Liberty Hill

Paying full rent. Getting no repairs. Oops! The building collapsed.

Last week a residential building collapsed. A dozen people were left homeless. One woman was sent to the hospital with injuries.

The owner of the building, Frank McHugh, has had so many complaints filed against his 170 L.A. buildings that a judge recently ordered him out of the residential real estate business.  Liberty Hill’s grantee partner Strategic Actions for a Just Economy anointed McHugh “worst landlord of the year” last fall. Check SAJE's website for the backstory on the landlord, inadequate city inspections and enforcement, and how to fix the problem of L.A.'s substandard housing, plus links to recent news media coverage of the incident.

Advancing L.A.'s Agenda for Change: An Insider Briefing

Next Tuesday, Liberty Hill hosts an invitation-only strategic discussion with major players from the California Obama campaign, national organizing strategist Deepak Bhargava from D.C.'s Center for Community Change, and grassroots community leaders in Los Angeles. What projects can be advanced most quickly? What do we need to do to support L.A.’s Agenda for Change?  We'll be posting video from the session next week. Look for the link here.

Hope. Applied.

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by Gilda Haas, executive director of Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE), an organization funded by Liberty Hill. 

For the past 20 years, me and my cronies have been working our popular education chops to teach economic inequality in America and teach it in a way that is tangible and understandable to all and any who would listen.

As part of Just Economics, a women’s economics collective, I used the “Ten Chairs” exercise to create a living graph—10 chairs representing the country’s wealth, 10 people representing the population. 

Here’s how it works: I’d start out with perfect equality. This is what economists call a “Gini Index” of 0. Everyone gets a chair. Then we’d shock the room by kicking people out of their chairs so we could show the actual distribution of wealth.

Over the past 20 years, inequality grew and grew.

Every time a public program was privatized it grew. When Reagan faced off the air traffic controllers and unionization plummeted, it grew. When billionaire’s tax bills were cut so deeply that very little was left for social programs, inequality grew.

Yet the workshops we did always were full of hope, because the people who cared, who came out on weekends to learn enough about economics to ask questions and pose policies, they were all about hope. They had hope and wanted change. 

But every year even though the economic indicators got worse and our neighbors lives got harder, we learned together, we organized, we built organization, and got strong. 

So here we are today, in the place I love the most, Los Angeles. A city that now has the dubious distinction as the most economically unequal city in the U.S.A. 

As we stand at the absolute pinnacle of supply-side, neoliberal policies—at least I’m hoping it’s the pinnacle—that we’re not moving wealth further upstream than giving the big banks that sent us to the current economic abyss hundreds of billions of dollars and no strings attached—we stand together with tremendous hope. 

I am smiling as I type this, remembering the vision of millions of people, feeling together, united in the hope that we can be better, that we can be fair, that we can and will redistribute those chairs. 

On Wednesday, the day after Obama’s historic inauguration, I did the ten chairs exercise again for the first time in many years. This time it was presented for a diverse group of caring people—health promoters, social workers, organizers—at  Magnolia Place in Pico Union. The chairs were in the same places, the distribution the same. The intelligence of the participants was as challenging and refreshing as usual. And we spoke of hope and change as well.

What was different? This time, when the exercise was finished. We all left the room eager with a new possibility for hope.

Hope that will be applied, in struggle, for change, and for peace.

Scholarship Winners Weigh In On The Inauguration

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Liberty Hill oversees several college scholarship programs. Today, we are pleased to share posts by Paul Warnock, a Goetz College Scholarship recipient, Brenda Rosas and Francisco Medina, two Glazer Scholarship recipients shared their optimism and caution following the Inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday. 

It began like any other Tuesday. I was up and on the road early for my 45-minute commute to class at U.C. Davis. As I listened to the inauguration coverage on NPR, my body was en route to my daily routine, but my mind was nearly 3000 miles away. The time had come! Change had come to Washington, and I listened as a new, brighter future unveiled before me.

The campus coffee house was packed with students, reveling in every second of the celebration before their classes started. I stared longingly at the television screen with my peers, wishing that I could be part of the crowd in DC. I felt denied the full glory of this apparent national holiday. I had work to do. However, upon watching Mr. Obama take the oath of office and give his inaugural address, I knew I was exactly where I needed to be. I was not on holiday, celebrating the change that had happened. I had work to do. I was part of that change. Within hours of being sworn in as our 44th president, Mr. Obama proclaimed January 20th "a National Day of Renewal and Reconciliation, [calling] upon all of our citizens to serve one another and the common purpose of remaking this Nation for our new century."

