Last week, New York City became the latest municipality to offer ID-cards for city residents, a move that eases the lives of nearly half a million undocumented residents and could provide a boost to the city’s economy.  For many Americans, the ability to provide proof of identity is taken for granted. For undocumented residents, the inability to provide proof of identity impacts nearly every aspect of their lives from being able to borrow books from a library to being able to register their child for school.

A valid photo ID lets people open bank accounts, enter into their children’s public school buildings, and establish identity when interacting with law enforcement. Municipal ID programs help more than the undocumented population. Some of the most vulnerable community members- homeless residents, youth in the foster system, low-income elderly people, formerly incarcerated individuals re-entering society, and people with mental illness and disabilities- face obstacles in obtaining necessary documentation. Municipal IDs can provide the necessary documentation for proof of identity or residency necessary for essential services.

For cities, the ID cards may increase resident’s spending and entrepreneurship, a secondary effect of having access to bank accounts. In addition, municipal IDs can ease the ability to sign leases and give access to government buildings, which could also make it easier for entrepreneurial residents to deal with regulators and other offices.

Several cities already offer their own municipal IDs, including Los Angeles, New Haven, San Francisco, Oakland, and Washington D.C. In addition, several local jurisdictions in New Jersey also offer ID cards and Richmond, CA’s program has been designed and IDs should begin being issued soon.

To maximize success, New York City’s program should ensure the highest level of privacy for applicants’ data and personal information. And, as raised by the New York Times Editorial Board, the City’s ID should also be used for discounts at museums, restaurants and other institutions to encourage the broadest level of participation so that the ID does not become de facto proof of the ID holder’s immigration status.

The New Haven example highlights both the need and the success of municipal ID programs. While not traditional considered a city with a large immigrant population, the immigrant population grew 69 percent between 1990 and 2006. Out of the 125,000 residents in the city, there are an estimated 10,000 and 15,000 undocumented residents. Without proper ID, undocumented workers were unable to open bank accounts. As a result, they became frequent targets of theft because it was widely believed that they stored large amount of cash either on at home or on their person.

Victims or witnesses to these crimes were reluctant to talk to the police for fear of being asked for identification and raise questions about their immigration status. The fear of interacting with law enforcement also deterred immigrants from reporting workplace violations, such as unlawful wage withholding. Parks and public beaches were also inaccessible without proof of ID.

When the state legislative effort to provide driver’s licenses to undocumented residents failed, New Haven’s Mayor John DeStefano launched a municipal ID initiative called the Elm City Resident’s Card in 2007. In just five months, the city issued more than 5,000 ID cards. By 2012, 10,000 residents had ID cards. Moreover, the resident card helped foster a sense of belonging and improved relationships between immigrants and law enforcement. It also made the city stronger economically with a thriving business corridor in the heart of immigrant-rich Fair Haven.

With meaningful comprehensive immigration reform at a stalemate on the federal level, issuing ID cards is a big step municipalities can take to protect their residents and provide a boost to local economies.
 

Cross-posted from Huffington Post

Transforming low-wage jobs into good jobs that provide living wages is a critical path to robust economic growth. Just ask Flora Johnson, a home care worker from Illinois, whose salary is rising from just under $6 an hour before joining a union to $13 an hour by year’s end and is now able to make ends meet. That increase came from a worker-organizing model that may no longer be possible thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. 

Home care aides in Illinois were able to win substantial wage increases due to a contract won through union bargaining. The current wage for home care aides in the state increased from $7 in 2003 to $12.25 today and will increase again to $13 on December 1. Even though not all workers covered are union members, they all benefited from the power of collective bargaining. This effective model is now under threat because the court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that non-union members could opt out of making contributions to the costs of collective bargaining. Workers were never required to join the union, but instead, paid a small contribution to help cover the cost of negotiating better contracts. Now, the entire cost of contract negotiations will fall on the shoulders of only some workers, even though everyone benefits from contract wins.

