Alumni News and Notes Recent gatherings and other updates from the alumni of UCLA Luskin

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Each issue of the Luskin Forum magazine includes information regarding alumni gatherings and notes about what our graduates have been up to lately. Here are highlights from the most recent issue:

UCLA Urban Planning Legends Remembered

UCLA Luskin Professor of Urban Planning Emeritus Allan Heskin and Margaret Crawford UP PhD ’91 organized a beautiful alumni gathering in Berkeley, California, to honor the lives of three UCLA Urban Planning faculty we recently lost — John Friedmann (1926-2017), Jacqueline Leavitt (1939-2015) and Edward Soja (1940-2015).

UCLA Luskin alumni, friends and family spent an afternoon together sharing stories and celebrating the vibrant lives, careers and ideas of these influential individuals.

“We are fortunate to learn and grow from those we remember and those who gathered,” said Anson Snyder MA UP ’90.

Pioneering Collaboration for Safe and Affordable Water in California

Gregory Pierce

Max Gomberg MPP ’07

The growing problem of household affordability of water has been a concern for many, and for good reason. According to a survey by Circle of Blue, water rates rose in Los Angeles by as much as 71 percent from 2010 to 2017.

In San Francisco, the increase was as much as 127 percent. And the trend in water scarcity, climate change and competing uses over the last several decades indicates the problem is projected to get worse.

Climate and Conservation Manager Max Gomberg MPP ’07 of the California State Water Resources Control Board is working to change this with the help of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, which is headed by Professor J.R. DeShazo. Together, the Water Board and the Luskin Center’s Senior Researcher Gregory Pierce MA UP ’11 PhD ’15, are conducting research to inform policy designs for a statewide Low-Income Rate Assistance program. This program would support California’s leadership in implementing a human right to water.

“If California does enact this program, it would be out in front. No other state has done this,” Gomberg said.

 

A Legacy of Helping People Grow

Maria Aguirre, current director of the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center, poses with Bill Coggins MSW ’55.

Bill Coggins MSW ’55 celebrated the 50-year anniversary of the Kaiser Permanente Watts Counseling and Learning Center, which he founded in 1967. Coggins began his career with Kaiser in the aftermath of the Watts Riots, having just returned from London, where he studied as a Fulbright Fellow. As a clinical social worker, he was tasked with creating a loosely defined community service program that could provide services for children and parents in South Los Angeles.

The enterprise is rooted in the community thanks to Coggins’ relentless efforts to build partnerships and encourage local residents like “Sweet” Alice Harris. It all began in a small room on 103rd Street and Anzac with three employees. Coggins recalls, “We all thought great things were going to happen … we were going to change the world.”

And they do, every day. The center has since grown into a 9,000-square-foot facility in the same location, with a team of 30 therapists, teachers and staff. Their motto, “Helping People Grow,” is poised to guide the organization through another 50 flourishing years.

 

 

Guests at the annual Social Welfare Alumni Gathering included, from left, Council member Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Karrie Harris-Dawson, Deborah Bryant, Aurea Montes-Rodriguez MSW ’99 and Joanne Kim.

Community Organizer Honored as Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year

More than 100 alumni, faculty, friends and colleagues came together on May 20 at the annual Social Welfare Alumni Gathering to recognize the 2017 recipient of the Joseph A. Nunn Alumna of the Year Award, Aurea Montes-Rodriguez MSW ’99.

Montes-Rodriguez came to California from Mexico at the age of 3, was raised in South Los Angeles and witnessed firsthand the 1992 riots.

Now serving as the Executive Vice President of Community Coalition, a social justice nonprofit based in South Los Angeles, Montes-Rodriguez credits her success and inspiration to lessons learned while at UCLA Luskin. Among those lessons were leadership seminars led by Joseph A. Nunn MSW ’70 PhD ’90, former vice chair and longtime director of field education, who focused on social welfare beyond the individual treatment model to build organizations and change the systems that prevent people from reaching their potential.

