Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise

Accountableprovides real-life examples of how crucial issues -- including health care, education, the economy, unequal justice, and the environment -- manifest themselves in our communities. The book demonstrates the urgent need to hold politicians and ourselves responsible, because the stakes have never been higher.Accountableexamines present-day conditions and the consequences for America. At its core, this book is a tool with which the community can evaluate the successes or more >>

Accountableprovides real-life examples of how crucial issues -- including health care, education, the economy, unequal justice, and the environment -- manifest themselves in our communities. The book demonstrates the urgent need to hold politicians and ourselves responsible, because the stakes have never been higher.Accountableexamines present-day conditions and the consequences for America. At its core, this book is a tool with which the community can evaluate the successes or failures of its political leaders and of itself. This insightful book acknowledges the mistakes of the past while offering hope and inspiration for a better future.1

Health Care and Well-Being

Who Holds the Cure?

He who has health, has hope. And he who has hope, has everything.

--Arabian Proverb

In order to change, we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired.

--Author Unknown

Covenant One

Securing the Right to Health Care and Well-Being

Carol Ann Reyes: Dumped in America

It was a cool Monday evening in late March 2006 in Los Angeles, months away from the sweltering summer when the infamous L.A. smog is at its worst. Traffic was moving swiftly along South San Pedro Street near East 5th Street in the downtown area known as "Skid Row."2 Known also as the Nickel because of its location along 5th Street, Skid Row is "home"to one of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States. Also known for its tough streets, the Nickel this evening seemed like just another day in the neighborhood, the county's 74,000 homeless seemingly unaware of the headlines of the day.

While they may have been unaffected by the flap over President Bush's wiretapping program or the third-year-almost-tothe-day commemoration of the war in Iraq, L.A.'s homeless were dealing with conflicts that hit closer to home.

One of them was Carol Ann Reyes, a transient Los Angeles resident who spent most of her time not on Skid Row but in a Gardena public park 16 miles south of the city, supporting herself by collecting recyclable bottles and cans. Three days earlier, an ambulance had transported Reyes west across Rosecrans Avenue through Compton to Kaiser Permanente's Bellflower Medical Center for treatment of abdominal pains and injuries resulting from a recent fall. Sixty-three years old, homeless, suffering from dementia and other physical ailments, Reyes remained at the hospital until a decision was made that she had been there long enough.

Though she still had a fever, persistent cough, and perilously high blood pressure, Reyes was discharged by hospital officials without their prescribing medication for her high blood pressure or even taking time to locate the clothes she'd worn upon admission. They simply called a cab, placed her in it donning her hospital gown and slippers, and paid the driver to take her 16 miles north of the hospital to Skid Row, presumably because it is the location of many of the city's homeless shelters.

Hospital officials claim to have called Union Rescue Mission, a wellknown shelter on Skid Row, to let them know that Reyes was on her way. Video surveillance footage taken that evening contradicted the directions, showing the taxi driving along San Pedro, making an illegal Uturn, opening the door, and literally dumping her onto the Skid Row streets.

Reyes wandered about in the street and on the sidewalk, lost, without any money, identification, or medical information until a Union Rescue Mission worker noticed her and ushered her to safety and the warmth of a bed. Days later when the news of this story broke, a tearful hospital vice president of communications apologized to her and to the community, vowing that this would never happen again.

But will it? Carol Reyes was not << less