By Antonio Ray Harvey, California Black Media

 On Aug. 15, the Assembly Appropriations Committee voted 11-3 to pass a bill Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas (D-Los Angeles) authored requiring state-funded contractors hired for large-scale infrastructure projects prioritize hiring “disadvantaged workers.”

Senate Bill (SB) 1340 now moves to the Assembly floor for a full vote.

During a rally on Aug. 13 in front of the State Capitol Smallwood-Cuevas said the bill would help ease the state’s “job crisis” – which only impacts Californians from underserved communities of color whose unemployment rates remain in the double digits.

For all Californians, the unemployment rate is relatively low at around 5.2%.

“We’ve been working on this issue, I would say, a good part of a decade, fighting for better opportunities for our communities to benefit from the investments of public dollars in our infrastructure (projects),” said Smallwood-Cuevas.

The passage of SB 1340 by the Assembly Appropriation Committee happened the same week that the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) released a report showing that Black Californians have the lowest employment rate in California’s top 10 occupations. Those professions include managers, truck drivers, registered nurses, customer service reps, teachers, construction workers, CEOs and legislators, among other fields.

Overrepresented at lower income levels, Black and Latino families consist at or below the 10th percentile while comprising 44% of all families in the state, the PPIC reported. For every dollar that White families earn, Asians make 95 cents, Black families earn 58 cents, and Latinos earn 52 cents.

“There should be equity and labor,” Smallwood-Cuevas said. “It’s not enough to pass a bill. It’s about implementation and intentionality.”

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By Lila Brown, California Black Media

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass made history at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris this week when she became the first Black woman mayor to ever receive an Olympic flag at the closing ceremony of the two-week-long global competition.

On Aug. 11, Mayor Bass received the Olympic flag as part of the handover ceremony from Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, who is also the first woman to serve as mayor of France’s capital city.

“When we do that exchanging of the flag, we will be sending a message to girls all across the world that they can do anything,” Bass said Aug. 10, before the ceremony. “They can run for the gold, and they can run for office, or hopefully they’ll do both.”

Bass said the time she spent in Paris will help her and her team prepare to host the 2028 games in Los Angeles, a top priority for her administration.

“We must continue our urgent work ensuring that Angelenos benefit from the preparation for the Games, as well as in the decades following,” said Bass, before leaving for Paris last week.

“Together, we will showcase Los Angeles — not just the popular tourist destinations, but each of our beautiful neighborhoods and communities. We will leverage the Games to help local small businesses, create local jobs and create lasting environmental and transportation improvements throughout Los Angeles.”

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In Paris, during a tour of the media center, Bass answered questions posed by reporters.

“One of the things that I really hope we can replicate in Los Angeles is the 25% commitment that will go to smaller businesses,” she said, responding to a question asked by California Black Media about Los Angeles’s plans to ensure small and minority businesses participate equitably in the procurement process.

“Even the venues here allowed restaurants to have an opportunity. Our focus is on small businesses because we know small businesses hire Angelenos,” Bass added.

Bass also promised that there will be diversity at every level — from the executive of the International Olympic Committee, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and even the Los Angeles 2028 Local Organizing Committee.

To achieve this goal, the Mayor’s Office is hosting roundtables with business associations to receive their input on how best to engage their members and other stakeholders regarding procurement and contract opportunities.

Bass said her office and city departments are also working closely with LA28’s Community Business Working Group, which will develop the plan and specific goals for small and local businesses as a key part of their procurement strategy.

When Bass arrived at LAX on Monday afternoon, she joined Angelenos and other well-wishers to celebrate the Olympic Flag’s official return to Los Angeles for the first time in 40 years.

The delegation included L.A. City Council President Paul Krekorian, Councilmember Traci Park, Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, LA Metro CEO Stephanie Wiggins, LA84 Foundation President and CEO Renata Simril, and Priscilla Cheng, Senior Vice President for Government Relations at LA28. All three Councilmembers sit on the Ad Hoc Committee for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Councilmembers Park and Yaroslavsky serve as Chair and Vice-Chair, respectively, and President Krekorian was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee when the host city contract was signed.

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By Magaly Muñoz

San Francisco has ramped up its response to the homelessness crisis in the city, but frontline workers who see the issue daily are butting heads on how severe the problem really is.

Randy Shaw, co-founder of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic in San Francisco, told the Post that the media and local activists are not accurately portraying how the city’s homeless people are treated.

Shaw’s nonprofit provides legal and supportive services for low-income Tenderloin residents struggling with housing. The district has one of the worst issues with homeless encampments in the city.

He said advocates are not honest about the number of people refusing shelter everyday and that the bigger problem with homelessness is drug related. He claimed the reason people are refusing shelter is because they are not allowed to use drugs in those facilities and would rather stay on the streets.

Shaw said he doesn’t understand why people come to San Francisco in the first place if they know they can’t afford it and instead stick around to pitch tents and live on the sidewalk.

“If you don’t feel comfortable in a shelter and you don’t have any money, what are you doing here? Why did you come to San Francisco?” Shaw said.

In July, the city offered 469 individuals shelter and services but 355 people declined help, according to SF’s Healthy Streets data. 114 people accepted and were referred to residential placements.

Between January to July, the Healthy Streets team, a coordinated response department for homelessness, engaged with 2,961 people living on the streets, but less than a third of those engagements resulted in placements or referrals.

Anecdotal reporting across the region suggests that many refuse shelter because facilities take away self-autonomy to go and come as you please, restricts possessions and visitors, and sometimes can be more dangerous and hostile than living on the streets.

Shaw also disagrees that criminalizing homeless people by arresting or fining them is somehow worse than allowing crime rates to rise or letting residents feel unsafe in their neighborhoods.

But advocates on the other side of the argument strongly disagree with this viewpoint and how the city is handling the crisis.

“It’s not okay to talk about an entire class of people who are too poor to afford to rent, and then superimpose these kinds of criminal activities on them,” Jennifer Friedenbach said.

Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, said very few people who enter homelessness are on drugs but they may fall into addiction once they are living on the streets.

One-third of people who are homeless have problems with alcohol and/or drugs, according to the American Addictions Center. The Center cites accessibility, self-medication, and prior issues with mental health as factors for substance abuse in homeless people.

Friedenbach told the Post that the most effective way to help people is to offer substance abuse and trauma treatment so that those struggling can begin healing and address the negative consequences drugs have had on their lives.

She emphasized the need for more transitional or permanent supportive housing and criticized the boost in encampment sweeps in the city.

“We’re talking about arresting people for lodging, which is basically sleeping, which is something that every human being needs to do. In order to address that issue people need a safe and decent place to call home,” Friedenbach said.

Mayor London Breed has recently signed an executive order that directs city workers to offer transportation tickets to homeless people before offering shelter and services. The order is meant to remove people who are not originally San Francisco residents and help them return to their family or friends so that remaining resources can go to city natives.

According to data from the Point In Time count, 40% of homeless people surveyed responded that they either came to San Francisco from another California county or out of state and 37% of those who had been previously housed said they had been living in the city for less than a year when they became homeless.

While it remains to be seen if bussing people out of the city will reduce the homelessness population, Friedenbach said much of the conversations surrounding homelessness are being used for political gain.

“This is a way to create a political wedge and demonize the [homeless] population and shift blame from the policymakers’ shoulders onto the backs of homeless people themselves.”

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