But, must workers organize in order to increase wages and benefits? The simple answer is yes. Without organizing, workers lack the leverage necessary to win higher wages and benefits. Collective worker power is especially beneficial for women and people of color, who are too often left behind economically. The demographics of in-home care aides – over 90 percent women, more than 50 percent people of color – overlap with populations suffering from significant wage disparities, making union representation all the more important.

In the decades to come, raising the floor for home care workers will become increasingly important. Home health care is the second fastest growing occupation in the United States and also a major source of employment for women and people of color. Between 2012 and 2022, the number of home health aides across the country will increase nearly 50 percent, requiring nearly 600,000 new workers for this workforce.  With an aging population across the nation, demand for this work will grow. By 2050, the number of senior citizens is projected to nearly double and more than 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day.

Unfortunately, many of those who take care of our most vulnerable – even full-time workers – are still in poverty. Nationwide, women in direct care jobs are more than twice as likely to be poor than working women in general.  Low wages contribute to high turnover rates, which can impact the quality of care. Turnover rates for direct care workers can range from 40 percent to 100 percent annually. High turnover rates are disruptive to people who need care, especially for people with disabilities, and discontinuous care is a challenge to developing trusting relationships with care givers.

Poverty wages also drag down a state’s economy. For example, studies show that increasing hourly wages to $14 in California would save the state over $5 billion per year because workers would not need supplemental public programs for additional income.  A study of home care workers in San Francisco found that turnover fell by 57 percent following implementation of a living wage policy city-wide.

Without organizing, the fight for better wages, benefits, and basic work supports becomes an individual, not a collective, struggle, an outcome that is a step backwards for workers, those in their care, and state economies. Efforts to undermine economic prosperity come from all angles and we must be vigilant about tracking these attacks. The court may have ruled against working families but with strong support from all of us, workers can overcome this hurdle through organizing, joining a union, and using their collective power to build an equitable economy.
 

Tucked between the steep mountains and rugged coast of northern Spain, a vast network of worker-owned businesses is producing everything from electric cars to advanced robotics. It's also inspiring equitable growth strategies in low-income neighborhoods in the United States, from Cleveland, Ohio, to Richmond, California.

Mondragon Corporation is a network of over 100 worker-owned cooperatives and businesses with nearly $20 billion in revenue and 74,000 employees. Its home province, where the corporation employs one in 14 workers, is an economic driver for the nation, and has the highest per capita income in the country. Mondragon is an impressive business model to build an equitable innovation economy.

Economic resilience in action

Growth and innovation have been central to Mondragon’s mission and success, but for reasons different from most companies. “Our purpose is to create wealth and jobs in society. Work with dignity, this is the goal,” said Mikel Lezamiz, director of cooperative dissemination at Mondragon.

Executive pay is capped at eight times that of the lowest-paid worker in the company. “And we still attract top talent,” said Lezamiz. Worker-owners are involved in major decisions in their companies, and annual profits are distributed among them. Wages before profit sharing for entry-level workers are roughly equal to industry averages, according to Mondragon.

The bulk of Mondragon’s companies are in advanced industrial manufacturing and services. The corporation also runs a major local bank, a national grocery store chain, several vocational schools and universities, and over a dozen research and development centers. While headquartered in a small town in the Basque region of Spain, the corporation generates over half of its jobs outside of the region, including a growing number of manufacturing subsidiaries around the globe (at present, 122 plants employing 12,000 workers, who are not worker-owners).

Solidarity across the businesses has allowed most workers, if not the companies themselves, to weather the economic crisis that has crippled much of Spain. Unemployment in the area is less than half that for the rest of Spain. And when staffing at one company needs to be reduced, the cooperatives help each other place workers in job openings elsewhere. During the recent recession, over 1,000 workers in struggling cooperatives were moved to jobs in more stable ones, according to Lezamiz.

However, businesses are not immune to exposure to risk. Last year, Mondragon’s first and oldest cooperative, a household appliance manufacturer that was hard hit by the housing foreclosure crisis, filed for bankruptcy, threatening the jobs and investments of 1,800 worker-owners. The cooperative group is trying to relocate affected workers to other cooperatives.

