Accomplishments
2005 Accomplishments
LACEH&H had 5 strategic goals for 2005:
Summary:
- Goal 1: To organize and advocate to end homelessness in the next decade in LA County
- Goal 2: To organize and advocate for justice in local, state, and national “safety net” policies
- Goal 3: To educate the community to increase access and remove barriers to “safety net” programs for homeless and low-income people
- Goal 4: To organize to protect the civil rights of homeless people
- Goal 5: To strengthen the coalition’s capacity to achieve its mission
5 Goals: Objectives; Strategies & Activities
Goal 1: To organize and advocate to end homelessness in the next decade in Los Angeles County
Objective 1: To continue the partnership with LAHSA in creating and implementing Bring LA Home! plan
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Staff the Families Workgroup that came up with recommendations to end homelessness for families
- Co-chaired the Income and Employment Workgroup and produced recommendations for final report
- Staffed the Homeless Prevention and Service Integration Workgroup and the Affordable Housing Subcommittee and produced recommendations for final report
- Staffed the Homeless Prevention and Service Integration
- LACEH&H continues to serve on the Bring LA Home Planning Committee, along with LAHSA, Mayors Office and Supervisors Burke and Yaroslavsky offices, as well as the Executive Committee. Also serve on the Executive Committee as well as the Bring LA Home Blue Ribbon Committee.
Objective 2: Advocate for LACEHH’s positions
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Convened several coalition meetings with all stakeholders to review recommendations and arrive at consensus on priority recommendations
- Continue to partner with the University of Southern California’s Center for the Study of Religion & Civic Culture to form the Interfaith Council to End Homelessness. Focus is to bring interfaith stakeholders in South Los Angeles together to advocate for more resources to their community
- Actively participate with the ACLU the Jail Advocacy Taskforce. Staff chair the Mental Health Subcommittee working with LA Sheriff’s Department on discharge planning
- Member of Proposition 63 implementation working group on long-term homelessness and permanent supportive housing.
- All recommendations of LACEH&H in the draft Bring LA Home framework
- Created the Community Discharge Planning Taskforce to create model discharge planning, policy and procedures for LA County [hospitals, jails and foster care]
Goal 2: Organize and advocate for justice in local, state and national safety net program.
Objective 1: Build a strong advocacy network to protect the CalWORKs Program.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Key role in California Partnership [state welfare rights coalition] that protected cost of living adjustments for CalWORKS, SSI and In Home Supportive Services recipients
- Helped coordinated nearly 50 legislative visits involving more than 800 low-income people, educating state legislators on welfare issues
- Produced 10 Stories of the Week- homeless and low-income families on welfare telling their stories to elected officials
Objective 2: Increase Access to CalWORKs programs
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Worked with LA County to produce Homeless Assistance training video and
- Agreed to internal quality assurance monitoring based on LACEH&H’s three surveys in 2004-05
Objective 3: Develop leaders among CalWORKS participants who can speak for themselves about issues affecting them.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Eight women who Story of the Week became spokespeople and attended legislative visits, meetings and rallies.
Objective 4: Build a strong Save Section 8 Coalition in response to local and national crisis in Section 8
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Built Save Section 8 Coalition to have over 100 organizational members
- Conducted a briefing for 10 local congressional offices in 2005
- Campaign to reinstate reasonable accommodations for disable Section 8 tenants victorious
Objective 5: Organize and advocate for justice for people who utilize the federal and state Food Stamp programs.
Objective 5[A]: Food Stamp Outreach: Conduct 5 trainings to shelters and CBOs and conduct 3 enrollment workshops
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- LEADER: Working together with SEIU Local 660, obtained a Board of Supervisors motion to form a Stakeholder Group consisting of community organizations and the union to provide input to the county in its process to reauthorize the automated eligibility determination system (LEADER). Leg. Visits to Knabe, Burke, Molina, Yaroslavsky. Spoke at the Board of Supervisors meeting.
- Community Trainings: 12 anti-hunger trainings to over 300 participants
Objective 5[B]: Restaurant Food Stamps: Recruit one reasonably healthful food chain to accept food stamps
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Restaurant Food Stamps: Provided 9 restaurants with information on applying for certification to accept food stamps. The county offered training for them in October.
Objective 6: CHAC: Play major L.A. role in statewide coalition for anti-hunger legislation by recruiting 20 new organizations for CHAC and bringing 75 people from LA to Sacramento for Hunger Action Day
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Brought over 100 participants from Los Angeles area to Hunger Action Day in Sacramento for rally and legislative visits.
- Trained 76 participants in special Hunger Action Day Legislative training, March.
- Throughout the year, monitored, informed constituents, and arranged for calls, letters and visits on the following legislation with the following results:
AB 696 (Judy Chu)----This legislation began with multiple sections to increase food stamp participation including a shift to quarterly reporting, eliminating finger imaging, and “categorical eligibility” for any family getting TANF-related services (even if not getting cash aid.) By the time it passed both houses only the finger imaging piece remained, and it was vetoed by the Governor.
AB 1385 (Laird)---made it easier to get free school meals for low income kids. Governor signed it and 53,000 more California kids will get free breakfast and lunch at school.
Objective 7: Build the Hollywood Community Action Network [H-CAN] as an organization driven by its low income and/or homeless constituents to end homelessness in Hollywood-
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- H-CAN has become an integral part of the coordinated campaign with Hollywood Interfaith Sponsoring Committee to bring a Drop-In Center and permanent housing facility to Hollywood area
- Continued to participate in “Safer Cities” Initiative with LA-CAN
- Assisting LA-CAN in planning its food needs assessment for Central City East
Objective 8: Maintain the strong ties between anti-hunger advocates and advocates working on other food system issues, including supermarket access, farmer’s markets, gardens, anti-irradiation and G.E., and healthy school food, through the Food Justice Network
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Promoting Action through Nutrition:
Healthy Pantries: Completed first phase of this project working with four food pantries/hot meal programs. Supervised Ashley Hiestand who wrote the report.
