Our Partners

The Challenge 

American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) in LA County experience disproportionately high rates of homelessness and lower rates of housing retention, and they still remain undercounted and underreported by mainstream data systems. Despite a Federal trust responsibility to provide health care, education, housing, and beyond, the US government is in breach of these contracts as evidenced by the deplorable underfunding of these systems and poor outcomes. While the long game of building people power and increasing voter participation may someday impact these issue areas, the reality is that we do not have enough time to wait for these larger systems and legal frameworks to figure themselves out. In some ways, we have relied too much on Federal powers to set the precedent (for obvious reasons such as the Federal trust responsibility and funding), and perhaps we have not fully explored the opportunities we have at the local level. Where do opportunities lie to dig into the strengths and nimbleness of our own systems and pair/amplify those with the strengths of the communities best suited to care for their stakeholders? 

The Inquiry

“How can cities and counties forge meaningful relationships with American Indian and Alaska Native communities, particularly as it relates to houselessness?” 

My proposed plan was to identify a community advisory board (CAB), undertake a landscape analysis and literature review, partake in interviews and site visits, and share as much information as possible with stakeholders along the way. 

I was able to stick to the process that I laid out for myself, but in true Stanton fashion, my inquiry evolved. I was overly specific with focusing solely on “houselessness,” whereas my research, interviews, and site visits instead challenged me to think more deeply about what “home” means to Indigenous people. In short, I learned that homelessness for Indigenous people includes historic displacement homelessness, contemporary geographic separation homelessness (as a result of colonial control), spiritual disconnection homelessness, mental disruption homelessness, cultural disintegration and loss homelessness, relocation and mobility homelessness, going home homelessness, and more. Thus, with this more expansive lens, it was easier to see the ways in which communities reclaimed control of those domains in defining “home” for themselves, and how a “home,” not a house, can set the stage for true intergenerational healing. 

My journey yielded numerous lessons along the way. One early and haunting insight was how colonization seems to share a playbook on a global scale. Things like dispossession and removal, separation of families, stealing of children, and assimilation and relocation policies were eerily similar across countries. And yet, relationships with government and reconciliation varied widely. I learned that Canada- and US-based tribes are probably better politically positioned in their sovereignty, whereas a country like Australia seems relatively behind in their formal relations with its Aboriginal people. Regardless of potential “advantages” in treaty relationships or other forms of government interactions, every country had abysmal outcomes across the board for its Indigenous people. This confirmed my desire to focus on local strategies while understanding, though, that the larger context is always a piece of the puzzle. 

As my inquiry continued, I learned the value of partnerships, compromise, and just how difficult it is to take care of communities within systems of capitalism and white supremacy. Shining examples seemed to leverage creativity, boldness, and willingness to have difficult conversations. I saw some very successful examples of partnership that probably took decades to build mutual trust and respect. It is such an obvious conclusion, but relationships were a central part of the stories I witnessed, as was the self-determination of the Indigenous entities demanding space and doing the work. 

Regardless of whether my travels were overseas or within the US, one sobering contrast I noticed is that unlike these other places, Indigenous people in LA have been erased—in a visual sense, through media, and through all of our systems, including education. This is likely rooted in the history of local tribes experiencing colonization three times over—first under Spain, next under Mexico, and finally under the US—and compounded through a failed Relocation era of policymaking. Even though our local systems have been making more efforts to be more inclusive of Native American folks within recent years, the road ahead is still long. 

As my last action for the fellowship, I gathered my local community and systems partners to ask what home means to them (as well as report back on what I learned over the course of my fellowship). The community was generous and bold in sharing their dreams and drawing the connections between belonging, culture, and traditional knowledge to health and healing. It is this vision of home that our partner organizations will do our best to fulfill and craft an advocacy agenda around. 