Humanity at work

Mondragon’s slogan — “humanity at work” — is a marriage of its social justice roots and business smarts. It represents a business model that places workers as the strongest asset of a company, not a cost to be minimized. A growing number of American business leaders are recognizing the competitive advantage this approach can bring to companies, particularly ones competing in a global marketplace.

In practice, at Mondragon, this means a commitment to worker-owner participation at the highest levels of governance. Members meet annually to set the overall direction and mission of the business group, and they elect representatives to the governing council that oversees management of the businesses. All members are given full access to internal financial documents of their companies, and time during work to read through them and discuss with co-workers.

It also means a strong investment in education. Mondragon runs three community colleges and a university that offer degrees in engineering, cooperative business, humanities, and more. Students from low-income families get preference for scholarships and access to jobs to make it more affordable for them to attend, according to Lezamiz.

Spreading the model

Fifty years ago, Mondragon began with a technical school and one small factory. Soon after, they started a local bank to keep workers’ wealth in the community and reinvest it in new cooperative ventures. Today, the bank has over $32 billion in assets.

This is perhaps the greatest lesson from Mondragon. What began as a tiny venture 50 years ago is today a global powerhouse. And this was accomplished by building community wealth and maintaining a commitment to worker dignity and empowerment. In recent years, Mondragon staff have worked to spread their business model to new places, including in the formation of the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland, Ohio, an initiative in Richmond, California to start several worker co-ops, and a new partnership with the United Steelworkers to develop a union-cooperative model. If these projects can replicate Mondragon’s success, they may become important drivers of an equitable economy in the United States.

In June 2014, Angela Glover Blackwell, Anita Hairston, and Chris Schildt from PolicyLink traveled to Bilbao, Spain, to participate in a German Marshall Fund summit on urban transformation, and visited Mondragon Corporation headquarters in Gipuzkoa Province, Spain. To learn more about the German Marshall Fund summit, read this blog post.

Cross-posted from The Hill

The Supreme Court's latest decision on workers' rights, Harris v. Quinn, is not just a blow to the right to organize; the decision will also increase the racial wealth gap. Harris disproportionately impacts workers of color and the limit on their right to organize ensures home care jobs will remain poverty-wage jobs with little to no benefits. Without access to decent wages, workers of color will continue to face economic insecurity. The racial wealth gap, which is already at record levels, will continue to grow.

Home care aides are overwhelmingly female; women of color are overrepresented in the sector. Home care is a notoriously poorly paid profession and in-home workers' hourly wages are nearly 25 percent lower than those of similar workers in other occupations. Home care aides also fall within the category of domestic workers who are still not protected by the National Labor Relations Act, nor are they protected by the Occupational Health and Safety Act. They were also exempt from overtime and minimum wage protections until last year when President Obama directed the Department of Labor to extend these protections to domestic workers.

While the ruling was not as broad as advocates feared, Harris significantly limits the ability of home care aides to organize. Yet, low-wage professions, like home care, particularly benefit from union representation. Unionizing raises the typical low-wage worker's wages by almost 21 percent. This boost in wages for low-wage workers is much higher than for workers in the middle of the national pay scale. Unionized low-wage workers are also more likely to have healthcare and pension benefits.

Higher wages, pensions and access to health insurance all contribute to the financial security of working families. Unequal access to financial security is one of the main drivers of the racial wealth gap and over the past 25 years, the racial wealth gap has tripled. This level of systemic inequality is bad for working families and for the overall economy. Moreover, the changing demographics in the country make addressing the racial wealth gap all the more urgent.

People of color will soon be a majority of the overall population, but the younger generation is already experiencing the demographic shift. Recent Census data show that while 79 percent of people older than 65 are non-Hispanic white, 51.8 percent of residents under 15 are non-Hispanic white. At the same time, the nation is aging. By 2050, the population over 65 is expected to grow to 83.7 million, nearly double the size from 2012. To ensure the aging populations are supported, the upcoming workforce must be able to reach its economic potential.

The Harris decision severely limits the ability of the emerging workforce to reach its full economic potential, which in turn threatens the economic security of the future aging population. Home care work is one of the fastest-growing sectors with a workforce that is primarily female, and in particular, women of color. Without the ability to organize, these jobs will remain poorly paid. Poorly paid work robs families of economic security and the future generation of retirement security because the low wages will not produce enough tax revenue to fully fund Social Security benefits.

