August 24, 2021 • 33 mins
The COVID-19 pandemic left many in fear of eviction from their homes. It left many people unhoused as well, with moratoriums on evictions and landlords at odds. People like Trini Ocampo, an attorney with the Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLSLA) worked tirelessly to protect and advocate for those individuals fighting to keep the doors on their hinges. Roundtable guests: Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman and Yvonne Mariajimenez, the President and CEO of the NLSLA.
Learn more about Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles: https://nlsla.org
Learn more about Council Member Nithya Raman: https://councildistrict4.lacity.org/
Episode Transcript: https://app.trint.com/public/5b53a686-c7f5-4a0a-ad7f-6fb2c10062b9
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
What's Up every One? Rama, and I'm m r Raquel.
Welcome back to Essential Voices. On this week's show, we're
going to hear from three Ny Ocampo, who is our
essential worker and is an attorney with the Neighborhoods Legal
Services of Los Angeles County, which will refer to as
the n ls l A. Threiny works every day to
protect and advocate for some of Los Angeles' most systemically
(00:21):
underserved residents. She'll talk to us about some of the
biggest threats facing the city's low income residents and how
agreedious behaviors towards these folks were exacerbated during the pandemic,
and after we hear from three, Ny will be in
conversation for our roundtable discussion with Los Angeles City Council
Member Ninthia Rahman and Ivon Maria Humanist, who is the
president and CEO of the n l s l A
(00:42):
where Thiny works. Council Member Raman took office this past
year after running a progressive campaign centered on finding solutions
and ending houselessness in l A. And Yvonne, meanwhile, has
been working with the nls LA for more than forty
years and is in her words, a community warrior. Okay,
let's get it going. Training story starts right now. Hi.
(01:06):
My name is Trini Lalla Campo. I go by Trainy.
What's such a pleasure to have you here with us today?
Can you tell us a little bit about who you are,
and you know, following up with what's important to you
as well? Sure? Well, I'm a native Los Angeleo. I
am what some people don't describe as being positive, but
a social justice lawyer. I am a person who is
working for the community and for the people. How did
(01:28):
you get into that? How long you've been doing that? Well,
my whole career, So, I guess I was raised by
parents that were very community minded. My father worked with veterans.
My mother was a teaching aid, and it was all
about lifting up and building up your own communities. And
so I kind of used that experience and that upbringing
(01:49):
and I became an attorney and I've been a legal
aid or a consumer community based attorney ever since. So
twelve years now, is there a story. Is there a
moment when you said, Wow, this is something that drives me.
This is a passion of mine. I've always known that
there's power in the law and understanding your rights and
(02:10):
what you are entitled to. But I think knowing that
not everyone knows that and has that and can utilize
that power in the same way it made me want
to be able to help others and to advocate for
others for their rights to be respected and honored. That's beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that. I also think about, you know,
(02:30):
what a lot of our listeners may or may not
understand about the behind the scenes, you know, like what
really happens and you know, and what it takes to
do what you do. You know. I think that there's
a lot of told that that takes in you as well.
But is there something that you love about your work
that you wish people really knew or just it's something
that drives you. I think hearing from the clients and
(02:53):
and how meaningful this is to be heard, to be
listened to, to to be advocated for. Just yesterday I closed
out a case with the client who said that she
was homeless for some time and it was really challenging
for her because she served as a nurse for thirty
years and then she retired. But she only became homeless
(03:13):
because of an injury and excessive medical bills that led
her to be living in her car, and so when
she was housed again, she felt like she was treated
as though she was just someone off the streets, when
she had contributed to the community for so long, for years,
had served others, and yet she was just looked at
as a homeless person by the management company or by
the landlord. And so we're able to advocate for her
(03:36):
and get a successful resolution for that client. And that's
just to find the humanity and to show them the
dignity that they deserved. To all of our clients, I
think that's what drives me every day. Any time you
get someone who feels like their background and their stories
not honored the way that it should be, it is
absolutely frustrating. Everyone has a backstory, everyone has a history.
(03:57):
Everyone's overcome challenges and are still trying to overcome challenges
in many ways. Speaking of challenges, you know, and then
you introduced to your work a pandemic, a world changing
event that challenges us all to think about life and
the commute of living in a very different way. So
how do you how did it all translate into your work.
(04:21):
I got a call in the early evening that the
sleep would be shutting on. Our offices would be shutting down,
and we need to pivot everything that we do overnight,
and I remember being up until one in the morning
changing messages, outgoing messages, setting signage so that people could
still access our services. We had a lot of public
(04:43):
facing clinics that people could just walk into and get
assistance with, you know, a variety of legal issues, and
with all those shut down, we were kind of traving
to scramble to figure out what how will those people
still get to us. Unfortunately, there are also people that
didn't necessarily have the technology access and so we're still
coming up to our doors and so how are we
(05:03):
going to accommodate them? And so some staff are still
going and making drives out to visit clients to make
sure that we're understanding what documents they were served with,
understanding what we can do for them. So it's been
definitely challenging. But I remember that was a scramble, lots
of phone calls, lots of emails, lots of coordination, and
we were able to set up our remote operations, which
(05:24):
we're doing now. I'm sure that's when you realize work
and life is going to be different. It changed drastically
how you pivoted your career and how you do things,
and then how much of that work you now are
bringing home, right, I mean that's the other thing people
don't think about, Like, once you're not having to go
to an office, what does that do at home? That's
another really interesting challenge. You know, yes, absolutely, And there's
(05:47):
kind of been no divide, and so it's kind of
up to us to set those boundaries. I found a groove.
I relied on my oldest child a lot to watch
the other two and my partner and I had to say, Okay,
you're on duty from this time to this time, and
I'm on duty on this time and this time, and
hope nobody gets hurt, and hope everyone doing like their
minimum of their schoolwork or at least on the zoom call.
(06:09):
And so, yeah, it was a little bit because I'm
sure the pandemic didn't make things slow down. I'm sure
that it brought a lot of different stories that were
affected by the pandemic. And how were some of those
cases the pandemic versus the normal cases you would have
been handling. What were some of those things that came
from the pandemic. I think the pandemic brought out some
of the worst in people. People were so desperate. You know,
(06:31):
you have tenants desperate to cling to housing when everyone's
supposed to be staying at home to keep them safe,
to keep their family safe. And then you had property
owners who are desperate to get they need that money
to make their mortgage. Especially smaller on the landlords. However,
we saw some of the most egregious behavior by some
people when some of the most vulnerable families. So we
(06:54):
had one landlord who removed the front door from the
home of a single mother with young children, one with
disability at ease. We saw another property owners shut off
the water and power for a month and using to
put it on. We saw a nearly legally blind elderly
man who was removed by the sheriff's deputies. There was
(07:14):
one landlord who called the swat team and said that
the tenant had brandished a gun and threatened to kill
him when she was teaching her class on zoom, and
she was a teacher and she had just asked the
landlord to do an expection later in the day after
her zoom class was over. So pretty crazy behavior and
pretty egregious behavior. By property owners who didn't want to
(07:35):
allow people to stay without paying the full amount of rent,
despite the obvious disruptions to their jobs, to their incomes,
to their families. And so housing is such a critical
human right and you think, what would you do without housing?
