San Francisco awards $5.25M grant to strengthen COVID-19 response in hard hit areas
An aerial view shows a statue of Eureka, part of the Pioneer Monument, looking over squares painted on the ground to encourage homeless people to keep to social distancing at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment across from City Hall in San Francisc
SAN FRANCISCO - Ten San Francisco-based community organizations will receive more than $5 million in grants to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in some of the city's most impacted neighborhoods, San Francisco Department of Health officials said Friday.
The $5.25 million grant program will help the organizations, as well as their partner organizations, provide services like testing, outreach, case investigation, contract tracing, follow-up care and other health services related to the city's COVID-19 response.
Some of the recipients include the Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness, the Mission Neighborhood Health Center, the Chinese Hospital and Booker T. Washington Community Center, among others.
"We are grateful and excited to work with our valued partner organizations who are best at supporting and engaging with San Francisco's most vulnerable communities," DPH Director Dr. Grant Colfax said in a statement. "Working together, we will serve populations and neighborhoods that have been disparately impacted by COVID-19."
In addition to providing low barrier, culturally and linguistically competent services, the grant will also help fund the San Francisco AIDS Foundation's effort to create a Community Case Investigation and Contract Tracing Training Center to help strengthen the organizations' investigation and tracing efforts, DPH officials said.
The funding is part of DPH's equity strategy, focusing on residents and neighborhoods that face the greatest disparities in COVID-19 case rates.
While Latinos make up just 15 percent of the city's population, they account for 45 percent of the city's COVID-19 cases. Additionally, historically Black, Latino and Asian and Pacific Islander neighborhoods like the Bayview, Hunters Point, the Mission, Excelsior and Visitacion Valley have the highest case rates, according to DPH data.