With Harris, the Supreme Court unnecessarily restricts the ability of people to reach economic security, now and for generations to come.

In 2011, Connecticut became the first state to require workers to be able to earn paid sick leave. For many part-time workers, especially in industries like retail and hospitality, it was their first opportunity ever to earn paid sick leave. Though opponents to the law claimed that it would negatively impact business in the state, an evaluation of the law to date by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, however, found the opposite to be true. Not only was the impact on business minimal, employment actually rose in several sectors, including hospitality and health services, again proving that what is good for workers is good for businesses.

The need for basic work supports, like paid sick leave, was a cornerstone of the White House Summit on Working Families last week. The Summit brought together advocates, business leaders, elected officials and workers to focus on ways to help support working families. As part of the Summit, several business leaders testified to how providing work supports not only helped increase productivity and returns, their businesses also thrived and expanded. Ranging from large, multi-national corporations to small, local restaurants, providing paid time off and flexible work schedules improved staff morale and productivity and also helped business growth.

Moreover, these basic work supports are being offered by small businesses and industries that are in highly-competitive and predominantly low-wage industries. In Seattle, Plum Bistro Restaurant led the successful effort to increase the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. A member of the Main Street Alliance, a network of small business owners, Plum Bistro’s owner stated that while offering paid sick days costs only pennies per plate, the costs are more than made up for by improved retention, higher employee morale and increase customer satisfaction.  Costco uses a model counter to most retailers and pays living wages and provides paid benefits to all its employees. Not only do its profits steadily grow, Costco has a remarkably low turnover employee turnover rate--only 5 percent for employees who have been there over a year leave.

Currently, 41 million people do not have access to paid sick leave. Women and people of color are overrepresented in industries that do not offer paid sick leave. African American and Latino workers, in general, are far more likely to not have access to paid sick days than white workers. While businesses would see little to no impact on their bottom line, offering paid sick leave is the number one policy women living in poverty or right on the edge say would give them a leg up, even more than a wage increase or other benefits.

Giving workers the ability to earn paid sick leave is more than the right thing to do, it’s a smart business move that underscores how what’s good for workers is good for the economy.
 

Education has long been the most common route to economic success, and it's more important than ever. Sixty percent of jobs require post-secondary education and training, up from 28 percent 40 years ago. Youth of color, the fastest-growing segment of our young population, must be prepared and supported to graduate from high school, make a smooth transition to post-secondary education, and earn a certificate or degree if America is to have the workforce we need to prosper.

In today's newsletter, we profile three young people who demonstrate what the nation's future looks like if we invest in youth, their schools, their families, and their communities. These youth, and so many of their peers, are overcoming barriers of poverty and racial inequity to succeed in school — and they're doing it with the support of mentors, visionary programs, and innovative policy initiatives.  This graduation season, let's celebrate the achievements of youth in low-income communities and communities of color. And let's honor the educators, change agents, and local leaders who inspire these young people to aim high, and who labor tirelessly to provide them with resources to achieve their goals. Our collective future depends on this work.

Antoinette Gabriel, Chicago, Illinois

This fall, Antoinette Gabriel will head to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to study neuroscience and foreign languages. It's a dream made possible through her persistence, the commitment and resourcefulness of her high school leadership, and a federal investment in turning around a low-performing school.

The $6.4 million turnaround effort began in 2009, a year before Antoinette entered Fenger, a South Side Chicago high school where almost all students are poor and African American. At the time, less than half of freshmen were projected to graduate from the school and even fewer were college-bound. The killing of a student walking home from Fenger, just two weeks after the turnaround initiative began, focused national attention on the school.

Now the dropout rate is less than 3 percent, and more than 90 percent of freshmen are on a college track.  Anger management classes, trauma therapy, and a restorative justice program have dramatically reduced violence and arrests. Intensive support services and the guidance of school administrators have helped students redefine their ambitions and strive to achieve them.