One presentation to 110 attendees at Food Bank Conference, February.
Market Basket: 45 Low income women participated in the continuation of last year’s project to bring fresh fruit and vegetables to women participating in WIC.
Nutrition Education: Worked with HCAN members to develop special nutrition training for homeless persons. Work began in late 2005 and will be implemented with trainings at PATH and Hollywood Health Partnership in 2006.
- LA Food Justice Network:
3 meetings, one retreat (end of August)
Produced 46 Food and Justice update/alert/newsletters.
Objective 9: Register, educate and mobilize homeless and low income people to vote
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Registered over 2,000 homeless and very low-income people to vote- involved 25 service providers and 4 local college/university Schools of Social Work
- Conducted 22 workshops to over 400 participants
- Initiated discussion with League of Women Voters, ACLU, LA Sheriffis Dept and LA County Registrar’s office in the “Unlock the Vote” Project- to provide voter education to LA County Jail inmates on the 2005 LA City mayoral election.
- Over 2,000 Get-Out-the-Vote [GOTV] phone calls
- Visited over 150 homes for GOTV and checked turnout in 66 precincts
- Distributed over 6,0000 non-partisan Voter Guides
- Had a 60% turnout of our registered voters
Goal 3: Educate the community to increase access and remove barriers to “safety net” programs for homeless and low-income people.
Objective 1: Increase community awareness and access to safety net programs.
Objective 1[A] Providers & Safety Network Programs: Increase knowledge among service providers about safety net programs.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Conducted 11 trainings on welfare issues to 183 homeless and low-income women on welfare
Objective 1[B]: Elected Officials: Educate elected officials and the public about the need for safety net programs.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Conducted 10 briefings for local elected officials on safety net issues
Objective 2: Write, edit, translate and print People’s Guide - market and distribute
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Edited the 2005 Peoples Guide, coordinating input from 12 programmatic experts and arranged for translation in seven languages.
- English: 130,000 copies printed and distributed
- Spanish: 85,000 copies printed and distributed
- Other translations to be completed in January-February, 2006
Goal 4: Organize to protect the civil rights of homeless people.
Objective 1: CRA Lawsuit and Share the Wealth [STW] Coalition
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Wiggens v. CRA- This reverse validation lawsuit, brought by Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles on behalf of individual residential hotel tenants and the Los Angeles Coalition to End Hunger and Homelessness, challenged the validity of a new downtown redevelopment project that the Coalition believed would negatively impact the low-income communities of color that lived downtown. The superior court invalidated the redevelopment plan and the CRA appealed. We are awaiting the decision of the Court of Appeals.
- The STW Coalition worked with the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office in strengthening the state civil code that outlaws the 28 day shuffle. have stopped the 28-day shuffle in over 75% of residential hotels downtown, through legal intervention and tenant organizing. Through the above policy victories achieved in the past year, we hope to end the practice in the remaining 25% of properties.
- The STW Coalition is working on amending the local rent control ordinance to specifically outlaw the 28 day shuffle and add higher local penalties.
- STW Coalition successfully lobbied the Los Angeles City Council to bring the residential hotels under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Housing Department for health and safety complaints. This change means the hotels are now part of the City’s automatic code inspection program, and allows them to be placed in a program for severely uninhabitable residential buildings.
- As part of the National Coalition for the Homeless effort in multiple cities- LACEH&H organized a rally and press conference at Borders Books to insist they stop selling “Bum Fights” video [anti-homeless video]- Outcome: Successful
- Supported SB1234 [State Senate]- Omnibus Civil Rights legislation that contained a section that expanded law enforcement training on homeless issues- Outcome: Passed
- The STW Coalition is working with several City Council offices to draft a new ordinance that would protect residential hotel units from conversion or demolition (creating a “no net loss” policy for approximately 16,000 residential hotels City-wide and preserving over 5,000 units in our downtown community).
Objective 2: Anti- Homeless Ordinances
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Organized and testified to LA City Council against proposed change in municipal code for LA Public Libraries that targeted homeless people – eliminating their ability to use library grounds to sleep. Outcome: lost in City Council
- Hollywood Community Action Network [HCAN]- a project of LACEH&H- partnering with LACAN creating the “Safer People’s Initiative” to counter LAPD Chief Bratton’s “Safer Cities Initiative”- to date- 30-40 organizational sign-on
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Working in coalition with the United Coalition East Prevention Project, the Los Angeles Unified School District [LAUSD] passed the “Access for All” Resolution which allocated over $1 million to hire an additional 4 PSA’s [before there was only a half time person] to work with the over 10,000 homeless pre-school through 12th graders.
Goal 5: Strengthen the coalition’s capacity to achieve its mission.
Objective 1: Development Strategy
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Raised over $700,000 in 2005
- Expanded the Development Advisory Board to include greater corporate participation
- Recruited 3 celebrities to be periodic spokepersons for LACEH&H [case-by-case basis]
- 2005 gala highly successful
- Expanded grantmaking with development assistant as well as 3 full time staff working on grants
Objective 2: Board of Directors
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Expanded Board of Directors for greater geographic representation as well as issue representation
Objective 3: Administration
ACCOMPLISHMENTS:
- Created and maintain a database of all People’s Guides orders, including a breakdown of each language sent and orders of 100 or more- useful for pre-sale advertisement
- Performed mailing of 2005 Gala invitations in-house, saving the organization thousands of dollars.
- Participated in training done by Center for Community Change in “List Enhancement” to be better able to track and mobilize our members