Where I Ended Up 

I’ve come away with a deep interest in cultural districts as a means to seed our collective vision of home. This is very much about placemaking, not the idea of “placekeeping” that most cultural districts tend to lean into. By design, there are not any Native American ethnic enclaves in LA, and obviously no reservations. While this vision seems even more daunting given the lack of existing cultural infrastructure, there couldn’t be a better time to start given conversations around Land Back reparations, more recent and intentional cultural district making in LA, and more community alignment. We’ll be tending very carefully to the seeds planted over these past couple years…

Journey’s Start: My life and several generations of my family have been impacted by addiction, trauma, and incarceration. So many people have been harmed and there has been a multigenerational impact to our community from these environments, which I have experienced firsthand. My inquiry started with looking at community-based alternatives to incarceration, but grew beyond that to encompass both front-end work for prevention and support for people returning home from incarceration. My journey started with looking at more human models of healing rather than incarceration that centered around the built environment, human-centered approaches to healing trauma, employment, housing, and culture. This experience became part of a larger effort that I was tasked with by the Governor to chair an advisory committee to work on culture change and services needed in one of the Country’s most notorious prisons, San Quentin, and be an example to the larger transformation as part of the “California Model.” I was able to confirm my assumptions that collaboration between multiple government agencies, community-based organizations, and our community as a whole working together in support of public health and public safety is how we can transform our communities to become safer places for healing. We often think about public safety as a law enforcement response, but it is truly one that can be accomplished by many of the programs

The Now: Where I stand today is working to implement much of what I learned during the inquiry and navigating a very difficult political and policy environment. While California remains invested in this, many of the political justice reforms that lead to this inquiry have been rolled back with the fear of the pendulum swinging the other way to more tough-on-crime policy. The work that I have been working on with so many others remains an approach that seems to not be caught up in the political climate and seems to be a bipartisan approach, which makes me pleased to see given the times we are in. My self-care has been tremendously improved because of this life-changing fellowship, and the way in which I look at challenges and solutions has been shaped by this experience.

This experience has been one that not only made me a better leader, but a better person in general. My work/life balance has improved, and the relationships in my life have also been forever changed by the Stanton Fellowship. I am humbled and honored to have had this time to look at the mission that I am so passionate about, while learning about the importance of so many other important areas for our community.

Moving Forward: The road ahead is one of caution and optimism. We must find ways to appeal to all sides of the issue of public safety from a position of healing and community. We as a community are working to build more community reentry campuses where people can find a safe place to return to our community. We are also looking at building more places like this as an alternative to incarceration, which gives me hope. People who have these community reentry healing campuses will have the conditions they need to be successful, our communities will be healthier and safer, and the research continues to support that.

A Tool Still Sharp

There remains a festering wound in every city and town that represents the first displacements and forced removals of Indigenous Peoples. Through genocide, abduction of children & women, incarceration, and enslavement, First Peoples have been removed from their ancestral homelands. Settler Colonialism is the tool that continues to be used to occupy the ancestral homelands of Indigenous Peoples. While both colonialism and settler colonialism involve domination and exploitation, settler colonialism is a specific type where colonizers establish a permanent, replacing population and society, aiming to supplant the Indigenous population and culture, unlike colonialism, which focuses on resource extraction. And to some degree, we all become complicit in that process.

Settler Colonialism manipulates good intentions with the sole purpose of masking occupation. In what is temporarily known as the US, it has replaced Indigenous Peoples with enslaved Africans and Indigenous Peoples from Mexico; it replaced those populations with incarcerated peoples, primarily Black folks and the descendants of Indigenous Peoples from the Americas. The trickery of Settler Colonialism is vast and deep, such as in the case of the Climate Crisis. In many cases, here in Los Angeles, I have seen how organizers replace Indigenous Peoples (specifically the First Peoples of Los Angeles) with Indigenous Peoples from faraway places such as Brazil, as a way to talk about the issue but not really. And right now, the California Indian fire technologies, previously banned and criminalized, are being usurped by private and public entities that mean well, but will ultimately result in grabbing more land. More development masked by “ethical” approaches.

My inquiry focused on reimagining Indigenous and settler relationships through healing, expanding on my work exploring reconciliation, memory, and place.

Creeping Cost

Right before I began this Stanton journey, the collective efforts of Indigenous artists, Tribal Leaders, Elders, and many others started to bloom.

