Poverty, Homelessness And Role Of Nurses In Disaster Response – Oakland, California

Resources and Services for the Poor and Homeless

1. Examine health statistics and demographic data to identify the rates of poverty and homelessness in your geographical area (Oakland, California).. What resources and agencies are available in your area to support these populations? What services are available through the federal government, the state, and the local community? Identify specific geographical boundaries, and survey the area to identify community resources, soup kitchens, health centers, food banks, and clothing distribution centers. How do persons who need these services access them? Give specific examples.
2. Identify the roles of the nurse in the preparedness, response, and recovery stages of a disaster. What role(s) is the community or public health nurse best suited for, and why?

1. Oakland is a major West Coast in the United States of California. The Oakland is well associated with the agriculture as its core economical structure including the production of wheat, rice its major parts (Poortinga et al., 2012).

The Government Social Service defines the poverty as the people in the society who cannot participate and contribute to the activities of the most of the casual people take for granted. California is one of the major areas where most of the people suffer from poverty, or the people have to make difficult choices. For example, the people of the Oakland sometimes even underwent skipping of the meals for the payment of the books for child’s education. The vital causes for poverty in Oakland of California are such as:

1. Work and Income: Many people those are working and trying to support their families so that their families do not suffer from any difficulties meet basic costs of the livelihood each week. Though there are some exceptional cases where the people earn but due to the large population in their families, they are unable to feed or contribute their earnings to everyone. About 418,000 people receive unemployment payments. It also includes the 258,000 people who have unemployment since last 12 years. Whereas, about 714,000 people approximately are disabled to support the pensions due to the administrative and legal policies in Oakland of California. On the other hand about 540,000 parents are on pensions who survive their livelihood including their health on that certain amount of money. It becomes more complicated for the people to survive with all the belongings of life within a small amount of pension (Razani et al., 2015). 
2. Education: Low employment is one of the core reasons for unemployment and poverty in Oakland of California. Family with low education level generally cannot provide their children good education because of their income. They cannot afford the good education for their children. For example: In the year of 2004, about 97.5 per cent of the 236,000 new jobs were only allotted to people with TAFE or equivalent work experiences.
3. Housing: People with low income rarely have their own homes. They spent most of their money on the rented homes. As per, for example, it can be said that over the last two decades, house prices have been increased by 400 per cent, while on the other hand, the income has only risen to 120 per cent. About 1 million of the middle-class people who earns at a moderate rate spends about 30 per cent of their income in house-rents, therefore the level of poverty increases in Oakland, of California. As a result of this, the income gets divided into various parts, where one large part goes for the investments of the house. The other small parts get distributed among the health issues and the livelihood of the people.
4. Health: People living in poverty are the main sufferers of the health such as physical and mental illness. For example: in the year of 1995 to 1997 death rates from lung cancers in men was about 60 per cent and about 98 per cent of higher rates of the health issues in Oakland of California (McClintock et al., 2012).

The agencies that are available to support these populations are such as:

California Council of Social Service: This organization has published the response of the major works done to minimize the rate of the health issues and the poverty level in Oakland, of California. This agency is one of the deliberate workers in the field of social services. Therefore, produces a great impact on the poor populations and the people deliberately eager for the help from the government (Simon, 2014).

 Child Poverty Action Group: The agency work for the poverty of the children in the needy families of the Oakland. They promote shelter, food, education and healthcare to the children in many parts of the world such as United States of America, New Zealand, etc.

 The Asthma Foundation: The Asthma Foundation or the AAFA is the most oldest and leading asthma and allergy charity of America, specifically in the Oakland of California. This disease is one of the chronic and epidemic diseases in California. Therefore the Asthma Foundation worked efficiently to reduce the rate of this disease especially within the populations suffering from poverty (Roy et al., 2015).

Accessing Community Services

There are other agencies too, which helps the populations of the Oakland and help them for the social betterment and make a move for the benefit of the people of California.

