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Tom Kulinski is far too humble a man to see himself as a hero. He just loves his job – a job that’s never been quite as important as it is during this time of crisis.

As a maintenance supervisor for National Community Renaissance (National CORE), Kulinski is a key member of the National CORE team helping to meet the housing needs of thousands of senior citizens, working families and individuals with special needs. For many of them, the world has never been a scarier place than during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

It is times like these when heroes step up in a big way. Especially, it seems, even reluctant heroes like Kulinski, who throughout this crisis has been a lifeline for the communities and residents whose buildings and living units he helps maintain. Whether it’s loading up his truck and delivering food to seniors on a Saturday or dropping off activity books for hundreds of children isolated at home, or simply being a friend to a resident who is frightened and alone, Kulinski works tirelessly to provide comfort to those who need him.

“It is that human connection and the ability to provide stability and security. I tell my kids, not everyone comes home to food on the table. Not everyone comes home to a home,” he says. “We serve so many residents, and whatever I can do to help, I’ll do it – knowing that I’m making a difference.”

Kulinski, 46, has worked at National CORE pretty much all of his adult life. He started as a security guard more than 26 years ago, but was quickly able to put his handyman skills to good use as a resident service technician (RST). 

“National CORE was my third job, and once I found it, I was here to stay,” he says.

Working for a nonprofit organization, and to do so for as many years as Kulinski has, requires a special kind of world view and commitment to mission – in the case of National CORE and the Hope through Housing Foundation, to transform lives and communities through affordable housing and life-enhancing social services.

“National CORE and Hope through Housing have always done amazing things for residents. Helping senior citizens. Helping kids. When this epidemic hit, we knew we had to do even more,” Kulinski said.

One recent Saturday morning, he got a phone call that a shipment of free food was available and needed to be picked up that day. Kulinski got in his truck, picked up the food and delivered it to residents. For many of the seniors, seeing his friendly face at the door – albeit at the appropriate six feet of social distancing – was more important than the food itself.

“A lot of seniors don’t have families nearby, and they’re looking for someone to talk to,” Kulinski said.

They’re also eager to share the generosity shown them – turning down extra food, such as bread, in order to give it to someone else.

Kulinski’s compassion and ability to connect with the residents he services is part of who he is. The father of four is happy to serve as a male role model to a young resident in need, and to make sure the seniors and families he has come to know as family can call on him at any time.

Heroes, it seems, don’t work on the clock.

“It’s been like tons, or gallons of alcohol being thrown on the open wounds of inequality and racism in this country. And as we think about how to recover, we’re going to have to think about how to make sure that we don’t go back to where we were before,” said Angela Glover Blackwell, an African-American author and policy specialist based in Oakland.

Blackwell is the founder and president of the non-profit PolicyLink, a research institute and social action organization that advances racial and economic equity, according to the group’s website.

“It was unacceptable then and it will be unacceptable going forward,” Blackwell continued, pointing out the “painful” economic and health disparities the COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare across the United States and here in California.

She was speaking Friday during Gov. Gavin Newsom’s daily COVID-19 press conference in Sacramento. During the briefing, the governor announced that he has appointed Blackwell and 79 other prominent Californians to the state Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery.

The governor said he is charging the diverse group of social, political and economic leaders to analyze every sector of the state economy and put together a road map to economic recovery. Newsom says he expects the task force to come up with “short-term, medium-term and long-term ideas” to put California on track to once again attain the level of economic prosperity the state had reached before the pandemic: 21 consecutive months of job growth; a $20 billion budget surplus in 2019; and 20 billion more stacked away in the state reserves.

“I have asked and tasked some of the best and brightest minds that we could source —  a disproportionate number, almost exclusively, reside right here in the state of California – some of the most well-known business leaders in the world. The great social justice lawyers reside here in the state of California. Tribal leaders. Health care leaders. Small business leaders.”

Tom Steyer, the billionaire businessman, civic leader, and former US presidential candidate will co-chair the task force along with Gov. Newsom’s Chief of Staff Ann O’Leary.

Other African-American task force members include Gregory A. Adams, Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., and hospitals; Willie Adams, President, International Longshore and Warehouse Union; E. Toby Boyd: President, California Teachers Association; Stacy Brown-Philpot: CEO, TaskRabbit; Dr. Robert Ross: President and CEO, The California Endowment; among others. See the full list of members.

The impact of the global Coronavirus pandemic in California has been deep and far-reaching, hitting the finances, health, and way of life of people across class, race, and geographical lines, but especially so among African Americans and other people of color.

At press time,  the coronavirus had claimed the lives of more than one thousand Californians, and more than 28,000 more across the state had been infected by the deadly virus – with the largest concentration, more than 11,000 people, diagnosed in Los Angeles County alone.

Based on racial data the state has collected so far on mortality rates,  a disproportionate number of Black Californians have died from COVID-19: About 12 percent in a state where African Americans account for 6 percent of the total population of nearly 40 million people.

About 95 people died of COVID-19 Thursday, the deadliest day since the onset of the pandemic, and a day before the governor announced his economic recovery task force appointments.

Last week, the governor also announced that the state is officially in a “pandemic-induced recession.”

“This pandemic has forced millions of Californians out of jobs – with the most vulnerable hit the hardest,” he said. “We will use a gradual, science-based and data-driven framework to guide our re-opening timing while planning our economic recovery.”

More than 3.1 million Californians have filed for unemployment insurance since March 12, and the state unemployment rate has spiked to 5.3% from under 3% just two months ago. Before the onset of the pandemic, about 2,500 people applied weekly, on average, for unemployment insurance. Over the last few weeks, that weekly average has jumped to more than 200,000. 

“This is an amazing moment despite all the suffering,” Blackwell said. “The silver lining could be to finally understand that we cannot go forward as a nation divided as we have been between haves and have nots.”

Other members the governor appointed to the task force are California Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Los Angeles), Senate Minority Leader Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield), Assembly Minority Leader Marie Waldron (R-Escondido), former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, Walt Disney Company Executive Chairman Bob Iger, former head of the Small Business Administration Aida Álvarez and dozens of other Californians from sectors, including business, labor, health care, academia and philanthropy.

Gov. Newsom also appointed the state’s four living former governors as honorary members on the task force. They are Hon. Jerry Brown, Hon. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hon. Gray Davis and Hon. Pete Wilson.

“We need to demonstrate for the nation that it is possible to have a recovery that is transformative, imaginative and radical,” Blackwell emphasized.