Apologies from government officials were given, government-led efforts to reconcile with the impacts of colonization were underway, parks and roadways were being renamed, land was being returned or in the process of increasing access for First Peoples, now there are some tribal liaisons in LA county and city departments, and a handful of other great things. But unfortunately, the extraction continues. Sure there’s an increase in awareness and support for Native and Indigenous issues and artists –– the inequities continue, you have non-Native arts organizations encroaching on Indigenous topics accessing funding, yet Indigenous artists remain underfunded, you have Indigenous artists sprinkled all over the Getty’s PST ART: Art & Science Collide, many asked last minute, tokenized, box checked, etc.

All these good things came with a cost. There is a significant level of cultural taxation to endure, and every time a new opportunity emerges, we become the “experiment” to figure out that entity’s DEI strategies. We’re expected to leave our communities at the door, among many other taxing and harmful issues that build the creative, political, and social capital of these non-Native entities, but at the expense of Indigenous Peoples.

Pivot on the Path

In the middle of all that, I experienced what it is like to work with partners and allies like Oxy Arts, the teams at the Los Angeles Historic State Park and El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument, Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, and other partners who created space for various projects to be Indigenous-led. To align their approaches with the needs of our teams. Doing this work with a similar support system that I try to cultivate in my work and at Meztli Projects caused a pivot for me.

This pivot in my inquiry came with the realization that no matter how strong a bridge is built between these two respective communities, ultimately that bridge sits on top of The Land, a living archive, and a stark contrast in resources. On that side of the bridge lies resource after resource, and on this side our capacity is stretched beyond comprehension.

Inspired by this inquiry and fellowship, Meztli Projects, the organization I steward as its director and co-founded, launched the Cultural Worker Fellowship in the Fall of ‘24, a cohort-based opportunity to support Native and Indigenous artists. Initially, we imagined this program to be project-focused, given all the harmful experiences Native and Indigenous artists have had. So we decided to amplify the well-being component of this program and tend to some wounds. Our approach has always focused on creative practice, not productivity, on nurturing our forms of cultural production, knowledge-building, and regeneration.

This new fellowship, birthed from this experience, will be a refuge for cultural workers, a place to regenerate and bloom.

Abolition and art have always been a North Star for me. During my Durfee fellowship, I was able to deepen my practice through abolition and art. There was a deep healing during this fellowship that I didn’t anticipate. I am grateful for this experience, the people I met, and the container that Durfee provided for us to grow and transform.

The Challenge

With my inquiry, I wanted to explore how libraries could be better positioned as cultural entities and enabled to participate more fully in the creative economy in the County of Los Angeles. The public library is the premier repository for the world’s creativity, so my research included the library as infrastructure and as a cultural hub to be experienced rather than viewed as merely transactional. I wanted to find examples of libraries promoting the cultural component of service, focused both on knowledge and creative production. At the beginning of my Stanton tenure, the County Board of Supervisors was very much invested in funding the arts; therefore, part of my challenge was demonstrating how our library system could play a role in the initiative. My goal is to consistently highlight the role public libraries can play in many board-driven policies and initiatives. My inquiry morphed into learning and demonstrating how libraries worldwide were addressing the many systemic issues as well as the social service demands that arise in public spaces, including pandemic recovery needs. Were there more unexplored opportunities for collaboration to meet the vast need? Were there resources we hadn’t tapped to help manage the enormous need in LA County? Could we begin to look at service in new ways or through a different lens by maximizing collaboration? Should libraries continue trying to be all things to all people, or should they maintain defined pillars of service? Through my research, I was presented ideas of reimagined buildings and services, and the re-investment in libraries as cultural hubs and public spaces around the world; much like what is happening here in LA County.

 The Proposal

The proposal was to seek great examples of modern, thriving 21st century library models that included infrastructure, services, and collaboration. The research led me around the globe in search of a proof of concept that public libraries could be transformed to address the social, educational, creative, and cultural needs of the LA County constituency.