"They have so many resources here, I wouldn't say it's impossible to fail, but if you want to succeed you will," Antoinette said.

Two programs were especially important for her. She had wanted to be a doctor since she was a child and an uncle died of a mysterious brain disease. OneGoal, a nonprofit that works to make college graduation a reality for all students, guided her through the overwhelming process of college and financial aid applications. "I must have applied for 100 scholarships," she said.

Embarc, a teacher-driven organization that supports academic success through immersion in Chicago's arts and culture, "opened our horizons," Antoinette said. "It changes your attitude. It helps you build confidence. It made me realize that everyone's their own leader of their own life, and it made me a better leader in mine."

The care and steady support of Fenger's principal, Elizabeth Dozier, were also pivotal for Antoinette. "Half the things I got to do would never have been possible without her," Antoinette said. "She helped me find my path."

When the four-year federal turnaround grant expired in 2013, Fenger lost 20 staff members and several community partners. But Dozier is drawing on community resources to provide the counseling, anti-violence interventions, and other supports that have proven to be transformative. She's determined to sustain the positive changes and help more young people find their path.

Zachary Rasmussen, Chula Vista, California

In his application to the University of California, Zachary Rasmussen describes struggling with a learning disability. "My whole life I have been told that something is wrong with me, that I'm not as capable as other kids my age. I don't have to accept this as my definition," he wrote. "What sets me apart from others can't limit what I can become."

This sense of possibility was inspired through the Castle Park High School Academic Advocate Program. It's a centerpiece of the Chula Vista Promise Neighborhood, part of the Obama Administration's Promise Neighborhoods initiative. In Chula Vista, 28 community agencies and institutions are collaborating to provide comprehensive approaches to change the odds for children in the diverse, low-income Castle Park neighborhood.

Before Zachary started working with his advocate, Rea Concepcion, the University of California wasn't on his radar. Nobody in his family had graduated from college.  "I couldn't imagine going to a university. That didn't seem like an option."

Concepcion encouraged him to apply and helped him every step of the way. And she did the same for dozens of other students, most of them first-generation college-bound.

"I'm a GPS for students and families, helping them navigate the whole process," she said.

The advocate program is based on the belief that everybody has the potential to graduate from high school and college. Advocates work with students to assess their strengths, identify goals, and develop plans for success.  The idea is to work with students throughout high school, but the program started just last fall, so this year's seniors had the benefit of only one year. Thirty-four were admitted to four-year colleges and universities.

Zachary, who identifies as white and Asian Indian, will attend the University of California at Santa Cruz. He plans to study human biology and hopes to become a professional sports trainer and physical therapist.

Concepcion will remain the advocate for all her students through their first two years on campus. She'll Skype with each one monthly, connect them to mentors and advisors, visit them at school, and make sure they have the resources they need to succeed.

"Getting students who are underserved into college is one thing," she said. "Getting them to stay in college is another."

Lia Abeita-Sanchez, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Lia Abeita-Sanchez, a member of the tribal community of Pueblo of Isleta, will graduate in May 2015 from the University of New Mexico with a degree in political science. She attributes her educational success to her family and community, and the programs that helped facilitate her pathway into higher education.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, American Indian and Alaska Native students account for less than 1 percent of those who have earned a bachelor's degree or higher from a university. Closing the wide and persistent racial gap in educational attainment is key to building the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in a global economy. Programs dedicated to serving historically underrepresented students ensure that our increasingly diverse population has access to the educational opportunities to develop into the leaders that will strengthen communities and our nation's economy.

As a student at Sandia Preparatory School, a private school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lia participated in programs aimed at promoting college readiness among Native American high school students.  College Horizons aims to fill the access gap by increasing the number of Native American students eligible for admission to four-year universities by providing individualized support throughout the process of applying to college and information about financial aid. This program reinforced Lia's commitment to pursue higher education. Lia also participated in the Summer Policy Academy (SPA) Program, an intensive four-week program focused on indigenous issues. Learning about the impact of state and federal policy on tribal communities, through both classroom learning and service-oriented projects in the community, Lia came to recognize education as a tool to advocate for social change.