And this is happening all over. Evictions never stopped. There's
(07:55):
been evictions happening. People just didn't think they needed to
take action, and so part of the battle was getting
the word out and and doing town halls and doing
zoom sessions and ensuring that residents and tenants knew that yes,
there are protections, but you have to take action to
exercise them. L A is you know, prime real estate.
(08:16):
It's a it's a hot housing market. And we had
a homeless crisis before the pandemic, and this kind of
just exacerbated it because you know, landlords who are like
looking at selling their properties to make more money, and
now we're not getting rent from tenants or getting partial payments,
and they're like more compelled and driven to kind of
sell or to get people out despite these protections, and
(08:39):
so kind of resorting to this more egregious behavior. Well,
if I can't get them out through the court process,
because that's taking longer. Then I'm going to find other ways.
I'm gonna shut off the power, I'm gonna stop making repair,
or I'm gonna inspect their unit every day for the
next month. You know, how do you I know this
may be kind of in the walk question, but how
(09:01):
do you cope? And how do you process? You know?
I can hear the passion in your voice, like how
do you process these stories? There is some secondary trauma
in that and hearing about these stories and dealing with
these things and knowing that there's more people out there
like that. But taking the time and self care was
really important. And so I always encourage everyone to to
(09:22):
get outside, even if it's for ten minutes. You know,
I'll walk my dog, but you know, the fresh air
and the sun really does wonders. Yeah, you don't even
know until the sun is kissing your face. You know,
you don't really know until your your dog is where
we're in the tail because it's finally outside, just going
for a stroll in the grass. You know. I mean
that these little things are the quick reminders that we
(09:43):
get up in the morning for a reason. And I
think that your work and your stories and you sharing
this truth, you know, with us, I think is in
many ways it allows us to look at a road
of healing as well, because we have to self heal
before we continue to get in the game right. I
mean so much we can take, you know, and we
have to allow ourselves to rejuvenate, rehabilitad you know, and
(10:06):
get strong, right. And so thank you for everything you're
up to. Thank you for everything you've done, and I
appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. Wow,
m R. I'm so amazed by the commitment trainee showed
in the face of such cruelty. How we got into
this point where she literally has to fight to keep
(10:27):
people's doors on their hinches. Yeah, Wilmer, that's a great question.
And since three worked so hard on an individual level
to give her all for each of her clients, I'm
excited that we'll get to hear what's happening behind the
scenes on a policy level in Los Angeles. So let's
head right to the source. When we get back, we'll
talk with council Member Nitia Rahman and Yvonne Maria Jimenez
(10:48):
of the n ls l A. We're here today with
Los Angeles City Council member Nithi A. Ramen, and the
President and CEO of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles. Hey, Nathia,
Hi Von Welcome. I'm really looking forward to hearing your
(11:09):
thoughts on what Trinny shared with us. Wilmer kick us off.
I appreciate the time you're giving us today. I think
maybe we can start with your reactions to what you've heard.
I'm sure you've heard similar stories and you're part of
some of those journeys too, but I'd love to hear
your reaction from it. You know, I think Trinny really
laser focused on the housing crisis that we're facing today
(11:34):
and so many people at risk of homelessness. But I'd
really like to just step back and look at a
bigger picture. One thing about COVID nineteen and the pandemic
is that it shawn a very strong light on the
disparities that we all know have existed for a long time,
lack of access to healthcare, lack of access to affordable
(11:55):
and decent housing. For people who were living on the margins,
I think that the pandemic just exacerbated their hardships and
what they were facing, and for some it put them
really in crisis and in homelessness when they were trying
to eke out a living prior to the pandemic. I
(12:17):
do think that it's a very complicated social problems that
we need to address, and that COVID nineteen really showed
the disparities on working poor people, and that's why we
see the high rates of infection among essential workers. Many
of them could not stay home during the pandemic, so
(12:38):
many of them live in overcrowded housing. Many of them
could not lose their jobs, so they continued to work.
And I think that trainees stories that she's talking about
really shine a light on one of the greatest humanitarian
crisis that we have where we do not recognize the
human right to housing in this country, in the state,
(13:02):
and that people are losing housing because they've lost their jobs,
because they've lost their income, and that includes struggling and
working class homeowners who also can't make their mortgage payments
and are losing their homes. So I think training story
is just a real graphic example of one of the
(13:24):
areas that we're dealing with right now, in addition to
many around health and childcare and access to good jobs
and what are your thoughts about Traine story. Council Member Ruman, Yeah,
the stories that Treaty shared were so vivid and so heartbreaking,
and I think for me, I'm new in this role.
(13:44):
I've been here for six months. I started at the
height of the pandemic. It was the worst, absolute worst
moment in l A County. And that's when I took office.
Hearing those stories, and we hear those stories when people
call into our office. We hear those stories from our
advocate partners who are in the field working on these
issues and highlighting them for us. I think for me,
it just really drives home how important it is to
(14:07):
use this role that I have right now and my
newfound power to try and take action. And actually in
the city we did take some action. Just on Wednesday
of this week, we actually passed a law against exactly
the kind of harassment that Trina was describing. And the
discussion had been ongoing for a number of years before
I got here, but since we were here, we were
(14:28):
able to add some amendments that made it stronger that
hopefully will make it more powerful to address exactly what
she's talking about. I love to go back to the
moment of inspiration when you both thought, Oh wait a minute,
I gotta get in the game. This is my passion.
I stand for this, this is me. Yeah, that's a
great question, Wilmer Council MoMA Raman, could you start us
(14:51):
off to have come to this particular moment in my
career to be an elected office. That decision is one
I remember very clearly, and that decision was really oriented
around where we were in l A. And it was
before the pandemic, and it was before this last incredibly
tumultuous year, and what I remember seeing around me was
(15:13):
that we had a crisis of homelessness that was growing
on our streets, and we had a moment in Los
Angeles where I felt like people were responding to those
who were living on the streets with anger, when in reality,
in my mind, I felt like we should be looking
to a city, a state, a county that had failed
those individuals so completely, and that's where we should be
(15:34):
directing our anger, you know. And so I wanted to
run at that moment because I felt called in some
way to try and change the dialogue around these issues.
