MARK WILSON - Revolutionizing South LA - Eating While Broke

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have a
very special guest, founder, owner of CRCD, Coalition of Responsible
Community Development, is in the building. Oh right, And how
long has CRCD been around.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
CRCD has been around. This year makes twenty years.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Twenty years. So a little backstory about Mark, Mark Wilson
is I don't even say your name, huh. Mark Wilson,
owner of Coalition of Responsible Community Development, is in the building.
It's an honor to have you, guys. I've tried to
get this interview for a couple of years now. That

(00:58):
just goes to show you know how much I wanted
this interview. And you'll learn throughout this interview why on
what Mark has done in the twenty years. But there's
a lot to cover, so I want Mark to go
ahead and talk about some of the stuff that CRCD
has done. And just for a little sticker shock, guys,
CRCD owns about seven hundred million dollars in real estate

(01:20):
in South primarily in south central Los Angeles, which is
a if you even own a condo in Los Angeles
and you're even fortunate to own one at all. You
know how hard it is to possibly own one and
how expensive it is let alone to do that under nonprofit, So.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
The Coalition for Responsible Community Development CRCD, we are not
for profit community development corporation, so that our mission is
to change lives and build neighborhoods responsibly. We do a
lot of that work in workforce development. I'll go over
a little bit about what we do. After a lot

(02:03):
of workforce development, working with the state, the federal government,
the County of Los Angeles, and the City of Los Angeles,
providing workforce development and employment training to our most vulnerable Angelinos,
particularly those that reside in South LA. So this is
false youth, unhoused individuals, individuals returning to our communities from incarceration,

(02:27):
and folks that have had difficult times finding employment, and
we take them through a host of training programs with
pathways to.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
Careers at their choice.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Of course, providing them with wrap around support services along
the way, because when you come from a vulnerable background,
it's difficult to even keep a job. A lot of times,
it's not folks fault that they didn't have.

Speaker 3 (02:53):
A place to sleep that night.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
It's not folks fault that somebody may have kicked them
out because of of their gender, and it's not folks
fault on not having adequate transportation and the transportation system
in their neighborhood so they can get to work on time,
and so we provide those supports what we call barrier
supports or support services, so folks can gav game full

(03:18):
employment and get on their feet. We also do affordable
housing development, as you mentioned where now embarking on you know,
over seven hundred million dollars in real estate development in
south central LA that makes up about sixteen hundred units
of affordable housing in different phases of development. We have

(03:42):
about six hundred units in what we call in the
transition right now, meaning folks are actually moving in and
twenty percent of our housing is dedicated to formally false
youth or young people that find themselves unhoused.

Speaker 3 (03:59):
Each of our.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
Buildings and projects, all based in South LA, have wrap
around support services, so we actually have offices and staff
at each of our building sites, so they're providing residents
with opportunities to move into employment, move into.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Other services, access.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
To healthcare, and any other thing that will support them
and moving their lives forward and so we're we're proud
of that to be able to provide those not only
the housing which is very affordable, usually targeting individuals that
can move in a place where thirty percent your average
income is your rent and it's subsidized by other government sources.

(04:40):
So in LA that's a really big deal.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
And they're really nice building and they're really nice when
you get subsidized. I've pulled up on some of these
buildings and these buildings are absolutely stunning. You would drive
by it and say, this is a very nice building,
and yes, when you do walk in, you do see
the support.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Yes, and so so you know, we're proud of that.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
We have partnerships with the LA Community College District, so
we provide services on site in partnership with colleges like
Los Angeles Trade Tech Community College, East LA Community College
in Los Angeles Community College. At Los Angeles Trade Tech,
we actually have office spaces there so we can work

(05:25):
side by side with department chairs recruiting students into opportunities
for employment, particularly those that are on track to graduate
with their AA degrees, to possibly pair them with career
opportunities in that degree or in their major.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
So that's pretty exciting.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
We've had and withstand that partnership for about almost fourteen
years now.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yes, we also partner with youth Field Charter School of California,
so we manage charter school on the campus of La
Trade Tech where we're working with young people eighteen to
twenty six primarily for whatever reason, they didn't complete traditional school,
and so they find themselves at CRCD and go through

(06:09):
CRCD Academy where they earn a high school diploma and
they're duel enrolled in the community college at the same time.
So when they graduate, they're already in college, they're already
on track, and a lot of them are already on
career paths with CRCD.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
Wow. Yes, and then to go back to workforce development,
can you give you an example of some of the
trades that do you guys teach or teach me?

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Yes, And so fourteen years ago we created CRCD Enterprises,
which is a separate entity. It's a for profit entity
that is now a general contractor licensed with the state
of California. We're also licensed to do let abatement and
let abatement training. And so young people that go through

(06:59):
are workforce say particularly Youth Bill. So we run the
South LA Youth Build or we are South LA Youth Build.
That's part of the Youth Build Global international network. And
young people they are enrolled in CRCD Academy, but then
they have an opportunity to work side by side going

(07:20):
through a multicore curriculum that's approved. It's called MC three
and it's approved by the La Orange County Building Trades
and so.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
That's the labor unions.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
So they have an opportunity to learn about multiple trades,
so plumbing, drywall, painting, pipe fitting, concrete and then through
that training which is typically about three weeks or three.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Four weeks I want to get in that.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Youth Build is three weeks, and then we have other
traders that are eight weeks that are more apprenticeship base.

Speaker 3 (07:55):
So for Youth BUEL you do three hundred hours.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
If the young person decides for trade they like, they
have an opportunity to go through a pathway with a
union to become an apprentice.

Speaker 1 (08:06):
And the Youth Built age group is age group.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
That age group is eighteen to twenty four at entry.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Wow you hear that, guys, So straight out of high
school you could pick a trade you can.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
Pick a trade as soon as you actually during while
you're getting your diploma. With Crcity Academy, you can actually
be working on your trade and receiving your high school
diploma at the same time.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
And when you graduate.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
You can work more towards that trade because you will
be a pre apprentice. Because our training is approved by
the union.

Speaker 1 (08:39):
Now is there stipulations if they don't go to the
charter school.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
If they don't go to our charter school, there's no stipulation.
You still can enroll in our mc th training because
we now have the Tresa McCoy Regional Infrastructure Development Training Center.
So basically it's a training center that we now run
the community. It's right off of twenty fifth in Central Avenue.

(09:03):
And any young person rather they go through Youth Bill
or just want to come through one of crcd's workforce
development training programs, they have access to going through these pathways.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Wow. That's a big deal. Wow. And then would you say,
I want to talk about race a little bit. When
you think of South Central you think of predominantly a
certain race. What race would you say is the community
that you tend to help more so or what is
that divide of that race.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
So the community itself, meaning residents that live there, are
directly a majority of Latino. I would say probably eighty
five percent. In our programs, it's roughly fifty percent African
American fifty percent Latino.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
And we get a higher number of African Americans unfortunately,
because African Americans make up a high rate of the
individuals that are returned to the community from prison.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
They are the majority of young people that are in
the false care system and that age out. Also the
majority of young people that are unhoused in LA And
because of those statistics and because we work with that
population primarily, our African American numbers are higher than the racial.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
In the community.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
So the community itself is eighty five percent Latino, but
we hear about a fifty to fifty racial and the
people that we serve.

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I worked with a startup that dealt with a lot
of apartment buildings, and when you're dealing with low income housing,
I noticed when I would talk to property managers what
they were dealing with on a regular basis in mental
illness or mental struggles was all over the spectrum, Like

(10:52):
you had to have a whole different caliber of I mean,
you would assume that they were like numb to just
so much trauma that these people go through. What do
you guys do to deal with the mental illness, because
there's got to be some would amagine that's a big
part of the equation.

