For thousands of low-income residents in Sonoma County, pre-pandemic normal simply meant less misery

She said the funds available are simply inadequate to meet the widespread need, particularly among seasonal farmworkers.

“There are workers who can only get a few hours here and there,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “In past years, workers would be given steady work pruning, eight hours a day. Now there’s no work. Farmworkers are suffering a great deal right now.”

Javi Cabrera-Rosales, project director of the CURA Project, which provides pandemic assistance to Latino, Indigenous and low-income communities, said Sonoma County residents who “live on the margins” do not have the same access to resources that most other people have.

He said everyone has a right to reclaim some semblance of normalcy, but those who are less privileged should not be forgotten. And their needs in a post-pandemic scenario should be no less important that the parent who “wants to watch their kid play basketball.”

“A large portion of our society that bears the brunt and is the backbone of many of the essential jobs that keep a lot of our society going and flowing are being seen as invisible,” he said. “If we really want to get to a place of understanding and unity, we need to recognize the impact on all of the people of Sonoma County.”

Omicron crosshairs

During the omicron surge, COVID-19 transmission rates for Latino residents skyrocketed, peaking at 323 new daily infections per 100,000 residents before coming down to levels comparable with other ethnic and racial groups. Native Americans, though a much smaller population in Sonoma County, also saw their case rates spike dramatically this winter, reaching 303 new infections per 100,000.

The case rate for white residents, though also high during the winter surge, was 134 new cases a day per 100,000 people, less than half the rate of virus spread for Latinos.

To better understand the impact of poverty on virus transmission, Robin Hauscher, a biostatistician with the county public health division, examined the cases broken down by race and ethnicity. The results were analyzed against state averages of the Healthy Places Index (HPI), a composite measure of socioeconomic opportunity applied to census tracts that includes more than two dozen individual indicators across economic, social, education, transportation, housing, environmental and neighborhood sectors.

Hauscher found that within the Latino population, more COVID-19 cases were generated within county census tracts that fell below the state’s average HPI economic score. Early in the pandemic, county health officials learned that the pandemic was impacting Latinos and other minority groups disproportionately — and that trend has been one of the only constants during the two-year crisis.

Latinos, for example, are only 27% of the population but comprise 50% of all COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began.

Some 30,338 Latinos have been infected since spring of 2020 — that’s roughly 19% of that population. In contrast, 24,926, or 9%, of the county’s roughly 285,792 white residents have been infected.

On Wednesday, county public health officials acknowledged that even as the winter surge subsides and public health rules are loosened, essential workers and communities of color will continue to be impacted by COVID-19 and will need additional support to limit health disparities.

Last week, officials announced that indoor masking rules would be loosened after Feb. 15, allowing vaccinated residents to shed their masks in public spaces. And on Friday, the county lifted its ban on large public gatherings. But county officials noted the road to real recovery will require more than loosening restrictions.

“People assume that we’re over the worst of the pandemic, and the impact — especially on wages, food insecurity, housing insecurity— is still with us,” said Supervisor Susan Gorin.

To meet that need, the county has relied heavily on local health clinics, and on organizations like La Familia Sana in Cloverdale and the COVID-19 Urgent Response & Aid Project. Between Jan. 1 and Jan. 27, the CURA Project received an average of 1,100 calls every three days from community members in need of emergency financial assistance.

During a Board of Supervisors meeting last week, officials discussed the coming economic crisis facing low-income residents. Dr. Urmila Shende, the county’s vaccine chief, and Tina Rivera, director of county health services, said housing insecurity due to expired tenant protections and food insecurity were common issues that callers needed help with.

Health officials said CURA, the county’s primary safety net for communities of color and low-income residents, is about to run out of money. Rivera said the county is looking to grants as a possible solution to help resolve CURA’s depleting funds.

Gorin and Supervisor Chris Coursey pointed out those who have suffered the most through the pandemic are often not as vocal or well-connected as the county’s more privileged residents.

“It’s important to recognize that those people are still struggling. They’re not attending Board of Supervisors meetings and complaining about things, but they are out there,” Coursey said.

According to an update to the county’s Portrait of Sonoma report, the share of county residents who live in poverty decreased from about 12% in 2014 to 6% in 2019. More recent U.S. Census Bureau data also show a significant decline.

But for those who are feeding the county’s hungry every day, those statistics simply don’t make any sense.

Jennifer Emery, executive director of FISH of Santa Rosa, a food pantry in southwest Santa Rosa, said that between 2020 and 2021, food donations have increased 56%, even as hours at the pantry’s drive-thru on Sebastopol Road have been cut down to two hours.

FISH, which stands for Friends in Service Here, is the only all-volunteer food pantry in Sonoma County and serves a wide cross section of residents, including single moms with kids, seniors, and people who are homeless. The majority, she said, are Latino.

Along with the rising cost of groceries, the omicron surge brought more families looking for food. “We’ve seen a lot of new clients,” Emery said. “Right now, we’re doing over 250 families a week. We’re seeing probably about 50 new families a week. I see families that weren’t coming before the pandemic.”

David Goodman, chief executive officer of the Redwood Empire Food Bank, pointed out that families living at, below or just above government poverty levels are equally struggling. He said the current poverty level for a family of four is $26,500, despite economic studies that show the actual income needed for a family of four to make ends meet in Sonoma County is three times that.

Goodman said a return to “normal” for tens of thousands of individuals and families in Sonoma County means “a return the edge,” where people have to make tough choices, such as making cuts in food budgets to pay for housing.

“Because of our income, because of the stability of our jobs, etc., we have a very strong, robust, broad safety net,” he said. “But when you are without those types of jobs that provide that kind of security, your safety net is sitting on the ground, and when you fall you just hit the ground.”

The edge of disaster

Rosario Sotelo, 50, is among those county residents who live on the margins. She said she fears an asymptomatic infection as much as COVID-19 illness — both mean she cannot work. Sotelo and others in her household became infected in January.

Her husband has a chronic inflammatory arthritis condition called ankylosing spondylitis that keeps him in a wheelchair, and she cares for him. Sotelo, who works as a laborer and asked that her employer not be identified, said she doesn’t have any more sick leave and the possibility of reinfection haunts her.

“For me, I don’t have an option,” she said. “I either work or I work.”

On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that will make many eligible for COVID-19 supplemental sick leave through Sept. 30, 2022. The state’s previous pandemic sick leave expired on Sept. 30 last year, as the delta surge subsided but well before omicron fueled record numbers of infections.

With the pandemic’s two-year anniversary just weeks away, Board of Supervisors Chair James Gore noted the county is at a “huge pivot point” in how it continues to respond as the pandemic, hopefully, ultimately transitions to an “endemic.” Gore said the county must support low-income residents, immigrants and communities of color that were more harshly impacted by the pandemic.

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins agreed. “Their position is even more precarious. That’s what we really need to focus on in Sonoma County,” she said.

“Unfortunately, if we don’t proactively support them, they’re likely to just fall off.”

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.