Today, I am proud to be an American and proud to be doing my part as an engineering student at U.C. Davis. The government cannot solve all our problems; change begins locally. I think of the new, innovative LED smart lights in our campus parking structures, which reduce light pollution at night and cut energy use by 50%. I think of my classes in structural design, investigating green and sustainable alternatives at every opportunity. I think of Liberty Hill, and their dedication to support change through critical social and environmental programs. My fellow Americans, change has come and we are all a part of that change. Let us each work to the best of our abilities to take full advantage of this opportunity to remake our nation and bring light to our future.

Paul Warnock

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I cannot describe what I feel right now. It's a series of emotions that make me wonder whether it is real or not, but everything tells me that yes it is true. A man of color whose people have been suffering so much throughout history in the United States, is our president. Amazing. No matter how unbelievable it may seem, I do know one thing, and it is that I have faith in him. He is one of the most intelligent people I have ever known and who I believe has the character to lead effectively. It makes me happy that I can live in these times when history is being written, and such an honor that we can share the same time in history.

However, he has yet to prove that he is who I believe he is, and do the things I believe he can do. Let's be objective and demand what is demanded from any president of this nation, to look after the welfare of the people in the country and to keep his promises. I really wish that he can push for an immigration reform and to pass the DREAM Act. He would be making my dreams and my people's dreams, and at the same time keeping his word. I believe that he is the man we were all waiting for to make things right once again. The one that will fight for equality, which is the belief this nation was founded on.
 

Brenda Rosas

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The inauguration was a historical moment for American history, not only because Mr. Barack Obama became the first black president in the United States but his presidency symbolizes the sacrifices from everyone’s ancestors and many of us who have made this dream a reality. The inauguration ceremony not only inspires me, but encourages past, current, and future fellows to hope for equal access to higher education, free medical care services, and equal civil rights for all human beings. 
 
I am concerned that it is a difficult task to remake America as the greatest nation in the world. The financial crisis and the two wars in Iran and Afghanistan have impacted many of our people, and our families are losing their houses and jobs. In addition, the lack of federal leadership in reforming a Comprehensive Immigration Reform becomes a more serious matter every day for thousands and thousands of our people who live the shadows in the United States. America is paying the consequences for having an unproductive administration with President Bush.

However, I have faith that everything will change with our current president Barack Obama. I feel optimist about my future as an immigrant college student and the future of this democratic country. I have faith for all my hopes and endeavors for a brighter future. The inauguration is the beginning of a new legacy, where all American people are united for one common purpose, which is to embrace America as a better place to live. I have never felt an experience of democracy, liberty and opportunities for all of us until this day. This is wonderful for America and wonderful for the world because a new hope was born on the inauguration day. God bless America and the rest of the world.

Francisco Medina

A Holy Day

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by Torie Osborn, Liberty Hill’s former executive director and 40 year veteran of activism reflects on the day’s patriotism and Rick Warren’s remarks.

I was up at 5, anxious as for a momentous occasion, watching TV as the throngs gathered, collecting emails and texts from my friends in DC – “All I see is people,” says Alida.  Phill:  “I’m on the mall, energy electric all around.”  My friend Nancy and her young daughters Camille and Helena come over, and we all watch  (right now a young woman is hula-hooping waving an American flag…).  I took pictures of them to send to the White House (they asked us to!), and Nancy shot me standing next to the TV jumping in the air with joy.

My friend Mike called today a “holy day”.  That’s what it feels like.  Since yesterday, my heart has been bursting with, well, I guess it’s hope…but it feels like pride in America – a kind of raw and glorious patriotism I have never experienced in my life, except maybe briefly after 9/11.  I have always disliked progressives’ rejection of patriotism; in my most radical days I wore a button that had both an American flag and the NLF flag when I marched against the Vietnam war.  I remember hearing people boo Michael Harrington at his last speaking gig in LA before he died in the late ‘80s, when he forcefully begged progressives to reclaim the flag, to root our struggle in America’s story.  I completely agreed with him. 

