In Part One of the Mercury’s Pulse Check series, we examine the challenges that were roiling the state health department even before this year’s federal cuts introduced new hurdles, and how officials are responding.
Health Equity & Social Justice
The verdict highlights the challenges of holding detention center staff accountable for alleged abuse, advocates say.
Rural EMS services often have long response times, chronic underfunding, staff turnover, and high mental health strains, leaving communities with limited access to timely, life-saving emergency care.
After being evicted from her Housing Choice voucher apartment more than a year ago, Tytinisha Mitchell, a 26-year old pregnant mother with a young child drifted in and out of the homes of friends and acquaintances, before living in her car for several months. The experience left a physical toll on her. She was hospitalized once for high blood pressure and later developed pre-eclampsia, a condition marked by dangerously high blood pressure during pregnancy. Affordable housing options for people like Mitchell are critical, say housing advocates.
Nicky Cao is Vietnamese, queer and trans. She calls it being a minority within a minority at a time when her identity is hyper-politicized and under attack in policy, rhetoric, and in practice.
For Vietnamese seniors living in a mobile home park in Santa Ana, limited English proficiency make navigating leases, code enforcement, or eviction notices difficult to understand. They teeter on the edge of eviction for failure to comply with the numerous demands from the management.
Unhoused and Housing unstable Vietnamese seniors gather on the streets in Little Saigon, communing with each other and preferring that "freedom" over shelters. Severe rent burdens, an aging population, and low labor force participation are factors that have increased homelessness risk in this population.
For far too many Asian families, finding enough food is a daily struggle. As prices climb and government aid wavers, more Chinese immigrant families in Los Angeles County are turning to food distributions for help. Language barriers and fears about their immigration status make this daily struggle even harder.
A musician's openness about schizophrenia spotlights persistent stigma and provider shortages in mental health care.
Advocates in Sacramento say domestic violence is one of the leading drivers of homelessness for women, particularly Black women, who already face disproportionate barriers in housing and health care. Women leaving abusive partners often have few safe places to go, and the trauma compounds when children are involved.