And I really had a sense of deep faith that
if you tell people the systems that folks who are
housing and secure, or people who are already experiencing homelessness.
(15:56):
If you tell them the system that they're facing as
they're trying to stay in their homes or as they're
trying to get out of homelessness, that anger will fall
away and compassion will remain in its place. And I
feel like the campaign and the fact that I was
elected with no real political connections in Los Angeles, for me,
it was a moment to change our landscape and to
(16:17):
change our dialogue around it. And that was well before
the pandemic, you know, that was well before this moment
that I feel like forced us into grappling with those
issues much more than ever before. So I remember that moment,
and I remember that opportunity very clearly, and I'm very
glad that I had the opportunity to be in the
public space and shaping those issues during this time. Yvonne,
(16:40):
how about you. The work that I do is very
personal to me. I grew up in the neighborhood that
we represent in our organization. I grew up in poverty
in East Los Angeles. I'm a native Antelina. My mother
was a single mom, single head of household immigrants into
this country, did a speak the language, and she suffered
(17:02):
from severe mental health issues. So from very early age
I became her interpreter and her advocate. I was extremely
fortunate to have wonderful teacher who took an interest in
me and promoted higher education. And it is through higher
education that I broke out of poverty. The work that
(17:23):
I do is my passion. I've been in legal services
or organization. Neighborhood Legal Services of LA County provides free
legal services to moderate and low income individuals and families
residing in l A County. I'm just a tenacious advocate
for people whose rights are not respected, for individuals and
(17:47):
families who are at risk of losing their housing, at
risk of losing their children, and not having jobs, not
having access to health care, because I experienced that in
my own family. So my path suction arises from that.
I love the work that I do, working with community
and working with people, especially low income individuals, in trying
(18:12):
to forge ahead good public policy that brings about an
increase in economic status and stability, access to education, to
all those human rights that we should have. Just energize
with me, and it's very spiritual to me too. To
be in the middle of that work and to see
people how the law which we practice can be used
(18:35):
as a very powerful tool to change lives and transformed communities.
And to have the very people in community involved in
that is just a huge inspiration to me. We'll be
right back after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices.
We're trying to figure out what is not just what's obtainable,
(18:56):
but what is Mount Neveres? What is the Mount nevers
of these conversations sins and why are we not talking
about Mount Everest while also having the same conversation that
fulfills What do we need to climb out Everest? What
kind of backpack? What kind of geared you know, what
gosportation to get us to the mounting? You know? Like,
there's so many things that I feel like sometimes when
(19:17):
you go to politics, when we go to campaigning and
all of that, there's always like the broadcasting of the
end gold, there's always like, here's what we're gonna achieve,
you know, But it's hard for a feel for like
many communities to understand how can they be part of
the fuel that makes it happen? All lessness is the
biggest issue that I think is facing l A right now,
(19:38):
the most visible, the most top of mind for everybody.
So for me, the Mount Everest there is not that
we all want homelessness to end, like I think everyone
wants to see fewer tents on the street and people
not living in public spaces anymore. I think the Mount
Everest is getting everyone to agree on how we get there.
(19:58):
And there's a big abate happening right now that is
being played out all over the city. The sheriff is involved,
council members are involved, mayoral candidates are involved, and it's
really trying to say, how do we respond to this crisis.
Do we respond to it by doing what we've always
done in Los Angeles, which is we have had primarily
(20:19):
a law enforcement lead approach to homelessness, and that hasn't
really worked. We've taken down tents, We've arrested people, and
people have come right back out and ended back up
in homelessness, and arrests actually lead to more homelessness and
longer periods of homelessness. And just over these last couple
of years here in l A, we have started spending
(20:41):
more money on homelessness, right like real money, real dollars.
We started putting into building housing into services. And so
now we have a chance to do something different. Right now,
we have a chance to end homelessness for people by
getting them permanently off the streets and into housing, into services,
into care. And we just got started doing that work,
and already people are pushing back and they're saying they
(21:02):
want to go back to the old approach because they're
so impatient and they want everybone to be gone right away,
and they don't understand it takes time to build that
new housing. It takes time to get these services in shape,
and it takes time to get folks who have been
un housed for a really long time and are struggling
with mental illness and substance abuse and all the things
that Yvonne talked about. Takes time to get them into care.
(21:24):
Right And so for me, the biggest mount everest right
now that we're climbing is to try and build consensus
around a services lad approach to our housing crisis. And
if we can get there and if everyone is saying
the same things, that's what I want. I want everyone
to say, we can do this, we can do this
the right way, and we are committed to making l
(21:46):
a into a model for the rest of the country.
That seems to me like the most obvious thing that
we should be doing in this moment. So I wonder
what is the concept of self destruction and where we
cannot find the cohesive path to take together. Where the
rubber hits the road is when resources for people who
are experiencing homelessness or affordable housing is going up in
(22:07):
your neighborhood. Right. So in theory, you're like, of course
I support affordable housing, of course I support services. But
if somebody is like, well, now I'm gonna put a
safe injection site five doors down from you or down
the block, or I'm gonna build permanent support of housing.
That's housing that has services attached to it. So if
you have mental health issues, you get taken care of
(22:28):
in that housing. It's the best kind of housing to
end chronic homelessness. People who've been living on the streets
for a long time, that's what they need, right, And
we got to build that housing. Every time you try
and build that housing the neighborhood around people say yes,
but very loud voices say no. And so that's where
I think a little bit of that struggle comes is
that in theory. As an overarching philosophy, you might agree
(22:52):
with this, but you have to put it somewhere, and
it's geographically specific and in the neighborhoods where it goes.
People have years which I understand. I empathize with that.
I really really do. Um my five year old twins
when we're walking around and there's somebody who's talking to themselves,
who's obviously suffering from mental health challenges. My children are puzzled.
(23:14):
Sometimes they're afraid. I don't want them to feel that fear,
you know, so I completely understand why people might be fearful.
We have to build an l a that says yes,
and not just yes to the big idea, but to
the neighborhood idea. And so that's what I'm always like.
Whenever someone's like, how do I help you, I'm like, well,
I want to put something down the street from you.
Come out and say yes. Thank you. Council Member Roman,
(23:37):
your passion about getting folks out to just say yes
is infectious. But on a more serious note, what you're
describing a sort of like turning a blind eye to
a systemic failure that could be remedied. You're saying that
folks can in theory support permanent supportive housing, but only
if it's not in their neighborhood, which means folks can
(24:00):
turn a blind eye and not have to be confronted
with folks experiencing homelessness who would be living in their neighborhood.
And of course these folks support building these facilities in theory,
but once groundbreaks and in their neighborhood, it's a different story.