Speaker 2 (11:10):
Right, We're not a licensed therapist. And the good thing
about SERISD is we know how to partner. We know
how to do what we do well, and then we
know how to collaborate and partner with others that do
their craft well. And so we partner with Kedrin, which
has a mental health hospital in South Los Angeles. They're

(11:30):
actually working on building a new facility i think close
to the Watts and they have some of the best
mental health professionals that I've ever worked with and I've
ever seen. And so when we have cases, because we
do have a housing and support services department that primarily
works with young people, and unfortunately a lot of young

(11:53):
people are dealing with a lot of trauma, trauma that
they've been dealing with for years, some of them decades,
And having that partnership with Kedron really helps our coordinators
to provide this young person with services. Because every young
person that come through our doors because we have a
dropping center called Ruth Place Yes.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
Dropping center called Place Yes.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
It's a youth dropping center, so young people from anywhere.
Usually we get young people from all over the city,
not just South LA. And we're probably one of the
few dropping centers in the city of La, particularly in
South LA. So they drop in primarily looking for housing opportunities,
and we have housing navigators.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Individuals may come in needing mental.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
Health support, so we provide support to them by way
of KEDRON. Others may just be coming in for other services.
Maybe they need to take a shower, maybe they just
need to park somewhere and take a nap because they've
been up all night. Because a lot of young people
do not like going into the shelters that are available

(13:03):
that are primarily for adults. There's not many youth shelters
and so they don't like that, and so they're in
the parks in a car if they have it, or
they're walking around the streets because they're scared and terrified
of going to sleep. And so we have a place
where folks in come and if they need to take
a DAP, they take a nap, and that's an entry

(13:24):
point for us to see what other services they need.
And these are folks that are not living in our
apartment buildings and folks that we're connecting to what we
call scatter site housing. So these are working with private
apartment building owners, usually small mom and pop apartment building
owners for the ten units, and we're master releasing buildings

(13:46):
and we're working rental or leasing arrangements with those owners
and placing young people in housing.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, how many people do see
RCD I'm getting all don't get all up in people
to CRCD employing.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
So right now today because we're so CRCD the nonprofit
employees about one hundred and sixty seven full time employees.

Speaker 3 (14:13):
We probably employ on part.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Time basis through different services or whatnot, another two to
three thousand people that come through our doors.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Now.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
CRCD Enterprises On which is our for profit and construction company,
employees today about two hundred and fifty individuals full time.
And then CRCD Partners, who is does everything real estate
development and it's also a for profit entity, employees about

(14:44):
forty individuals.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
So all together, if you.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Do the math, we're employing about a little over five
hundred individuals.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Can do the math that quick, but.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
That's a lot and there's a lot of arms. Yes, yes,
I'm genuinely curious what a day in the life of
you is. Do you have two phones or one?

Speaker 3 (15:05):
I have one phone.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
They've tried to give me two phones, but I'm like
one is enough. And then I have to have an
executive assistant that is more than just another phone, but
she takes care of other things and people that's been
trying to find me or.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
So you have your cell phone number? Are you am?
I am? I very lucky and fortunate to have this numb.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
I don't want to put it like that, but you
wanted to look, I feel cool now.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
You got a direct connect.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, I hit them directly, like please, please, please please,
because I think I did try the other ways, which
is like going to through other people. See but if
you go direct, go direct. If you think about it,
it worked best when I went direct. It does so
if you see them on the street, guys hit me up.

(16:02):
So that's a huge footprint. What I think is crazy
about LA because I do work with like the LA
Business Journal and all these guys, is like I have
shocked sometimes that I don't see you on the cover
of some of these, Like, I don't know if it's
because you're not doing prs, the just you're just your
footprint is pretty large.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah, it's a number of things. I don't think.

Speaker 2 (16:23):
I know, I'm not doing a lot of PR because
I'm typically focused.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
On the work.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
I've never been someone that like to be all in
the videos in front of the newspapers, so I ride
a little low. So even doing this is a little
different for me.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
I love it. I think you need to do more
of it. I wonder if does that help or hinder
your fundraising processes. I would imagine you have to do
some level of PR.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean with fundraising.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
I mean, you know, I do the conferences, I do
the panel discussions, and I do those things which helps
to get our word and our message out. I do
a lot of meetings with different foundations and things of
that nature. So I would think that it may hinder
it a bit because our message and what we do

(17:12):
a lot of folks still don't know. Yeah, yeah, and
I appreciate that, and so we're working on figuring out
how to do better or be better at.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
PR and communications, you know.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
But for me myself, I'm just more focused on the
work and then allow folks like the board and others
to think about ways that we.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Can kind of get out more and get.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
In journals, get interviewed by different magazines. Really, you know,
talk about the unique work that we're doing in South LA.
Because it's tough work that the team is doing. It's
not easy when you're managing contracts that have time limits
on them and you have a young person or an
adult that doesn't have a time limit on when they

(17:58):
can get on their feet or when they can somehow
overcome trauma. I mean, when you have a contract where
they say you have six months to produce these results,
and you have someone that's just getting out that they're
twenty years, it's going to take bore than six months.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
To work with him.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
So you know, that's why, you know, the work is difficult,
and where there are opportunities for us to talk more
about the work, we can be better at doing so
because I know there's a lot more people that may
want to support what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
So yeah, yeah, did Amazon ever hit you guys up?
I'll discouraged because she has been making it right all around.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
You know, I don't think they hit us up, And
I can be mistaken, so I don't want a mistake openly.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
But I haven't seen anything.

Speaker 1 (18:44):
Oh you would know. I've heard, Sorry, she dropped millions
on some nonprobability. They just say they just get a
random I.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
Mean, I'm sure, but I haven't gotten a rack.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
Yeah, I think you would know.

Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, I would know.

Speaker 1 (18:57):
I think you would.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
I think see.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
When you refer to Amazon about Kensey Scott.

Speaker 2 (19:04):
So I believe we did support from McKenzie Scott a
couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
So yeah, I'm like made it.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yeah, No, No, she's good. They good folks. You're like
a lot of Amazon packages.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
No, because she has she definitely, I don't know. She's
definitely been making it rain on.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
A lot of I mean, her support definitely helped us
to move a lot of our real estate development efforts forward.

Speaker 3 (19:34):
A lot of people don't know.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
You know, when we're doing these projects, you're putting, you know,
millions of dollars into them before you even see one
dime back, and so you're constantly raising money doing applications.
They're very complicated projects to put together. It's not like
your typical real estate investment deal where you just buy

(19:57):
a hum flip or by rent because you.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Break your progresies, break ground permit request.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
And so from from ground from acquisition to breaking ground
to actually people moving in is typically a four year process.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Geeze for each project.

Speaker 1 (20:15):
And then you're paying the whole time.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
You're paying the whole time, you're paying those twenty forty staff,
you're paying for permits, you're paying for you know, engineering,
architectural services, and a lot of legal fees. Yeah, So
affordable housing for the good people that do it all
across the country don't get recognized enough for the actual

(20:38):
difficulty that goes into it and expertise that needs to
go into it. To actually build a project for people
that need affordable housing is very different than your typical
real estate investment project.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
And that's honestly a.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
Lot of people don't do it because it's really hard,
and it's because you're you have to put so many
or go after so many different subsidies to make the
project happen. So hats off to folks that do that work,
include our team.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
How long is a waiting list for you guys for
your affordable housing?

Speaker 2 (21:16):
So typically, unfortunately, on any given project, you'll have five
hundred to two thousand people on the waiting lists, and
the waiting list is even more you know, probably you know,
I don't know the exact but we get a lot
of referrals from Department of Mental Health, so they have

(21:36):
a waiting list of thousands of folks we get on
a waiting list with LARSA. They refer people to our building,
particularly young people. They have you know, hundreds, if not
thousands of people on the waiting lists.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
And that's why, you.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Know, our mayor, our governor, our council members continue to
fight to try to bring in more resources for housing
because there's not a lot of units to support the need,
so you have to build more. And you know, our
mayor has done things to cut down the wait time

(22:13):
and the time it takes to actually build a housing project,
but it's still not enough yet of buildings in the
ground to support the need. So you have a long
waiting list. And that's throughout the state of California, not
just the city of Los Angeles.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Wow, that's when you get a wait list. I'm guessing
there's some kind of lottery process to help.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Unfortunately, I mean a lot of us don't like the
lottery process because people that we're working with directly or
have worked with directly, we can say, hey, we can
get you housing. So in fairness to people that have
been waiting for sometimes years, there is a lottery process
that's controlled by either the housing the apartment, or Department

(23:01):
of Mental Health or one of the county agencies.