The Stanton Journey

Initially, I approached the inquiry process very academically, trying to find great use cases of the library as a central hub and cultural asset like museums, providing unique and valuable learning experiences for its users. I went in search of places where the library was revered both for its stature as a cultural icon and its collection, but also for its ability to gather and disseminate the stories of a community. Breaking the world up into four quadrants for research purposes, I tried to find the most relevant examples of what the modern library service consisted of and what it provided for its locale. There were several libraries/cultural centers outside of the country that stood out: libraries in Vancouver, Halifax, Singapore. More specific examples, too, such as the Centre Gabriela Mistral in Chile, the Sao Paulo Cultural Center and Library in Brazil, the Public Library of Victoria in Australia, the Guangzhou Public Library of China, the Deichman Library of Oslo Norway, the Aarhus Public Library and Copenhagen Library both of Denmark. There were further classical libraries inside of museums, privately functioning as “public libraries,” in both Italy and Spain. I tried to find an African country with cutting-edge service models or innovative approaches to librarianship to further my research, but I kept coming up with traditional service models.

Suffice it to say, it was an enormous undertaking, but I felt it achievable with good planning, pre-research, and funding to explore.

Where I am Now

Today, I continue my quest working toward exceptional service and support for our users. The public library continues to find creative ways to contribute to the ever-dynamic priorities of the County by working collaboratively with other County agencies and community groups to meet our community’s needs. My team and I continue to seek solutions for the department’s structural deficit as well as the best ways to position the library as a cultural and literary icon. This library has demonstrated that we play a valuable role in disaster recovery and helping communities stabilize themselves in times of need. My work continues to help community members of Los Angeles County find trusted resources and self-actualize.

Where did your inquiry begin? What was your proposed plan?

My inquiry began at a very different place—after having spent a decade working out policy solutions to ending homelessness in LA, I wanted to understand what everyday Angelenos could do to meaningfully be part of the solution.

I was going to spend days outside with my houseless neighbors and nights and weekends with street outreach teams.

The answer to my initial question came pretty quickly: “What could everyday Angelenos do on their own?” Honestly, not much.

Personal care and attention is critical, but it’s also woefully insufficient. Individual efforts to fight back against systems of neglect and exclusion always lead to burnout or disillusionment.

That’s not to say everyday residents weren’t advancing critical care over long periods of time or ending homelessness in very real ways.

But every time they were, they were doing it with others. Inevitably, anyone doing significant work and sustaining that effort had found others to do it with. It sounds so basic, but it’s a critical insight I’d missed in the question of “What can I do to help?”

I’d missed that my original inquiry had sought to answer a phenomenon caused by American exceptionalism with more American exceptionalism.

Where do you stand today?

Today, I am on the other side of the question I began exploring instead—what structures and cultures promote collectivism and cooperation? That inquiry took me through histories of Black America, mutual aid efforts in neighborhoods across Los Angeles, the “social economy” of Seoul, the cooperative policies of Rwanda, the ecosystem of Mondragon, the municipalist movement and superblocks of Barcelona, the social housing infrastructure of Vienna, the ahupua’a land management of Hawaii, and the work of alternative democratic economies in the United Kingdom.

Here’s what I learned:

• Cooperatives need federations, federations need confederations, and all of it requires a broader ecosystem in the same way that people need other people and, ultimately, organizations to sustain their activity and build bigger.
• There is no communal culture that wins against laws and economic models built around Darwinian ideals. Collectivism must be intentionally enabled and strengthened by public policy (e.g., incorporation laws that make it easier for partnerships to form; lending and granting practices that advantage groups vs. individuals).
• Space matters—even in a technological age, the built environment is a critical accelerant or barrier to gathering, association, and ultimately cooperative enterprise.
• Solidarity has practical value—communal and intergenerational living cuts down the practical cost of housing. Community care lessens safety net expenses. Sharing tools lessens waste. Owning together reduces the impossible weight placed on singular owners.
• While we fight back and speak out, we must also build. It is possible to build substantial things despite exclusion. In fact, outright exclusion and oppression are often the context for the most imaginative and beautiful alternative economies that end up rivaling dominant systems.

What does the road ahead look like?

Two years ago, I thought the best we could do was make programs and policies for people of color and immigrants to have a better standing in this economy. Now I believe it is possible to form an entirely new economy.