There are many ways to acquire the best service for the social benefits, such as:

1. Federal Government: The core service available through the federal government includes the establishments for the national standards of care; highlighting the key facts for the national standards to set in order to help the society to get the ultimate benefit; production of the national programs that would meet the needs of the poor populations of Oakland, California; lastly the core service includes the supply of the adequate funding of the programs to develop, and deliver to the ultimate health care of the unhealthy poor population of the state (Lowe et al., 2012).
2. The State: The state makes a service of providing the care front and center of the state itself. A family doctor or the doctors those are sponsored by the state government itself for the free check of the poor people and getting the medications done an excellent condition. The second service provided by the state government includes the support of the patient’s with well organized medical home. It must be well equipped and well organized so that every level of people can go there for medications.
3. Local Community: One of the vital roles in the health care of the population of Oakland is the services provided by the local community. The services include the timely access; national immunization strategies; national pharmaceutical strategies organized by the local communities; homelessness plans; and poverty plans; etc. (Kemppainen et al., 2013).

Specific geographical boundaries are conducted with specific surveys to identify related factors such as: community resources- the survey includes the information of a nonprofit social service provided in the state. Some specific resource centers are CRC or the Community Resource Center of California which was established in the year of 1979; soup kitchens- these are unaffordable for the poor people of the state; health centers- these do help the unhealthy poor population of the state with right treatment, and proper medications, food banks- Food banks are affordable range of the maximum people, but though the people suffering from poverty, must be supplied with adequate amount of foods by the state; and clothing distribution centers- these are conducted by the different agencies therefore, majority of the people do not suffer from the lack of clothing in Oakland (Haveman, 2015).

2. There are several factors which require the role of the nurses to be conducted in a highlighting way. The factors are such as: the preparedness, response, and recovery stages of a disaster.

1. Preparedness: The nurses serve a critical role in the urgent the roles of the nurse in the preparedness at the local, state and the national level. They carry out different roles through planning, community, and the education of the consumers during the post period of the disasters. They primarily provide care to the women, infants, men and the aged people especially concerning about the valuable populations.
2. Response: The nurses undergo an active participation in variable phases of disaster preparedness and response within their institutions and communities.
3. Recovery stages: They are supposed to engage themselves in respond during a crisis, and assist with mitigating hazards throughout the recovery phase (Findley et al., 2014).

The nurses are best suited for community health. This is because they have the basic concept in including the promotion of the health problems, medical treatment, rehabilitation, evaluation of community help, etc. (Elias, 2013).

References:

Elias, R.R., 2013. Grocery Stores: Neighborhood Retail or Urban Panacea? Exploring the Intersections of Federal Policy, Community Health, and Revitalization in Bayview Hunters Point and West Oakland, California(Doctoral dissertation, University of California, Berkeley).

Findley, S., Matos, S., Hicks, A., Chang, J. and Reich, D., 2014. Community health worker integration into the health care team accomplishes the triple aim in a patient-centered medical home: a Bronx tale. The Journal of ambulatory care management, 37(1), pp.82-91.

Haveman, R.H., 2015. Understanding Poverty. Sheldon H. Danziger and.

Kemppainen, V., Tossavainen, K. and Turunen, H., 2013. Nurses’ roles in health promotion practice: an integrative review. Health Promotion International, 28(4), pp.490-501.

Lowe, G., Plummer, V., O’Brien, A.P. and Boyd, L., 2012. Time to clarify–the value of advanced practice nursing roles in health care. Journal of advanced nursing, 68(3), pp.677-685.

McClintock, N., Wooten, H. and Brown, A., 2012. Toward a Food Policy” First Step” in Oakland, California: A Food Policy Council’s Efforts To Promote Urban Agriculture Zoning. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems & Community Development, 2(4).

Poortinga, W., 2012. Community resilience and health: The role of bonding, bridging, and linking aspects of social capital. Health & place, 18(2), pp.286-295.

Razani, N., Meade, K., Schudel, C., Johnson, C. and Long, D., 2015. Healing through nature: a park-based health intervention for young people in Oakland, California. Children Youth and Environments, 25(1), pp.147-159.

Roy, A., Schrader, S. and Crane, E.S., 2015. “The Anti-Poverty Hoax”: Development, pacification, and the making of community in the global 1960s. Cities, 44, pp.139-145.

Simon, G.L., 2014. Vulnerability-in-production: a spatial history of nature, affluence, and fire in Oakland, California. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104(6), pp.1199-1221.