Policy & Practice | Winter 2023

Community care is the seemingly tiny issue that I am going to discuss here. Why? Because it’s huge and it will save lives if we can figure out how to change the narrative.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Zahava “Zee” Zaidoff and I am a partner, mother, counselor, caregiver, trainer, writer, advocate, and recipient of Medicaid and SNAP. I am also neu rodivergent, live with PTSD, a survivor of a suicide attempt, and in recovery from addiction. I am also a member of APHSA’s Community Impact Council as part of the Coordinating SNAP and Nutrition Supports (CSNS) project, where I bring my lived expertise with SNAP benefits into the room. My job is to use my voice and to elevate the voices of others like me; those who are impacted by every huge, large, small, and miniscule decision that human services agencies make. But mostly, I am tenacious and I am loud. Sometimes I get loud about things that everyone is talking about, and sometimes I pick seemingly tiny issues and get loud about them, awakening others to the issues that they may not have thought about. That is my role. I recently joined a committee in my hometown called the Mayor’s Committee for People with Disabilities. The committee hadn’t been active since 2020 and began again in June 2023. In my county we are good at video con ferencing, always have been. But the committee for people with disabilities was not available on Zoom or any video platform. So I joined the committee in September and I got loud about it. How can we have a committee for people with disabilities that is not accessible to people with disabilities? Well, that got fixed quickly. By the end of the meeting, it was decided that it would be available on Zoom forever. I recently spoke to the Working Families Caucus of our State House

about my lived experience with SNAP benefits. I took some of my allotted time to discuss how I, as a person who has had trauma around food insecu rity, don’t owe anyone my trauma. I don’t owe anyone my story. And although I spoke for free, I shouldn’t have had to. I made both friends and allies uncomfortable as I spoke about the states that have a system in place to pay those with lived expertise when they share their stories. You know what happened? We are now at the very beginning stages of creating an advisory board of lived experience experts in my state. Getting involved makes a difference. Speaking truth makes a difference. That being said, I am very cognizant of the fact that not everyone can. It is the privilege that I have in my life that allows me to even show up and fight to be part of the conversation. Community may be the word of the moment and the buzz word to make change happen, but somewhere, we decided that community should apply to everything except taking care of ourselves. That’s where we like to throw the phrase “self-care” around. The world decided somewhere that there was more pride and joy in the concept of “self-care” than in the concept of community care. Community care is the seemingly tiny issue that I am going to discuss here. Why? Because it’s huge and it will save lives if we can figure out how to change the narrative. (The stories and anecdotes from here on out will be mostly mine, but some will belong to friends and neighbors. These expe riences belong to millions of people across the country.) Here’s what I think those in the human services sector don’t always know. And it’s not your fault that you

don’t know this. Nobody tells you. So here it is. Here is the secret—you are a part of my community. My eligibility workers are integral parts of my community. I have food and medical care and cash to pay my phone bill because of you. I am in a situ ation in my life where self-care is not enough. I need my community, and that includes you. Not only are the eligibility workers part of my community, but the executives and decision makers are part of my community as well. I can only imagine that sitting in an office pouring over policy language and legalese makes you feel separate from me. It’s not your fault. You don’t see me. You don’t see my neighbors. You don’t see our kids and our dinners and our play time and our birthday celebrations. But that means that you also don’t see that my car is on its last legs and that I am down to my last box of mac ’n cheese. You don’t see that my child has new shoes, but mine have holes. You don't know that if I take any more Motrin, I will develop an ulcer, but lack of access or money or time off work makes seeing a doctor nearly impossible. You see what everyone else sees. A stressed-out parent or caregiver who isn’t engaging in self-care. I would have loved to write a feature about a program I am working on that brings systems together, with verified and documented statistics that can be replicated across the country. That really was my intention when I began writing. But then something happened. Yet another well-meaning friend started lecturing me about my lack of self-care. They told me I needed and deserved a massage. They even offered me a gift certificate. If one more person tells me that I deserve a massage and should really do that for myself, I might scream.

Zahava “Zee” Zaidoff is a Community Wellness Advocate in Hawaii County.

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Policy & Practice Winter 2023