Los Angeles is full of beautiful examples of land trusts, cooperatives, and mutual efforts that are world class. During the first years of COVID, I felt so lucky that I could learn so much in my own city. But these efforts are still seen as experimental, bohemian, and are not appreciated as viable pathways to making a living or a life. Collectivism is narrowly understood as socialism or often misunderstood as formless consensus and aimless anarchy.

I believe that neighborhoods—especially the ones most divested in—are where the potential for collective solutions most strongly lie. Realities like overcrowding, the digital divide, and fewer transportation options are often given as liabilities. But in economies and enterprises that require relational strength and trust, proximity and density can be transformed into a competitive advantage.

So the road ahead begins with asset maps, strengths surveys, and spend analyses that lift up the economic potential of each neighborhood and its residents. It looks like the creation of neighborhood economics labs that structure latent assets—skills and capital—to come together in cooperative enterprises and shared investments. It looks like aggregating public procurements and private contracts from locally-based anchor institutions and corporations to fuel the growth of local cooperatives. And it looks like investing in public spaces that reinforce the relational bonds that are at the foundation of it all.

This is not just for the benefit of the divested neighborhoods and their residents—as we build an economy that values cooperation and care, it will ultimately be one that does not burn itself or the Earth out in 100 years. May our new economy be one that generates true wealth and prosperity for us all.

The road ahead in the context of my current endeavors: Chris Ko on L.A. and United Way’s Future

The Challenge: I dedicate my Stanton Fellowship to four women who are no longer with us but who encouraged me to pursue the fellowship and graciously guided my early learning—Dr. Beatriz “Bea” Solis (2020), Linda Gomez Evans (2022), Debra Lee (2022), and Sylvia Hull (2022). Part of their legacy is an inclusive gender equity lens and the collective leadership they modeled that became a recurring highlight in dozens of conversations with women leaders.

My inquiry was largely informed by my experience in senior leadership at Community Coalition (CoCo). When I received the Stanton Award, I had recently assumed the responsibility for launching a Center for Community Organizing (CCO) to expand power-building capacity in BIPOC communities across the country. As a 30+ year organization, CoCo had developed significant organizing capacity and had decades of multiracial solidarity experience to inform the strategies and programs of the CCO. However, I was concerned that we did not have a plan to effectively support the upcoming generations of women-of-color organizers. For the broader social justice sector, I also worried that gender equity was an intractable problem and that the lack of investment in addressing gender specific needs of emerging organizers was creating inordinate stress and limiting future opportunities for long-term leadership roles.

The Proposal: I began my inquiry by looking at the social justice sector to explore strategies for investing in emerging women-of-color leaders, centered on organizing and movement work. My sight was set on finding new, effective community approaches to nurture and cultivate the leadership of young women of color. I focused on two categories of emerging leaders: female-identifying organizers (aged 16-30) and women who are new to or growing in leadership roles within organizing or movement workspaces.

The Stanton Journey: Early on, a deep dive into feminist theory and an advisory meeting with South LA community women leaders from CoCo’s Kinship In Action (KIA) program shaped my inquiry. What I found in my research is that for many decades, Black women have had inclusive and expansive gender analyses that include a critique of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. These theories acknowledge the US’s history and culture of violence, exploitation, and division, while also exploring terms and evolving definitions such as third-world feminism, womanism, Black matriarchy, sexuality, and non-binary and gender-expansive frameworks.

One week before the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a complete shutdown, KIA leaders insisted on keeping our scheduled lunch to discuss my Stanton project. These women had led a decades-long fight to keep their relative children in “Family Care, Not Foster Care!” (the name of their campaign). The leaders were energized by my inquiry and voiced that they wanted to actively support my learning. Unfortunately, the two-week shutdown turned into a more-than-yearlong closure. Women and elders were disproportionately devastated due to their caretaking and financial obligations, housing situations, health, and age.