She also cited the late Social Welfare faculty member Mary Brent Wehrli MSW ’84 who, according to Montes-Rodriguez, “went out of her way to help us understand the theory with the practice in communities by bringing us out into the communities and organizations who were doing great work. She really pushed us to see leadership opportunities and the contributions we could make by providing us with concrete training.… And, since I graduated, that is exactly the work I have been doing … organizing everyday people about having a voice in addressing the most pressing issues so they can be the drivers of change.”

It is no surprise then that Montes-Rodriguez has indeed made enormous contributions to the community and the field-at-large. Her strategic direction of Community Coalition’s education reform campaigns includes a landmark $151 million settlement that was announced in September 2017 to ensure Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) allocates funds to a group of 50 LAUSD schools in South and East Los Angeles.

She is also a co-founder of Partners for Children South LA, a multiagency initiative that seeks to improve children’s development and reduce the risk of involvement with the child welfare system, and she serves as a board member of the Building Movement Project, working to build capacity within the nonprofit sector to promote social justice at the national level.

Most recently, she was selected by The Education Trust-West as a Senior Equity Fellow, which is a fellowship designed to provide a platform for California’s educational equity leaders.

Alumni Accolades

  • Jennifer Bryning Alton MPP ’01 was appointed senior consultant to the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
  • Mohammed Cato MA UP/JD ’06 was appointed as UCLA’s Title IX Coordinator overseeing UCLA’s compliance with Title IX including policies and procedures to prevent and respond to gender discrimination, sexual harassment and sexual violence.
  • Masen Davis MSW ’02 has been selected to serve as the new CEO for Freedom for All Americans (FFAA). With the goal of securing federal statutory protections for LGBT Americans, FFAA works to advance measures and laws protecting people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression.
  • Joey Nuñez Estrada, Jr. MSW ’01 was promoted to associate professor at San Diego State University, Department of Counseling & School Psychology where his scholarship focuses on building socially just school environments by challenging systemic inequities and eradicating school and community barriers to student learning.
  • Sarah Godoy MSW ’15 was named No. 20 in the list of Top 100 Influence Leaders by Assent Compliance, which contributes to the awareness, education, regulation, and fight against human trafficking and slavery.
  • Alexandra Tassiello Norton MA UP ’06 was chosen to serve as the new Deputy Director for Administration and Innovation at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport.
  • Sarah Simons MPP ’07 was selected as a Climate Change Adaption Fellow by the MIT Climate CoLab where she serves as a technical reviewer of proposals to address climate change challenges posed by land use, agriculture and forestry. She represents the Natural Capital Practice of her employer, SSG Advisors.
  • Morgan Sokol MPP ’15 was promoted to vice president of government affairs for MedMen, the leading full-service management company and capital firm serving the cannabis industry.
  • Carole Turley Voulgaris UP PhD ’17 was honored with the Barclay Gibbs Jones Award from the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) for Best Dissertation in Planning, which recognizes superior contributions to scholarship.

 

 

Maciek Kolodziejczak: A Legacy of Giving Former graduate advisor founds Fellowship Fund in Public Policy to benefit future students

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After 20 years of service to Public Policy students, former Graduate Advisor Maciek Kolodziejczak wasn’t ready to walk away without leaving a legacy at UCLA Luskin.

In June, Kolodziejczak retired from his post after mentoring every Public Policy student to ever step foot on the UCLA campus; he had held the position since the creation of the Master of Public Policy in 1996. In his time, he advised and fostered the education of about 700 policy students who have gone on to directly influence the world.

As a final act of service to those he cared about so deeply, he founded the Maciek Kolodziejczak Fellowship Fund in Public Policy. A month-long campaign leading up to his retirement celebration on June 12 raised over $34,500 for fellowships for students who will demonstrate excellence in leadership and service in the department, the Luskin School, UCLA and the community at large. Donors included students, alumni and friends from throughout UCLA Luskin Public Policy’s history.