Lia was enrolled at Stanford University for two years before making the difficult decision to return home and enroll at the University of New Mexico. Lia struggled finding a sense of place and belonging while at Stanford, explaining, "No one looked like me. No one talked like me." Many services were available for Native American students. However, at the University of New Mexico, Lia felt she could more readily focus on school, saying, "Home was down the road, there wasn't a need to recreate it." She hopes that more students embrace their own personal experiences of resilience and that schools can build upon these assets.

Lia now advocates for policy and culturally appropriate health interventions for tribal communities as a research assistant with the Center for Native American Health Policy.  When asked about her future aspirations, Lia responded, "To continue to serve my community in whatever way possible and whichever way necessary."

Read the rest of the June 27, 2014 America’s Tomorrow: Equity is the Superior Growth Model issue.

With the rise in income inequality, an exponentially growing racial wealth gap, and the recent knowledge that almost half of the country has vastly inadequate emergency savings, it’s the perfect time for the Promise Neighborhoods initiative to consider how they can embed family financial security into their efforts. 

Promise Neighborhoods are working in 61 low-income communities across the country to provide wraparound services to improve educational outcomes for children and their families. The sites are held to a set of specific results and indicators and must demonstrate that they’ve moved the needle.

We know that academic challenges faced by students in urban and rural areas are directly connected to concentrated poverty in those areas. Students from low-income households have lower rates of literacy, less parent involvement in school, lower rates of attendance, and poor health outcomes. In addition, children who are born into poverty are more likely to remain in poverty as adults, creating a cyclical effect over generations. Wraparound services for parents and children would only be strengthened by efforts to help families master their financial positions.

There is substantial research that shows that low-income families can save. Savings and assets are the tools that allow families to withstand financial crisis and invest in their future. In addition, children with a savings account in their own name are 2.5 times more likely to enroll in college than children with no account.

Integrating Family Financial Security in Promise Neighborhoods: A Resource and Implementation Guide, a new PolicyLink resource, helps sites consider the many ways in which they might incorporate financial capability into their on-going work. Key takaways include a focus on the fact that financial security can be embedded across the continuum of services children and families receive throughout the child’s academic trajectory. Financial capability skills for participants should not be a one-off goal but rather continuously integrated into conversations about future goals for that child, their family, and their community. Additionally, sites should spend a substantial amount of time understanding the demand for asset-building services, gauging their organizational capacity to offer or refer to such services, and developing strategic partnerships with invested leadership that are willing to hold themselves accountable to Promise Neighborhoods initiative results as well as financial results for families.

Over at Slate, Jamelle Bouie highlights a simple policy fix that could reduce poverty and increase family economic security in California, Massachusetts and 17 other states. As part of the legacy of the controversial welfare reforms passed in 1996, states are allowed to pass Family Cap limits that deny additional benefits or reduce the cash grant to families who have additional children while on assistance. Nineteen states have some form of a family cap policy, most of which were passed between 1996 and 1997.

As Bouie lays out, these policies have severe implications. He writes:

"In Maryland, a state without family caps, the average benefit for a single-parent family of three is $574. If, while receiving that benefit, the parent had another child, it would rise to $695, a 17 percent increase. By contrast, in Virginia—where the benefit for a family of three is $389—it would stay the same (as opposed to growing to $451). And when you consider the generally low benefit levels of family cap states—in Georgia, the average monthly benefit for a three-person household is $280, in Mississippi it’s $170—what you have is a recipe for greater poverty."

The purpose of family caps was to dissuade people on assistance from having more children, which feeds into the stereotype that recipients of assistance were irresponsible system gamers who would have more children to receive more benefits. This rhetoric is part of racially-tinged dialogue that looks to demonize people who are poor. In reality, the best way to reach economic independence is to provide a strong safety net so people can accumulate the wealth and capital needed to be economically secure.

Punitive approaches and shrunken safety nets don’t help families escape poverty, and they don’t help the economy.  In 2012, our poverty rate  was 15 percent and the child poverty rate was 21.8 percent. In other words, more than one if five children live in poverty. Yet poverty doesn’t impact everyone equally. The poverty rate among African-Americans in 2012 was 27.5 percent and 25.3 percent among Latinos. Among African-American children, 29.2 percent live in poverty, 20 percentage points higher than for white children. Without safety net programs, these numbers would be even higher. And, child poverty is not just a social ill, the economic costs of it top nearly $500 billion per year.

