April 17, 2010. The Lakeland Ledger.
LAKELAND | With unemployment at 13 percent and residents losing jobs and health insurance, the Polk Ecumenical Action Council for Empowerment is using its 10th public Nehemiah Action accountability rally to push for social justice.
Needs targeted this year are:
Affordable rental housing.
More access to health care.
Drug rehabilitation and a related impact on crime.
On the hot seat will be Polk County’s five county commissioners.
PEACE members, representing church congregations countywide, want promises and timetables for action. Its leaders hope to get 2,000 people who support these goals to be at the action. The rally starts at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Resurrection Catholic Church in Lakeland.
With rental housing, PEACE members seek at least five meetings with high-level county staff, business community members and housing authority representatives to create an affordable rental housing trust fund. PEACE also wants a final draft plan, complete with funding sources other than the county’s general fund, completed by March 18, 2011.
On health care, the focus continues to be creating more primary care clinics for the uninsured and underinsured.
“I see every day the result of people who have had no access to health care,” said the Rev. Eileen Stone, chairwoman of the PEACE health committee and director of pastoral care at Lakeland Regional Medical Center.
Previously, PEACE got a pledge that five primary clinics would be forthcoming in Polk with help from the county’s indigent-care tax funds, but only one, Lakeland Primary Care, is operating. Another is under way.
Both will be operated by Central Florida Health Care, a federally qualified health center with clinics in Frostproof, Dundee, Wauchula and Avon Park.
But disagreements about how Central Florida gets reimbursed and other changes make it uncertain whether the nonprofit will bid to do others. And some on the Citizens Oversight Committee, which monitors the indigent health care program, disagree with establishing more clinics and have issues with Central Florida Health Care.
PEACE wants commissioners to commit to releasing, by Sept. 1, requests for proposals to start additional primary care centers. One would be in Northeast Polk and the other in an area county leaders would determine.
Along with that, PEACE asks them to ensure contracts are written in a way that would let federally qualified centers be able to bid on and operate comfortably within the guidelines.
And they want commissioners to travel with PEACE members to Orlando this June to see how the Orange County Primary Care Access network, which collaborates heavily with federally qualified centers and other providers, offers broad access to primary care.
Commissioners will get some praise and encouragement to stay the course on commitments acted on toward the ultimate goal of more available, affordable outpatient drug treatment. PEACE is happy with actions the county has taken with the Polk Sheriff’s Office, Lakeland Regional Medical Center, Tri-County Human Services, Drug Court and Peace River Center.
In the substance-abuse area, a task force spearheaded by County Commission Chairman Bob English has created a business plan for opening a facility with inpatient space for 54 men and 18 women, along with outpatient care. For the $2.7 million a year needed to operate the program, PEACE will seek state approval for the County Commission to levy a 1 percent tax on alcohol sales.
That would bring in $2.1 million. The rest would come from municipalities, grants, church and agency donations, said Harry Pettit, who chairs the PEACE drug rehab committee.
Once the state grants permission, Pettit said, PEACE would work for community support for passing a referendum to allow the 1 percent tax.