I have always wanted to believe in this country and when I felt it, it has been wonderful, liberatory.  Today, I’m at one with America’s higher ideals.  This crazy schizophrenia that defines us – the imperialism, genocide, slavery, racism that have been such a part of this country – versus the aspirations toward equality, democracy, the ongoing jagged journey toward justice.  America has struggled with this dualism its whole life; today, facing environmental planetary extinction and global economic disaster, a new age is ushered in.  I sense the amazing possibility that today we can taste, feel, sense that this country may yet fulfill her promise.  America can yet work with other nations to face our shared challenges, and can become the world’s first large, great pluralistic democracy: a land of many colors and cultures living together, and working together to reach for more equality.  And part of the world’s hope.

The Moment And The Movement

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by The Community Coalition.

This morning, more than 500 South L.A. youth, residents and seniors filled the auditorium of Foshay Learning Center to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first African American President.

You could feel the energy and pride in the air as people filed into the auditorium. High school and middle school students, seniors decked out in their Obama gear, and parents and their children eagerly waiting for Obama to appear on the big screen.It’s the kind of excitement and optimism that has been in the air for months. It’s the feeling that that we have been noticing at all our Community Coalition organizing meetings. Despite decades of social and economic policies that have devastated this community and despite the current economic crisis that it is hitting South LA families particularly hard, it is the feeling of hope.

As one South LA resident, Mary Carroway waving an Obama flag put it this morning. “It’s a great day today. I feel so good. I feel like I could fly.” And it’s the feeling of pride. Pride in Obama. Pride in ourselves because this moment would not have been possible without the millions of youth, African Americans, Latinos, Asians, immigrants, workers and women who got involved in the process. As 17-year-old Foshay student, Jeffreda Clark stated to the auditorium, “As a young Black woman, I know now there is nothing that I can’t do.”  Or as young Richard Avilias shouted to the crowd, “We are Black, brown, young, old, gay and straight, united. We are the change we want to see.”

What also became clear as several hundred high school and junior high school students watched Obama’s inauguration speech in near silent awe and reverence was that, more than anything, today was about the future. As Obama had said so many times throughout the campaign and since he won the election, that this has never been about him, but about us. In his inauguration speech, reminded us it is up to us to define the future. How will we face the incredible challenges facing this nation and the world? How will we turn the excitement and hunger for change into real change that makes our neighborhoods healthier and safer and our schools better? How will we take this incredible, historic moment and build it into a movement that inspires young and old alike to be the change that we want.

Yes, questions, not answers, yet. But here in South LA, we’re fired up and ready to go!

We'll See Change

I wish I had been there in Washington, D.C. to witness the Inauguration of our 44th President. I would have been just a pebble in the sea of people that filled every corner of the Capitol…but I would have braved the cold weather and the throngs just to be there.

I had the chance to do the next best thing…to share the moment with co-workers at Liberty Hill. We had coffee and breakfast treats and took a seat to watch it all on television. And I was glad I was with friends…and my son, Roberto…to bear witness to President Barack Obama’s inauguration.

After he’d been nearly two years on the campaign trail, I admit I didn’t expect a “speech to end all speeches.”  It seems all that could be said was blasted month after month throughout the country as Barack spoke to thousands along the campaign trail. He said some truly wonderful things, and I was always amazed by his calm spirit, his vision, and his leadership which, even then, seemed quite presidential. He made a fine speech today, and I wasn’t particularly in awe – but I WAS moved by the historic moment. Most importantly, I felt reassured. I felt confident, and could sense the world watching with wise approval, with deep appreciation, and with anticipation for what lies ahead. And I was glad that our decision, our decisive vote, was a good one. I do believe we’ll see change, and in the long haul – it will be positive change that will touch us all personally.

Getting to Yes

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by Gary Stewart, a longtime supporter of Liberty Hill, empassioned champion of just causes, and Guest Inaugural Blogger.

We're winning.
 
It' s a realization that's been dawning me since November 4th.  This applies not only to the presidential race but a broad range of issues that seem to be turning our way. Seen in this context even the passage of Proposition 8 looks like a tide barely not turned (though not without the work of a new movement that's blossomed in its wake). The fact that the words 'community organizer' are now a part of the national vocabulary can also be seen as another sign.