And also I wonder if these folks who in theory
support permanent support of housing but in reality don't want
(24:21):
it in their neighborhoods, if they knew more about insidious
eviction processes and how folks experiencing homelessness have been evicted
and taken advantage of through no fault of their own,
if they would have more compassion. And while the priority
is ensuring that the folks at risk of being evicted
know their rights, I wonder if eviction laws were more
commonly discussed how this could affect the success of building
(24:44):
permanent support of housing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Um Yvonne Triny shared some specific moments where clients of
hers were facing evictions and then you touched upon going
out in the community and educating folks who are at
risk of eviction about their rights. Could you describe specifically
what that advocacy is that you do out in the
(25:05):
community and how you help empower folks at risk of
eviction to know what their rights are. First of all,
we begin with what are the protections that have been
provided at the national, state and local level. And when
COVID nineteen came about, there were a panoply of legislation
that went through from CDC to the State of California
(25:26):
and city and County of Los Angeles. So for us,
it was to make sure that people understood what laws
applied to them, that people wouldn't understand that some of
them did not, and also to understand that the adviction
moratorium didn't mean no evictions could occur. Evictions have continued
(25:47):
and our lawyers have been in court preventing those evictions.
But for us to teach our constituents are residents of
the Canada Los Angeles what their rights are. We prepare
written information in all of the threshold languages in the
County of Los Angeles, Spanish being one of the greatest ones, Mandarin, Chinese.
(26:09):
We then work with what we call trust centers, the churches,
the school's parents centers, clinics, health clinic where people congregate
that really trust the provider, and we work through those
institutions because people will come there. If you were to
call them into our office, they may not show up,
but they'll show up at the church and they will
(26:30):
show up at the school perhaps, So we do that.
We work with elected leaders like council woman or Roman,
where we collaborate her putting out an announcement to her
constituents will really get to people, and then scheduling that
and coming out into the community to do that. During
the COVID nineteen, not only did we have to do
that through technology, we have to teach people how to
(26:54):
use technology in order to have access. So we and
community based arkness issues put a lot of investment into
teaching people how to use Zoom or some other platforms
so they have meaningful access to this information and this teaching,
and that is what we do. We continue to do that.
That has never stopped. We have clinics, their virtual We
(27:17):
will be going to in person clinics in the next
few months. But that is how we operate and the
most important key there is through the trust institutions. Let
me go back to the issue of the homeless crisis
and just say that we also need to step back
and look at the other issues that contribute to that.
And one I know Will Mario'll understand is jobs, living
(27:40):
wage jobs, and that we put people into job training,
given contextualized education for those business sectors that are hiring,
that we connect people to jobs that pay good wages
and benefits so then they can afford to rent housing.
I think that's another part of the issue here that
(28:02):
for so long there has just been this pushback on
the minimum wage. And you know, when we look at
our social supports, when we look at general relief, which
is the safety net for single individuals without children, or
the temporary assistance to nating families, which is what everybody
knows as welfare, the amounts of those supports has not
(28:24):
increased for decades and decades. I think that we really
need to look at this other criteria that is also
contributing to the homeless crisis that we're seeing right now.
Council Member Ramen, I think that that's absolutely right. I
feel like for me, I spend so much of my
time thinking about how to address the crisis as we're
(28:45):
seeing it on the streets, and I feel like what
Ivan does is really try and prevent the crisis on
the streets through her work. And what she's talking about
is how to create a society that is designed not
to produce this crisis. And I am excited and I
(29:05):
think very honored to work with her group and with
her and with so many of the other advocates and
trying to build that society here in Los Angeles. That's beautiful.
Thank you for your commitment to your community council member
Roman So to bring us out here and to wrap
up our conversation, how do we reframe this conversation about
(29:26):
care for folks who are experiencing homelessness or facing eviction,
because it seems like there's a general lack of compassion.
So what would you say to folks to find that
compassion and to reframe this narrative of care? Yvonne, what
are your thoughts? You know, I remember just the story
I'll tell you real quick. When the influx of immigrants
(29:46):
came into the San Fernando Valley from Central America. There
was all this pushback because that they just had never
seen these immigrants before. Our church gathered and we brought
the group together and the immigrants spoke first through interpreters
and talked about why they were here, the ability to
(30:08):
seek a better life you could do in America, but
you couldn't do it from their home acount, and how
much they loved America, no matter the fact that they
were highly disrespected. And before you knew it, the English
speaking community stood up and started talking about their immigrant roots.
Although they're probably generations back, but suddenly it's just the
(30:29):
conversation became among real people, and their paradigm shifted of
who these people were and why they were here. And
sometimes I think that we need to do that. People
are afraid of what they don't know, and if they
were to meet some of these individuals, I think it
was just the paradigm for them. I think you're exactly right, Van,
(30:50):
People can be afraid of what's unfamiliar. And what would
you say to folks Council Member Ramen to shift this
narrative of care. I think inherently most people are very
compassion right. Empathy is part of human nature, and so
if you can give people a path to an outcome
that marries your natural inclination to empathy with evidence that
(31:10):
it can work, that's when you have your most powerful argument.
And so for me, the thing I always lead with
is really just to be practical, like, has what we've
been doing worked for you? Look at the streets. Is
this working for us? So let's change it and let's
use evidence to get to where we need to go.
And when you're talking about affordable housing, or particularly permanent
(31:31):
support of housing, which has services, it has people who
are there to provide case management, mental health support, substance
abuse support to folks who are in that housing, I
think the biggest argument for me is always you can
either have people living on the streets with none of
that support and none of that care, or you can
have them in housing with that support and with that care.
(31:53):
Those are our only two options right now, and so
what would you prefer? In our round table, both council
Member Raman and Yvonne gave really incredible calls to action
in this conversation. So we encourage everyone to continue to
stay active in their local politics and pay attention to
decisions happening in your neighborhood because your voice or your
(32:14):
vote could make the difference in someone having a roof
over their head. Join us next week to hear from
Lily Martinez, our essential Voice, who was a chef at
the Downtown Women's Center in Los Angeles, followed by a
round table discussion between Amy Turk, the CEO of the
Downtown Women's Center, and John and Vinney Restaurant Tours and
Los Angeles. Thank you so much for joining us today.
(32:38):
Essential Voices with Wilmer val Drama is produced by me
M r Raquel, Alison Shano and Kevin Rotkowski, with production
support from Associate producer Lillian Holman. Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama,
Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem and Aaron Hilliard. This episode was
edited by Sean Tracy and Luigi Villenueva and features original
(32:59):
music by Will Rosa. Special thanks so this week's Essential Voice,
Trinio Combell, and to our Thought Leaders Council member Nythia
Rahman and Ivonne Maria Jimenez from Neighborhood Legal Aid Services
of Los Angeles. Additional thanks to Martha Gonsalez and not Reuben, MONIQUEA. Robertson,
Isabel Naderman, Gloria Pollock, Lizzie Thompson, and the U t
(33:19):
A Foundation. This is a Clamor and w V Entertainment
Production in partnership with I Heart Radios Michael Dura Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from my heart, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
What's Up every One? Rama, and I'm m r Raquel.