Because Maciek himself provided a generous lead gift and the Dean of the Luskin School provided a $25,000 matching gift, nearly $55,000 was raised in all. Public Policy students will thus have another source of funding to advance their desire to become Luskin agents of change.

The legacy of Maciek Kolodziejczak will continue well into the future.

Latest Updates Regarding Support for UCLA Luskin The School's education and research efforts are bolstered by support from alumni and other advisors

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Each issue of the Luskin Forum magazine includes information regarding recent gifts to UCLA Luskin and the various development activities that help us maintain and strengthen our education and research. Here are highlights from the most recent issue:

Students Say Thank You to the Luskins

Last spring, recipients of a Luskin Graduate Fellowship from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs met for lunch with Meyer and Renee Luskin. The students wanted to thank the Luskins for their generous support of academic endeavors. Meyer and Renee Luskin are among the school’s most generous supporters and have supported UCLA Luskin students from the school’s beginning. Students from each of the three departments are selected each year for this prestigious award.

 

A Salute from the UCLA Luskin Board

The Board of Advisors for UCLA Luskin met Oct. 3, 2017, to discuss the school’s future with Dean Gary Segura, and to salute and say thank you to the outgoing board chair, Susan Rice. The board, made up of civic leaders, business executives and social entrepreneurs, helps shape the vision and strategic plan for the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. In her final meeting as board chair, Rice was recognized for her five years of service as leader of the board. Taking over as the new board chair is Michael Fleming.

Members of the board include, back row, from left, Chuck Gatchell MPP ’05, Miguel Santana, Keenan Behrle, Michael Mahdesian, Fleming and Len Unger. Middle row, from left, Vicki Reynolds, Laura Shell, Fran Inman, Karen Hill Scott, Annette Shapiro and Jill Black Zalben. Front row, from left, Dean Segura, Rice and Marcia Choo.

Board members not pictured are Michael Dukakis, David Fisher, Gadi Kaufmann, Joanne Kozberg, Randall Lewis, Meyer Luskin, Dan Maldonado, George Pla, Jeff Seymour and Steve Soboroff.

From left, Sherrie Schlom, Dick Lewis, the 2016-17 Kathleen Lewis Family fellow Ummra Hang, and Ricardo Quintero, UCLA Luskin’s director of development.

Lewis Family Fellowship Honors Outstanding MSW Student

The Kathleen Lewis Family Fellowship was established in 2013 to support Master of Social Welfare (MSW) students in memory of Kathleen “Kathy” Lewis MSW ’60. Dick Lewis, Kathy’s husband of 54 years, and their two daughters, Carol Gullstad Lewis and Susan Lewis, created the fellowship to honor Kathy Lewis’s memory and her legacy as a social worker who was dedicated to community and political issues.

As the first in her family to graduate from college, Kathy Lewis overcame significant family challenges, which helped lead her to a career in social work. Her family believes there is no better way to ensure her memory is carried on by future generations of social workers who are passionate about helping others.

The 2016-17 Kathleen Lewis Family fellow was Ummra Hang, who received her MSW degree last June.

Hang chose UCLA Luskin because of her desire to be an impactful change agent. She is dedicated to working with the juvenile justice population and those who have been impacted by the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC).

A survivor of sexual exploitation herself, Hang became more involved with CSEC research and empowering youth through shared knowledge of trauma and healing that is possible through higher education. Her research involved working on the CSEC research team and hosting a conference that highlighted survivors and services to assist the population and their healing.

Hang was a part of the Justice Workgroup, as well as the Formerly Incarcerated Externship, where she researched policies and pathways and advocated for the formerly and currently incarcerated so they too could heal and combat the cradle-to-prison pipeline.

Hang had extensive internship experience while at UCLA Luskin. She was an Education and Workforce Development Intern for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, where she researched and wrote grants for program development. She also researched and wrote a report on the school-to-prison pipeline and compiled research to help the Chamber become more equitable.

