We’re celebrating five years of One Degree in Los Angeles County! Our work in LA began in 2017 through a partnership with the LA County Department of Health Services’ Whole Person Care initiative and has blossomed into authentic community building, deep partnerships, and integrations with agencies in the region.

Since 2017, over 300,000 people have relied on One Degree to access life-changing resources all across the county, from Santa Monica to Claremont, and from Long Beach to Lancaster! In fact, the number of unique people using One Degree in LA increased 367% since launch.

We’re also seeing some truly deep engagement with service providers in LA: over 25% of organizations in the region have one or more staff members using One Degree. In all, we have over 3,200 pro members (nonprofit, healthcare, and government workers) in LA out of 1,870 organizations. It’s not an understatement when I say that our community partners across LA rely on One Degree every single day.
 

“One Degree es una organización que apoya de forma humana. De corazón agradezco infinitamente la ayuda que me están brindando.”

“One Degree is an organization that supports in a humane way. From my heart, I thank you infinitely for the help you are giving me.”

-Carlos, One Degree community member

Cecilia also trained Susana, a community advocate in San Gabriel Valley, to use One Degree through a program called Promotoras. Promotoras train community members in mental health topics such as anxiety, depression and domestic violence so they can educate their community. As a Promotora, Susana has helped families navigate concerns about Public Charge, finding childcare, food and counseling services. In addition to finding great resources for her neighbors, Susana has also applied to affordable housing opportunities for herself on One Degree. Susana says, “I think people should know about One Degree because of all the benefits that are listed. It’s bilingual, and accessible for any person, and easy to use.”

Supporting our Community

Over the last five years, our Community Success team has delivered hundreds of hours of support and training to partners and conducted outreach and engagement across all eight service planning areas in LA, with a focus on underserved individuals and communities. Below are two stories about how our team has supported our community.

Our LA Community Navigator Cecilia Mejia recently supported a community member, Carlos, who was facing a crisis. Carlos had lost his job and was unable to apply for unemployment benefits because of his immigration status. Within minutes, Cecilia connected him to meal distributions, groceries, and crisis relief. A few days later, Carlos reported back that after waiting on the phone for five hours with a nonprofit, the line abruptly disconnected. Carlos was understandably distraught, but Cecilia encouraged him to keep calling back. In the meantime, she found and connected him to another financial support resource. When Cecilia checked in with Carlos a few days later, he told her that he received both the crisis relief and financial support.

Deep Partnership Roots in Los Angeles

We’re excited about continuing to build deep and diverse community partnerships, like the following:

• One Degree is the closed loop referral partner for the LA-ACEs Network of Care and their network of 12 LA DHS Health Centers and 29 CBO partners.
• We are also the closed-loop referral partner for San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center and their network of six CBOs. 
• Launching later this fall, One Degree LA will be the resource directory partner for The Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative, and their 16 lead service providers and more than 100+ SPA service providers.
• Alluma’s One-e-App has been the system of record for LA’s MyHealthLA program, which in the last two years on average enabled over 225,000 of the most vulnerable Angelenos to get healthcare.
• We also powered the county’s COVID-19 Testing Sites search engine. So millions of people who were looking for testing locations in LA used our platform!

The last five years of serving the Los Angeles community are just the start. There is still more work to do, particularly as many families recover from the challenges of the pandemic. And we look forward to helping more people in need while building a more equity-centered safety net.

Connect with me if you’re interested in learning more about how we’re centering equity in our work in LA.

Tagged chapter, expansion, LA, Los Angeles, One Degree