As a physician who grew up in an immigrant household and went on to work in low-income settings from Rwanda to Guatemala to the Navajo Nation, I have learned that one thing remains true no matter where you are: No one understands the hardships of poverty better than people who have experienced it in their own lives.
When local communities play an active role in shaping the services available to them, the result is more effective solutions from community-based organizations that better reflect the needs and priorities of the people they serve, tailored to the challenges they face. These innovations are strongest when driven by the unique cultural, health, or economic context of a community or individual, helping to build trust and familiarity. As a result, people who need support are more likely to seek it, services become more sustainable, and community resources go where they are most needed. This success requires community voice and organizations ready to listen.
For these reasons, Solid Ground, the Seattle-based Community Action Agency I help lead, makes a point of actively listening to the communities we serve and using what we hear to ensure we continue to meet individual and evolving needs with understanding and respect. For more than half a century, that approach has allowed Solid Ground to help hundreds of thousands of families in King County to meet their own basic needs – including stable housing, nutritious food, and essential transportation – while overcoming barriers that keep people trapped in poverty.
That means working closely with Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) organizations across King County to assure we continue to meet the needs of these communities. It includes taking housing referrals from the Korean Women’s Association (KWA), API Chaya, and the Pacific Islander Community Association of WA. We support Asian Counseling and Referral Services (ACRS) along with several local food banks and community centers to help families get the nutritious food they need and deserve. At the same time, we refer our own clients and participants to these and other AANHPI organizations to make sure they receive culturally appropriate resources. These partnerships are invaluable in better serving and understanding the needs of our AANHPI communities. But we also need to hear directly from individuals in these communities to better understand what support they need and how we can more effectively provide it.
When we conducted our last Community Needs Assessment in 2022, we heard that many people in our community were struggling with their mental health but didn’t know how – or couldn’t afford – to get the help they needed. So over the last three years, we have worked to bring a broader spectrum of behavior health providers into our permanent supportive housing and domestic violence survivor communities so residents who have survived homelessness and other traumatic experiences can get appropriate support without worrying about cost or even leaving their apartment building. Based on community feedback, we made sure that the behavioral health providers we work with share many of the characteristics and experiences of the communities we serve, including race, culture, and socioeconomic contexts.
We also learned that many people are struggling to afford dental care, which can have immense consequences for overall health. So we worked with our advocacy partners, the Statewide Poverty Action Network, to push lawmakers to expand the state’s dental therapy program and make it easier for people to find dental health providers who will accept their insurance.
But the world has changed dramatically in the last three years, and more people than ever are struggling to make ends meet and prepare for the future. At the same time, the U.S. government has sought to slash its spending on programs that help millions of Americans get the food, housing, and medical care they need.
Amid the uncertainty and anxiety we are now living through as a nation, one thing remains clear: Local, community-engaged organizations like Solid Ground and our partners must answer the call in assuring that everyone in our community can get the support they need to thrive and find hope for a better future. And our success is critically dependent on first learning how to serve from each local community.
You can lend your voice and encourage others in the community to do the same by completing Solid Ground’s new Community Needs Assessment survey available at https://www.solid-ground.org/cna/. This community’s participation helps Solid Ground continue to improve how we meet the needs of the AANHPI individuals and partner organizations. We are ready to listen.
Dr. Paul Park is the Senior Director of Programs at Solid Ground, a Seattle-based Community Action Agency that works to end poverty through direct services and advocacy. He is also a practicing internal medicine physician at King County Public Health. He is the son of Korean immigrants and grew up in Indianapolis.