She also collected data and created a collaborative model, assisted in organizing youth educational events, and worked with the Smart Justice team to expand program development for formerly incarcerated youth.

Match Program Boosts Endowed Scholarship Gifts to UCLA Luskin

UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs is pleased to announce an exceptional opportunity for friends and alumni of the school to expand the impact of their gifts.

UCLA Chancellor Gene Block has created the Chancellor’s Centennial Scholars Match program. Through June 30, 2018 — or until matching funds are exhausted — the UCLA Chancellor’s Centennial Scholars Match program will add 50 percent to the value of all qualifying gifts for endowed scholarships. With the Chancellor’s Match, a $250,000 gift automatically becomes $375,000 to support high-achieving Luskin students. A $1 million scholarship gift automatically becomes $1.5 million.

“Endowed scholarships are vital for our students and the school,” said Ricardo Quintero, director of development at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “They attract diverse and talented applicants who want to take advantage of the rich education we offer in the fields of social work, urban planning, and policymaking. They also help the School to provide the access and excellence that are our hallmarks as one of the top public affairs schools in the country. In addition, endowed gifts remain intact in perpetuity, giving donors a permanent legacy at the School.”

HOW THE CHANCELLOR’S CENTENNIAL SCHOLARSHIP MATCH WORKS:

Qualifying gifts of $250,000 to $1 million will be matched at 50 percent. Gifts eligible for matching funds must support new or existing endowments that are specifically designated to support scholarships at UCLA Luskin. Cash gifts and pledges will be matched. Corporate matching gifts and planned gifts are not eligible. Pledges are payable over a maximum of five years. The Chancellor’s Centennial Scholarship Match is part of the Centennial Campaign for UCLA — a seven-year, $4.2 billion effort to prepare UCLA for a second century of leadership as one of the greatest public universities in the world — and it will help strengthen UCLA Luskin for decades to come. 

For more information, contact Ricardo Quintero at (310) 206-7949, or by email at rquintero@luskin.ucla.edu

 

Social Welfare Revises Academic Program Updated MSW curriculum includes three new concentrations and a leadership component designed to launch students on lifelong, impactful careers helping people who are the most vulnerable

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By Stan Paul

A newly revised Master of Social Welfare curriculum at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs comes with an expectation: “We expect you to use your career to make a huge difference,” said Fernando Torres-Gil, professor of social welfare and lead instructor of a new leadership component.

Social welfare has a long tradition at UCLA going back to the 1940s and a highly regarded national reputation of training multiple generations of social workers, and the purposeful changes have been made with a fresh focus and expanded goals for the two-year graduate professional program.

“It’s a new program in the sense that we have a new curriculum and new areas of concentration,” said Laura Abrams, professor and chair of social welfare at UCLA Luskin, explaining that the changes are designed to greater utilize the strengths and expertise of faculty and provide specialized and enhanced in-depth training to students.

Each new concentration allows students to delve deeply into an area of focus and, at the same time, to prepare graduates for leadership positions locally, nationally and globally throughout the course of their careers. They are:

  • Health and Mental Health Across the Life Span
  • Social and Economic Justice
  • Child and Family Well-Being

“I think we have to prepare social workers to be the best possible thinkers, leaders, educators, activists they can be.”

— Laura Abrams, professor and chair of social welfare

 
 

Some things will remain the same because the need for social workers is as relevant as ever, if not more, according to Abrams. “We are obviously incorporating some of the same principles,” she said of the program and its “overarching mission” to train the next generation of social work practitioners and leaders in the field, champion the development of knowledge for the social work profession, and strengthen social institutions and services in Los Angeles and beyond. “Everything has to be grounded in, ‘How do we engage clients and communities? How do we help solve some of these social issues like homelessness, kids who have social and emotional issues in schools.’ It’s not that we are focusing on a different set of issues, we are just refreshing our curriculum and making it more up-to-date.”

