Newly elected Governor Jerry Brown’s 2011–2012 budget proposal slashes $12.5 billion dollars from essential health and human services. Brown himself characterized his new budget as "draconian." Programs that serve the most vulnerable sectors of California communities including services for the disabled, the mentally ill and drug addicted, and child and healthcare for low-income families, all face enormous cuts or complete elimination under Brown’s proposal.

Immediately following the January 10th announcement of Brown’s new "draconian" budget, Oakland’s O.A.S.I.S. Clinic, along with many other service providing agencies and organizations, participated in a press conference in the Sacramento State House denouncing this new attack on the most disenfranchised groups in California. Speakers at the press conference included Diana Sylvestre, M.D., Executive Director of O.A.S.I.S. Clinic, who spoke in defense of the drug treatment assistance program Drug Medi-Cal; Evan LeVang of the Independent Living Services of Northern California; and Glenn Backes, an Ella Baker Center for Human Rights board member. The Capitol press conference was part of the statewide actions organized by Health and Human Services Network, which held similar press conferences and rallies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Fresno.

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