What's Happening with The Equi Institute?
A note from Katie Cox, Executive Director:
Closing the Clinic and Shifting Operational Focus
At the end of 2019, our founding doctor and clinical director, Dr. Angela Carter (they/them), had to take a sudden and permanent medical leave of absence. This was a huge blow to both our clinic and our patients. As clinical director and a trailblazer in trans health, Dr. Carter was providing medical supervision for our team of providers. Having consistent, trusted support and supervision was vital, given the complexity of care, to continue providing the level of care our community needs.
In January of 2020, Equi made the decision to shut down and restructure our primary care program. As the global pandemic began to ramp up, it was clear that we needed to put our plans on hold and pivot to providing emergency response to COVID-19.
Equi’s COVID Response
In April 2020, Equi joined the Creating Conscious Communities with People Outside (C3PO) Coalition at the beginning of April.
When the city shut down over COVID-19, unhoused people experienced a suddenly quiet city. People lost access to resources such as libraries (access to the internet) and coffee shops (access to a warm beverage and restrooms). Drop-in spaces limit the number of people who come in and many shelters are not accepting new people.
C(3)PO negotiated with city workers, community organizers and organizations, to open three temporary tent villages (Queer Affinity Village, POC Affinity Village and a Mixed Village for all identities) to provide bathrooms, handwashing stations, showers, nutritious food, three meals a day, drinking water, trash pick up service, a pod shelter, paid work opportunities, and medical access support/other support services. A minimum of 106 people will have access to these shelter-in-place camps. P
In the first few months of operating the C(3)PO villages, Equi acted as intake coordinator within the coalition. As intake coordinator, we worked with an intake committee to develop a transparent and equitable intake process that prioritizes people at highest risk including women, trans/gender-expansive folks, black and indigenous people of color, disabled people, and people with high medical risk for dying of COVID (over 50, chronic health conditions...etc). We have also donated medical supplies and coordinating with the C(3)PO medical committee for support.
Equi’s Community Health Worker Program
After stepping back from the intake coordinator role and turning it over to the camp life coordinators and villagers, Equi has shifted our focus to providing a more direct COVID-19 response within the villages and is working with the C(3)PO medical committee. It is essential that we invest in creating infrastructure now to support marginalized houseless people so that the community has a safety net, means to bounce back, and can maintain health and wellbeing during the pandemic.
In July 2020, we received a grant from the Oregon Health Authority to provide a Community Health Program that provides community engagement, wrap-around support services and safety-net support for residents of the C(3)PO villages.
Why the Shift Towards Houseless Services?
Equi's decision to move towards creating houseless services for the Queer and Trans community is informed by our clinic's history of serving many patients who were chronically homeless and housing insecure. The transgender community has long been disproportionately affected by economic and housing instability due to pervasive discrimination, creating difficulty in obtaining gainful employment, access to healthcare, and other resources. The 2015 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) demonstrated that 17% of respondents in Oregon had a household income of $10,000 or less, compared to 4% of the general population and 15% were unemployed compared to 7% in the nation at the time of the survey. (1) Housing instability has also been rampant in our community; The NTDS also showed that of transgender Oregonians surveyed, 16% had been evicted, 24% were denied a home/apartment, 23% had become homeless because of their gender identity/expression, 27% had to find temporary space to stay/sleep, 23% had to move back in with family or friends, and only 30% reported owning their home compared to 67% of the general U.S. population. The pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis have only highlighted these inequities and made them more stark. (Findings of the NATIONAL TRANSGENDER DISCRIMINATION SURVEY by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.)
How You Can Support This Work
If you have the means and are willing to make a contribution to support this work, you can do so here: