Click here to read these interviews in their original Spanish.
The New Brunswick Healthy Housing Collaborative is working to address housing issues and other social determinants of health in the Esperanza and Unity Square neighborhoods – two areas with some of the highest health disparities in the city. A recipient of The BUILD Health Challenge(R) award in both the second and the third cycle, the partnership is anchored in the work of a team of Community Health Ambassadors (CHAs) who serve to connect residents with services and to mobilize resident organization and educational efforts to create sustainable change at the city level. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the connection between residents and support services took on a new urgency, and the CHAs became a critical lifeline for residents who were facing challenges like never before, and a trusted source of information for local organizations who hoped to provide relief.
Three members of this team – Rosabel Pastrana, Veronica Casarrubias, and Celmira Cordero – share their stories of what it means to lead locally, why the work matters, and the vision they have for an equitable future.
Rosabel Pastrana
Tell us about your work in New Brunswick. What is your role? How does it contribute to the larger collaborative?
I am a community health ambassador, or Promotora, for the Healthy Homes Project in New Brunswick. This is a collaboration between New Brunswick Tomorrow, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital and Saint Peters University Hospital, and Middlesex County Office of Health Services. We are community residents, and therefore understand the language, the culture, the socioeconomic status, and the life experiences of other community members. We serve as a connecting link between health, social, and cultural services for residents. Our community is mostly Hispanic and confronts daily obstacles with language differences, the lack of accessible housing, labor issues, and not knowing all the tenant rights and resources that are available to us. This accentuates the barriers that we face every day. Building connections between the promotoras and community members can make a huge difference in the wellbeing of not just one person, but their whole family.
If possible, share a specific story that encapsulates your work and how you feel you’ve made a difference in your community.
One of the cases that impacted me is the story of a local mother of three children who started to feel physically ill. She asked for an appointment for a medical review of a specific procedure; however, even though it was March, they said they could not see her until December. It was not a medical emergency, but eventually she was in enough pain that she went to the emergency room – but they didn’t diagnose anything. After some time went by, she obtained an appointment with a specialist who gave her a diagnosis requiring surgery, but they referred her to yet another specialist to perform the surgery. She continued to wait on a response to her previous appointment request, all while suffering in pain.
Eventually, she began to lose hope that she would receive the treatment she needed and decided to travel to her home country for the procedure. She knew that it was possible that she wouldn’t be able to return to the United States, leaving her children here and unsure when they would next see each other – causing a medical case to turn into a case of family separation and creating long-term difficulties for her family. As a member of our program, she turned to us for help. With support and company from the Health Homes team, she obtained an appointment with the necessary specialist, and our coordinator served as an interpreter. She has finally received an accurate diagnosis and is awaiting her surgical treatment.
Why do you think it’s important to have community health workers (and/or community members) involved in the New Brunswick Healthy Housing Collaborative?
It’s important that community members, and community health workers like us, are involved in the most pressing issues of our community, including health or housing, because it enables us to share ideas and work together to make changes, individually and collectively. This way, we can also work with the appropriate stakeholders to change and promote new housing ordinances at the local level.
What does it mean to you to be a community leader?
Being a community leader means being able to inform and help the community with the problems that impact community members, and to work together to identify solutions.
How do you see health equity woven into your work?
An important part of health is the concept of community health – the successes we have in our work will be reflected in the community. In turn, this will allow us to achieve stronger equity in other social and cultural areas, like housing.
What is your vision of the future in New Brunswick?
New Brunswick is a diverse city, rich with culture and knowledge. There are many activists and community leaders who are ready to work together for the common good, enriching the community and creating a more inclusive city that guarantees equal rights and opportunities for all its residents.
Veronica Casarrubias
Tell us about your work in New Brunswick. What is your role?
Active contribution to our community is very important, especially in these uncertain times. The role of the health ambassadors has made a difference for our families, creating an atmosphere of trust and unity between the community and the Healthy Homes program. Our role is to connect residents, who are dealing with language barriers, immigration fears, and other issues, to community resources, in order to improve their living environment and health.
How does it contribute to the larger collaborative?
We are allies with a shared vision of improving the health and life of the immigrant population in our city, whose quality of life has deteriorated without the guarantee of health insurance and access. We are working together to improve public health policies which affect all of us, our whole society.
If possible, share a specific story that encapsulates your work and how you feel you’ve made a difference in your community.
The trust and connection that we have with our community means that we are sometimes approached with difficult subjects, like domestic abuse. A routine call to share a new service may become a prolonged conversation for a woman to share her grief about the loss of her husband, or a mother to confide her worry about a daughter suffering from depressing. All our residents are secure in the knowledge that they can turn to the Healthy Homes team and there will always be someone to listen to them, and to help connect them to the resources they need.
Why do you think it’s important to have community health workers (and/or community members) involved in the New Brunswick Healthy Housing Collaborative?