Speaker 3 (23:05):
And as you can imagine, they fill up pretty quickly.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, and it's with Ruth's Place, the dropping center for youth.
How does that whole process work. Is there like a
huge waitlist or they're just it's a safe It's.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
Just a safe place you can drop in.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Okay. Is it like twenty four hours or something.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, No, So it is not a shelter and it's
not open twenty four hours. It's an eight to five
or eight to six where folks can literally drop in,
go through an intake process, be placed with a case manager,
or if they just coming in to get some food
or just want a place to relax, they can do that. Okay,

(23:45):
So it's radomly whoever, Yeah, safe place whoever wants to
come in.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
And then if they come I'm just saying this for
all y'all listeners. So if they come in and you're
you know, you have say an issue one area transportation
or food or how or whatever. You go there, you
get linked with a case manager that helps redirect you
to help you get those services at least temporarily.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Temporarily and usually our staff is good at connecting folks
to warm handoffs.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
We don't like you saying hey, go over here.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
To follow this website.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
It's usually refer to good groups that we work with
that you know, have a relationship with our team, and
then folks are placed in good hands with them. And
usually it's a group, you know, like topics or others
that may provide resources for un housed families. See, we
don't do families and we don't do adults, and so

(24:41):
when folks come in they may be over the age
of twenty.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Four years old.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
So we have partners like them and many others that
we can refer people to and help them get services.

Speaker 1 (24:53):
Wow, that's a lot. So going back to my question,
it was the day in the life.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
I mean, you know, the day life.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
I mean when you're you know, you're managing your family
or the best I can and you know, so a
day in the life starts at six in the morning
and probably ends at about six about nine at night.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Something like that. Yeah, no, sometimes it's longer than that.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
It depends on what's going on and everything scrunched in between.
There's a lot of teams, meeting, conference calls, meetings in person,
you know, meeting with you know, funders, investors, legal teams,
so forth. It depends on what's happening in the week.
But every hour, on an hour, there's something going on,

(25:41):
and then you kind of sneak in some time for
some grub and maybe yeah, speaking of it, maybe a
happy hour, but usually a happy hour turn into a
meeting too, So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
Did you take your shot yet? We're about to tell
you something important, you man, I like it. You never
get those like just me, well just tell me on
the phone. No, No, you're going to you're going happy hour, lady.
Let's wait till after happy I mean you.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
I mean in the earlier days, you know, you got
a lot more of those calls. Nowadays it's more so
because they want us to do more, you know, And
so that's a good feeling to actually be at that
place where you kind of the go to organization, or
at least one of them that people can go to
and depend on. And so because people know we're already

(26:32):
doing a lot. Sometime a shock can help get to it.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Yes, smart, I'll take a note in my mind. Now,
now that everyone is caught up to who you are today,
I had to give you a backstory because you don't
do a lot of prs. So we are again thank you,
thank you for coming on the show. Now I want
to take us back to who you are, back with,
way back, way back. So tell me what you're gonna

(26:58):
have me eat today. Something you ate when you were broke.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
So the easy and you can't go wrong in la
but especially when you broke without going to tacos. And
so we're gonna have some chicken tacos today on flour
tortilla shells. We'll go mix in some cilantro, some salsa,
green and red or your choice, with some regular white onions,

(27:27):
and then if you like cheese, once done, you can
sprinkle some of that on with some dishal our.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Yeah, this is this is good. By the way, We've
had some guests do some taco type dishes, and so
I went in our fridge I found this. Oh yeah,
I tried it, you know, but go ahead, get your
get yourself in the kitchen. I don't know if we
put the right seasonings out for you. If we have it,
it's okay because we could call cutting.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
We got some.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Chicken seas season were good. Okay. So take me back
to what was going on. Take me all the way back.
I want to go broke, broke you. So take me
back to what was going on when you were eating tacos.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
So my mom and dad, you know, I was fortunate
to grow up in a house, two parent household, and
both my parents were from the South, so I want
my dad. My father was from Harris County, Georgia, and
my mom was from Texas Cana, Arkansas, even though they

(28:37):
say it's Texas, but I kind of reminded that it's Arkansas.
But because of their background, we eat a lot of
different Southern food, and one of them was tacos.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
I mean it's not traditional La style tacos. It's more like.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Ground turkey, ground chacking, ground everything, I think, because stretch.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Out a little longer and you just kind of eat
on that for probably a few days. And my dad, because.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
He's a good country boy, busted up the concrete in
the backyard and built out a garden so he wouldn't
make his own tomatoes and squash and cucumbers.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
I think we.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
Grew watermelon at season and strawberries and you know, and.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
So that's where that's where it goes back to him.

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Remind me of of a you know, my elementary or
childhood days of you know, eating tacos and it'll be
tacos one day, it'll be a burrito the next day,
but it'll be the same meat.

Speaker 1 (29:41):
I can respect that. Yeah, And you know, now that
I think about it, you're right, because ground turkey, you
could do tacos and spaghetti.

Speaker 3 (29:48):
You know. Yep, you can mix it up.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
You can mix it up.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
It wasn't no waste. Let's just say that. And so
that's what it always remind me of.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
And my grandmother and my auntie's they were great, good cooks.

Speaker 3 (30:00):
And you know, and so it was just you know.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
Who made the best burrito or you know, like my
auntie Debbie rest in peace, but she made the best.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Chunky beef still tis there. I don't know how it
was made, but it was good.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
And what did they do for work?

Speaker 2 (30:20):
So my father was a contractor. It was a contractor
more of a like a foreman superintendent.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
He was the hands on.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Guy probably built a lot of the early shopping centers
in South LA. Did a lot of brick mason work,
so a lot of the walls and other concrete related
work in La.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
My dad was part of. He wasn't just one trade.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
He knew all of the trades and so that inspired
me as a young boy when he told me I
was you know, we had to get up and go
to work when we were young. So it wasn't no
up and go outside and play.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
Not for me and my sister.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
We had to get up, clean the backyard, wash the dishes.
And that's because he had a strong work ethic early
on when helping around, you know, things that need to
be repaired in the house. He figured out probably when
I was about four or five years old, that construction
wasn't gonna be for me, meaning the actual being a

(31:25):
construction worker wasn't gonna be for me. And so I'm
seizing this a little different, but just work with me here,
probably about a couple of days ago. It wasn't tacos though, okay,
So he would you know, instill in me that I
needed to use my brain to actually get a career

(31:47):
or whatnot. Because these hammers and nails is not gonna
work for you, And he was right. My little brother different,
you know, he grew up and became an electrician, you know,
and now owns his own electric electrician company in Las Vegas.
And so that's in My mom. She did a lot

(32:08):
of different things, definitely running the household, but she also
was into insurance, and she worked at a lot of
different department stores. But always know her as being the
general manager of the house, if that makes sense. So
she ran the home, she took care of business. She

(32:29):
went out and work, but she always took care of business,
you know, because when you're working in construction.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
You know.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
Before I may say global warming got into effect, it
used to be when I was young, we actually had
seasons in La You had your summer, you knew when
it was gonna rain. They actually used to sell rain
coats in the department stores. They don't know more.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
You gotta find it or go online.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
But it was like racks and racks of like rain
gear that you don't find as much today, you know.
And so when it rained, my father didn't work, so
it was my mom that had to pick up the
slack whole season without working because they couldn't work in
the rain. Yeah, and so you know my mom would

(33:17):
be there to pick up the slack. Make sure you know,
when we were young, we didn't know no difference. I mean,
it was not like it wasn't no food on the table.
She knew how to stretch things.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
You know. It never was like lights didn't go off
of it.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Did they ever talk about did you ever hear them
argue about money or it was it was seamless.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Never never heard them arguing about money or anything like that.
It was seamless.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
We would you know, you just have to like they
were the old school managing the household budget. You know,
there were times you just didn't get certain things. But
we didn't never go without nothing, you know.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I mean I don't ever remember.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
I didn't really like to wear a lot of fancy
tennis shoes and clothes.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Anyway.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
When I was in elementary, I used to tell my
mom just brought me some dress shoes, just like to
do that.

Speaker 1 (34:09):
You like to dressing slacks slacks? Did you see your
dad dressing like that?

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Had? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
I used to give speeches when I was a young kid,
so you know I would go on I called a
circuit tour to a lot of the black.

Speaker 3 (34:27):
Churches in the neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Oh you for real, for real?