Nothing could have prepared me for the leadership challenges that women would confront. Nationally, the reversal of Roe v. Wade was a gutting backlash against women’s constitutional rights to safe and legal abortions. This decision came soon after Kamala Harris made history as the US’s first Asian Black woman Vice President. The attacks and threats appeared to be a central tactic of America’s right-wing white nationalists, and the Left did not have a proper response. The beloved Patrisse Cullors, prominent Co-Founder and face of the Movement for Black Lives, pushed forward and led a global response following the devastating killing of George Floyd. The country reached an inflection point, and Opal Tometi, Alicia Garza, and Patrisse made great sacrifices to advance a Black liberation movement informed by their decades of experience in organizing and over a decade of building the BLM Global Network after the murder of Trayvon Martin.

My Stanton Fellowship also opened many doors into women-led organizations with similar gender justice values. The organizations are proactively investing in the development of women organizers but also identified a need for more spaces that are welcoming to mothers and young or inexperienced organizers—spaces where women can feel safe and be themselves, discuss issues, problems, and developmental needs, and receive support when moving into new leadership roles.

The generous reception of all the women I met in California and beyond was inspiring. They welcomed me into their homes and organizations, brought other women with them, introduced me to other leaders in other cities, and formed new groups to support my inquiry with the hope that together we could build a future that fully values and includes women and girls.

A Wisdom Braintrust of four women including myself came together in 2021. We were in search of new ways to build communities grounded in sisterhood. We radically imagined women to be in centered leadership roles informed by cultural healing practices and generative frames of abundance, mutuality, embodied feminine wisdom, and community.

Along with three other Black and brown women, as well as CoCo’s CEO, we formed a Make LA Whole (MLAW) coalition to explicitly call for greater investments in the LA City budget for women, families, and overpoliced communities disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We won a historic $170 million allocation, and today the MLAW coalition has grown to include SEIU Local 99, Black Women for Wellness, and Catalyst California.

Connie Chung Joe, the Chief Executive Officer of Asian Americans Advancing Justice (ASOCAL), convened with a group of women leaders—now called Sisterhood Trust—representing six social justice organizations: ASOCAL, Brotherhood Crusade, CoCo, Khmer Girls in Action, CARECEN, and Translatina Coalition. Our group is exploring sustainable care practices, nurturing the leadership of emerging BIPOC and LGBTQA+ women leaders, and is committed to speak out on civil rights issues impacting women.

Where I Am Now: Lastly, thanks to former Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, CCO is leading a community-organizing fellowship for women and girls. Coming full circle, I was able to honor KIA leaders by naming the fellowship after beloved unsung hero, Debra Lee. The Debra Lee Women’s Organizing Fellowship is composed of emerging organizers who identify as BIPOC, non-binary, gender expansive, and women, all of whom are committed to transforming social and economic conditions, advancing equity, and expanding opportunities for BIPOC communities. My hope is that any new practices that emerge from the fellowship will contribute to more healing approaches that can improve the health and sustainability of future generations of women organizers and movement leaders.

My Stanton inquiry began with a set of questions about how we create a culture of democracy in Los Angeles—what are the cultural components of democratic practice? How do we tell the story about our place and our place in it? How do we develop deeper democratic habits and practices? What information or orientation is required for meaningful democratic inclusion? I pursued all three of these threads simultaneously, though some moved forward at different times.

In my process I learned how very interwoven the three strands of my inquiry were. Visiting sites of great trauma and collective struggle and triumph—from Jackson, Mississippi to Kigali, Rwanda—I learned how deep the connections were between civic memory and democratic practice. I learned how much these narratives build on one another and how contemporary experiments in radical democracy are deeply rooted in generations of cooperative struggle. For instance, contemporary innovations like the People’s Assemblies of Cooperation Jackson are deeply indebted to organizing from the Civil Rights Movement and reflect how slow and deliberate these projects have been. How palpably present the past still is.

I was also able to connect with a burgeoning global movement of participatory democracy. From the participatory budgeting movement in the United States and South America, to folks working on computational democracy in Taiwan, the municipal movement in Spain, as well as innovators reimagining democratic institutions in America, I acted as a thought partner with Danielle Allen on a series of op-eds for the Washington Post on reimagining the US House of Representatives. I also connected and learned from organizations like Monument Lab, who are at the forefront of reconsidering the commemorative landscapes in America and abroad, as well as organizers from Indigenous and immigrant communities across LA thinking about what it means to tell the story of this place in a way that respects trauma and nourishes hope.

