Editor’s note: This is one in a series of stories about United Way-funded agencies and the people they serve. United Way of Lane County is in the midst of its annual fall fundraising campaign.
University of Oregon freshman Karla Mercado, 18, leaned back in a couch at North Eugene High School.
“Financially, it has always been a struggle,” she said. “Because of this program, I had one less worry growing up.”
Mercado is speaking about the Soy Sano/I Am Healthy program, a service at the health centers at North Eugene and Churchill high schools. The Eugene School District program has provided everything from medical checkups and immunizations to dental and vision help, mostly free of charge to Mercado, who grew up in Eugene and attended North Eugene .
Motivated in part by her experience at the clinic, Mercado now is taking classes at the University of Oregon to pursue a career in education. And she’s paying for her education in part by working at St. Vincent de Paul Society of Lane County, the nonprofit human services organization.
Soy Sano targets a special population in Lane County: Latino youth who lack U.S. citizenship or permanent residency status — and therefore cannot get government-funded health insurance. It also serves other young people who do not have or do not qualify for public health insurance.
Mercado knows what it’s like to lack health insurance. She previously was an illegal immigrant; her status is now legal under a federal temporary permit program, and she is officially allowed to work.
The Soy Sano/I Am Healthy program began in 2010, paid for by a two-year pilot grant from the Oregon Legislature. With the backing of several local groups, the agency managed to keep its doors open even after the original grant funding ended in 2012.
Help is on the way
The funding is part of a broader, ongoing push by lawmakers to provide more help to illegal immigrants, especially youth who were brought into the United States illegally by their also-illegal parents.
In 2013, the Legislature approved a bill allowing some young illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates — as opposed to the much-higher out-of-state rates — at Oregon’s public universities.
In 2014, lawmakers approved giving Oregon drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants, although voters statewide overwhelmingly overturned that change in November 2014. In this year’s legislative session, lawmakers opened some state-funded college scholarships to illegal immigrants.
In its first year of operation, Soy Sano/I Am Healthy helped provide comprehensive health services to 1,250 low-income children in Lane County who were born outside the United States, are in the country illegally and do not qualify for public health insurance, according to Eugene School-Based Health Center data.
The Oregon Center for Public Policy estimates there are 17,600 illegal immigrant children statewide.
Soy Sano has found that during the past couple of years, because of the expansion of the publicly funded Oregon Health Plan under the federal Affordable Care Act, fewer legal residents need the program’s help. But many hundreds of illegal immigrant children continue to lack insurance.
The program served 710 young clients in the 12 months ending in June.
Covering the children
The Affordable Care Act has not had much effect on health services for illegal immigrants because, according to the Oregon Center for Public Policy, federally funded insurance programs such as the Oregon Health Plan do not cover illegal immigrants, except in medical emergencies.
That leaves the families of illegal immigrants with the option of buying private health insurance, which is not subsidized and often expensive. Oregon is unlike Washington state, New York and Illinois, all of which provide government-funded health insurance to illegal immigrant children within their states.
With the help of United Way of Lane County, other funding sources and community-donated resources, Soy Sano has reached its fifth year of operation, surviving even in a financially unstable climate.
“For many of these students, it’s very difficult,” said Beto Montes, the program’s bicultural outreach worker. “You come in from another country not knowing the language, the culture or the school system.”
Montes, 34 and bilingual, initially came into the United States from Mexico legally in 1990, when he was 9. He began attending the Eugene School District in fourth grade, and he received citizenship six years later because of his residency.
Montes attended the UO. He is pursuing a master’s degree in counseling at Northwest Christian University in Eugene.
Montes said his priority is providing a bridge between Latino parents and children and the school district. Two students Montes work with, 18-year-olds Luis and Romero, are prime examples.
The Register-Guard is withholding their last names to protect their privacy. They lack legal immigration status. Both came to the United States with their parents from Mexico as illegal immigrants.
“I haven’t been able to find any other health sources,” said Luis in Spanish, his words translated into English by Montes. Luis, who has younger siblings in Eugene schools, said Soy Sano has been a big help in his transition to living Eugene.
Romero agreed, noting he’s been able to use the program for basic health checkups.
Under the radar
UO student Mercado said she’s been inspired by the program.
“Even if I go somewhere else, I want to be a health activist,” she said.
Mercado originally was an illegal immigrant. But she received a renewable 2-year work visa through the federal Deferred Action Through Childhood Arrivals program, which is open to illegal immigrants who arrived in the United States before turning 16, who are 30 or younger and have lived within the country for the past five years, and who are attending school or serving in the military.
The health-care challenges facing illegal-immigrant children often go unnoticed in the broader community, said Maxine Proskurowski, the school district’s health service program manager.
“The community doesn’t see a need because these kids don’t show up at (health care providers),” said Proskurowski, noting that many illegal immigrant families don’t go to local health providers because they lack the money or insurance to cover the care.
When the Soy Sano program initially started, it received $40,920 from the Legislature in each of its first two years. That helped pay for nurse time; two part-time bilingual, bicultural outreach workers; and a portion of the coordinator’s salary.
The program was coordinated through the Community Health Centers of Lane County, the Eugene School District’s School-Based Health Centers, and Glenwood-based Planned Parenthood of Southwest Oregon.
Opening the doors
After grant funds ran out, United Way, the Eugene Education Fund, the Springfield-based PacificSource Foundation and several community outreach services stepped in to make up the difference.
Oregon Health Authority, the state’s health care department, also increased funding to the health centers. And the state office of Mental Health and Addictions awarded a grant to Lane County Behavioral Health to help cover the districts’ uninsured students.
Since 2013, United Way has provided $12,500 a year to the Eugene School District’s school-based health centers, and it promised an additional $10,000 directly to the Soy Sano program through January 2017.
“United Way has really opened the doors for us to get outside funding,” Proskurowski said. The strict application requirements and competitive process that United Way uses to choose grant recipients often encourages other grant and donor services to then financially support or donate resources to Soy Sano.
United Way “have been champions for us,” she said.
Adding dental care
Soy Sano’s clients now receive dental services through the Assistance League’s Children Dental Center at Churchill High as well as the Lane Community College Dental Hygiene Program.
“It’s a collaborative effort,” said Sharon Hagen, a dental hygiene instructor for LCC. The college receives $7,000 yearly from United Way to help cover dental checkups, mainly for illegal immigrants, and the college donates the rest of its dental services time.
Hagen said in the last school year, the program recorded 87 dental cleanings for Eugene School District students with Latino surnames. “The children in greatest need are the Hispanic children,” Hagen said.
Funding always has been touch and go.
In 2012, the Eugene district’s health centers fell behind in eligibility for state funding due in part to a lack of compliance with several new state health care mandates for record-keeping and reporting. The centers ultimately lost both state funding and funding from the school district, which had covered 80 percent of the centers’ operating costs.
Two of the centers closed, but local money has provided enough to keep the two remaining centers open. Proskurowski said the continuance of special programs such as Soy Sano hinges on school-based centers remaining open.
“The reality is, if we don’t get funding by June, the days are numbered for these (centers),” Proskurowski said.
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