By attending the workshops provided by Healthy Homes, we gain information that gives us the necessary tools to make better decisions that will help improve the health of our families and create a stronger, healthier community.
What does it mean to you to be a community leader?
Community leaders arise from a common necessity. They support residents dealing with societal inequality and work to improve inequities.
How do you see health equity woven into your work?
Equitable policy cannot exist in a system that makes the rules behind a desk, that don’t have a broad understanding of the issues confronting residents as vulnerable as our local community. We work to address that.
What is your vision of the future in New Brunswick?
I see a strengthened community, actively engaged on issues that are relevant to them and will improve our environment. Having men and women that have decided that this is their home means that we will have more opportunity collectively.
Celmira Cordero
Tell us about your work in New Brunswick. What is your role? How does it contribute to the larger collaborative?
Since 2014, I have been a member of the Healthy Homes Program that helps New Brunswick residents come together and grow stronger as unified Hispanic community. I have participated in several activities – one of them was the beautification of one of New Brunswick’s main streets, French Street. It has always had problems with cleanliness, public disorder, and safety. We have worked hard to change that, and we have seen some positive changes both in the street and in the community mentality – residents have become conscientious about maintaining the street’s quality. We issued a questionnaire to residents, and from that we learned that nearly everyone that lives in the city shared a common concern: having access to a healthy home, clean, free from pests, and with adequate maintenance.
This is where my interest in being part of the Healthy Homes Program comes from. I am a Health Ambassador for the Program, and our principal job is to visit homes and identify problems like: mold, damaged floors, ceilings in poor condition, or a lack of fire alarms and carbon monoxide detectors. We also identify gaps in knowledge related to tenant rights in New Jersey. We have found examples of rights violations by landlords, such as: unjust evictions, not returning security deposits, and failure to fix deteriorating structural issues in the property. With this knowledge, we make presentations to residents, ensuring that they know their rights as tenants and how to make claims, if needed. We also connect tenants with legal advice through a program run by Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Often, in these visits, we learn about residents’ physical and mental health needs too.
The impact and the response from residents was positive in every sense – we began to hear more concerns and claims from tenants, which told us that they no longer were as fearful asserting their right to a clean and healthy home. Right now, the pandemic has us busier than ever, because the trusting relationship we have built with residents makes it easier for us to connect them with available resources, including through the hospital, social services, assistance programs, food banks, and many others. The effort to find and connect existing resources is more effective and more equally distributed among residents because of our connection to them. I feel that ensuring the wellbeing of people, and understanding and preventing challenges for individuals, families, and other groups of people, is the biggest priority in my daily work.
If possible, share a specific story that encapsulates your work and how you feel you’ve made a difference in your community.
Despite the training and emotional preparation that we have received, there are some cases that I feel powerless to control or provide a solution for. For example, an elderly woman who had worked all her life was let go by her employer because she was in a high-risk group for COVID-19. She confided in me that she was depressed, anxious, and couldn’t stop crying – she was convinced she would never work again and wouldn’t be able to meet her living expenses. She was out of work for nearly four months, at which point she could no longer afford her rent, meals, and medications. She didn’t qualify for government benefits. The Healthy Homes Program stepped in to try to connect her with an employer. The employer was reluctant to take on the risk of employing her and possibly exposing her to the virus, but we maintained a steady dialogue with them until they agreed to hire her. Since then, she has worked steadily, and her attitude is positive and happy, noting: “I no longer feel useless, I can buy the little things that I need.” The constant smile on her face is the best reward I have received for my work and confirms the need for social programs that support all members of our society.
Why do you think it’s important to have community health workers (and/or community members) involved in the New Brunswick Healthy Housing Collaborative?
It’s incredibly important for community health ambassadors to participate in the Healthy Homes Program because it is a source of information regarding the real physical and mental health issues that residents of the city face. With the program, we can help find and implement solutions, utilizing the social programs that already exist in our local hospitals, the city, and through other local organizations. It is also key for us to develop and launch projects that support the fulfillment of human rights, including access to health, housing, food, and education.
What does it mean to you to be a community leader?
A community leader has the capacity to represent and mobilize a group of people to resolve issues that impact them, and by doing so, eventually become self-sufficient in problem solving. They share knowledge to ensure that every person has the ability to confront the daily challenges they face and get ahead in life.
How do you see health equity woven into your work?
Despite many efforts to maintain equality in the quality of health services, I’ve seen that there is always inequality in the availability and the accessibility of hospital and medical center services in our area. One of the core barriers is the language barrier that limits the availability of the most effective medical and social services for our community members. Additionally, many residents don’t have health insurance, limiting their access to appropriate medical appointments and health exams.
What is your vision of the future in New Brunswick?
Our next generation should be equipped to face the social problems that impact them, individually and collectively, by advocating for and promoting fair and effective health programs alongside efficient social services. We must act in support of an equitable allocation and utilization of existing resources, to ensure that everyone has the capacity to resolve the challenges they face.