In addition to the course on leadership that the entire cohort of first-year students will be taking this Winter Quarter, Abrams said all first-year courses have been revised and updated.

“These are all new and they have been rolling out this year,” she said, adding that the divisions between “micro” and “macro” practice — or the distinction between clinical, or direct, practice and community practice — have made way for a more generalist practice approach.

“We realized that most social workers do a little bit of everything,” said Abrams, explaining the reasoning behind the shift to the new concentrations, which come with new faculty searches and hires to augment them. “Within each of those areas students should be expected to get a grounding in policy as well as practice.”

In addition, students will receive more training in research and statistics. So, like their peers in UCLA Luskin’s other graduate programs in public policy and urban planning, they will be working on yearlong capstone projects that mix qualitative and quantitative work, as well as opportunities to take on group projects.

The programs will still be flexible enough to allow students to take electives from the School’s other programs.

“We’ve always kept in mind that we are embedded in a school of public affairs with top-notch public policy and urban planning programs where we have the opportunity to be interdisciplinary, and we need to be,” Torres-Gil said. “It’s all part of the overall Luskin School mission that we’re making a difference, our graduates are special, they’re unique, they’re going places and the Luskin School is UCLA’s tool to train those that are going to be involved in those real-world problems and issues and make a big difference.”

The leadership aspect of the training seeks to guide students in “their ability to impact social change, to be sophisticated policy advocates and to plan for a career where they will exercise leadership at all levels, whether they are starting off as a clinician or as a lower-level eligibility worker in a large bureaucracy,” Torres-Gil said. “Over time we expect them to move up the ranks, whether it’s a CBO (community-based organization), nonprofit, public bureaucracy or practice,” he added.

Torres-Gil said that this approach is important for a number of reasons, including exerting power and being influential in areas traditionally dominated by arenas such as business, journalism, economics, communication and political science.

“Social workers are grounded in understanding, intuitively and right there at the front lines, how issues affect people, and so we want to be more upstream and train social workers to understand what it takes to be an effective social change agent and leader,” even though terms like “influence” and “power” may “go against the grain of the social work profession that wants to focus on social justice and social equity,” he said.

Other reasons include managing and assuming leadership roles in a career that may last decades and involve a number of different jobs or positions. With the idea of longevity in mind, Torres-Gil, who also serves as the director of the Center for Policy Research on Aging at UCLA Luskin, said it is impossible to pack everything into a single program, but “here are the attributes, those competencies, capabilities that I need to build a greater ability to be effective and to make social change.”

Torres-Gil continued, “So we want to make sure the MSW part of the Luskin School has that same mindset; we’re not just any graduate school, we’re UCLA, we’re Luskin and over time people are going to say, ‘If you want to make a difference, if you want to be a power player, if you want to be an elite leader who is seen as a go-to person or whatever the issue is, get a UCLA MSW.’ That’s the aspiration.”

Abrams noted that the curriculum revamp started “long before the last presidential election, but I think there’s a lot more challenges that are going to be happening, especially in vulnerable communities.”

In sum, “I think we have to prepare social workers to be the best possible thinkers, leaders, educators, activists they can be,” Abrams said. “So they have to be armed with the tools of theory, they have to have tools of research, they have to have tools of practice.”

Details about the new Plan of Study are available on the UCLA Luskin website.

Alternative Utility Providers Offer Options for Energy Customers New report by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation assesses the options available to Santa Monica and other cities in Los Angeles County

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By Colleen Callahan MA UP ’10

Los Angeles County is set to launch its own electricity provider in 2018, giving customers another option besides longtime power company Southern California Edison. Called Los Angeles Community Choice Energy, the county’s venture is part of a wave across California of new community choice aggregators.

Community choice aggregators (CCAs) enable cities or counties to make decisions about what kinds of energy resources and local clean energy programs in which to invest, such as local renewable energy. Since 2010, California communities have established nine CCAs, with over a dozen municipalities actively exploring forming a CCA and many others considering joining one. Multiple CCA models have arisen out of this rapid growth. Now cities such as Santa Monica have multiple CCA options.