Speaker 2 (34:30):
And I used to give speeches inspiring other young people
at that time.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
And so to go to church you.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Had to wear slacks, and you know, at least I think,
and I took it real serious in the second grade.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
So second grade through sixth grade, that was my thing.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Did you know then, what you kind of wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
When I got to high school and I went to
school all in South LA by the way, you know,
I started wanting to be a school teacher, an elementary
school teacher, because when I was in elementary school, there
was only one black male teacher from kindergarten to sixth grade,
only see one maybe two male black teachers. And I

(35:15):
knew by high school what male teachers, how they influenced
positively young black men. And I just wanted to be
a teacher.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
That was my thing.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
I was gonna figure, I'll go to cal State Domingus Hills.
That's where a lot of the teachers went Ril Camino
to start, you know, So that's what I wanted to do.
And then nineteen ninety two hit.

Speaker 1 (35:39):
But in nineteen ninety two.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
The uprising or what people will say, the riots, okay
of ninety two, and.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
In my neighborhood.

Speaker 2 (35:48):
You know, I watched a lot of the buildings where
I used to run down the street and shop at
or you know, commercial corridors when we moved into the
neighborhood in nineteen seventy nine, burned it.

Speaker 3 (36:01):
You know.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Thirty years later, we happen to have a project that
is about to open right there on the same corner
of Vermont and Manchester in South la which is pretty exciting.
But back then, in nineteen ninety two, being in high school,
it changed me. I saw the disproportionate investment in resources

(36:22):
in our community as well as in young people. And
so from that moment, that's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to work with young people. I wanted to
become an advocate for change. That's what I started wanting
to do because I couldn't believe our community was burning
and I couldn't believe what appeared to be at the
time people letting it burn.

Speaker 3 (36:44):
And I'm not talking about the people that lived there.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
You're talking about like a government and police.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Just the investment politics at the time. They're very different today.
The undercurrent of racism. You know, I mean we were
called in the news media at the time thugs, you know, criminals,
you know, things of course that they don't do as
much today they hide it a little more, but then

(37:11):
they were pretty blatant and that's how they described us.
And they said, oh, they burning their community. Why would
they burn their community? Well, people in that community at
the time didn't feel like those businesses were their businesses.
They were mistreated a lot of times.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
I'm not making up excuses, no, okay, Well, actually it's
good to have that because of course that's a that's
an obvious question to ask, but that's a very yeah,
that's an answer that nobody would think.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, I mean people didn't feel like they had a
connection to those businesses, right. A lot of times people
were mistreated when they went in those businesses. You had
Natasha Harley that was unfortunately murdered and you know, her
killer was given probation. You know, this was before Rodney Key,
and so all of this build up was happening, and

(37:58):
people didn't feel like those businesses were reflections of them.
And so that's why it wasn't felt as if people
were burning their own communities. Now, the unfortunate things is
there are a lot of Korean Americans, Koreans that lost
lifetimes of investments that they put in and that's absolutely,

(38:20):
you know, heart wrenching and it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
But the flip of the coin is that a lot
of folks didn't feel that way.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
But there was just some plaane on looting and you know,
just illegal activity as well.

Speaker 3 (38:33):
And as a young man, I was flat dabbed.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
In it right in it, not participating of course, but
in it because I was witnessing something that was going
to be with me for the rest of my life.
And it actually changed your trajectory of what I wanted
to do as a career. And so that's when I
started working more with young people and looking at things

(38:58):
that I can.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Do more to support the community.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I even started working with my Korean American and Asian
brothers and sisters as well, particularly groups like the Korean
Youth and Community Center KYCC, still doing good work today,
work with a lot of them doing some community healing work,
you know, bringing Black and Korean communities together. So part

(39:22):
of that solution to healing is what I wanted to
do as well. So I work with Korean youth, work
with Latino youth, A lot of young people that were
in the gangs, A lot of people who don't know
that Korean's Gang Bang Do.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
I would never know that. Yeah, I would have never
guessed it.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
And so you know, we had programs to address gang
violence with Koreans, Latinos and African Americans, you know, and so,
but it was nineteen ninety two that sparked something in
me that said I needed to do more for community.
And from just working with you've spun off this whole

(40:02):
notion and ideal I had around would that young person
need a job, get well, that young person is gonna
need somewhere to live, that young person may want to
own a business one day. And so that's when the
economic development piece came along with my journey.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
But before we get to that part, take me back
to Okay, so you find out in nineteen ninety two
that now you have this sense of purpose is involved
around youth. What is the first job or the first
direction you take in like, what are those first conversations
with your parents looking like.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
So, I mean with my mom and dad, they never
said you need to do this. I mean basically, you know,
black folks from the country. They want you to be
doing something positive. Get your education so you can get
a job, you know. But you know, curves happen in life,
and one of the curves that happened outside of nineteen

(40:56):
ninety two is that a few short years later, I
found out I was going to be a young father,
and so that changed.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
Me a young How old are you like in your
early twenties at this point, a.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
Fresh out of high school?

Speaker 2 (41:14):
In high school, so I am now eighteen years old
about to be a father following the nineteen ninety to
two riots uprising.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And and your parents weren't.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Oh they was upset, Oh, no doubt, because that wasn't
the direction that they thought I was going in. They
thought I'm going to college, I'm going to do this thing.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
I'm doing that, you know, was accepted to Domingus.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Hills, and so they thought, hey, you're doing what you
said you wanted to do.

Speaker 3 (41:46):
And now you didn't throw this into the mix.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
I did not, just so you know, did not see
this coming?

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Oh you h yeah, I did not.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
I'm so glad, I said, rewind, did you catch me? Like,
don't be skipping, don't forget to hit your flower, I'm
over here.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Oh yeah, I'm hungry.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
So I just want to make sure that you you
like it hard or or however.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
I mean, I just don't want to because it's chicken.
I mean, you don't want to.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
You can't mess it up. But yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah,
that's the thing. You just want to make sure because
I ain't gonna do you like I do at home
and be tasting it while I'm cooking.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
Dad.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
Okay, yeah, okay, So yes, I was a teen dad.

Speaker 1 (42:32):
So you was a teen dad to a boy or
a girl to a girl?

Speaker 3 (42:36):
A girl name me money?

Speaker 1 (42:38):
Okay, Yeah I did not when I said I did
not know this plot twist. Okay, so you become a dad.
What's the first job? Are you still living at home?

Speaker 3 (42:48):
I got so still living at home.

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Because I never you know, so I'm still living at
home because I was supposed to live.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
On the dorms, living on the doors for a minute.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
But you know, I, you know, I needed to figure
out how it was going to earn money. I didn't
want to borrow money from my mom and dad and
didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of them.
I wanted to get out there and work, you know,
and so I did, and I got odd jobs working.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
You know, for this store or this group or you know.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
At the time, because I'm still a youth, I qualified
for some of youth employment. So I did that, but
you know, of course that wasn't enough. And you know,
worked at Staples. A friend of mine at the time
that got me a job working with him. I did
very well there, thought maybe I can do some work there.
But I still was passionate about wanting to work in

(43:48):
the community and work with youth. And so this couple
are not couple, but folks came in to the store
and I helped them because I was real passionate about
everyone that comes here and you know need a computer.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yea, So that was my goal.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Everyone that comes in, they need to buy a computer.
So I was I think I was a pretty good salesman.
Everyone didn't buy a computer, by the way, but they
went and looked at it. And so those two individuals,
they worked for a group called the Martin Luther King
Legacy Association, which was under the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SELC.

Speaker 3 (44:25):
So part of the resources that came out of Washington,
d C.

Speaker 2 (44:30):
To support South la under the Clinton administration, they were
able to form an organization, a youth organization called Youth
Empoment Project.

Speaker 3 (44:41):
And so they told me, hey, well we may have
something for you. Because I was just telling.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
Them what I want to do, and they were like, huh,
you would be good at maybe maybe you come for interview.
I said, when can I come? They said, well, we
got time today. So that day I went in my
uniform my stables union and went to that interview and
then they set up for a second interview to meet
with the other staff, and after meeting with them, I

(45:09):
got the job and there went my career as far
as working with youth. I stayed with that organization, doing everything,
working with black and brown. That's when I started working
with Korean youth and Korean communities and Latino communities.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
I started doing community gardens. I was doing everything.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
And did what was your initial intake job when you
first came on.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
So I was the program assistant, so I would assist
the coordinator at the time, and we ran youth leadership
programs at the time, which.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
I thought was very good.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
It worked with a lot of young people that to me,
had every sense of being on track of going to college.
But that wasn't a majority population in the community that
I found out about because I started.