Meanwhile, through the time afforded me by the fellowship, I was able to play a role in some ongoing projects designed to bring forth truer histories of this place—working in collaboration with Indigenous and immigrant communities and building bridges between them. I imagine this thread of my work will continue long beyond this year’s crop of projects—working with the Mayor’s Office on a recommendation for public processes and civic memory, running a public program and public mediation process reconsidering a WPA-era mural in Santa Monica, and telling the story of the 1871 Chinese Massacre in Downtown LA. Surprisingly, this last year, I’ve worked almost exclusively in this mode of public facilitation, barely producing any of my own visual work. I’m eager to fold these new modes back into my visual art. Perhaps it’s a bit of exhilaration of the slow thaw and return to public gathering and in-person connection, but I have found it invigorating to be working so much with public processes and dealing with large groups of unpredictable people.

In this way, my inquiry dovetailed with several other Stanton inquiries. The connections between participatory democracy, worker-owned co-ops, Mutual Aid, and the Just Economy movement were deep and compelling both here in the United States and abroad. I’m happy to be in dialogue with that local, growing movement to assemble these kinds of institutions—organizations that increase personal agency and democracy while expanding meaningful work, shared prosperity, and collective building. The road ahead looks like supporting these kinds of projects however possible.

The Challenge: Despite LA County voters having approved both Measures R and M to invest in a robust transit system, Los Angeles County in 2016 was facing both declining bus ridership and a severe housing crisis, especially for low-income families. Two things were clear: we had the opportunity to dramatically expand transit and the need to build more affordable housing. If this housing was built in areas with good access to transit, it would also enhance ridership while improving access to jobs, education, and services for these low-income families.

The Hunch: My hunch was that Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) systems on commercial boulevards could be a significant stimulus for community development, create opportunities for affordable housing, and help rebuild transit ridership more quickly than rail projects.

I knew from my own experience and from reports from Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) that mixed-use development on commercial boulevards could be an excellent opportunity to build very significant new housing region wide—both market-rate and affordable—especially since online shopping is undermining storefront commercial uses.

Maybe commercial boulevards used as BRT corridors could become targeted for significant housing development. Measure M had significant resources for BRT development. If one could develop a strategy for funding affordable housing, why not marry the objectives?

The Proposal: In my proposal, I wanted to develop strategies for implementation of model “grand boulevards” and identify one or more LA County boulevards that might serve as a demonstration effort. Since LA Metro already had funding set aside for the systems, the central goals of this effort would be to: 1) identify the characteristics that make a workable BRT boulevard and understand the challenges that have to be overcome; 2) identify sources of funding for affordable housing to invest on these corridors—both primarily a political challenge.

 The Stanton Journey: The Stanton Journey for me was a lot of dialogue and a lot of travel to learn about my own County of Los Angeles, as well as the lessons of other communities. I met and spoke with dozens of professionals and advocates. My assistant, Jared Bendifahli, was indispensable. I would identify cities believed to have the most successful BRT programs, and Jared would call to identify who I should speak with and make an appointment. I would then decide which community offered the greatest potential for learning relevant to Los Angeles County today.

Based upon that effort, I visited Portland, Oregon; Vancouver, Washington; Seattle, Washington; Bogotá, Colombia; Paris and Nantes, France; Barcelona, Spain; Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was by far the greatest travel experience of my life.

Each city had lessons about BRT design, implementation, and housing development. Barcelona, which has a very extensive BRT system, used one-way boulevards to make it much easier to gain community acceptance for repurposing car lanes for public transit. In Nantes, I learned that in France, it has been national law following World War II to require 20% affordable housing in all multifamily housing projects and that “social housing” has long been a priority for public investments. In Seattle, BRT was first used to provide transit access to existing “Urban Villages,” redevelopment-like zones that emphasize multifamily housing. Later, BRT became a strategy to create such districts. In Cleveland, an early strategy was to acquire public land for development while it was cheap, prior to the implementation of BRT.

But the clearest message was that political leadership was paramount. Reshaping the use of public corridors and land use policy, as well as developing significant sources of public funding, were all fundamental elements of any program to build BRT and affordable housing.