A new study by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation analyzed three CCA options to inform Santa Monica’s decision whether to form or join a CCA.

“This study commissioned by the City of Santa Monica is garnering wide attention from cities across the region that are faced with a similar set of options, because it is an important decision,” said J.R. DeShazo, director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. The decision could affect electricity rates for local customers, the amount of renewable energy procured and how much money could be available for local energy programs, among other consequences.

The study assessed the strengths and potential challenges of Santa Monica’s three CCA options:

  • Los Angeles Community Choice Energy (LACCE), a large, soon-to-launch CCA with member cities across Los Angeles County. This regional option may dilute influence for Santa Monica, in terms of its direct vote on the governing board. However, it could also provide Santa Monica with the greatest economies of scale, which would well position the city to meet its ambitious renewable energy and other environmental goals while avoiding long-term risks.
  • South Bay Clean Power (SBCP), a CCA designed for a group of cities in the South Bay and Westside subregion. SBCP is more a set of recommendations than an operationally ready option at this time. SBCP’s business plan includes innovative, sophisticated strategies for a next generation CCA, which others outside of SBCP could adopt. With no other currently committed members, Santa Monica would likely have to take the lead in its development and it would likely benefit from fewer economies of scale than LACCE.
  • A single-city CCA through the services of California Choice Energy Authority (CCEA), which pools services for multiple single-city CCAs. The business model for CCEA allows for member cities to have a significant amount of autonomy to pursue and meet renewable energy and other goals. However, it would also involve an initial financial and staff commitment.

Relying in part on UCLA’s research findings, the Santa Monica City Council recently voted unanimously to join LACCE as the first step in a two-step approval process.

The associated Santa Monica staff report states, “The UCLA study helped to inform staff’s recommendations. … LACCE is operationally ready and could provide the City with a variety of economies of scale and a stronger voice for the legislative and regulatory discussions that lay ahead.” By collaborating with other cities through this new regional energy partnership, Santa Monica hopes to be a powerful voice pushing for clean energy strategies that advance the City’s progressive environmental goals, according to the report.

Launch of New UCLA Luskin Initiative Is True to Its Mission Event celebrating the creation of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative brings UCLA community together with policymakers to share research and exchange information

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By Les Dunseith

The newest research center at UCLA Luskin aims to bring together scholars and policymakers to share information so that political leaders can make informed decisions on issues of interest to Latinos, and its Dec. 6, 2017, kickoff event exemplified that goal.

Students, faculty and administrative leaders from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and throughout UCLA were among a crowd of about 175 people that also included elected officials, community activists, business leaders and other stakeholders who gathered in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate the launch of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI).

Attendees had an opportunity to hear keynote speaker Kevin de León, current president pro tem of the California Senate and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, talk about recent legislation on issues related to such diverse topics as labor, good government, the environment and education. He was then joined by a panel of experts in a spirited discussion of the current national political climate and major issues that directly impact Californians, particularly Latinos and other communities of color.

“In the great state of California, we celebrate our diversity,” de León told the crowd. “We don’t ban it, we don’t wall it off, and we sure as hell don’t deport it.”

Keynote speaker Kevin de León talks about recent California legislative advances. Photo by Amy Tierney

In his speech, de León talked about the state’s efforts to deal with climate change, to improve education and to provide a safe haven for all residents. For example, Senate Bill 54, the California Values Act, which de León championed, creates a safe zone at “our schools, our hospitals, our churches, courthouses and other sensitive locations so our undocumented immigrant communities can live their lives and conduct their businesses without fear.”

De León declared, “If this president wants to wage a campaign of fear against innocent families, he can count us out. Because the state of California won’t lift a single finger or spend a single dime to become a cog in the Trump deportation machine.”

