Dr. Lauri Andress’s thesis regarding Health Equity is that the state of a community’s health is determined by much more than access to health care and good personal choices.  There are dozens of factors that account for some groups of people having better health than others.  For example, things like poverty, unemployment, powerlessness and isolation are bad for your health!  If your community does not have much access to fresh fruits and vegetables, recreation and transportation, members of your community will have poorer health.  If you live in a “community of opportunity,” odds are much greater that you will have a long and healthy life.  So, the work we do to create equity is really work to create a healthier community.  And, the very act of organizing (building relationships and taking control of our circumstances) is good for your health!!

For our purposes as organizers, Health Equity is a “lens” we can look through to understand our work and our issues, rather than as an issue unto itself.   Consequently, TIP (Treatment Instead of Prison) and Transportation, for example, can be viewed through a Health Equity lens.  Health Equity is a way to find new perspectives and tools for the kinds of issues we have always worked on and will continue to work on, not an introduction of a new issue.

As of this writing, Wisconsin Bishop Ricken has made it clear that the actions and positions of JOSHUA, ESTHER, WISDOM and the Gamaliel Foundation are consistent with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching.  His concerns are NOT related to anything WISDOM, the local organizations, or Gamaliel have done.

The Bishop’s concerns seem to have more to do with process and structure, and the form of our relationship with the Diocese.  It seems that his concern has to do with accountability in the event that anything were to go wrong in the future.

The Bishop has established a Task Force, which is mostly comprised of Catholic members of ESTHER and JOSHUA, to look at the concern the Bishop has expressed, and to try to find some solutions.  In the meantime, Gamaliel Executive Director Greg Galluzzo and WISDOM Organizer David Liners have both offered to meet with the Bishop and other diocesan personnel to help to find some good resolution to the Bishop’s concerns.

We all send our prayers and blessings that this situation will be resolved amicably for all involved.

Farmingville is a documentary from the Point of View (POV) series on PBS.  It shows how organizing helps to address immigrant issues in Farmingville, NY.

This documentary is free to watch until November 18 at:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1264711314/program/1154485580#

Farmingville: The shocking hate-based attempted murders of two Mexican day laborers catapult a small Long Island town into national headlines, unmasking a new front line in the border wars: suburbia. For nearly a year, Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini lived and worked in Farmingville, New York, so they could capture first-hand the stories of residents, day laborers and activists on all sides of the debate.

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Tax Credit for Employer-Assisted Housing.  This is an issue that is being addressed especially by the Workforce Housing committees of JOSHUA and SOPHIA. They are exploring the possibility of urging the state of Wisconsin to consider giving a tax credit that would encourage employers to help their employees buy a home or rent near their place of work.  Some companies already do some form of employer-assisted housing.  They might, for example, loan $5,000 to the employee to purchase a home, then forgive $1,000 of that loan each year if the employee continues to work there.  The proposal in the legislature would offer companies tax credits to offset a portion of that cost – encouraging the practice.

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