Fernando Gomez is a combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps, but even the suffering he witnessed in war-torn countries like Libya and Yemen couldn’t prepare him for what he encounters every Thursday in the homeless encampments of Bakersfield.
“What I see here is worse, honestly: Poverty, homelessness — and it’s kids and women who pay the consequences,” said the California State University, Bakersfield graduate student. “It’s learned helplessness due to poverty, systemic inequality and oppression in the places where I served, like Egypt, Oman and Bahrain. There’s no difference in what’s happening here.”
But where there is pain and a need for understanding and empathy, there is a social worker there to help — on the streets, in the schools, hospitals, human service agencies, hospice and palliative care, prisons, private practice and beyond. And many of those professionals received their training in CSUB’s Master of Social Work (MSW) program.
“One of the things we tell people is that you’re going to encounter social workers in every aspect of your life,” said Dr. Ashleigh Herrera, assistant professor in CSUB’s Department of Social Work. “Our students learn how to do things beyond just one-to-one contact, which allows them to have more impact in changing systems and changing policies. I don’t want them to just change lives — I want them to change the world.”
In a coincidence of timing with National Social Worker Month, CSUB will introduce a first for the county in mid-March when Herrera and her students partner with Clinica Sierra Vista to install a unique vending machine outside the federally qualified health center’s Baker Street Village clinic, which serves the city’s most vulnerable patient population. Instead of soft drinks and snacks, the machine — donated by Anthem Blue Cross — will dispense necessities, free of charge, to keep high-risk users safe from the dangers they encounter on the streets.
“It’s called a harm-reduction vending machine, and though it’s pretty common in bigger cities and Europe, it’s the first machine in Kern County,” Dr. Herrera said. “We will offer safer injection supplies, hygiene products, safe-sex items, Narcan, wound care kits, sharps disposals and more. This is a low-barrier option, and the users don’t have to interact with providers. You can access the machines 24/7 to promote health and fight stigma.”
Gomez, 28, is enrolled in CSUB’s Master of Social Work program and is one of two interns who will help register the first group of people to use the machine, which is accessed through a pin number. The CSUB team also will resupply the materials and monitor the initiative, with an eye to providing additional machines in the coming months with other partners, such as Kern Behavioral Health & Recovery Services.
Dr. Matthew Beare, a physician at Clinica Sierra Vista, works with Gomez and another CSUB intern every Thursday when they provide care to the homeless on the streets.
“I would have never thought that we’d be working this closely with an academic institution,” he said. “If I had been exposed to this in college, I can’t even imagine how my life trajectory would have changed because this is not a population you engage with typically. It gives this priceless perspective, just an appreciation of the humanity of homelessness. I think that changes how you see marginalized populations.”
Dr. Herrera echoed Dr. Beare’s praise for hands-on learning and noted that for the 140 students enrolled in CSUB’s Master of Social Work program, practice-based education is a requirement.
Last month, the Department of Social Work hosted a naloxone training event in partnership with Drug Free Kern. More than 80 MSW students were trained to recognize the signs of an opioid overdose and how to administer naloxone to reverse the drug’s life-threatening effects on the body. Each student received a naloxone kit to use to save lives in the community.
“Today, you’re more likely to die from an overdose than an automobile accident,” Dr. Herrera said. “We’re hitting an all-time high in the country. In Kern County, unfortunately we’re ranking higher than the state average. We’re ninth in opioid deaths in the state.”
To address the substance-use disorder crisis as well as homelessness and a long list of other challenges, Kern County needs more social workers.
“There is a shortage,” Dr. Herrera said. “That’s why we came into existence. Our program developed in reflection of the community’s need for social workers. The state is trying to scale up on school social workers, early prevention and intervention so that we don’t see such severe problems later in life.”
Dr. Beare said the lack of social workers — especially to serve the chronically unsheltered — is like a “desert within a desert,” but working with interns like Gomez fills him with hope.
One cold, dark Thursday morning outside the Baker Street clinic, Dr. Beare and his street medicine team were loading the truck to head out to the encampments when a homeless man wandered into the lobby and sat down.
“And Fernando just went over to him and talked to him. Just lighthearted stuff," he said. "And when it came time to depart, I was trying to let this guy know we need you to exit the building. And when I did that, the guy became a little bit hostile. And Fernando was so poised and just knew instinctively how to talk to this guy and calm him down. This is something I do day in and day out, and he just did it like it was nothing. It takes a special mindset to engage with this population that comes across as not phoning it in. It’s this weird natural talent.”
Gomez credits the skills he has learned from CSUB, his mentor Jose Gomez, Kern Behavioral Health and his service in the Marines.
“If someone is cold and it’s six in the morning and they’re hungry and not sleeping well, they’re going to be argumentative, aggressive," he said. "Who knows what’s happening to them in the streets. So they act hard and tough, but it’s a defense mechanism. You go through that barrier and say, ‘I understand it sucks out here, but I’m just here to help you.’”
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