South Central, also known as Black Los Angeles, is home to a kaleidoscope of tones, textures, features, dialects, beliefs, and stories – especially stories colored by the multitudes of resilience. It is when we peel back the layers of these parables illuminating the cyclical patterns of plight, triumph, trauma, and victory, we arrive at the core issue of systemic oppression. Historically, South Los Angeles has been a focal point in the fight against social injustice, racial discrimination, police brutality, socioeconomic inequalities, and health disparities. Resilience embedded in the DNA of the Black community seems to also have inadvertently perpetuated a stigma around mental health and its validity, though mental health is now marginally becoming a topic of discussion. With the pandemic acclivity in 2020 resulting in higher rates of underemployment, displacement, and health inequities for African-Americans, it is now, more than ever, imperative that advocacy for mental health programs in South Los Angeles become a priority. Opening mental health facilities in South Central is a solution for closing the health gap and redefining the meaning of resilience outside the scope of trauma caused by systemic oppression.
In 2020, Coronavirus was not the only public health crisis. Racism was declared an official public health crisis as Blacks contracting the virus died at twice the rate of white counterparts without the distribution of resources at their aid. The overcrowded geography of South Los Angeles – with citizens still counting on public transportation to provide for their families, living in congested housing – accounted for the disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases compared to the richer, whiter neighborhoods. Digital divides due to financial insecurities prohibited Black South Angelenos from accessing mental health resources such as telehealth or online information of available emergency funding. COVID-19’s traumatic events that exposed the horrors of systemic racism will have a lasting effect on the psyche and souls of Black folk; it is only an honest and fair prediction to proclaim the need for mental health facilities and access to mental health care now more than ever.
Only one in three Black people who need mental health services receive treatment. According to the Health Equity Scorecard from 2008, South Los Angeles encapsulates the consequences of unfavorable health outcomes compared to other parts of Los Angeles County, such as West Los Angeles. Lack of equality in the distribution of income, access to healthy foods, and services contributing to well-being is astronomically disturbing compared to geographical counterparts. For every seven mental health facilities in West Los Angeles, there is one for the vulnerable populations of South Los Angeles. The Black community is not a priority when it comes to access to mental health care.
Reports show that a $3 billion budget for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health in 2020 can elicit programmatic interventions alleviating mental health disparities for South Los Angeles as a means to recover from the impact of COVID-19. There are still billions of dollars left unspent from the inception of Proposition 63 – the Mental Health Services Act – nearly fifteen years ago. Funding from the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health can grant social workers and mental health advocates the financial resources to build an environment that is dedicated to the healing, development, and well-being of Black Angelenos. Deeply embedded stigmas of shame and embarrassment around mental health in the Black community provide an opportunity for community leaders to create relatable, palatable, and easily accessible safe spaces of resource. Programs dedicated to mental health, such as group therapy, wellness-centered curriculums, trauma-informed modalities, and mindfulness courses can all be used to destigmatize and destabilize the bias surrounding mental health resources.
South Los Angeles is an ecosystem of tones, textures, features, dialects, beliefs, and stories – especially stories colored by the multitudes of resilience. Catastrophic effects of COVID-19 prove that now is a critical time to close the health gap with mental health facilities to advocate for the well-being of Black South Angelenos. By establishing an ecosystem of mental health resources in South Los Angeles, we cultivate the normalization of telling Black people that their mental health is a priority. Self-actualization and economic progress for Black communities is contingent upon the health of individual persons. By campaigning for the allocation of funds towards mental health facilities in South Los Angeles, it becomes a momentous step in creating an ethos that shifts the paradigm from subjugation by oppression to one of personal and collective empowerment. It says to Black South Angelenos: your mental health, your existence, and your well-being is a priority; your story can be celebrated and reiterated for future generations for reasons outside of how you existed in this world, instead of how much you had to fight to endure.