Speaker 3 (46:00):
Walking the community knocking on doors.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
You know, you got a black boy walking on doors,
don't speak liquor Spanish, but talking to Spanish speaking people
about the things that we do in the community that
we provided because and that's when I learned that kids.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
Were game banging. They wasn't in school.

Speaker 2 (46:21):
And then I'm coming back to the organization, like we
don't have program Why don't we have programs to serve
these young people?

Speaker 3 (46:29):
And then they had to be created. So I created them.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
Wow, because at the time, the funding was only for
that leadership program that that supported young people and it
was a good program that was on track of going
to college, and that was okay to me. That was okay,
that was a good program.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
But if you.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Want to change the needle or move the needle in
any community, you got to go work with the people
on the ground that's participated the things that are let's say,
calls in the disruption in the neighborhood.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
And so so I chose.

Speaker 2 (47:06):
To work with the black and the brown gang members
and create leadership programs for them.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (47:13):
Yeah, And that was under the MLK.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Yep Okay that was under Martin Luther King Association.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
And you were with this organization for how long?

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I was at this organization for about four and a
half years. So when I left the organization, I was
the director. So I went from program assistant.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Through all that went all the way up in four years.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
That's great and four years so I became director at
the age of twenty three and.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Then when do you when? Why do you leave?

Speaker 2 (47:41):
So I left because the organization started changing, not necessarily SEOC,
but leadership shifted. There was more of a focus around
advocacy and things of that nature. It was less focus
on kind of the work I wanted to do. And
then I had an opportunity to do more economic development work.

(48:03):
So that's when I went over to Dunbar Economic Development
Corporation on historic South Central Avenue.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
And then for people that don't understand what economic development
work means, can you break that down?

Speaker 2 (48:16):
So economic development work to me is a combination or
community economic development work. So work that's driven by the
community to build business, to look at ways to channel
financial and other resources in the community. That helps with
home ownership, helps with business own ownership, helps with job

(48:39):
creation and create engines around the community where that confess
your best and so that's what I wanted to do,
as well as continue to do youth development work.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Okay. Yeah, so you go to this new organization, I
would assume that you enter in at director or higher level.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
I went in as the director of Community to Development.

Speaker 1 (49:00):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
So that was a pretty big deal for me because
it allowed me to work with or alongside the director
of urban Development, which did a lot of the real
estate development work for the organization.

Speaker 1 (49:15):
And this is your twenty three, this is your pacing
very well for us, daddy.

Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah, and my daughter, I'm still raising her, you know,
dealing with a little bit of or a lot of
bit of baby mama drama.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
That you did you end up marrying your.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
I did not. I did not.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
You know, guys did the co parenting thing.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
We did the co parenting thing, We did the co
courting thing, lock of meaning lots of going to court
because I didn't want to just pay child support. Didn't
mind it. But I think, quite frankly, it was abused
on me because I wasn't dead, that wasn't taking care
of my daughter.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Yeah, I was there.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
It wasn't like I was the guy you had to
go find or things that I hate today where people say,
well I got to go watch my child.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
How do you watch your child? Is your child, you're
going to be with your child? Well, I paid chilse
what I bought diapers.

Speaker 2 (50:13):
The kid need diapers, I mean, so it was more
than that for me. You know, it wasn't just you know,
so I just felt like it was an unfair kind
of thing to me. But I understand so as a
young man you don't get it as much as you
would as an adult. I wouldn't probably deal with some
of the things that I dealt with then.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
So we did our co parenting as you call it.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
But she spent a lot of time with me, to
a point, probably too much, some people would say.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
But I thought it was cool because.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
I figured, you know, if I'm going to go on
the date, you want to go on a date with me,
then you got to go with me and my daughter.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
That I just became. And I still don't know how
to navigate that, I.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Said.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
My navigation was quite frankly and giving shouts out to
my auntie, to my mom, to my sister. I had support,
you know, and I know that's tough because a lot
of folks don't have that support and I have to support.

Speaker 3 (51:17):
So when I.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Needed to go to work, I had someone that would
watch my daughter. If I wanted to go out for
the weekend, I had someone that would watch my daughter.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
She was very good baby.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
People used to call me to ask skin they watch her,
and so I had that support.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
But I didn't want financial support.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
I needed the moral and support needed to help me
do that.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
And that's a big thing.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
More. Oh yeah, no, I caregiver.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Oh man that they liked, oh she loved and it
was it was it was a win win.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Got to make yourself one.

Speaker 3 (51:59):
Okay, here do you I'm gonna get you out the
way on this one.

Speaker 1 (52:03):
So you're a young guy moving in all the right directions.
Uh huh, you're at You're at.

Speaker 3 (52:10):
The dunbar economic development.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Economic development. I'm not trying to give them too much shine.
So how long are you there? Before you? Before you?
I want to get closer to CR.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
So I'm there about four and a half years.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
The organization at the time was going through some financial
challenges and a lot of us voice our opinions, not
to the liking of the leadership at the time, and so.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
A few of the key people was let go, including myself.
And so.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
What happened was there was a vacuum in the community
because there wasn't a lot of groups providing those services
in the neighborhood for young people, right, So there was
a vacuum. So we left, and now you have, you know,
no services offered to young people.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
So when you left, the company didn't shut down, they
just stop providing the services.

Speaker 3 (53:12):
Yeah, because we were gone.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
And how many people did they lose?

Speaker 2 (53:16):
So they lost me and the director of urban development,
and then the director of youth development left as well.
So those are three key positions. Yeah, trying not to
do this the way I do it at home.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
So it looks very very pretty, by the.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
Way, very impressed with So just forgive me.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
I'm very impressed. Look at this, guys.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
So look at that.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
So you know, we left, and a group of us,
about five of us because they end up leaving or
getting fired to left.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
And you know, we started meeting right. I called it.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
We went in the laboratory right away and said that
you know, we all could have gotten jobs. I wouldn't
say anywhere, but let's say we were sought after people. Yeah, yeah,
you know, because people saw our passion and what we
did for that organization in a very short time because
they were just known for doing kind of historic and

(54:23):
other development at the time, maybe some projects here and there,
but when we all got together, it turned into something
much more beautiful in the community. I think, working with
small businesses, doing home ownership stuff, looking at other real
estate possibilities, a rehabit of historic landmarks, and youth leadership development.

(54:45):
We took you to like two or three different countries.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Oh, this is prior to you guys leaving, prior to us. Now,
you guys, so this is the So this is just
so everyone knows. This is the rumor mill. You know
when you hear little bits of people. This is the
part of your story that excited me the most for
any little bit of tidbits on the street that I heard.
So now I can finally find out the truth, like

(55:10):
from the horse's mouth. So this is a very interesting place.
So just to recap a group of you guys, some
of you guys got let oh some of you guys left.
You guys instead of going, hey, let's pitch our jobs
to different places. That definitely desire us. We're gonna get
together and meet tell me about I know this is
where a CRCD starts to convert. So walk me through

(55:32):
the whole play on like everything's going down, including your
emotions at the time.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
So you know, of course, we were all pissed off
because of the void that was in the neighborhood. Primarily
we were all thinking about the people really not ourselves
at the time. You know, I'm a young man at
this time, I'm probably twenty six, twenty seven, and so

(55:56):
we're pissed and we you know, the truth is, we
have I thought about something like this happening because of
the way that the organization was moving, and you know,
things that were happening, iris showing up to the office,
things like that that you normally don't see. And we
got together at one of the co founders, Miami Sodo's house.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
She's lived in City Terrace.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
At the time, which is near cal State Los Angeles.
Lived in this hill where you got to climb up
like eighty steps or it felt like two hundred, and
we would go there every day after we were let
go and talk about our vision for the community, sort
of like a reimagining a group that popped up in

(56:41):
the community. What would it be? We went through, we
went through what would it be, what should it be?
What should it be doing?

