Connie Fuller sits on a wood-framed bed in her Oakland apartment. Clear tubes snake from an oxygen machine to her nose. Her essentials are strewn around her, within arms reach. She's confined to her bed due to obesity and lung disease.
Fuller needs daily assistance, and because her family is not regularly involved in her care, a program called the Alameda County Care Alliance helps her manage it. The free program fills the gap for people with advanced illnesses; some live in their homes and others live in facilities. The program serves over 550 people -- most of them are low-income, most African-American.
Alexis Owens buzzes in to Fuller's apartment and greets her. Owens is a community care navigator, one of just seven, from the alliance. Her job is something between a family member and unofficial social worker. She doesn’t provide services herself, but connects people with serious illnesses to them. Services can range from Meals on Wheels to occupational therapy.
"Just because you’re in a circumstance where you can only pay a limited amount to your caregivers, that doesn’t mean that you have to settle for mediocre care," Owens tells Fuller. "It can happen and we won’t stop until we find it."
The Alliance started a few years ago and is centered around five “hub” churches in Alameda County; Allen Temple Baptist in East Oakland is the lead. Funding comes from Kaiser Permanente’s Community Benefit Program, The San Francisco Foundation, and California Health Care Foundation. While the program is non-denominational, being based out of a religious institution has advantages. It helps mobilize volunteers -- over a hundred supplement the work of the community care navigators -- and it allows access to those who are harder-to-reach.