Welcome back to Essential Voices. On this week's show, we're
going to hear from three Ny Ocampo, who is our
essential worker and is an attorney with the Neighborhoods Legal
Services of Los Angeles County, which will refer to as
the n ls l A. Threiny works every day to
protect and advocate for some of Los Angeles' most systemically
(00:21):
underserved residents. She'll talk to us about some of the
biggest threats facing the city's low income residents and how
agreedious behaviors towards these folks were exacerbated during the pandemic,
and after we hear from three, Ny will be in
conversation for our roundtable discussion with Los Angeles City Council
Member Ninthia Rahman and Ivon Maria Humanist, who is the
president and CEO of the n l s l A
(00:42):
where Thiny works. Council Member Raman took office this past
year after running a progressive campaign centered on finding solutions
and ending houselessness in l A. And Yvonne, meanwhile, has
been working with the nls LA for more than forty
years and is in her words, a community warrior. Okay,
let's get it going. Training story starts right now. Hi.
(01:06):
My name is Trini Lalla Campo. I go by Trainy.
What's such a pleasure to have you here with us today?
Can you tell us a little bit about who you are,
and you know, following up with what's important to you
as well? Sure? Well, I'm a native Los Angeleo. I
am what some people don't describe as being positive, but
a social justice lawyer. I am a person who is
working for the community and for the people. How did
(01:28):
you get into that? How long you've been doing that? Well,
my whole career, So, I guess I was raised by
parents that were very community minded. My father worked with veterans.
My mother was a teaching aid, and it was all
about lifting up and building up your own communities. And
so I kind of used that experience and that upbringing
(01:49):
and I became an attorney and I've been a legal
aid or a consumer community based attorney ever since. So
twelve years now, is there a story. Is there a
moment when you said, Wow, this is something that drives me.
This is a passion of mine. I've always known that
there's power in the law and understanding your rights and
(02:10):
what you are entitled to. But I think knowing that
not everyone knows that and has that and can utilize
that power in the same way it made me want
to be able to help others and to advocate for
others for their rights to be respected and honored. That's beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that. I also think about, you know,
(02:30):
what a lot of our listeners may or may not
understand about the behind the scenes, you know, like what
really happens and you know, and what it takes to
do what you do. You know. I think that there's
a lot of told that that takes in you as well.
But is there something that you love about your work
that you wish people really knew or just it's something
that drives you. I think hearing from the clients and
(02:53):
and how meaningful this is to be heard, to be
listened to, to to be advocated for. Just yesterday I closed
out a case with the client who said that she
was homeless for some time and it was really challenging
for her because she served as a nurse for thirty
years and then she retired. But she only became homeless
(03:13):
because of an injury and excessive medical bills that led
her to be living in her car, and so when
she was housed again, she felt like she was treated
as though she was just someone off the streets, when
she had contributed to the community for so long, for years,
had served others, and yet she was just looked at
as a homeless person by the management company or by
the landlord. And so we're able to advocate for her
(03:36):
and get a successful resolution for that client. And that's
just to find the humanity and to show them the
dignity that they deserved. To all of our clients, I
think that's what drives me every day. Any time you
get someone who feels like their background and their stories
not honored the way that it should be, it is
absolutely frustrating. Everyone has a backstory, everyone has a history.
(03:57):
Everyone's overcome challenges and are still trying to overcome challenges
in many ways. Speaking of challenges, you know, and then
you introduced to your work a pandemic, a world changing
event that challenges us all to think about life and
the commute of living in a very different way. So
how do you how did it all translate into your work.
(04:21):
I got a call in the early evening that the
sleep would be shutting on. Our offices would be shutting down,
and we need to pivot everything that we do overnight,
and I remember being up until one in the morning
changing messages, outgoing messages, setting signage so that people could
still access our services. We had a lot of public
(04:43):
facing clinics that people could just walk into and get
assistance with, you know, a variety of legal issues, and
with all those shut down, we were kind of traving
to scramble to figure out what how will those people
still get to us. Unfortunately, there are also people that
didn't necessarily have the technology access and so we're still
coming up to our doors and so how are we
(05:03):
going to accommodate them? And so some staff are still
going and making drives out to visit clients to make
sure that we're understanding what documents they were served with,
understanding what we can do for them. So it's been
definitely challenging. But I remember that was a scramble, lots
of phone calls, lots of emails, lots of coordination, and
we were able to set up our remote operations, which
(05:24):
we're doing now. I'm sure that's when you realize work
and life is going to be different. It changed drastically
how you pivoted your career and how you do things,
and then how much of that work you now are
bringing home, right, I mean that's the other thing people
don't think about, Like, once you're not having to go
to an office, what does that do at home? That's
another really interesting challenge. You know, yes, absolutely, And there's
(05:47):
kind of been no divide, and so it's kind of
up to us to set those boundaries. I found a groove.
I relied on my oldest child a lot to watch
the other two and my partner and I had to say, Okay,
you're on duty from this time to this time, and
I'm on duty on this time and this time, and
hope nobody gets hurt, and hope everyone doing like their
minimum of their schoolwork or at least on the zoom call.
(06:09):
And so, yeah, it was a little bit because I'm
sure the pandemic didn't make things slow down. I'm sure
that it brought a lot of different stories that were
affected by the pandemic. And how were some of those
cases the pandemic versus the normal cases you would have
been handling. What were some of those things that came
from the pandemic. I think the pandemic brought out some
of the worst in people. People were so desperate. You know,
(06:31):
you have tenants desperate to cling to housing when everyone's
supposed to be staying at home to keep them safe,
to keep their family safe. And then you had property
owners who are desperate to get they need that money
to make their mortgage. Especially smaller on the landlords. However,
we saw some of the most egregious behavior by some
people when some of the most vulnerable families. So we
(06:54):
had one landlord who removed the front door from the
home of a single mother with young children, one with
disability at ease. We saw another property owners shut off
the water and power for a month and using to
put it on. We saw a nearly legally blind elderly
man who was removed by the sheriff's deputies. There was
(07:14):
one landlord who called the swat team and said that
the tenant had brandished a gun and threatened to kill
him when she was teaching her class on zoom, and
she was a teacher and she had just asked the
landlord to do an expection later in the day after
her zoom class was over. So pretty crazy behavior and
pretty egregious behavior. By property owners who didn't want to
(07:35):
allow people to stay without paying the full amount of rent,
despite the obvious disruptions to their jobs, to their incomes,
to their families. And so housing is such a critical
human right and you think, what would you do without housing?