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Keep men with the co founder of the comedy that
Let you Guys Go.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
That's an interesting Yes, it was a co founder. We
all worked at Dunbar, you know, all of us.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
But did she still work there?

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Nobody also got let Go and she was the one
that was running the youth programming at the time, and
so she opened up her home, her living room. When
we met at her dining room table circle table, and
we were meeting around there with some butcher paper and
markers every day talking about or reimagining what would an

(57:24):
organization be.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
And we talked about that we should be providing jobs
or workforce development.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
We talked about economic development, working with small businesses, real
estate development, doing affordable housing.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
We wanted to do social entrepreneurship.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
So that's when we put on their social enterprise because
before I left Dumbar, I was trying to convince them
to do social enterprise.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Work never got off the ground. And we wanted to
do education.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
We wanted to figure out a way to have a
school that focused on the art to serve young people,
and we came up with different names, but what we
landed with was Coalition for a Responsible Community Development.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
And the story goes, we used to go to a bar.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
Called four ten Boards in downtown Los Angeles on a
street called Boyd and the address was fourteen, So creatively,
I guess they created four ten Boyd and we would
meet there.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
After we left her house and met up.

Speaker 2 (58:28):
With other people that necessarily didn't work at the Dumbar
but used to be founders of the Dunbar, bankers of
the Dumbar.

Speaker 3 (58:36):
That kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
But they liked us and they loved this concept, like,
you guys are gonna do what? So we literally took
a napkin and it was a designer there, and we said, well,
we wanted to be called like Callition four, but we
have to have responsible in there.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
And I love that part.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Yeah, you know, it has to be responsible and it
has to be community in it.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
And then that's when cr City was birth.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
On that napkin the name and then the designer at
the time, her name was Selda Harris.

Speaker 3 (59:11):
She designed our logo right on napkin. She said, what
do you want?

Speaker 2 (59:16):
I said, it should be like some colors and some
boxes or something like that. That's all I got and
the group agreed, and that's when she came up with
our logo.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
So there's a group, how do you become the lead
of the group.

Speaker 2 (59:30):
So I didn't want they thought I should be the
executive director.

Speaker 3 (59:33):
Mind you, we had nothing, no budget, no nothing.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
And I said, well, I'll do it, but you guys
got to vote for it to happen, so it can
be your official first action.

Speaker 3 (59:44):
And if you don't want it, that's fine. I play
my part. And they all voted and said, oh, you're
doing it.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
And that's how I became the executive director twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
Wow yeah wow. And then the funders that you would
meet up with ended up funding and helping getting it
off the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:00:05):
Helping us.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
There was a contract that Dunbar was running at the time,
or you know called and you may be familiar with
this graffiti removal.

Speaker 1 (01:00:15):
Yes, and so they still do graffiti removal, we do, yeah,
well you guys do.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Un No, it went out of business and so we
because they were having challenges running that contract, we had
an opportunity and was asked, do we want to take
on the contract and of course I'm like, yeah, we
can do that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
The High Eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Closed had a good brother named Bruce Tito who was
running the Los Angeles Conservation Corps at the time, that said,
we'll step up. If you guys get the contract, we'll
manage it for you while you get set up.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
That was a wonderful thing. Council Warman jam Perry at
the time. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
At council Woman jam Perry at the time. Oh, I'm
trying to clean up. So one of the things, sorry,
I sweat over when I'm cooking. Yeah, but also one
of the things I do when i'm cooking is I
like to clean up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
I apologize. So council Woman jam Parry was also instrumental.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
So Bruce, I told council Woman Jampari were instrumental and
cr CD getting started.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
If it wasn't for them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Providing political support and organizational support and just being a cheerleader.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
For us, it wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
So we were a brand new group with a four
hundred thousand dollars contract.

Speaker 3 (01:01:45):
Wow, to start.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
And what was it in your first project was the graffiti.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Remove was graffiti abatement. We wasn't doing real estate. We
wasn't doing anything. Everything started at cr CD because of
graffiti removal.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
And at this point, are you when you take on
these contracts, are you taking a pay cut too?

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
Yeah? Of course.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
And are your parents still around? Are they saying he's
like my first crash.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
Yep, yep, So took a pay cut. That was okay.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
At the time, I was living on my own take
care of my daughter. It was enough to help me
take care of my folks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:24):
And you know, that was enough for me. You know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
Then later in life I was able to move in
with someone and you know, and you know that's with
the story.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
We started our youth program, and we started our twenty
years ago, twenty years ago, twenty years ago.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Have you guys celebrated your twenty year anniversary.

Speaker 3 (01:02:49):
We'll be celebrating it next year. So they're working on
it this year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
I want to call it. I'm gonna call them Ason.
You gotta do what you shoo. Yeah, that's a huge accomplishment.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
It is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Now do you ever look back and just like, oh, snap.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Up sometime every day like I can't believe that we
was able to pull it off because it wasn't nothing small.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
And I asked a couple of people. I said, you
think we can do that today? And the answer is
always like no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
No way, because the right the stars have to align
themselves right, the right people had to be there, the
right supporters needed to be there, the right circumstances need
to be there. So, like with any entrepreneur, it's like,
here's the moment where I got to jump.

Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
I got to jump off.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
This bridge and hope that that blue thing is water,
you know, And that's what we did.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
It was just everything was at the right time.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
And then, you know, I was twenty seven years old,
you know at the time when we started, and you know,
I'm thinking, okay, from twenty seven year old in today's climate,
would we get that same kind of support.

Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Probably not.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Why do you think that? So what's different between then
and now?

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
I think the circumstances then technology then, the way that
people access services then is very different now. Social media,
I think, could have come in and created all types
of other narratives. We were able to create our own
narrative because there was no social media then, so we
were able to go to meetings, we were able to

(01:04:33):
debunk any lies that were told about us from our
previous employer. We were able to do that face to
face phone call. A phone call wasn't no.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
Social media, we think.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
I think if social media was around, people could have
created a false narrative.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
Like a press release exactly exactly. And I don't think
in today's time that would have helped us. It would
make this thing. I'm trying to be fancy here.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
I'm busy. These tacos look good. Turn off the stoves,
sit down. You done told your whole life.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
Story almost almost hopefully bore you, far from boring.

Speaker 1 (01:05:15):
Okay, so we are back dishes plated. This looks like
the best taco I've ever had in l A.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Well, we shall see, we shall see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
Okay, put the sauces on it. Do you need any
extra sauces?

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Okay, I like this from the cheese. Is this the
right size taco?

Speaker 3 (01:05:30):
Show a little smaller? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:33):
I actually do the shopping for the show.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
It works, people like them smaller. Okay, yeah, I ain't
did it. That's up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
I'm good. The first second you're gonna grill the onions,
but they're perfect.

Speaker 3 (01:05:49):
Just they are. Okay, I'm gonna.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
Take your second bite.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
Guys, go for it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
M take up.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Very good.

Speaker 1 (01:06:04):
Okay for all your all listeners. Not only gonna you
build an empire, hign cook it broke this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
I'm glad you liked you, budget.

Speaker 1 (01:06:14):
Friendly, delicious, You added salsa, I'm gonna add more.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Very good. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Do you also think that a part of why you
possibly couldn't do what you did today is because I
think and I have this opinion, but I'm curious to
see what you say. You were twenty seven when you
did a lot of these things, and sometimes I feel
like life, I don't know if you want some of this.
Life beats you up along the way where you stop
to doubt things. Do you think that you, being young,

(01:06:46):
kind of had that knowing what you know now? Do
you think that if you knew what you knew now,
you would have had the gun hole to do what
you did?

Speaker 3 (01:06:55):
Not?

