As concern grows regarding the Coronavirus (COVID-19), please know the team at ARI is committed to providing a safe environment for our employees and the community that we serve. 

That being said, all of our offices are open Monday through Friday from 8 am to 4:30 pm to provide services to all community members, while continuing to follow social distancing requirements to help keep staff and clients safe and healthy.  Though we are open Friday, ARI will be at 6270 Elder Creek  

Please follow Governor Newsom’s “Stay at Home” order to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 amongst the community.

Contact us at 916.454.1892 for any questions or concerns that you may have.

California– Our communities continue to adjust to a new “normal” as COVID-19 cases in recent weeks have spiked in this state as well as across the country. Low-income populations, who are often essential workers and must continue to work, as well as communities of color, who suffer from comorbidities and often live in larger households, have been disparately affected by COVID-19 infection and death rates. According to the California Department of Public Health, over 13,000 Asian Americans and over 1300 Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) across California have tested positive for COVID-19. Relative to their total population size, NHPIs have been one of the most disproportionately impacted groups by COVID-19. In Los Angeles county, the death rate due to COVID-19 for Pacific Islanders is 12 higher than whites, 9 times higher than Asians, 7 times higher than Latinos, and 5 times higher than for African Americans. We must make sure all communities can get the health coverage and health care they need now more than ever. 

On Tuesday, July 14th, ARI’s Policy Director, Doreena Wong, joined Peter Lee, Executive Director at Covered California, the health insurance marketplace, as a speaker at Covered California’s “API Media Roundtable to Discuss the COVID-19 Pandemic and its Ongoing Special Enrollment Period.” Covered California can provide financial subsidies to help pay for premiums and the deadline to sign up for Covered CA health coverage is July 31, 2020. Medi-Cal provides free or low-cost health coverage for low income individuals making less than about $18,000/year or $37,000/year for a family of four and has no deadline. During the event Wong shared the following, “Please get health coverage if you don’t already have it. This is a very dangerous time to be without any health coverage in case you get the coronavirus or get sick. If you are suffering from COVID-19, please get tested and treated – any testing, treatment and vaccine (when available) is free.”  

With the sharp increase in cases in recent weeks, we need to stand together, remain vigilant and be more proactive to combat the spread of COVID-19 across our communities. We urge our state and local elected officials to boldly stand up for our communities by adequately equipping our front line workers with personal protective equipment (PPE), increase the availability of testing and testing kit production and conduct critical contact tracing to decrease the curve and gain control of the pandemic. Although the threatened shutdown of testing sites in Sacramento has been reversed, testing sites serving communities of color who have been disproportionately suffering from infection and death rates should be added and located where they live and seek services as soon as possible. Now is  the time to expand testing sites, especially those that serve communities of color, limited English proficient, and low-income communities as the incidence of COVID-19 is surging. Community based organizations can assist with the important contact tracing efforts across the state to slow the spread of COVID-19. 

We call on our community partners and members to educate our AANHPI communities and other communities of color who may not as readily have access to timely COVID-19 information due to cultural and linguistic barriers and take the following actions:  

• Help Slow the Spread: Wearing masks when going out in public, physical distancing of at least 6 feet, and washing hands are the best public health practices to slow the spread of COVID-19 in our communities and will ensure your safety and the safety of others. Currently there is no vaccine or cure for COVID-19, so beware of companies or individuals falsely selling products. While practicing physical distancing, we encourage you to check-in on family, friends, and neighbors to prevent social isolation.  
• Ensure Everyone Has Needed Health Coverage: Having health coverage and accessing health care is more critical than ever. ARI and other certified Navigators across the state can help you sign up for health coverage through Covered California or free Medi-Cal.  We have staff who can provide free in-language consultations and enrollment services by appointment. Contact our offices at 916.454.1892, find a Certified Enrollment Counselor in your region by visiting CoveredCA.com, or call Covered California’s Customer Service Line at (800) 300-1506. You can receive help through Covered California’s Customer Service Center in 13 different languages and speak with someone in your own language. 
• Help Stop AAPI Hate: AANHPI communities are not just experiencing a health pandemic but also a pandemic of hate and increased acts of racism due to COVID-19. The Stop AAPI Hate campaign has collected over 800 + reported cases of AAPI hate incidents in our state over the last three months. We urge the Governor and elected officials to support the collection of disaggregated data on how this pandemic has affected specific AANHPI communities, especially PI populations. If you need to report an incident please visit: https://stopaapihate.org/. The form is in 11 different languages, and all information submitted will be kept confidential.  

Sacramento - This moment is an important inflection point for our country. We have the chance to learn from our long history of racial injustice and fundamentally change our criminal justice system. We at Asian Resources, Inc. stand with the Black community. As news broke on the unjust murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, we shared the grief and  outrage like many in the Black community, other communities of color, and others in our country. As protests continue to sweep across our nation, we acknowledge the deep pain felt by the oppression for hundreds of years of our black brothers and sisters.

And yet through this pain, we know that history has demonstrated time and time again that when we stand together, our resilient communities gain strength and make progress towards positive social change. Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities must stand up in the fight against systemic racism and support our black neighbors, friends, and family. In the background, COVID-19 continues to impact communities of color disproportionately and increased hate crimes against AANHPI communities have resulted from the fear and scapegoating by the administration for the consequences of the coronavirus. Perhaps more dangerous than COVID-19 is the pervasive systemic racism that continues to infect our communities – racism is a public health crisis. 

How do we support the black community? We must listen to our black community leaders, amplify their voices, join them on the streets, and donate to black-led organizations leading the efforts to dismantle systemic racism and systems of oppression. 

Black lives matter today and always. We must do better as a community. We encourage you to start having conversations with your family and friends, because change starts within our own homes. 

Ways to Support: 

Donate to support George Floyd’s Family: www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd

Donate to support Breonna Taylor’s Family: www.gofundme.com/f/9v4q2-justice-for-breonna-taylor

Donate to support Ahmaud Arbery’s Family: www.gofundme.com/f/i-run-with-maud