And this is happening all over. Evictions never stopped. There's
(07:55):
been evictions happening. People just didn't think they needed to
take action, and so part of the battle was getting
the word out and and doing town halls and doing
zoom sessions and ensuring that residents and tenants knew that yes,
there are protections, but you have to take action to
exercise them. L A is you know, prime real estate.
(08:16):
It's a it's a hot housing market. And we had
a homeless crisis before the pandemic, and this kind of
just exacerbated it because you know, landlords who are like
looking at selling their properties to make more money, and
now we're not getting rent from tenants or getting partial payments,
and they're like more compelled and driven to kind of
sell or to get people out despite these protections, and
(08:39):
so kind of resorting to this more egregious behavior. Well,
if I can't get them out through the court process,
because that's taking longer. Then I'm going to find other ways.
I'm gonna shut off the power, I'm gonna stop making repair,
or I'm gonna inspect their unit every day for the
next month. You know, how do you I know this
may be kind of in the walk question, but how
(09:01):
do you cope? And how do you process? You know?
I can hear the passion in your voice, like how
do you process these stories? There is some secondary trauma
in that and hearing about these stories and dealing with
these things and knowing that there's more people out there
like that. But taking the time and self care was
really important. And so I always encourage everyone to to
(09:22):
get outside, even if it's for ten minutes. You know,
I'll walk my dog, but you know, the fresh air
and the sun really does wonders. Yeah, you don't even
know until the sun is kissing your face. You know,
you don't really know until your your dog is where
we're in the tail because it's finally outside, just going
for a stroll in the grass. You know. I mean
that these little things are the quick reminders that we
(09:43):
get up in the morning for a reason. And I
think that your work and your stories and you sharing
this truth, you know, with us, I think is in
many ways it allows us to look at a road
of healing as well, because we have to self heal
before we continue to get in the game right. I
mean so much we can take, you know, and we
have to allow ourselves to rejuvenate, rehabilitad you know, and
(10:06):
get strong, right. And so thank you for everything you're
up to. Thank you for everything you've done, and I
appreciate your time. Thank you so much for having me. Wow,
m R. I'm so amazed by the commitment trainee showed
in the face of such cruelty. How we got into
this point where she literally has to fight to keep
(10:27):
people's doors on their hinches. Yeah, Wilmer, that's a great question.
And since three worked so hard on an individual level
to give her all for each of her clients, I'm
excited that we'll get to hear what's happening behind the
scenes on a policy level in Los Angeles. So let's
head right to the source. When we get back, we'll
talk with council Member Nitia Rahman and Yvonne Maria Jimenez
(10:48):
of the n ls l A. We're here today with
Los Angeles City Council member Nithi A. Ramen, and the
President and CEO of Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles. Hey, Nathia,
Hi Von Welcome. I'm really looking forward to hearing your
(11:09):
thoughts on what Trinny shared with us. Wilmer kick us off.
I appreciate the time you're giving us today. I think
maybe we can start with your reactions to what you've heard.
I'm sure you've heard similar stories and you're part of
some of those journeys too, but I'd love to hear
your reaction from it. You know, I think Trinny really
laser focused on the housing crisis that we're facing today
(11:34):
and so many people at risk of homelessness. But I'd
really like to just step back and look at a
bigger picture. One thing about COVID nineteen and the pandemic
is that it shawn a very strong light on the
disparities that we all know have existed for a long time,
lack of access to healthcare, lack of access to affordable
(11:55):
and decent housing. For people who were living on the margins,
I think that the pandemic just exacerbated their hardships and
what they were facing, and for some it put them
really in crisis and in homelessness when they were trying
to eke out a living prior to the pandemic. I
(12:17):
do think that it's a very complicated social problems that
we need to address, and that COVID nineteen really showed
the disparities on working poor people, and that's why we
see the high rates of infection among essential workers. Many
of them could not stay home during the pandemic, so
(12:38):
many of them live in overcrowded housing. Many of them
could not lose their jobs, so they continued to work.
And I think that trainees stories that she's talking about
really shine a light on one of the greatest humanitarian
crisis that we have where we do not recognize the
human right to housing in this country, in the state,
(13:02):
and that people are losing housing because they've lost their jobs,
because they've lost their income, and that includes struggling and
working class homeowners who also can't make their mortgage payments
and are losing their homes. So I think training story
is just a real graphic example of one of the
(13:24):
areas that we're dealing with right now, in addition to
many around health and childcare and access to good jobs
and what are your thoughts about Traine story. Council Member Ruman, Yeah,
the stories that Treaty shared were so vivid and so heartbreaking,
and I think for me, I'm new in this role.
(13:44):
I've been here for six months. I started at the
height of the pandemic. It was the worst, absolute worst
moment in l A County. And that's when I took office.
Hearing those stories, and we hear those stories when people
call into our office. We hear those stories from our
advocate partners who are in the field working on these
issues and highlighting them for us. I think for me,
it just really drives home how important it is to
(14:07):
use this role that I have right now and my
newfound power to try and take action. And actually in
the city we did take some action. Just on Wednesday
of this week, we actually passed a law against exactly
the kind of harassment that Trina was describing. And the
discussion had been ongoing for a number of years before
I got here, but since we were here, we were
(14:28):
able to add some amendments that made it stronger that
hopefully will make it more powerful to address exactly what
she's talking about. I love to go back to the
moment of inspiration when you both thought, Oh wait a minute,
I gotta get in the game. This is my passion.
I stand for this, this is me. Yeah, that's a
great question, Wilmer Council MoMA Raman, could you start us
(14:51):
off to have come to this particular moment in my
career to be an elected office. That decision is one
I remember very clearly, and that decision was really oriented
around where we were in l A. And it was
before the pandemic, and it was before this last incredibly
tumultuous year, and what I remember seeing around me was
(15:13):
that we had a crisis of homelessness that was growing
on our streets, and we had a moment in Los
Angeles where I felt like people were responding to those
who were living on the streets with anger, when in reality,
in my mind, I felt like we should be looking
to a city, a state, a county that had failed
those individuals so completely, and that's where we should be
(15:34):
directing our anger, you know. And so I wanted to
run at that moment because I felt called in some
way to try and change the dialogue around these issues.
And I really had a sense of deep faith that
if you tell people the systems that folks who are
housing and secure, or people who are already experiencing homelessness.