Speaker 2 (01:06:55):
No one probably helped kind of motivate it more. You know,
the unknown was exciting to me, The possibility was exciting
to me. So not knowing actually actually helped, and just
being open to learning and being, you know, having good
mentors that was willing to mentor me.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
They will say they did mentor me, but they did.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
They opened up their offices they opened up their back offices,
and as much as I wanted to learn, they wanted
to teach and expose me. Because I didn't want to
be told. I wanted to be showed. And so in
running any nonprofit, nonprofit is really the misnomers that it
was nonprofit or selling cookies. You're doing the good for

(01:07:40):
the community, and then everything around you somehow is discounting
and that's absolutely false. A nonprofit is nothing but a
tax code five oh one C three. You still have
to operate and maintain a business. If you don't pay
your taxes, Uncle Sam will show up to your business,
yeah and shut you down if you don't. And so

(01:08:03):
everything that any for profit has to do, a nonprofit
has to do, but even more because we have to
report on every dollar that we receive, public and non public,
and a lot of for profits don't. And so we
have to go through that rigor of understanding that we're
a business. And so I had mentors to show me

(01:08:26):
the business side, the appropriate business side of running a nonprofit.
Why you want to be mission oriented. So I started
off with the pursuit of approaching this as an entrepreneur,
not as someone that is a social service worker or
anything like that. My drive in my heart was community,

(01:08:47):
young people making change, making the difference. But as far
as building an organization, it was very much from an
entrepreneurial landscape.

Speaker 4 (01:08:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
Now, some of the partners that you partner or with
are impressive in their own right Prime store who from today?
Were there ever any partners that you partnered with where
you were like, please gotta let this happen, and oh
my god, I can't believe they did this.

Speaker 2 (01:09:15):
You know, I think one of the when you say that,
I go to Little Tokyo Service Center, which is based
in Little Tokyo primarily focused around supporting and helping the
Agent Pacific Island their community. But they were my boys
and my girls, my sisters and brothers. We used to

(01:09:35):
hang out at the same bar.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
This bar come up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
A lot by the way, four ten boys. It's not
there in the fourteen.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
Boy but but the bar is there. Yeah, asking detail
is something like that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Yeah, I'm gonna look it up.

Speaker 2 (01:09:50):
Yeah, it's from It's still there, but it's not called
fourteen Boyds. So that was there after work hangout because
they was right around the corner and it was our
after work hangout, and so we built this relationship in
bond and so when CRCD was formed and wanted to
get into real estate, a lot of doors were shut.

(01:10:12):
You know, went to a lot of African American partners
and they didn't necessarily want to make that step at
the time, but Little Tokyo did. And what I mean
by step that means they're putting their money on the line,
their reputations online, their balance sheet on the line, all
of that on the line, and they're signing for you
as a guaranteur for your real estate deal. And these

(01:10:36):
were Asian Japanese brothers and sisters that said, you know
what I like and support your mission.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
It aligns with what we want to do. Let's do it.
And we did.

Speaker 2 (01:10:48):
First partnership, Oh my first partnership that turned into many
other projects since you know, that ten unit project that
they decided to help us invest in and help us
develop and teach us how to be good developers has
manifested into over sixteen hundred units now today and we've

(01:11:12):
done three three now doing another one now, so four
projects with Little Tokyo Service Center since.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
And you went home that day after that partnership like,
were you like, oh, I.

Speaker 3 (01:11:24):
Was so excited.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
I mean, just like what you said, like holy shit,
like this is real, this is like because I knew
what that would do for the organization, But I think
it was more real to me for this community to
believe in me because all I had was a vision
and passion that we didn't have any resources, we didn't

(01:11:47):
have any guaranteurs.

Speaker 1 (01:11:48):
Yeah, it was just you guys have.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
We had good credibility, you know, and we had good
relationship and we had good political relationships that I think
they felt could be beneficial to them as well. But
they but still when when paying his paper, they took

(01:12:12):
a leap of faith. And that leap of faiths has
helped us to be where we are today. So I
owe a lot of credit and give a lot of
props to my brothers and sisters over at Little Tokyo
Service Center.

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
Shout out to them because without that, they were your
first partner.

Speaker 3 (01:12:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:26):
Now, I started my first business when I was twenty one,
and I remember I got an investor. He invested sixteen
thousand dollars to a twenty one year old that it
took me a whole year to make like sixteen thousand
dollars to get it and seeing in one check. It
was like getting like an equivalent of getting you had
to me a million dollar check for something I believe
in when they signed that deal or I'm going to

(01:12:49):
take it back to me. When I got that check,
I was like, oh my goodness, what did I do?
Why would this person believe in me? Oh my god,
I don't want to lose this person money. Now, all
of a sudden, it becomes real, like did I am
I a fake? Am I a fraud? Am I going
to be able to do? All these crazy emotions hit

(01:13:10):
home when you're hearing I hear you say they guarantee,
they signed a check. Were any of those emotions of
doubt creeping in at all? Like, oh my god, this
is no doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
It just was a It was more motivation to what
you said around. Now you have an added responsibility because
you're now responsible for their relationship, for their credibility, for
their guarantees, and for the money that they're putting into
this project, because these projects.

Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Are not cheap.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
It was a ten unit, you know, building, but it's
it was still like ten million dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:13:51):
Oh my god. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:53):
So every day I would you know, when the staff
and like I said, it's we have nothing more valuable
than people's faith in people's trust. If that moves, this
organization doesn't exist because of those two things that motivated
me to do that more it was almost like I

(01:14:14):
became a protector of that, like we were not going
to do anything to put them in a bad situation
no matter what.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
So your your integrity at the end of the day
is the staple of the organizer. That's that integrity there, absolutely, yeah,
because I would have been on the phone like, oh,
what did I get it? If someone hands me any
level of responsibility, I go into a deep dive of

(01:14:44):
can I complete whatever I said? I can't complete? You know,
But that's that's that's cool to hear that you you
knew that. The strength of it was the faith in
the trust of the.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Relationship, the faith in the trust.

Speaker 2 (01:14:59):
And I think the motive aiding factor goes back to
my parents, particularly my mom. She's a go get her,
as a country will say, a whipper snapper, and she
doesn't you know turn you know, everything is not no.

Speaker 4 (01:15:12):
No means maybe or not right now or not right now,
maybe later, maybe later, Yeah, but it's never no.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
And I think that motivating fact yeah, and she's like
that to the day. It really motivated me because I
was excited to have the partnership. And you know how
you you know, in an entrepreneurial facing place, you know,
you get told a lot no, A lot of people
tell you no or not right now or maybe, and

(01:15:44):
it drags and drags and drags, and then you get
to a point where somebody says yes, and you don't
want to let that yes go and you want that
yes to continue to turn into yeses and yeses and yeses,
and and that's what happened because they believed in what
we did.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Now, now trying to get into your business kool aid.
But you have the non profit side, yes, then you
have the for profit side. Can you explain when the
for profit side came in and why you felt the
need to add the for profit c RCD Enterprises side.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
So the founders five of us.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Oh, there's five founders, five founders.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
So is myself knowing me so to?

Speaker 1 (01:16:27):
I was going to ask about her. She's still here.

Speaker 2 (01:16:29):
Yep, she's not with c r c D, but she's
still doing good work in the community. You go or
tease Fernando Miranda, I have a crush on him, and
roof Tie I'll let him.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
Whenever he would come around him, I would look over
that skept seeker just so you know. I how long
do you think you guys would have never suspected it?

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
Huh oh, well, you know he has charming ways with them,
but very very cool.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
Tax someone showed up.

Speaker 3 (01:17:08):
He definitely helps us to close some deals.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
Listen, yeah, you know personality. Yeah, so he's a founder.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
He's a founder. Hugo ortis an ami solo myself and
roof Teago Tea so roof.

Speaker 3 (01:17:22):
Tig was co founder, and roof Tiak was actually.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
My former fiance and she passed at the early age
of forty six. And she was one of the original
funders or financers of our projects because she worked for
a group called Corporation for Support of Housing and she
ushered in financing projects for young people, for affordable housing projects.

(01:17:50):
And she was the you know, pretty much the captain
or pushing groups like ours and others that she's not
financing you if they're not archite, actually pleasing, if they
don't have the same amenities that you and I would like.
So our buildings have air conditions because some people feel
like people don't need air condition they need fans, they

(01:18:12):
need to have community space, they need good lighting, you know,
it needs to be pleasing to the eye.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
They need walkable space. So all of these things was
the priority.

Speaker 2 (01:18:22):
But she was in a position of leadership where we
were able to access grants and acquisition financing to support
our projects. And she went on to help finance a
lot of projects for Little Tokyo Service Center and many
other groups in Los Angeles that supported housing people that
were un housed.

Speaker 3 (01:18:43):
Yeah, now, and that's what.

