LNN Spotlight focuses on major issues important to local Hispanic/Latino and underrepresented communities — stay updated on the monthly series by following us on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, and Radio Public.

On this episode of LNN Spotlight, Writer/Editor Belén Dumont speaks with AARP New Hampshire State Director Christina FitzPatrick on the invisible work of family caregivers and the types of resources available to them.  

The total amount of unpaid care New Hampshire residents provided for their loved ones in 2021 carried a value of $2.8 billion, an increase of $500 million since 2019, according to an AARP report released in March. 

Currently, more than half of Millennial family caregivers identify as people of color, while an increasing 27 percent identify as Latino, according to the U.S. Census. Further research shows that about 75 percent of Latino caregivers are women and are likely to be in their early to mid-40s. 

As a variety of federal and state-level initiatives look to address the growing financial and emotional stress New Hampshire caregivers are experiencing, community organizations are calling for culturally-informed policies that look at the specific needs and experiences of different communities. 

“There’s a real cultural component to how people perceive this role as caregiver,� FitzPatrick said. “So, I’m looking at it and thinking about how difficult it is and it is difficult. But in the Latino community, in particular, there is more of a sense that this is a duty and something that people want to live up to rather than seeing it as a burden or something that they have to do.�

In the interview, Dumont also shared her experiences as a bicultural Latina who watched her family care for all four of her grandparents at home. Listen to learn why she sees “pride� in the family caregiver role. 

The COVID pandemic continues to impact family caregivers as it has “disrupted the work patterns and the apparatus that family caregivers had created to help them maintain a balance in their lives,â€� FitzPatrick explained. 

It’s common for family caregivers to work full-time or continue their education while caring for a loved one. Many of these individuals learn to single-handedly juggle multiple schedules and responsibilities at a time, creating a delicate system around them.

FitzPatrick pointed out that “…Hispanic caregivers are more likely than others to be working full-time and they’re more likely than others to be caring both for their own children and for an older relative at the same time.â€� 

According to FitzPatrick, organizations that work with family caregivers are more likely to meet the needs of their clients and understand their perspectives when their staffs are increasingly diverse.

“It’s diversity in all its forms,� she said. “There are differences between people who live in rural areas than people who live in urban areas, people who have kids living at home and people who don’t, people who don’t speak English and people who do.�

FitzPatrick added that all employers can greatly support their employees by providing them with some flexibility so they can better balance their work and caregiving responsibilities.

“It really helps out the worker and the worker’s family and also really helps people to feel more loyal to their employers and in the long run that means you’re reducing turnover,� she said.

Learn more by listening to the full conversation and checking out the March 2023 report at www.aarp.org/

Publisher’s Note: AARP New Hampshire and New Hampshire Latino News are partners in providing greater visibility and voice to local Hispanic-Latino communities. 

March is Women’s History Month. It celebrates women’s contributions, struggles, blocked opportunities, and ultimate triumphs.

It is also a time for issuing empty promises that things will improve, a refrain often heard but only partially fulfilled.

For Latinas, Women’s History Month presents a vivid reminder of the barriers and challenges they face. The discussions, campaigns, and commitments to action marginalize their stories and struggles.

Equal Pay Day epitomizes this sharply: “This date symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.â€�

In March 2023, March 14th was Equal Pay Day, an embarrassment and a mark of economic inequality and inequity that defines many women’s lives today.

But Equal Pay Days for Latinas and Black women do not appear in the Equal Pay Day story. Equal Pay Day for Black women is September 21, 2023. In 2023, Latinas will reach Equal Pay Day on October 8.

While the start of Spring marks Equal Pay Day for all women, for Latinas, it appears as stores decorate for Christmas.

This economic fact fails to appear in the mainstream media narrative during this month celebrating women. This absence underscores the invisibility of the struggles, inequities, and barriers that cripple Latinas.

Other examples of Latina invisibility are equally jarring. The Latina maternal mortality rate is the most poignant.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released the latest maternal mortality rates.

The data horrifies.

Between 2018 and 2021, overall maternal mortality increased by 89 percent, while Whites saw a 79% increase and Blacks 70%.

A 2022 article notes that the annual number of maternal mortalities in the U.S. has doubled over 20 years. The United States, Afghanistan, and Sudan are the only countries with increasing maternal mortality rates.

Armed with this data, media and political leaders in wealthy civil society have alighted on two alarming and unacceptable points.

First, the U.S. maternal mortality rate is 55th globally, greater than Russia, in a nation that purports to care about women, children, and families.

Second, the Black maternal mortality rate at 69.9 per 100,000 live births is the highest among racial/ethnic groups. This fact is deplorable on both moral and social levels.

Yet scant attention is directed to the disturbing and frightening situation of a continual significant increase in the Latina maternal mortality rate, data found in that same CDC report:

Between 2020 and 2021, there was a 53.8 percent increase in the maternal mortality rate for Latinas. This is the most significant increase among racial/ethnic groups.

Between 2018 and 2021, Latinas experienced a 137 percent increase in maternal mortality. Again, the largest increase among racial/ethnic groups.

