Healthcare workers hold up our communities in ways both visible and unseen. Many of them are caregivers—so often women, immigrants, and people of color—whose labor sustains families, heals communities, and ensures that our elders and loved ones with disabilities are cared for with dignity.
Too often, caregiving is undervalued and excluded from conversations about workforce equity and public health. Here in the Bay Area, the Community-Based Caregiving Initiative (CCI)—a partnership led by SFF’s ReWork the Bay initiative along with a coalition of care providers and advocates—takes as foundational that caregiving is essential, skilled public health work.
Through CCI, 70 culturally rooted caregivers from historically excluded communities in San Francisco will receive paid training and other support, preparing them not only as frontline caregivers but as leaders and advocates for health equity. Together, they will expand access to culturally responsive care for elders and people with disabilities, reduce social isolation, and strengthen intergenerational bonds that hold communities together.
Kim Scott, President of the Bay Area Black Nurses Association, is enthusiastic about joining the multi-year project:
“The CCI partnership is one that will help us advance our aim to increase the number of caregivers who reflect those most in need of service. The demand for qualified in-home aides far outweighs the supply of individuals qualified to meet the need. This partnership will help individuals gain skills and knowledge that will prepare them for careers in nursing or other health care professions. We stand united in producing qualified health care assistants and continuing to strengthen the pipeline into nursing and allied health careers through scholarship, skill building, mentorship, and human kindness.”
This Labor Day, we reaffirm that every worker deserves dignity, fair pay, and pathways to opportunity. Caregiving, long treated as invisible labor, is in fact, a cornerstone of our public health system. The Community Care Initiative shows us what’s possible when community-rooted workers are given the respect and resources they deserve.
