The Siskiyou County Arts Council is thrilled to be working alongside other county arts agencies on a new workforce development opportunity for artists and cultural practitioners, arts and social service sector organizations.

The 2021-22 State Budget included a $60 million one-time General Fund allocation for the California Arts Council to implement the California Creative Corps pilot program, a media, outreach, and engagement campaign designed to increase awareness related to issues such as public health, water and energy conservation, climate mitigation, and emergency preparedness, relief, and recovery.

Healthy Places Index

Upstate populations suffer from among the worst health inequities in California and, as a job creation and human infrastructure development opportunity, the hope is that, region by region, our program will increase the ways in which artists are engaged in public work, so that they can continue to build upon intersectional public interest goals beyond the program’s pilot funding timeline.

The State has offered The California Healthy Places Index (HPI) as a new method of evaluating the relative health of communities, and as a well as a way to gauge the impact of projects funded by the Creative Corps. The Healthy Places Index shows, almost without exception – including the few places with overall health scores in the upper quartiles – that there are health equity measures that fall within the lowest quartile of ‘Community Conditions.’ These indicators determine a community’s health, and provide us with vital clues about how to move the needle in our most vulnerable neighborhoods.

Learn more about the Healthy Places Index and how your community scores here.

Regranting Program

Over $4,230,000 in workforce development funds for artists, as well as for arts and social service organizations who will employ artists, will be made available for the Upstate Region for projects between early 2023 and late 2024. Grant Guidelines for the regranting program are not yet available.