ENACT Day 2020 Policy Statement: Beyond COVID-19 Recovery

Restructuring for a Healthy and Equitable California

Over 16 years ago, PHI and a coalition of organizations, who believed in the power of community advocacy and the need for sweeping structural change, came together to create ENACT Day. On April 30, 2020, ENACT Day organizers held a virtual ENACT Day to bring together Californians from across the state to learn about health equity in California and develop policy advocacy skills.

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is crucial to center ENACT Day’s vision of a healthy and equitable California, elevating bold strategies to ensure the health of all communities, both immediately and in the months and years to come.

Download the Full Policy Statement

ENACT Day leaders emphasized that during every crisis, from natural disasters and eruptions of disease to those caused directly by corporate and political decisions, we’ve seen that low-income people of color are both most acutely impacted and face the longest recovery.

See the four key policy areas with crucial strategies for an equitable, inclusive, and community-led response and recovery to the COVID-19 crisis:

Healthy Food Access:

• Remove bureaucratic barriers to CalFresh: Support SB 882, which would streamline the CalFresh application and reporting processes, especially for older adults and people with disabilities.
• Extend Access to School Meals: Ensure that school nutrition programs reach all students that rely on free or reduced priced meals for the duration of the COVID-19 public health emergency and beyond.

Healthy and Accessible Communities:

• Housing First: Commit to on-going funding of $2 billion to the California Access to Housing and Services Fund, in order to rapidly and permanently move unhoused people into permanent housing. Extend eviction protections into 2021, and mandate affordable repayment plans without fees or interest.
• Close the corporate tax loophole: Restore $12 billion in annual funding to California schools, parks, libraries, and other community resources through the Schools and Communities First ballot initiative, which requires California corporations to contribute their fair share.

Justice for Immigrant Californians

• Expand Medi-Cal to all seniors: Ensure #Health4AllSeniors by expanding full-scope Medi-Cal to all seniors, regardless of documentation status, as included in Governor Newsom’s proposed budget and SB 29.
• EITC for all: Allow undocumented taxpayers access to the Earned Income Tax Credit, a program known for supporting families in moving out of poverty.

Preventing Violence and Community Trauma:

• Stop criminalization: Prohibit punitive approaches to enforcing physical distancing, which put boys and men of color at particular risk, and more broadly, insist that police departments restructure their policies to work towards relational policing principles.
• *No new inmates: Stop new admissions to juvenile detention, correctional and placement facilities. *Unless youth pose an immediate and substantial risk to public safety, alternatives to out-of-home placements—including placement at home with terms and conditions—should be the default response.

ENACT Day 2020 was hosted by: Public Health Advocates, CA4Health, California Food Policy Advocates, Prevention Institute, and the Center for Healthy Communities at California State University, Chico.