CHA

ABOUT US

CALIFORNIA HOMEMAKERS ASSOCIATION (CHA) is a free and voluntary, unincorporated, private membership association – an organizing drive comprised of domestic workers, attendant care workers, low-income elderly, blind and disabled recipients of in-home care and other low paid workers. CHA members joined together with concerned residents, students, professionals, clergy and local businesses on a volunteer basis to achieve a permanent solution to the problems experienced by low-paid service workers in California, in general, and Sonoma County in specific.


$0

Government funding

100%

Volunteer

20K

Members signed

Learn more about CHA

Participate as a volunteer

Lead the domestic workers struggle for justice

Learn more about CHA ♢ Participate as a volunteer ♢ Lead the domestic workers struggle for justice ♢

Learn more about CHA

Participate as a volunteer

Lead the struggle for justice

Learn more about CHA ♢ Participate as a volunteer ♢ Lead the struggle for justice ♢

Est. 2000

In Santa Rosa, California, CHA members joined together in 2000 with concerned residents, students, professionals, clergy and local businesses to create a free and voluntary, unincorporated private membership association, best suited to achieve a permanent solution to the problems of poverty experienced by these workers.

A teal background image of the California border with a star marking Santa Rosa and the California bear on it.
A caregiver pushing a wheelchair-bound care recipient who is holding a sign that says, "IHSS workers need living wages to care for the poor sick and aged."
Image of CHA's new front sign with emblem of Paris, name and street address. The right side of the office and solar panels are visible in the background.
Plant in hand icon

Purpose

California Homemakers Association unites Sonoma County’s lowest-paid domestic workers and their allies to fight to end poverty conditions and the government policies that create them. We recognize that in order to organize, we must take collective action to ensure our day-to-day survival. CHA’s benefit program provides neither acts of charity nor isolated acts of goodwill, but rather helps members to obtain what is rightfully theirs in a context that promotes their best interest on all levels.

A Latino man gives a thumbs up at a farmers market stand.
Award Icon

Accomplishments

CHA utilizes “systemic organizing methodology” – a winning combination of labor, political and community organizing techniques – to unite various groupings in the community with CHA’s membership. Through this method, CHA is accomplishing the following.

CHA members lead campaigns to prevent cuts to state-run programs that provide assistance for the poor, like In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS), so that homemakers don’t suffer their meager wages being reduced even further, and the disabled do not face cuts in vital care. CHA has also fought and won to curtail utility rate increases frequently rubber-stamped by state regulators.

Seasonally: CHA runs a year-round budget savings program, including seasonal benefits, that aids dozens of enrolled members and their families, totaling over 200 adults and their children, with backpacks and school supplies, holiday food baskets and toys, warm winter clothing and other seasonally requested items that save families thousands of dollars each year.

Monthly: CHA volunteer attorneys provide legal advice in private to requesting CHA members or provide group presentations on general information on various topics of interest to low-income workers, as requested by CHA members.

Weekly: Volunteer advocates prevent utility shutoffs of electricity and gas service. CHA volunteers run supplemental food distributions three times a week supporting over 50 adults and children.

Daily: CHA provides a material manifestation of hope by uniting the most exploited workers along with allies from all sectors of our community through filling emergency food requests, providing organizer training and demonstrating how to fight and win collective victories.

In the aftermath of the 2017 Tubbs Fire, which destroyed 5,636 structures, including 5% of Sonoma County’s housing stock, CHA volunteers and members took heroic actions to aid fire victims. In the first two weeks after the fire, CHA volunteers filled over 490 benefit requests from fire victims free of charge. Assembly Member Marc Levine presented CHA with this certificate of recognition to honor CHA’s response to the Tubbs Fire and decades of support for low-income workers.

California Homemakers Association

Powering the future with high efficiency volunteers