One of the goals of LPPI, which received its startup funding from UCLA Luskin and the Division of Social Sciences, is to provide better access to information — real data, not alternative truths — to help leaders nationwide resist attacks on immigrants and also help them to craft new policies on other issues vital to Latinos.

“It is impossible to understand America today without understanding the Latino community and the power that it wields. And this institute is going to do that,” Scott Waugh, UCLA executive vice chancellor and provost, told the crowd.

“It’s going to harness all of the intellectual capacity that UCLA has — it’s going to be truly interdisciplinary,” Waugh explained. The co-founders of LPPI — Professor of Political Science and Chicana/o Studies Matt Barreto, UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura and LPPI Director Sonja Diaz MPP ’10 — “have a vision that reaches not just inside the School of Public Affairs but reaches out across the campus in areas like health, education, science, the arts — wherever Latinos have made a difference and continue to affect change in a profound way.”

Darnell Hunt, dean of the Division of Social Sciences at UCLA, noted in his remarks that the founding of LPPI comes at a particularly opportune time in American politics. “It goes without saying that we live in challenging times — challenging political times — and the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative will help us make sense of this contemporary setting with an eye toward transformative solutions.”

Barreto, who served as master of ceremonies for the night, spoke about the scope of LPPI’s vision. “We’re not only going to work on immigration reform — we know that immigration reform affects our community and we will work on that — but we are dedicated to work on every policy issue.”

He added, “Whether it has to do with climate change or clean energy, transportation, housing, homelessness, criminal justice or education, we are going to work on that. And we have experts at UCLA who will join us.”

Many of the 20 scholars from across the UCLA campus who are part of LPPI’s faculty advisory council attended the launch event, which began with a networking reception at La Plaza de Cultura Y Artes near Olvera Street, the founding site of Los Angeles itself. As musicians from La Chamba Cumbia Chicha performed, attendees had an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with the featured speakers and various former and current elected officials in attendance, such as Gil Cedillo, the former state senator and current Los Angeles city councilman. Also in attendance were former California assemblyman and senator Richard Polanco and Amanda Rentería, the former national political director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and now a staff member in the executive office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

Other panelists listen as UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura makes a point during the panel discussion. Photo by Amy Tierney

The event wrapped up with a panel discussion and Q&A moderated by Lucy Flores, a former assemblywoman in Nevada who now serves as vice president for public affairs for mitú, a multimedia enterprise that targets young Latinos. Panelists said that bolstering the number of Latino elected officials has been a vital step in bringing about positive change.

“In the end, votes are what count,” Segura said, noting that Latino’s political influence has not kept up with its rapid population growth. “In order for governments to enact policies that benefit Latinos, it is going to be required that Latinos be a significant share of elected officials.”

Panelist Laura E. Gómez, professor of law at UCLA and former interim dean of the Division of Social Sciences, expanded on that idea in light of a recent wave of disclosures related to sexual misconduct by men in positions of power.

“I think it’s really important … for us to realize that Latinos are a diverse community. We are not just men; we are also women. We are not just straight people; we are also gay and transgender people. And those are important numbers going forward,” she said.

Flores summed it up, “Demographics is not destiny.”

The fact that California often seems to be an outlier in the current national political climate was a recurring topic of the night, with several speakers praising Californians’ resistance to the policies of the current U.S. president. Can the state also serve as a model of progress?

“Despite all of the discord and disunity, California is standing tall for our values,” de León said during his speech. “From education to the environment, from high wages to health care, to human rights, to civil rights, to women’s rights, to immigrant rights, California is proof positive that progressive values put into action in fact improve the human condition regardless of who you are or where you come from.”

De León said California is a leader in innovation — “home to Hollywood and Silicon Valley and the best public university system in the world, the University of California. And we are on the cusp of surpassing the United Kingdom for the fifth largest economy on planet Earth.”

The state is thriving, he said, by doing exactly the opposite of what Donald J. Trump says. “We succeed because we are dreamers, not dividers. We succeed because we double down on lifting people up, not putting them down. We are not going to allow one election to erase generations of progress.”

