Mon, Sept 1

“You can’t heal in the same place that hurt you.”
—Anonymous graffiti, West Oakland

Some wounds don’t bleed—they echo.

In West Oakland, where redlining, incarceration, and generational grief collide, silence around trauma had become normalized. There were no clinics. No care. No healing hubs in walking distance.

But when a community gets tired of waiting, it builds.

This is the story of how trauma recovery became infrastructure, and how funding finally caught up to what the people already knew.

💔 A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight

• 1 in 3 youth in West Oakland screened positive for untreated trauma

• Mental health services? Scarce, stigmatized, and culturally misaligned

• Students dropped out. Teachers burned out. Families soldiered on in silence

This wasn’t just a mental health gap. It was a justice gap.

And the response?
The Oakland Trauma Recovery Fund—a grassroots-to-grant-funded movement to make healing public, visible, and sustainable.

✊ Meet the Healing Architects

At the heart of it all was Carmen DuBois, a licensed trauma therapist and local survivor who built her own practice in the cracks the system ignored.

She united:

• Pastor Reggie Owens, whose church hosted emergency grief circles

• Melina Chan, a bilingual school-based family navigator

• ROOT Oakland, a youth-led storytelling initiative for mental health awareness

• Local artists, aunties, and caregivers trained in crisis response

Their idea? Not a clinic. An ecosystem:

• Mobile healing vans

• Permanent neighborhood hubs

• Youth trauma fellowships

• Art, talk, tech, financial literacy, and therapy—co-existing under one healing roof

🎩 When Mr. Grant Money Got the Call

Carmen didn’t show me spreadsheets.

She showed me a mural sketch:
A Black girl holding a mirror, surrounded by affirmations in four languages. Beneath her:

“Our pain is not pathology. It’s proof.”

I said, “Let’s make it fundable.”

Together, we built a funding blueprint grounded in equity, urgency, and realness.

🧠 The Fundable Framework

We framed healing as infrastructure—a public utility as essential as water or electricity.

🔹 Core strategy:

• Trauma heat maps layered with disinvestment data

• BIPOC provider pipeline training and apprenticeships

• Youth storytelling & digital advocacy

• Full-service recovery hubs + mobile vans

🔹 Funders targeted:

• HRSA Behavioral Health Integration Grants

• California Mental Health Services Act (MHSA)

• Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

• Oakland’s Reimagining Public Safety Fund

🔹 Budget ask:

$4.7M for 3 sites, 2 mobile units, 15 youth trauma fellows

And when a funder asked, “What’s your sustainability plan?”
Carmen replied:

“We’ll make it sustainable when you make it possible.”

💥 When the Grants Landed, the Healing Launched

In less than 90 days:

• $5.1M raised from multi-source funding

• Three trauma-informed wellness hubs launched in East and West Oakland

• Oakland’s first mobile healing van rolled out: therapy, mentorship, and drop-in grief circles

• 80+ residents trained in trauma care, crisis response, and facilitation

• Weekly drop-ins quadrupled expected turnout

And Mateo, age 12, who hadn’t spoken since his cousin died, began leading healing art circles by Week 3.

🧭 The Grant Money Healing Playbook

This movement rewrote every rule:

1. Start where it hurts.
   Don’t wait for ideal conditions. Pain is the proof of need.

2. Community is the credential.
   Carmen, Pastor Reggie, the aunties—they are the expertise.

3. Emotions fund movements.
   Pair stats with stories. Grief, rage, hope—they all belong in a grant.

4. Healing is justice.
   If your org funds public safety but not public healing—it’s incomplete.

5. Strategy is medicine.
   Every funding decision either heals or harms. Design accordingly.

🌱 Ready to Heal What’s Been Ignored?

Trauma isn’t a trend.
It’s a daily reality—especially in communities left behind by health, housing, education, and justice.

But now?
We don’t have to wait. Not for permission. Not for perfection.

You bring the wound.
I’ll bring the war chest.

— Mr. Grant Money

🛍 Rebuild with Resources

• More stories like this: Mr. Grant Money Blog

• Mental health toolkits & grant blueprints: Mr. Grant Money Store

• Healing through music: Mr. Grant Money Music

💬 Discussion Questions

1. How does trauma show up in your neighborhood—and how is it usually ignored?

2. What would it look like to fund healing like housing or public works—not as a grant, but a guarantee?

3. What role can storytelling and culture play in destigmatizing care?

4. Where in your city could become a hub for trauma-informed recovery—a church? A library? A park?

5. If you had $1M to heal your community, where would you start first—and who would you hire?