(15:56):
If you tell them the system that they're facing as
they're trying to stay in their homes or as they're
trying to get out of homelessness, that anger will fall
away and compassion will remain in its place. And I
feel like the campaign and the fact that I was
elected with no real political connections in Los Angeles, for me,
it was a moment to change our landscape and to
(16:17):
change our dialogue around it. And that was well before
the pandemic, you know, that was well before this moment
that I feel like forced us into grappling with those
issues much more than ever before. So I remember that moment,
and I remember that opportunity very clearly, and I'm very
glad that I had the opportunity to be in the
public space and shaping those issues during this time. Yvonne,
(16:40):
how about you. The work that I do is very
personal to me. I grew up in the neighborhood that
we represent in our organization. I grew up in poverty
in East Los Angeles. I'm a native Antelina. My mother
was a single mom, single head of household immigrants into
this country, did a speak the language, and she suffered
(17:02):
from severe mental health issues. So from very early age
I became her interpreter and her advocate. I was extremely
fortunate to have wonderful teacher who took an interest in
me and promoted higher education. And it is through higher
education that I broke out of poverty. The work that
(17:23):
I do is my passion. I've been in legal services
or organization. Neighborhood Legal Services of LA County provides free
legal services to moderate and low income individuals and families
residing in l A County. I'm just a tenacious advocate
for people whose rights are not respected, for individuals and
(17:47):
families who are at risk of losing their housing, at
risk of losing their children, and not having jobs, not
having access to health care, because I experienced that in
my own family. So my path suction arises from that.
I love the work that I do, working with community
and working with people, especially low income individuals, in trying
(18:12):
to forge ahead good public policy that brings about an
increase in economic status and stability, access to education, to
all those human rights that we should have. Just energize
with me, and it's very spiritual to me too. To
be in the middle of that work and to see
people how the law which we practice can be used
(18:35):
as a very powerful tool to change lives and transformed communities.
And to have the very people in community involved in
that is just a huge inspiration to me. We'll be
right back after this break. Welcome back to Essential Voices.
We're trying to figure out what is not just what's obtainable,
(18:56):
but what is Mount Neveres? What is the Mount nevers
of these conversations sins and why are we not talking
about Mount Everest while also having the same conversation that
fulfills What do we need to climb out Everest? What
kind of backpack? What kind of geared you know, what
gosportation to get us to the mounting? You know? Like,
there's so many things that I feel like sometimes when
(19:17):
you go to politics, when we go to campaigning and
all of that, there's always like the broadcasting of the
end gold, there's always like, here's what we're gonna achieve,
you know, But it's hard for a feel for like
many communities to understand how can they be part of
the fuel that makes it happen? All lessness is the
biggest issue that I think is facing l A right now,
(19:38):
the most visible, the most top of mind for everybody.
So for me, the Mount Everest there is not that
we all want homelessness to end, like I think everyone
wants to see fewer tents on the street and people
not living in public spaces anymore. I think the Mount
Everest is getting everyone to agree on how we get there.
(19:58):
And there's a big abate happening right now that is
being played out all over the city. The sheriff is involved,
council members are involved, mayoral candidates are involved, and it's
really trying to say, how do we respond to this crisis.
Do we respond to it by doing what we've always
done in Los Angeles, which is we have had primarily
(20:19):
a law enforcement lead approach to homelessness, and that hasn't
really worked. We've taken down tents, We've arrested people, and
people have come right back out and ended back up
in homelessness, and arrests actually lead to more homelessness and
longer periods of homelessness. And just over these last couple
of years here in l A, we have started spending
(20:41):
more money on homelessness, right like real money, real dollars.
We started putting into building housing into services. And so
now we have a chance to do something different. Right now,
we have a chance to end homelessness for people by
getting them permanently off the streets and into housing, into services,
into care. And we just got started doing that work,
and already people are pushing back and they're saying they
(21:02):
want to go back to the old approach because they're
so impatient and they want everybone to be gone right away,
and they don't understand it takes time to build that
new housing. It takes time to get these services in shape,
and it takes time to get folks who have been
un housed for a really long time and are struggling
with mental illness and substance abuse and all the things
that Yvonne talked about. Takes time to get them into care.
(21:24):
Right And so for me, the biggest mount everest right
now that we're climbing is to try and build consensus
around a services lad approach to our housing crisis. And
if we can get there and if everyone is saying
the same things, that's what I want. I want everyone
to say, we can do this, we can do this
the right way, and we are committed to making l
(21:46):
a into a model for the rest of the country.
That seems to me like the most obvious thing that
we should be doing in this moment. So I wonder
what is the concept of self destruction and where we
cannot find the cohesive path to take together. Where the
rubber hits the road is when resources for people who
are experiencing homelessness or affordable housing is going up in
(22:07):
your neighborhood. Right. So in theory, you're like, of course
I support affordable housing, of course I support services. But
if somebody is like, well, now I'm gonna put a
safe injection site five doors down from you or down
the block, or I'm gonna build permanent support of housing.
That's housing that has services attached to it. So if
you have mental health issues, you get taken care of
(22:28):
in that housing. It's the best kind of housing to
end chronic homelessness. People who've been living on the streets
for a long time, that's what they need, right, And
we got to build that housing. Every time you try
and build that housing the neighborhood around people say yes,
but very loud voices say no. And so that's where
I think a little bit of that struggle comes is
that in theory. As an overarching philosophy, you might agree
(22:52):
with this, but you have to put it somewhere, and
it's geographically specific and in the neighborhoods where it goes.
People have years which I understand. I empathize with that.
I really really do. Um my five year old twins
when we're walking around and there's somebody who's talking to themselves,
who's obviously suffering from mental health challenges. My children are puzzled.
(23:14):
Sometimes they're afraid. I don't want them to feel that fear,
you know, so I completely understand why people might be fearful.
We have to build an l a that says yes,
and not just yes to the big idea, but to
the neighborhood idea. And so that's what I'm always like.
Whenever someone's like, how do I help you, I'm like, well,
I want to put something down the street from you.
Come out and say yes. Thank you. Council Member Roman,
(23:37):
your passion about getting folks out to just say yes
is infectious. But on a more serious note, what you're
describing a sort of like turning a blind eye to
a systemic failure that could be remedied. You're saying that
folks can in theory support permanent supportive housing, but only
if it's not in their neighborhood, which means folks can
(24:00):
turn a blind eye and not have to be confronted
with folks experiencing homelessness who would be living in their neighborhood.
And of course these folks support building these facilities in theory,
but once groundbreaks and in their neighborhood, it's a different story.