Where I am Now: Now I am on the cusp of what I believe will be a significant opportunity to influence public policy and legislation to create the tools needed to address our affordable housing needs in a way that would ensure access to transit like BRT corridors.

Legislators are taking seriously our proposal that the state of California should ensure that multifamily housing be permitted above the first floor of all commercial boulevards. A bill authored by Senator Ben Allen, sponsored by Move LA, has created the framework for redevelopment 2.0 districts on boulevards with robust transit that requires 40% of the tax increment be dedicated to affordable housing. We are in discussions with a legislator who plans to introduce legislation to create a major affordable housing fund—one that will match the affordable housing share of the tax increment in any such district so long as the sponsoring city will also match. A three-way match for affordable housing along BRT corridors. 

Actually, this could work so long as there is transit to make it work.

Homelessness is the greatest challenge facing California. I have spent my career working to end homelessness, but that goal feels more elusive today than it did when I started in this field more than 15 years ago. That is because something shifted around 2014. We didn’t know what, but we could feel the difference. Many more people were falling into homelessness than we had ever seen before, and so many of them had spent their lives gainfully employed, or were even employed while experiencing homelessness.

I started my Stanton journey the same year Los Angeles County passed Measure H, the ¼ cent sales tax to fund services to address homelessness. Measure H was a huge step forward, but I knew we would be funding interventions developed before the homeless crisis reached its zenith. I had to ask the question: does the global housing crisis demand that we change how we respond to homelessness?

I started with a more simple question: what happened? I poured over the latest papers by the leading economists studying housing markets. I started to understand the fourth industrial revolution and what it meant for cities to shift to a knowledge-based economy. I began to connect what was happening in Los Angeles to the rise in homelessness in European cities and could see that this was a global phenomenon. New research shows how rising rents drive inflows into homelessness in cities that cross a rental housing affordability tipping point.

I knew from the beginning of my fellowship that I wanted the collective wisdom of my community to inform my Stanton inquiry. My first act as a Stanton Fellow was to establish a Community Advisory Circle. That was followed by conducting oral histories with people who had lived the experience of homelessness. I decided I also wanted the wisdom of emerging leaders in the field who weren’t wedded to what we were already doing. We created EmergingLA, a monthly mentorship/policy salon where emerging homeless leaders could explore their ideas about the causes of and solutions to homelessness.

The collective wisdom that emerged from these conversations illuminated that economics alone could not explain what was happening. A voice inside me told me to go to Alabama for the opening of the Equal Justice Initiative’s Peace and Justice Memorial. I couldn’t explain how a monument to racial terror was connected to homelessness, but something was calling me there. Listening to that tiny voice changed the course of my Stanton and how I understood my work.

The opening of the Peace and Justice Memorial was life changing. But beyond the profound experience of understanding how slavery continues to define our country, I began to be able to make the connection between the commodification of land and structural racism. We have a toxic relationship with land in this country because we have deeply vested beliefs about who is allowed to prosper and belong, and who is not. Land is the most powerful tool to enrich or to strip a person—or group of people—of resources. For the first time I could trace the line from Native American genocide to slavery to homelessness. We are simply continuing 500 years of casting people out.

This isn’t rocket science. Native American and Black people experiencing homelessness know this in their bones. But professionals working in homelessness often ignore this wisdom. Now that I could feel this in my bones too, I had to find a way to communicate this narrative to my community and give them the tools to address the commodification of land and structural racism. We settled on the framework of housing justice.

I concluded my fellowship by teaming up with an amazing team of people who knew homelessness both professionally and personally to host a Housing Justice Summit. We shared the journey I had been on, personal stories and expression, and explored how to create solutions to homelessness rooted in housing justice. We also captured and shared the ideas from the Summit through the Housing Justice LA podcast.

As I continue to work toward an end to homelessness, I now strive for deeper solutions. Because I worked so closely with my community throughout my Stanton journey, we have shared language and goals around housing justice that we work toward together. We are starting to hear whispers of housing as a human right reflected locally and nationally. Now we begin the work of turning those whispers into a roar.