This dramatic increase in the Latina maternal mortality rate is a harbinger of economic, social, familial, and personal consequences that will reverberate throughout society.

The health of women and children represents a key index of the health of a nation. The overall U.S. maternal mortality rate and the alarming high increase in the Latina rate are symptoms of a disordered society that disinvests in women, children, and families and a failing healthcare system.

The continual increase in maternal mortality rates — especially the accelerated rate increase among Latinas — indicates an insidious malignancy impacting the well-being of mothers, children, families, and society. While some aspects of this problem have been identified, the invisibility of Latinas conceals the gravity of their condition.

Each of us will pay the price for this invisibility.

For Latinas, the lesson is that their challenges and barriers and the inequities endemic to their lives are far more significant than is commonly acknowledged. Rectifying these endemic inequities requires Latinas be made visible. The inequities affecting Latinas must move from the margins to the center of policy agendas to ensure economic, housing, health, education, and workforce equity.

As Women’s History Month winds down, it is time to take on the task of equity for all women all year around — and not just talk about it during March.

Until there is equity for all women, there will be equity for no women.

Publisher’s Notes: Women’s History Month: Latina Invisibility was first published on The Edge.

Noreen M. Sugrue is currently the Director of Research at the Latino Policy Forum. Before joining the Latino Policy Forum, she was a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author or co-author of many articles and book chapters. Her international and domestic research focuses on immigration, immigrants, gender, health care, and the workforce centering on inequity, inequality, and distributive justice. In addition, she analyzes and evaluates the construction and implementation of social policies to address and redress inequities.

Do you have an idea for an Opinion-Editorial? We want to hear from you. Email us at Info@LatinoNewsNetwork.com

New Hampshire Latino News produces and amplifies stories focused on the responses to the social determinants of health. A key social determinant, Health Access & Quality is defined as the extent to which people have equitable, affordable and available access to needed healthcare services. This definition includes both physical accessibility and availability via financial means, transportation options, and other factors.

The federal government announced at the end of 2022 that it will be ending continuous Medicaid enrollment. For over 72,800 Granite Staters, that means their coverage will be gone if they don’t contact the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) by March 31.

This continuous enrollment, a provision of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, allowed millions of Americans to remain on Medicaid without having to show that they still qualify. Starting April 1, the DHHS will return to its annual redetermination process, in which recipients will have to prove their eligibility for the first time since before the Covid-19 pandemic. 

With the March 31 redetermination deadline rapidly approaching, the department is sending out yellow letters to New Hampshire residents that need to complete this process. State Medicaid Director Henry Lipman said that NH EASY users may receive an electronic copy of the letter as well.

The letters state in bold, “Continuous Medicaid coverage is ending,â€� and include instructions and resources to navigate redetermination. 

“It’s going to be important for Medicaid beneficiaries to watch their mail, email and text messages for notices from the state and to complete their Medicaid renewals in order to avoid a gap in their health coverage,� said D.J. Bettencourt, deputy insurance commissioner of New Hampshire.

The over 72,000 recipients that haven’t yet completed this process ahead of March 31 will lose their Medicaid coverage if they don’t meet this deadline. That’s why Lipman said it’s important for recipients to look out for these yellow notices. 

“All of the notices related to eligibility, everything now going forward is yellow during this unwind period,â€� he said. 

Lipman said his department has been mindful of New Hampshire’s Latino and Spanish-speaking communities when coordinating this outreach campaign. Between eight and nine percent of New Hampshire Medicaid recipients are Hispanic. That’s much lower than the national average, but still a point of emphasis for Lipman and his team.

“We don’t have the necessary ethnicity data to send it out directly [to the households that need it], but we’ve made the letter available and prominent on our website in Spanish,â€� he said. “We’ve worked in the past with New Hampshire Public Radio and their Spanish news component. We do try to have sensitivity not only to people who speak Spanish, but to other languages.â€� 

In preparation for an expected wave of last-minute redetermination requests, Lipman said the department increased call center capacity so recipients can have the chance to qualify. 

But not everyone who completes redetermination on time will be able to keep their existing Medicaid coverage. In fact, many won’t qualify to stay on Medicaid and will have to seek out alternative health insurance options. 

To help with the search, New Hampshire’s DHHS recognizes two services as the state’s Health Insurance Navigators: First Choices Services and Health Market Connect, both of which offer services in English and Spanish.

“Our goal is to find, connect with and enroll as many New Hampshire residents in whatever qualifying plan that they’re eligible for,â€� said Eli Cohn, navigator with Health Market Connect. “So if they’re continuing to be eligible for Medicaid, we want to keep them on Medicaid… if not, we want to get them on a healthcare plan on heathcare.gov.â€�  

Cohn expects to be helping many state residents whose incomes are now too high to stay qualified for Medicaid.

“If they need to transition out of Medicaid because they’re over income, we can get them into a Marketplace plan that’ll still offer them some financial support,â€� he said. 

Cohn said that Health Market Connect hasn’t gotten a lot of calls just yet about the March 31 redetermination, specifically. He anticipates that will change in the near future as recipients start reacting to the letters.