And also I wonder if these folks who in theory
support permanent support of housing but in reality don't want
(24:21):
it in their neighborhoods, if they knew more about insidious
eviction processes and how folks experiencing homelessness have been evicted
and taken advantage of through no fault of their own,
if they would have more compassion. And while the priority
is ensuring that the folks at risk of being evicted
know their rights, I wonder if eviction laws were more
commonly discussed how this could affect the success of building
(24:44):
permanent support of housing. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Um Yvonne Triny shared some specific moments where clients of
hers were facing evictions and then you touched upon going
out in the community and educating folks who are at
risk of eviction about their rights. Could you describe specifically
what that advocacy is that you do out in the
(25:05):
community and how you help empower folks at risk of
eviction to know what their rights are. First of all,
we begin with what are the protections that have been
provided at the national, state and local level. And when
COVID nineteen came about, there were a panoply of legislation
that went through from CDC to the State of California
(25:26):
and city and County of Los Angeles. So for us,
it was to make sure that people understood what laws
applied to them, that people wouldn't understand that some of
them did not, and also to understand that the adviction
moratorium didn't mean no evictions could occur. Evictions have continued
(25:47):
and our lawyers have been in court preventing those evictions.
But for us to teach our constituents are residents of
the Canada Los Angeles what their rights are. We prepare
written information in all of the threshold languages in the
County of Los Angeles, Spanish being one of the greatest ones, Mandarin, Chinese.
(26:09):
We then work with what we call trust centers, the churches,
the school's parents centers, clinics, health clinic where people congregate
that really trust the provider, and we work through those
institutions because people will come there. If you were to
call them into our office, they may not show up,
but they'll show up at the church and they will
(26:30):
show up at the school perhaps, So we do that.
We work with elected leaders like council woman or Roman,
where we collaborate her putting out an announcement to her
constituents will really get to people, and then scheduling that
and coming out into the community to do that. During
the COVID nineteen, not only did we have to do
that through technology, we have to teach people how to
(26:54):
use technology in order to have access. So we and
community based arkness issues put a lot of investment into
teaching people how to use Zoom or some other platforms
so they have meaningful access to this information and this teaching,
and that is what we do. We continue to do that.
That has never stopped. We have clinics, their virtual We
(27:17):
will be going to in person clinics in the next
few months. But that is how we operate and the
most important key there is through the trust institutions. Let
me go back to the issue of the homeless crisis
and just say that we also need to step back
and look at the other issues that contribute to that.
And one I know Will Mario'll understand is jobs, living
(27:40):
wage jobs, and that we put people into job training,
given contextualized education for those business sectors that are hiring,
that we connect people to jobs that pay good wages
and benefits so then they can afford to rent housing.
I think that's another part of the issue here that
(28:02):
for so long there has just been this pushback on
the minimum wage. And you know, when we look at
our social supports, when we look at general relief, which
is the safety net for single individuals without children, or
the temporary assistance to nating families, which is what everybody
knows as welfare, the amounts of those supports has not
(28:24):
increased for decades and decades. I think that we really
need to look at this other criteria that is also
contributing to the homeless crisis that we're seeing right now.
Council Member Ramen, I think that that's absolutely right. I
feel like for me, I spend so much of my
time thinking about how to address the crisis as we're
(28:45):
seeing it on the streets, and I feel like what
Ivan does is really try and prevent the crisis on
the streets through her work. And what she's talking about
is how to create a society that is designed not
to produce this crisis. And I am excited and I
(29:05):
think very honored to work with her group and with
her and with so many of the other advocates and
trying to build that society here in Los Angeles. That's beautiful.
Thank you for your commitment to your community council member
Roman So to bring us out here and to wrap
up our conversation, how do we reframe this conversation about
(29:26):
care for folks who are experiencing homelessness or facing eviction,
because it seems like there's a general lack of compassion.
So what would you say to folks to find that
compassion and to reframe this narrative of care? Yvonne, what
are your thoughts? You know, I remember just the story
I'll tell you real quick. When the influx of immigrants
(29:46):
came into the San Fernando Valley from Central America. There
was all this pushback because that they just had never
seen these immigrants before. Our church gathered and we brought
the group together and the immigrants spoke first through interpreters
and talked about why they were here, the ability to
(30:08):
seek a better life you could do in America, but
you couldn't do it from their home acount, and how
much they loved America, no matter the fact that they
were highly disrespected. And before you knew it, the English
speaking community stood up and started talking about their immigrant roots.
Although they're probably generations back, but suddenly it's just the
(30:29):
conversation became among real people, and their paradigm shifted of
who these people were and why they were here. And
sometimes I think that we need to do that. People
are afraid of what they don't know, and if they
were to meet some of these individuals, I think it
was just the paradigm for them. I think you're exactly right, Van,
(30:50):
People can be afraid of what's unfamiliar. And what would
you say to folks Council Member Ramen to shift this
narrative of care. I think inherently most people are very
compassion right. Empathy is part of human nature, and so
if you can give people a path to an outcome
that marries your natural inclination to empathy with evidence that
(31:10):
it can work, that's when you have your most powerful argument.
And so for me, the thing I always lead with
is really just to be practical, like, has what we've
been doing worked for you? Look at the streets. Is
this working for us? So let's change it and let's
use evidence to get to where we need to go.
And when you're talking about affordable housing, or particularly permanent
(31:31):
support of housing, which has services, it has people who
are there to provide case management, mental health support, substance
abuse support to folks who are in that housing, I
think the biggest argument for me is always you can
either have people living on the streets with none of
that support and none of that care, or you can
have them in housing with that support and with that care.
(31:53):
Those are our only two options right now, and so
what would you prefer? In our round table, both council
Member Raman and Yvonne gave really incredible calls to action
in this conversation. So we encourage everyone to continue to
stay active in their local politics and pay attention to
decisions happening in your neighborhood because your voice or your
(32:14):
vote could make the difference in someone having a roof
over their head. Join us next week to hear from
Lily Martinez, our essential Voice, who was a chef at
the Downtown Women's Center in Los Angeles, followed by a
round table discussion between Amy Turk, the CEO of the
Downtown Women's Center, and John and Vinney Restaurant Tours and
Los Angeles. Thank you so much for joining us today.
(32:38):
Essential Voices with Wilmer val Drama is produced by me
M r Raquel, Alison Shano and Kevin Rotkowski, with production
support from Associate producer Lillian Holman. Executive producers Wilmer Val Drama,
Adam Reynolds, Leo Clem and Aaron Hilliard. This episode was
edited by Sean Tracy and Luigi Villenueva and features original
(32:59):
music by Will Rosa. Special thanks so this week's Essential Voice,
Trinio Combell, and to our Thought Leaders Council member Nythia
Rahman and Ivonne Maria Jimenez from Neighborhood Legal Aid Services
of Los Angeles. Additional thanks to Martha Gonsalez and not Reuben, MONIQUEA. Robertson,
Isabel Naderman, Gloria Pollock, Lizzie Thompson, and the U t
(33:19):
A Foundation. This is a Clamor and w V Entertainment
Production in partnership with I Heart Radios Michael Dura Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from my heart, visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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