To succeed, struggling families need a path to economic security. A strong safety net provides the foundation. Research has shown that the family cap puts poor children at greater risk and leads to families having higher levels of food and housing insecurity. While the amount of additional aid a family would receive barely covers the cost of an additional child, it does make a difference in a family’s ability to function.

As people of color grow as a share of the population, taking steps to reduce poverty and inequality is not just the right thing do—it is an economic imperative for the nation. Equity—fair and just inclusion—needs to be at the center of our discussions about economic growth and prosperity. As one small step forward, 19 states, including California can repeal the family cap rule and help struggling families escape poverty.
 

The name “South-Central” once evoked images of Los Angeles neighborhoods riddled with crime and gang violence — images largely found in biased, one-dimensional media coverage. It was a stigmatizing label that ignored the region’s diverse, vibrant neighborhoods.

Today, South Los Angeles, as it’s officially now known, is further changing the narrative, becoming a “high capacity” community through the support of the Community Development Technologies Center (CDTech) — a nationally recognized nonprofit acting as a community development catalyst in low-income communities throughout the city.

CDTech aims to equip South Los Angeles residents with the training, strategies, and programs they need to be leaders and organizers empowered to improve their neighborhoods and grow their local economies. This broad vision and ability to trigger self-sustaining activity within both the community and economic development fields is what makes CDTech unique among community-based organizations in the area.

Achieving these intersectional goals in today’s rapidly changing South Los Angeles means residents must confront two ongoing dynamics in the community: large-scale redevelopment in downtown Los Angeles and the University of Southern California’s (USC) extensive expansion project. Both bring the potential for much-needed investments and can cause the community to be a more desirable place to live or start a business. Ultimately, this is also driving up rents and increasing gentrification and displacement in South LA.

Benjamin Torres, CDTech’s president and CEO, views these challenges as an opportunity.

“We partner with local businesses and anchor institutions, like USC, hospitals, and downtown developers, so we can be at the table during the planning phase and train residents to take advantage of opportunities,” said Torres.

One of the ways CDTech helps to create opportunities is by collaborating with like-minded organizations, such as the United Neighbors In Defense Against Displacement (UNIDAD) coalition, to negotiate community benefits agreements, contracts between anchor institutions and the community that aim to ensure development is equitable and often reserve a certain percentage of newly created jobs for community members.

In order to get residents ready for these and other opportunities, CDTech offers workforce training programs that prepare community members for careers in a number of growing sectors, such as the health, enterprise development, and community development sectors. One such program stems from a community benefits agreement requiring a major developer to incorporate a local hiring plan as part of an upscale student housing development. CDTech works with community youth and longer-term unemployed adults to prepare them for the jobs that will be created.

CDTech also creates pathways to career opportunities tied to community change work in South Los Angeles, partnering with nonprofits in the area to hire qualified community members who may face traditional barriers to employment, such as prior incarceration.

“People walk in just wanting a job, but they leave thinking about careers that serve and transform the community,” said Torres. “Ten people [who attended CDTech’s training program this spring] are already employed — these were marginalized, disconnected folks.”

Perhaps most emblematic of its comprehensive approach, CDTech partnered with Los Angeles Trade Technical College to develop the innovative Community Planning and Economic Development Program, the only state-approved associate’s degree program of its kind at an accredited community college. The program focuses on training and empowering students to rebuild the economic, physical, and social infrastructure of their own communities through “resident-driven, value-guided resident empowerment.”

Today, CDTech is working with partners in cities like Oakland and Fresno to replicate the successful program across the state.

“We are building community power by allying with government and educational institutions, businesses, nonprofits, and neighborhood councils,” said Torres. “People here have increasing opportunity, hope, and a commitment to the area. They are changing the conversation about South LA.”

>>>Read the rest of the California Equity Quarterly, Spring 2014 issue.