Non-profits get billion dollar boost

October 8, 2015 By Leave a Comment


California Community Foundation Town Hall at St. Sophia Cathedral | Photo by Kevin Walker

California Community Foundation Town Hall at St. Sophia Cathedral | Photo by Kevin Walker

The California Community Foundation pledged $1-billion to Los Angeles County non-profits today during a special town hall meeting at the St. Sophia Cathedral in Mid-City. An estimated 400 civic leaders, including L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas were among the attendees.

The town hall meeting and funding announcement was part of a celebration of CCF‘s 100th anniversary.

The money will be disbursed over a ten year period and will be paid out in the form of grants, loans and scholarships. Which non-profits will get funds and how much they will get are unknown.

Jonathan Zeichner, Executive Director of the South L.A.-based A Place to Call Home, said that communication between groups like his and the Foundation is key.

“We’re on the ground representing the constituents that we serve,” he said. “[It’s] really important that it’s a two way dialogue.”

CCF President, Antonia Hernandez said she hopes to focus on low income housing, community clinics, and early childhood education. Groups trying to get a cut of the funds will have their application reviewed by the CCF staff and its 20 member board.

“We’re [non-profits] required to show what we will do with the funds,” said Zeichner. “And if we’re doing we we say we are…that’s the basis to continue the funding.”

Representatives from all of the County’s 88 cities were in attendance, signaling the importance of the funds to public officials who are grappling with increases in crime and homelessness in many of their communities. Their combined attendance was also a sign of unity among the county’s various municipalities.

Since 2013 homelessness has risen by 12% across L.A. County, a fact that many attribute to the area’s tight housing supply. A report from the LA Homeless Services Authority released earlier this year had the number of homeless people in the county at more than 40,000.

The problem has gotten so bad that this past month the L.A. City Council declared a “state of emergency” over the issue and dedicated $100 million towards homeless services like shelters and housing vouchers.

Mayor Eric Garcetti at California Community Foundation Town Hall on October 8, 2015 | Photo by Kevin Walker

Mayor Eric Garcetti at California Community Foundation Town Hall on October 8, 2015 | Photo by Kevin Walker

Mayor Garcetti, speaking at today’s event, referenced the challenges facing the county but stressed the need for civic pride.

“We’re good at privately saying what we love about L.A., but publicly bitching about what we don’t,” Garcetti said. “We need to invert that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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An ex-gang member on curtailing South LA’s recidivism rate

December 19, 2014 By Leave a Comment


Beron Thompkins in class at the Black Male Youth Academy. | Photo courtesy of the Social Justice Learning Institute

Beron Thompkins in class at the Black Male Youth Academy. | Photo courtesy of the Social Justice Learning Institute

Beron Thompkins remembers his first encounter with the Los Angeles Police Department when he was a 12-year-old. He and his 14-year-old cousin were walking down the street in their South L.A. neighborhood when two policemen driving by asked them to pull up their shirts.

“We were minding our own business. They didn’t ask us where we were going and they didn’t tell us to stop,” Thompkins said. “My cousin said, ‘Ignore them.’ So, we kept walking.”

Thompkins said the police then sped up, swerved in front of them, and threw them onto the hood. The police told them that they had received a call that two black men had just robbed a lady in a nearby park.

[Read more…]

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Twenty years after the Rodney King Riots: Building a healthy Watts

May 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment


imageBy Andrea Kobrinsky Alday

What does it take to make a farmers’ market viable in a low-income community? The answer is complicated in a neighborhood like Watts, where some people still remember when 103rd Street, which now borders a lively Saturday Farmers Market, was nicknamed “Charcoal Alley” because of the fires that burned buildings to the ground during the Watts Riot of 1965.

Many unhealthy conditions persist today that contributed to the powder keg atmosphere in South Los Angeles in the 1960s and again during the Rodney King Riot twenty years ago: high rates of unemployment, poverty and crime. Neighborhood schools continue to battle high dropout rates. Gang violence makes some people reluctant to visit unfamiliar territory – including the Farmers’ Market.

In a neighborhood park on the corner of 103rd and Central Aves., an effort is underway to take steps toward a healthier South L.A.— by providing an affordable and welcoming place to buy fresh produce and to get good advice on nutrition. We took our most recent group of California Endowment Health Journalism Fellows to the Watts Healthy Farmers’ Market to hear from market founders and vendors, who detailed the successes and challenges they’ve encountered since the market opened in July 2007.

With grants from the California Community Foundation and Kaiser Permanente, plus ongoing support from the Watts Healthy Farmers’ Market Collaborative, the open-air market is held every Saturday in Ted Watkins Memorial Park.

This glimpse behind the scenes includes images by several credited photographers, including one who prefers to simply use the Flickr screen name “Asian Eater.” For more on our visit to the Watts Healthy Farmers Market, see ReportingonHealth’s “Vegetables and Violence: The challenges of operating a farmers market in South Los Angeles.”

Or visit the Farmernet listing on the website published and operated by Sustainable Economic Enterprises of Los Angeles (SEE-LA), a private non-profit organization that operates several certified farmers’ markets in the City of Los Angeles.

This story originally appeared on Reporting on Health.

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