During a May 9 groundbreaking, Dr. Esmaeil Porsa, President and CEO of Harris Health,  cited the great need for the new facilities to be built in Northeast Houston. Harris Health will build a Level One Trauma Center, a new hospital with double the capacity, and offer much needed in-patient and out-patient mental health services at the site. He said these facilities are greatly needed by “the underserved, the poor, the uninsured, the underinsured that LBJ hospital serves.”

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Rev. Carissa Baldwin-McGinnis of Northside Episcopal Church said church groups are seeing a lot of children across Houston experiencing trauma — and even grief — as normalcy and friendships are lost because of COVID-19 and all the events that have come before it.

Baldwin-McGinnis is an executive committee member for The Metropolitan Organization, a nonprofit that brings faith-based groups together to influence policymakers’ decisions. The organization is currently working to raise awareness for the food and housing needs low-income and minority communities are facing during the pandemic.

“We know that the nervous system of children gets extra triggered when there are multiple experiences of complex trauma,” Baldwin-McGinnis said. “If they’ve had losses in the past, they’re less able to regulate their emotions, they have higher levels of anxiety … (and) you can get all kinds of crazy behavior including higher aggression.&rdquo

[Photo by Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle]

Houston Has Experienced a Series of Unfortunate Events. Our Children Are Suffering for it, Houston Chronicle