communities safer by making it easier for people with criminal records to get jobs and re-enter mainstream society.

Stem cell agency facing new challenges

By David Jensen

A little more than five years ago, visions of seemingly magical stem cell cures danced in the minds of California voters. Lured by the promise of human embryonic stem cells and the intransigence of the Bush administration, Californians voted to borrow $3 billion and give it away to scientists to come up with therapies for ailments ranging from Alzheimer’s to diabetes. In approving Prop. 71, voters repudiated the Bush administration ban on funding of human embryonic stem cell research. The voter initiative also created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, an enterprise unlike any in state history and one that is uniquely independent of the governor and the legislature. It is also an agency that is facing a new set of challenges as it enters its second five years of existence.

Art therapy in the Tenderloin

By Paige Bierma

The Community Arts Program in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District offers free art studio space and supplies — as well as a place to get off the streets and get creative — to more than 30 people per day, five days a week. It is run by Hospitality House, a non-profit that has served the homeless and low-income populations of the Tenderloin since 1967.

Fit bodies, fit minds

By Kenneth Dyar

In Delano, a poor, heavily agricultural, mostly Latino community, the local school district began focusing more on physical fitness about 10 years ago. Since then, they’ve seen fitness improve, but also student behavior and academic performance. Ken Dyar, a physical education teacher who inspired the change, tells the story here.

Health insurers are the latest punching bag

By Daniel Weintraub

For health insurers doing business in California, this is the worst of times, politically speaking. The national movement toward health reform is coinciding with an election year in which several key California players are running for higher office, and they are all eager to put the industry in the spotlight. Combine that with rising costs (and profits), and you have a recipe for a political free-for-all. It is almost starting to feel as if health insurance is becoming the next tobacco industry — a political pariah for whom polite people simply wouldn’t work.

Budget would cut support for seniors

By Bruce Chernof, M.D.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed budget for the coming year has serious implications for California’s low-income seniors.
According to a recent analysis by the UCLA Center for Health Policy, the proposal would dismantle California’s home- and community-based long-term care system. Full implementation of the proposed cuts would likely leave frail, low-income seniors – among the state’s most vulnerable residents – without needed support.

Governor proposes anti-obesity agenda

By Daniel Weintraub

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed eight new measures to fight childhood obesity. Among other things, the governor wants to increase access to free water for school children, eliminate sports drinks from the public schools and increase physical activity in after-school programs.

A troubled life turns around

By Tony Wilson

Derrick Bedford spent his youth shuttling into and out of juvenile hall on drug charges. Now he runs a program that helps change the lives of troubled youth who are genuinely interested in change. He works in the same jail where he was once locked up.

Photo voice Fresno

By Kevis McGee

Fresno youth are documenting the conditions in their neighborhoods with photos and essays as part of the PhotoVoices project sponsored by New America Media.

Sacramento group proposes parcel tax for youth programs

By Julia Saelee

A coalition of community groups in Sacramento has proposed a ballot measure that would levy a $29 parcel tax on each piece of property in the city and use the money collected to pay for jobs programs and education for Sacramento’s youth. The Youth Jobs and Opportunity Act was born after a failed attempt to place a sales tax increase on the ballot in 2008. But unlike that measure, this one is not a sales tax hike and has no money earmarked for law enforcement.

Subscribe to Our Mailing Lists