“I think it’s going to pick up really, really soon,â€� he said. “It feels, to a lot of people, this yellow letter looks a little threatening… A lot of the job is going to be emotional sensitivity, helping people find the peace of mind that they’re looking for by getting themselves covered.â€� 

Benefits will end gradually for those who no longer qualify, however. Lipman said that they will remain usable for one year after a person has been ruled no longer eligible. 

Additionally, the state will leave children, people in long-term care settings and other vulnerable individuals to be evaluated towards the end of this Medicaid unwind, a process expected to take about one year. This way, these groups have more time to seek alternative healthcare options, if necessary.

Resources:

First Choice Services; 1-877-211-NAVI or (603) 931 3858; https://acanavigator/com/nh/home

Health Market Connect; 1-800-208-5164; https://hmcnh.com

Federal Health Insurance Marketplace; https://www.healthcare.gov

Marketplace Call Center; 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325)

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Cover photo: TaxRebate.org.uk

Legislation surrounding New Hampshire housing is pushed to the forefront in early 2023, with House Speaker Sherman Packard creating a temporary legislative committee specifically for housing-related bills. 

Tenant rights is a hot topic, with some proposed bills prohibiting discrimination against potential tenants using Section 8 vouchers and implementing rent control. 

According to New Hampshire Legal Aid, there is currently no law that regulates how much a landlord can increase the rent on a tenant. Without a written lease that legally binds the rent amount, landlords are free to change rent prices at their disclosure.

Census data showed that 47 percent of renters in the state are paying 30 percent or more of their household income toward rent. And affordability isn’t the only issue. Reports have found that there is a serious lack of available rental units. Five percent is considered a balanced rental market by New Hampshire Housing. New Hampshire’s vacancy rate is currently 0.5 percent.

“Rent control is a bad idea. It’s been proven over and over again that it worsens the problem it is trying to control. Any idea that is restricting business is going to end up causing more harm than they are fixing. If you aren’t creating more housing, then you are looking at the wrong place,� said Nick Norman, director of legislative affairs for the landlords group Apartment Association of NH.

In Manchester, officials recently held a meeting to discuss solutions to the homeless crisis after the city announced plans to clear 45 tents from an encampment formed around the Families in Transition shelter.

“The city faces a homelessness crisis, and the problem is the lack of shelter models of low barriers for people to access,� said Adrienne Beloin, Director of Homelessness Initiatives.

In response, the city added a temporary 40-bed warming station at William Cashin Senior Activity Center. 

A 2021 report by the NH Coalition to End Homelessness estimated that there were 4,682 houseless individuals that year. That same report found that nine percent of the state’s homeless population is Hispanic. According to their analysis, because only four percent of New Hampshire’s general population identifies as Hispanic, Hispanics in New Hampshire are over two times more likely to experience homelessness. 

Notable 2023 Housing Bills

• HB95: Enables municipalities to limit rent increases and/or require a period of notice before increasing rent
• HB 117: Allows for eviction of a tenant when a lease is up, and requires a 30 day’s notice
• HB 283: Places a limit on application fees to prospective tenants to $35 or the cost of conducting a background check, whichever amount is less
• HB 379: Provides attorneys for low-income evictees 

_________________________________________________________________________________Photo: RODNAE Productions, Pexels

COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the United States Latino community. The pandemic devastated the community’s health primarily because of long-standing structural inequities. However, it also exacerbated those disparities by adding a socioeconomic crisis, strengthening barriers to education, and exhausting the quality of neighborhoods and built environments. In essence, COVID-19 negatively impacted the social determinants of health that will negatively impact Latinos for decades.

It is for that reason that the Latino News Network (LNN) is shifting its resources to solutions journalism coverage investigating the responses to social problems, providing insights by evaluating the evidence of what is working and not working, including what can be learned from the limitations (of a response).

New Hampshire Latino News (NHLN), and it’s five sister LNN newsrooms in New England and the Midwest will achieve this by:

• Before making assumptions about what communities need to know, we commit to genuinely listening to them through surveys and in-person and virtual events to provide information that they’re missing.
• We will partner with trusted organizations that help us increase accessibility to the public, broaden the reach of our coverage and prevent misinformation.
• Generate “good conflictâ€� around divisive issues and problems, allowing people and teams to discuss and debate the responses.
• Commit to the on going examination of issues that can help communities see — and work toward building a better society.

NHLN sees the public as more than just the audience; you are contributors. To that end, please take our brief survey to help shape our coverage in producing stories on the social determinants of health: healthcare and quality, neighborhood and built environment, education access and quality, social and community context, and economic stability.

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The Latino News Network (LNN) oversees five independent statewide coverage, Hispanic-Latino editorial focus English language news and information websites in New England and the Midwest.

LNN’s mission is to provide greater visibility and voice to Hispanics-Latinos, amplify the work of others in doing the same, give young journalists mentoring and real work experience, and apply the principles of solutions journalism in its investigative reporting.

Learn more about our work: https://latinonewsnetwork.com/, Twitter: https://twitter.com/LatinoNewsNet_ / Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/latino-news-network/

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