PBN Health Care Heroes 2024
Volunteer: WILMA SMITH
Local Initiatives Support Corp. Pawtucket-Central Falls Health Equity Zone resident ambassador
What led you to choose health care as your profession? I believe that healthy communities are an essential part of health care and that connecting people with community resources is an important part of promoting healthy living.
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How have you helped boost the quality of or access to health care? By using my spare time to inform myself of community resources and networking with organizations and key leaders in my community and sharing that information with other residents. One connection that stands out is the one I made with Bryan Evans from Green & Healthy Homes Initiative [Rhode Island]. I directly connected one of my neighbors to Bryan to get help with lead paint issues in their apartments.
What is the biggest challenge you and your organization are facing this year? A continuous challenge in my community is funding for local resources related to finding and maintaining affordable housing. However, I feel the real challenge is with local zoning regulations and restrictions, which hopefully will improve now that some changes have been made on the state level.
What more do you feel the state can do to help further support the health care sector in Rhode Island? I feel as though the state needs to provide more resources such as rent control or rent relief and allocate funding to support low-cost or reduced child care assistance. Having a safe, affordable place to live has been shown to increase both mental and physical health. Creating affordable housing will provide more families with healthy living environments.
Tell us one thing that most people don’t know about you. I would love to publish my own book about overcoming homelessness.