Of course with winning comes the challenge of governing, of disappointing key constituencies in the short run for the risk (and always there is a risk) for long term and lasting change. These early calculated risks have included controversial cabinet appointments and inauguration day speakers-with some promising early results (Rick Warren removing homophobic language from his church's website).

 

I just read an op-ed piece observing that much of our outgoing president's initial policies won't stick-largely because they were enacted with nearly no attention to consensus. As a result they will be reversed with a change in both administration and majority party predominance. This observation is a source of comfort for me, having disagreed so strongly with those policies.  Even more exciting is the hope that the new ideas replacing them (which will include some major immediate and short term reversals) have the potential to live and breathe beyond a few terms. It helps me buy in to a progressive vision earned by consensus- and yes, even compromise.

I'm reminded of an oft-used phrase by Liberty Hill’s former executive director Torie Osborn who said that the New Left has to learn how to take 'yes' for an answer. It's a hard-earned observation made from a life experience that includes both participation in major radical and public protest and working inside the system part of our current L.A. City administration. That combination that will be less of rarity in the days to come. We're both looking forward to the many 'yes'-based opportunities--and challenges--coming soon.

On The Scene At The Kingdom Day Parade

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by Jonathan Parfrey, director of Liberty Hill’s Green L.A. Project reports from the Kingdom Day Parade. 
 
Waiting for the Kingdom Day parade to begin, I'm standing on Martin Luther King Boulevard just east of Western Avenue. I'm part of a contingent of activists from SCOPE/AGENDA, Community Coalition and Speaker Karen Bass' local commissions. I volunteer on her environmental commission. 

King and Western is an interesting corner. Or perhaps, it isn't. But when you stand in one place long enough, you see things the eye usually filters out. The earthquake-bolted brick building that houses Zefferina's 99 Cent store and Lafa's African Market and Jimenez Discount Furniture also hosts second-story walk-up apartments. Satellite dishes proliferate where flower boxes once resided.
 
Across the street, still standing, is an old rusted yellow civil defense tower. Its siren was once a harbinger of armageddon. Now it's junk. New poles, supporting traffic cameras, also stand at the intersection.
 
While we wait, we talk. Two-hundred Army Reservists step-up to be the first in the parade. We see marching bands march by. We watch ROTC kids practice formations. 
 
In 1983, on the same day, on the same street, it wasn't a parade. It was a march. In 1983, the LAPD watched with suspicion when 5,000 of us marched on Santa Barbara Boulevard demanding a holiday for Dr. King and to rename a street in his honor. Twenty-five years later I can still hear one of the chants in my head, "Martin Luther King. Malcolm X. Be like them." So simple. So strong. And so happens -- that very year, that very boulevard, was renamed. 
 
At the 2008 parade, the chants were not as loud. One co-walker complained to me about this year's chat "The people united will never be divided." He said, "the word's 'defeated.'" 

A Message Dance For Inauguration Day

This week we will feature a series of guest bloggers sharing their reflections and thoughts on President Obama's inauguration.  Today, we are pleased to share a post by Marshall Wong, a longtime Liberty Hill supporter and activist.

This evening, as is my habit a couple times a week, I went to a jazz class at a dance studio in Hollywood.  All the students were assembled and stretching when the teacher arrived, proudly sporting his Obama T-shirt. He took us through our regular warm-up, across-the-floor work, and then taught us a combination choreographed to the version of "I Say a Little Prayer for You," by Diana King, made popular by the movie, "My Best Friend's Wedding."  Diana King is Jamaican, as is my teacher (by way of Panama, New York and Texas).  But I sensed that the choice tonight was more deliberate.

After the class, I asked the teacher, "Teaching that combination tonight, were you saying a prayer for our new president?” He replied, "I've been doing that ever since he announced his candidacy."  I replied, "So this was a "message" dance?"  He smiled. 

Through the window we watched an advanced jazz class in the room across the hallway.  They were dancing a glorious combination to the anthem, "A Change is Gonna Come."  I thought to myself, "Wow.  People across the nation, probably throughout the world, are greeting this moment in a myriad of larger and smaller ways.  Including the dancers."  How cool is that?  I will remember this day.