Q&A
Enhancing equity and inclusion in older adult services
0:32:55
·
3 min
Council Member Hudson inquires about efforts to enhance equity and inclusion in services for diverse older adult populations. Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez outlines the department's approach:
- The RFP process was designed with a lens of equity and inclusion
- 29 new older adult centers were added, with consideration for their placement and cultural responsiveness
- 8 new naturally occurring retirement communities (NORCs) were established
Additional details:
- 13 of the new older adult centers focused on culturally specific programs
- The department considered the increasing African American, Latino, and Asian American older adult populations in their planning
- Equity and inclusion considerations were applied to various services, including case management, home-delivered meals, and transportation
Crystal Hudson
0:32:55
Okay.
0:32:58
What about with regard to enhancing equity and inclusion by addressing historical funding and equity and ensuring services are responsive to the needs of a diverse older adult population, including immigrants and older adults of color.
0:33:10
I think you touched on this in your testimony, but I'm looking for something a little bit more specific in terms of the ways in which the plan has been implemented with regard to that specifically.
Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
0:33:25
So when we issued the RFP, we were looking at it with the lens of equity and inclusion.
0:33:34
That has been our focus since that RFP was issued.
0:33:44
And I would say that I'm trying to get the number.
0:33:50
We not only increased the number of older adult centers, 8 29 more were added, and we always had that lens of where were they placed.
0:34:01
We were looking at it with the lens of ensuring that they were responsive to the ethnic and cultural needs of the community.
0:34:09
We also had 8 naturally occurring norks added as a result of that RFP.
0:34:16
And if I'm not mistaken, 13 of those older adult clubs were focused that were culturally new cultural programs like in the house and other programs that were specific to community needs.
0:34:31
So the issue of equity and inclusion is something that we looked at.
0:34:37
We soar, and you've heard me report that we were very mindful of the increase in the African American population, Latino, and Asian American population.
0:34:48
From the last census, and we needed to and we our goal was to respond to that.
Crystal Hudson
0:34:53
What about service providers beyond OACs and Norx?
Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
0:35:01
Where we're not where we have no all of our we look to that for case management agencies when we did that, home delivered meals.
0:35:10
That is key to us.
0:35:11
I mean, we have the first we created 55 commissaries.
0:35:16
To address that so that we could be able to respond to the ethnic and cultural and religious needs of the population.
0:35:23
So it's not only Oasis, but you will see that we did the same thing in each one of the RFPs that we've let since then.
0:35:30
For case management, home delivered meals, and even transportation.
0:35:34
Okay.
0:35:35
There's oh, they gave me something here.
0:35:40
Yeah.
0:35:41
13 of the new providers are culturally relevant and new, and 4 of those were MWE's.
Crystal Hudson
0:35:50
Okay.
0:35:50
Great.
0:35:50
Thank you.
0:35:51
I think you had your numbers accurately.
Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez
0:35:53
I was I remember the number.
0:35:55
Yeah.
