Community Health Centers Selected for COVID-19 Stipend Program

Image: Andrea Schwab-Galindo, CEO, Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center

Three of our  member Community Health Centers, La Clinica, Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center, & Baywell Helth (formerly West Oakland Health) have been selected as three of the five referral community clinics in Alameda County for its new COVID-19 Stipend Pilot Program in our hardest hit zip-codes. After which, we anticipate county-wide expansion.

Read more about Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center’s participation.

Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center (TVHC), located on Mission Boulevard in Hayward, Calif., has been selected as one of five referral community clinics for the new Alameda County COVID-19 Stipend Program.

A stipend of up to $1,250 will be available to patients who cannot work because they must stay home to self-isolate after being diagnosed with COVID-19 and are ineligible for unemployment and for paid sick leave.

“Every single person that we have spoken to through our contract tracing program, they have all asked for either food, help with rent, or access to be enrolled in healthcare,” said TVHC CEO Andrea Schwab-Galindo in an interview with CBS News.

TVHC is also working in partnership with Alameda County to enhance testing capacity, address the economic impact on the community, and the need for bilingual contact tracers. Contact tracing efforts have proven to be challenging in Latinx communities across the state due to a shortage of Spanish speaking staff, fear around legislation such as the Public Charge Rule, and misinformation on how organizations use the data collected during contact tracing calls.

“Our patients and families were already afraid to go to community testing sites because they were asking for personal information – and that’s when we realized, they trusted us with this information,” said Andrea in an interview last week with the East Bay Times.

TVHC has been serving the Latinx community of Alameda County since its inception 49 years ago, building trust, working with Promotores, and other community organizations to build the relationship and reputation it holds among its community members and patients.

As the cases in Alameda County continue to increase, so does the commitment TVHC upholds to its patients and community members. Partnerships with fellow organizations, programs including the Alameda County stipend program, are what will help communities across the country recover from hardship brought on by the pandemic.

For questions or to find out more information on partnering with TVHC, please e-mail marketing@tvhc.org.