Kaiser Permanente San Mateo
2022 Community Health Snapshot

Supporting community mental health

Amid a national mental health professional shortage, we invested in expanding a diverse, well-trained, culturally responsive mental health workforce. We also focused on increasing access to mental health services for low-income and vulnerable populations.

On the coast, our grant to Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS)* helped expand its mobile mental health clinic to serve an additional 75 farmworkers. In Daly City, we funded Peninsula Family Service to provide trainings at the Midway Early Learning Center to hundreds of low-income families to help them understand the effects of trauma in their lives.

* Supported by a grant from a Kaiser Permanente fund at the East Bay Community Foundation

Improving conditions for health and equity

Because good health begins where people live, we worked to improve factors affecting health in our communities, such as access to safe, stable housing, and affordable nutritious food.

We supported Fresh Approach’s work connecting families to CalFresh (food stamps) and its discounts to customers who use CalFresh at farmers’ markets in East Palo Alto and North Fair Oaks. We also funded StarVista to provide housing assistance and case management to more than 60 former foster care and juvenile justice-involved youth in South San Francisco and surrounding areas.

Strengthening the health care safety net

We partnered with safety-net hospitals and community health centers to improve care quality for low-income, Medi-Cal, and uninsured patients. Kaiser Permanente clinicians also donated their time and expertise to support these patients.

One example is our grant to Samaritan House’s Free Clinic of Redwood City, which provided uninsured residents physical and mental health care and services to connect them to food and housing support. Our funding also helped the clinic improve coordination across its teams and identify higher risk patients for targeted interventions.