Speaker 1 (01:18:45):
That's my roothplace, correct, Okay, Now I got to get
into this part. So she was, Yes, she sounds like
an incredible person. She played a huge in the community,
and her vision of making sure the playing field was

(01:19:05):
fair and comfortable is really beautiful. With that being said,
she was your fiance while your company is growing, how
did you deal with the grief of her. This sounds
like an early passing.

Speaker 2 (01:19:18):
It was an early pass So this year will be
fifteen years or nearly sixteen years ago, and so it
was the early passing into the life cycle of CRCD.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
Yeah, and you're still young at this point.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
I'm still young.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
So this is five years in so you're probably thirty two.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
I'm thirty two, a third round thirty two, thirty three.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
Yeah, so you know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Shed than how are you? It was unsuspected?

Speaker 2 (01:19:47):
It was it was unsuspected because she was diagnosed with cancer.

Speaker 3 (01:19:52):
She had been fighting it for a while. So when
she got war.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
Ill, that's when it became unexpected because I just never
thought that it would happen. I never, you know, live
with or had a family member, and definitely not live
with someone that you know, had that terrible disease. And
so for me, it was highly unexpected and it was
like bam, you know, how did.

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
You deal with the grief? At the same time, like
how did you not trying to get in there? But
how do you get to that next milestone? Does your
partners say fall back? Do you take a break? I
don't know how.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
How So for me again, you know, another shift in
my life. I had family support, and then I had
boards support, other community partners support, and of course people
thought I would fall back and just take a break.
You know, I think I took like two weeks off

(01:20:54):
and I got right in and just started working. The
best thing that worked for me was to work and
continue what she and I helped to start, and there
were a lot of things that she wanted to see
continue to happen, and so there was no one else
that was going to be able to do that but me.
One of them was the creation of CRCD Enterprises. That

(01:21:17):
was a big piece of what she wanted to see happened,
because to sustain an organization or to do be as
creative as possible, you needed to have a social enterprise,
an entity that had the flexibility outside of a nonprofit
kind of structure because you're restricted by the brands that

(01:21:38):
you have, or you're restricted by any funders priorities. But
as a business, you can not necessarily do what you want,
but you can.

Speaker 3 (01:21:48):
Prioritize what's needed for the community.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
And so creating CRCD Enterprises and her being able to
see us obtain our contractor's license was the pathway that
she supported particularly.

Speaker 1 (01:22:03):
Able to see it. So their motivation was really to
fulfill that that dream. So it was that's a that's
a beautiful, beautiful story. So when you're dealing with a nonprofit,
is it that the need of the social enterprises was?
When you're dealing with the nonprofit, you have more restricted
dollars than dollars than unrestricted unrestricted.

Speaker 2 (01:22:26):
You know a lot of nonprofits, you know, we fight
hard to obtain dollars that are unrestricted, whereas with the
social enterprise, we're able to generate and come through fee
for service contracts that are not like construction, that are
not restricted. I mean, we have to deliver, but they're
not restricted. When the income passes over as profit and overhead,

(01:22:49):
we're able to use those dollars.

Speaker 3 (01:22:51):
In more flexible ways.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
We're able to keep programs open on the lights on,
if you may say, when they're funding restrictions that would
have prohibited.

Speaker 3 (01:23:01):
Us from doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
So a lot of the construction training programs like MC three,
we now have a wonderful partnership with LA County to
do lead remediation. We call it the Letterbatement program. There's
an excellent program. Both programs are excellent because they're pathways
into the painters union, pathways into the labor and local

(01:23:22):
local LAOC you know and Local three hundred and with Latderbatemen,
and a lot of these pathways, folks are prevailing wages.

Speaker 1 (01:23:31):
And that's that was gonna be my next question. A
lot of the trades that I see you training these
jobs when people exit the program, they're not minimum wage jobs.
These are what would you say the average like.

Speaker 2 (01:23:42):
So for US, if we have for letterbatement, we'll start
with that program.

Speaker 3 (01:23:48):
When they're doing lad remediation in.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
The training program, which is roughly about seven hundred to
twelve hundred hours of training. So when they leave, they
leave US as an APPRINT level two or three, which
is a big deal on your paycheck. So while they're
in the program, they're earning anywhere between thirty and fifty.

Speaker 3 (01:24:09):
Dollars an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:24:10):
That's great, you know, with benefits, with benef with benefits, wow.

Speaker 3 (01:24:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:24:15):
And that's while in the training. So when they graduate
from US and they move on to the Painters Union
and now they're at apprintice level three, let's say, you know,
they're at fifty five bucks an hour and above when
they're working on a prevailing wage project.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:30):
And most of the most, if not all, of the
affordable housing projects that are funded by state bond money
has a project labor agreement or community agreement in place
where contractors have to pay those wages.

Speaker 3 (01:24:46):
Wow. Yeah, that's wow.

Speaker 1 (01:24:49):
Impressive, very impressive. And then my last question I have
in my head is does CRCD Enterprises end up doing,
if not all, majority of the build development projects for
you that so.

Speaker 2 (01:25:05):
That's the goal, that's always been the goal, that we're
the go to general contractor for the development team. We're
you know, a little ways away from doing a ground
up project of that size because yeah, and because you
have to get bonding and you know you and bonding
requires everything, including your kids and you know, I mean

(01:25:29):
they go real deep in.

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
It's just not a credit score.

Speaker 2 (01:25:33):
They want to know everything and they want even more guarantees.
And so we're getting to where we can bond to
build a twenty five thirty million dollars construction project.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
We're doing a lot of rehab now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
We do come in as a sub to do a
lot of the interior exterior decorative painting or professional painting.
So our guys and girls are earning prevailing wages. But
we're close to doing ground up. We are general contractors
on the last two projects that they're doing. They're all
you know, rehab projects right now, and so you know,

(01:26:11):
the team.

Speaker 3 (01:26:11):
Is moving forward. It's a it's a slow grind.

Speaker 2 (01:26:14):
I mean, our team wants to get at it now,
but that's not quite how it works and how it's
set up.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
I love it. I love it all. So where can
people find out more information? Did we cover everything or
is there a future projects or anything we need to
know about.

Speaker 3 (01:26:30):
I mean there's just ongoing on going construction projects.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
I mean, we do have our Business Source Center that's
contracted with the City of Los Angeles, whereas working with
businesses to get them tapped into resources and entrepreneurs helping
other entrepreneurs. I will say, what's new is that we
created the CRCD Community Loan Fund where we will become

(01:26:56):
a lender in the community separate entity of course for
a proper so that we can work with banks and
larger community development financial institutions to get money into the
hands of entrepreneurs and small businesses to help them thrive.
And so that's new on the horizon that we're working on.

(01:27:16):
But we have it set up. We are down licensed,
went to State of California to do lending and we
did receive a technical assistance grant, went to Treasury Department
to get our Community Development Financial Institution certification.

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Going that's a lot. That's a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:27:33):
So where can everybody keep up with Coalition for Responsible
Community Development?

Speaker 3 (01:27:42):
So One easy way is our website. It's kind of
loan is www dot coalition are.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
Its www dot Coalition RCD dot org. And that's the
same social media handle for Instagram and.

Speaker 3 (01:28:02):
Meta and all that Coalition r c D. You can see,
I don't use it that much.

Speaker 1 (01:28:07):
Yeah. And then for the enterprises side, where would they
find out more?

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
So more information for the mprise side is www dot
c r c.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
D, E n T dot com dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:28:20):
And for partners you have cr W www dot c
r c D Partners dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Okay, Now, if someone wants to go to one of
the sites their links to link them all together to
some you'll.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
Still be able to get to each of the sites,
but you can learn more about each of those companies
and who's leading those companies and so forth.

Speaker 1 (01:28:43):
Okay, cool, Well, thank you so much for feeding me.
I'm going to finish the mail the second we rep
and thank you so much for your time. I really
appreciate hearing your story from the horse's mouth directly. No
more rumors on how and when. Thank you so much
for your time. We really are thankful for what you
do for the community and for are you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:04):
Thank you very much for having me.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
Thanks for tuning in. Peace Out for more. Eating while
Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, Visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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MARK WILSON - Revolutionizing South LA

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Coline Witt

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