The City of Long Beach is injecting a robust $811,000 into the community's veins through grants aimed at enhancing health equity, it has been announced. Mayor Rex Richardson heralded the initiative as a crucial step towards "a healthier and more equitable future for all Long Beach residents." As reported by longbeach.gov, 14 organizations have been chosen to carry out these Health Equity Community Projects, designed specifically to tackle the systemic barriers contributing to the dire health outcomes among historically underserved populations—a plight exacerbated by the pandemic.
While 52 applications initially aspired to garner these grants, the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, together with the Economic Development Department, had to narrow down the pool to a final 14 after a rigorous evaluation process. These initiatives were cherry-picked to proactively begin to address the detrimental effects of COVID-19, with a particular focus on the areas hardest hit by the virus, "by investing in these projects, we can uplift our residents and ensure better health outcomes in our communities," Richardson stated. Projects range from economic resiliency programs to mental health support, each one averagely proposing to put to good use nearly a hundred grand of the pie.
The grant pool was a veritable health-focused potpourri, with dollars disbursed across five focus areas. They included a quartet of projects receiving over a quarter million dollars to shore up economic literacy and opportunities, two projects aimed at encouraging early disease screening and chronic disease management, and a $285,490 investment into mental health and trauma-related initiatives. These projects are deemed crucial in rebuilding the mental fortitude of a community that has certainly seen better days.
Physical activity and engagement were not left by the wayside, with two projects slated to potentially get the city's youth and older adults moving and grooving to the tune of $75,500. The acts of running, jumping, and perhaps even dancing are expected to bolster community health. The final piece of the funding puzzle went to a project dedicated to nurturing safer neighborhoods, chalking up another $75,000 to bankroll everything from anti-bias training to youth development.
Alison King, the Director of the Health Department, emphasized the grants’ ability "to enable and empower" organizations to launch meaningful interventions to address community necessities, perfectly echoing their commitment to improving the living standards within Long Beach. These newly minted grants trail the previous year's effort that funneled over $3 million towards similar ambitions, connecting almost 15,000 community members with groups committed to their well-being.
The financial reservoir for these initiatives stems from an aggregate of sources, notably the Long Beach Recovery Act and the City’s Racial Reconciliation Initiative. These projects and the organizations behind them are part and parcel of a broader recovery strategy devised to champion economic and public health initiatives, a testament to the city's resolve to foster recovery and resilience in the wake of a pandemic that left none unscathed.
