Since March of 2004, Sylvia Drew Ivie has been a consultant to The California Endowment. In that capacity she served as the Director of The Steering Committee On The Future Of The King/Drew Medical Center. Her work on that project evolved into development of approaches for place-based projects in South Los Angeles to address racial and ethnic disparities in health specifically targeting the need for nutritional support systems. In February 2007 TCE gave Sylvia a planning grant to research the feasibility of a community kitchen in South Los Angeles.
From May 1988 until February 2005, Sylvia Drew Ivie was Executive Director of T.H.E. (To Help Everyone) Clinic, a non-profit primary health care facility in Los Angeles, California serving primarily African American, Latino, and Asian Pacific Islander patients and their families. A staff of 100 is able to serve patients in ten languages.
Prior to her work at T.H.E. Clinic, Ms. Ivie practiced poverty and civil rights law as Executive Director of the National Health Law Program in Los Angeles, Staff Attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York and Director of the U.S. Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. during the Carter administration.
Through participation with the Kaiser Family Foundation Commission on the Future of Medicaid and the Uninsured (1991 to present), President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry (1997), the Institute of Medicine's Studies of Unintended Pregnancy (1998), the Institute of Medicine’s Quality of Care Oversight in Federally Financed Programs (2001-2002), and the California Women’s Health Council, Ms. Ivie has continued to work on health policy analysis and reform. She recently served on a Centers for Disease Control Blue Ribbon Panel on evaluating efforts to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in health care.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently appointed Sylvia Drew Ivie to the City Civil Service Commission, where after six months she was elected President.