SF Weekly Best Of 2009

SF Weekly Best of 2009

By Herman Wong

Best Human Guide to Endangered Species
Brent Plater

Brent Plater, who teaches in the environmental studies department at San Francisco State University, possesses a seemingly encyclopedic knowledge of the endangered birds, plants, and fish found in the Bay Area. Last year he put his nature smarts to use. The former Bay Area director of the Center for Biological Diversity organized a massive treasure hunt to encourage people to see all 33 threatened and endangered species in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. The contest, called the GGNRA Big Year, drew a few thousand people over the course of a year for trips to spots like Fort Funston to see California sea otters, or to the Presidio to find the yellow Lessingia flower. Plater has a story for every species: The Raven’s manzanita is not merely an evergreen shrub but the “loneliest plant in the world,” the Western snowy plover is “the cutest little puffball of feathers,” and the humpback whale the “most acrobatic whale.” This year Plater has been campaigning for the restoration of Pacifica’s Sharp Park Golf Course into a habitat for endangered animals, and was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship to teach environmental law and policy in Trinidad in 2010.

Best Step Forward in Health Care
Healthy San Francisco

Healthy San Francisco, the city’s fledgling universal health care program, is a bold promise in the most uncertain of times. For its 37,000 members — most with incomes at or below the federal poverty level — Healthy San Francisco offers the possibility of regular treatment instead of seeing the doctor only when something is wrong. The program represents initiative at a time when accessible health care is needed more than ever, and so won the city praise from President Barack Obama. Some critics decry an increase in wait times for care, but for those enrolled in Healthy San Francisco, their membership cards afford them one less worry in a worrisome economy. And that should make us all feel a little better.

Best Place for Families to Help Others
San Francisco Food Bank, Sunday Family Hours

Put off your family vacation to help put some food on another family’s table. About a year and a half ago, the San Francisco Food Bank, which moves 33 million pounds of food through its warehouse each week, started letting parents bring kids as young as 4 on Sundays to volunteer and help pack food for the needy. The program has welcomed families to sort produce, divvy up rice into individual bags, and stamp labels on cans. Regular three-hour shifts have been reduced to 90 minutes to accommodate the younger crowd, with about 80 to 120 people showing up each week. With the Food Bank receiving 25 percent more requests for food in March 2009 compared with the year before, every little helping hand counts. A Sunday at the Food Bank is no trip to Disneyland, but in these tough times, maybe that’s a good thing.

Potrero View: Healthy San Franciscans Find a Home at San Francisco General Hospital

Healthy San Franciscans Find a Home at San Francisco General Hospital

By Herman Wong

Federico Lauchengco represents the best of what Healthy San Francisco, the City’s universal health care program, hopes to achieve.  Last year the 54-year-old enrolled in the program and began receiving regular checkups at San Francisco General Hospital.  For the first time since he immigrated to the United States five years ago Lauchengco had his cholesterol level and blood pressure tested. His sister, Elvira Lazaro, who accompanied Lauchengco to the hospital, said Healthy San Francisco represented security against the unpredictability of illness.  “There’s a place to go if he is sick,” Lazaro said.  “It makes him feel secure that if anything ever happened he has a place to go.”

As of last month, a year and a half after its launch, Healthy San Francisco had more than 37,000 participants, providing health care access to roughly half of the City’s previously uninsured residents.  In February the program expanded its eligibility requirements, offering access to San Franciscans who make as much as 500 percent of the federal poverty level, about $54,000 for an individual or $110,000 for a family of four.  Up to 12,000 of the City’s currently uninsured residents fall into this category.

Under Healthy San Francisco, participants select a clinic, or medical home, to receive care.  SF General is the second largest provider in Healthy San Francisco’s network of 31 clinics, which also includes the Potrero Hill and South East Health Centers.  Through three of its clinics, SFGH provides care to one-fifth of Healthy San Francisco participants, roughly 7,400 people.  Doctors at the hospital say that they’re seeing more patients, different patients, and, increasingly, patients seeking long-term, preventive care.

But the program also faces growing pains.  Anecdotal evidence indicates that wait times for care have lengthened. And the economic downturn threatens to swell the number of uninsured while also forcing the city to cutting budgets, even at the hospital.  “People are working harder with less right now,” said Dr. Hali Hammer, director of SF General’s Family Health Center, which provides care to 11 percent of all Healthy San Francisco participants. “But I think we all feel really good to be part of this innovative new system and just hope that once it’s clear that when we need more resources we will be able to get them.”