Photo by Les Dunseith

“I want to ask for your partnership, because this is what we need to do — we need to train a new leadership pipeline that is diverse but also represents us substantively,” LPPI Founding Director Sonja Diaz told the audience.

Saying that UCLA is “arguably the finest public institution in the nation, if not the entire world,” De León spoke enthusiastically of the promise that LPPI represents for elected officials such as himself. “We need the empirical evidence, and it’s about time we have this institution established at UCLA.”

Later, when speaking about climate change during the panel discussion, he expanded on the idea that knowledge equals power.

“California has the ability — if we have access to this type of information, this data — to export our policies to other states, even to red states that may not believe in climate change per se,” de León said. “We are showing that, whether you believe in climate change or not, you can actually grow an economy by delinking and decoupling carbon from GDP.”

Access to data is important, but it takes real leadership to turn information into action. “You can have all the academics in the world, all the data, but it doesn’t make a difference if it just sits in a book on a shelf,” de León said. “You have to take that data and move it with political power to actually implement it, execute it, to improve the human condition.”

Segura said it is his goal — and the mission of LPPI — to unite scholars and policymakers for mutual benefit, helping academics turn research into actionable policy.

“Facts do matter. Facts may not be a good way to sell people who don’t want to hear them, but lots of well-meaning elected officials want information,” Segura said. “One of the jobs of the institute is going to be to take the data out of those dusty books and put them in the hands of policymakers in a useful time frame so that policymakers can respond.”

The Latino Policy & Politics Initiative is a comprehensive think tank around political, social and economic issues faced by California’s plurality population of Latinos and other people of color. Anyone interested in providing financial support may do so through the UCLA giving page for LPPI.

Additional photos from the event may be viewed in an album on the UCLA Luskin feed on Flickr. Watch the video of our speakers and panelists.

 

 

 

 

 

The Goal: Making Diversity Redundant UCLA Luskin alumni, faculty, students and staff gather for a daylong diversity recruitment fair showcasing programs and commitment to social justice

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“You need diversity because it is excellence and its absence is a sign of intellectual weakness and organizational incapacity. So what we do here today and what we do at Luskin makes the country, Los Angeles and the world a better place.”

— UCLA Luskin Dean Gary Segura

By Stan Paul

Gary Segura, dean of the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, was happy to host the second all-school diversity recruitment fair at UCLA. But, in truth, he would like to see it become redundant.

“I am hoping and believing that we are getting very close to the verge of making it redundant in what Luskin does,” said Segura, who has devoted his academic life to studying issues related to the issues highlighted by the fair.

“By your arrival next fall, Luskin will indisputably be the most diverse school of public affairs in the United States,” Segura said to an audience of students who have applied, or are thinking of applying, to one or more of the School’s three professional graduate programs in public policy, social welfare and urban planning.

In addition to UCLA Luskin’s outstanding faculty, Segura cited the School’s wide array of groups, caucuses and organizations — including the D3 Initiative (Diversity, Disparities and Difference) — and new programs, new hires and ongoing searches for new faculty focused on racial inequality, multicultural planning and immigration policy, among other areas of expertise.

The many UCLA Luskin student groups, along with their classmates, alumni, faculty and staff, came together again this year to organize the Dec. 2, 2017, event.

“At some point, the study of class and racial and sexuality differences as an understanding of public policy, social well-being and urban issues is not a niche, it is the discipline,” Segura said. “It’s 70 percent of the population.”

Joining the dean in welcoming fair attendees were faculty leaders in Public Policy, Social Welfare and Urban Planning, along with a panel of Luskin alumni representing all three graduate programs.

Making her pitch to candidates for the Master of Social Welfare professor and department chair Laura Abrams focused on recent tax legislation passed by the U.S. Senate.

“What does the tax bill have to do with social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs?” she asked. “Everything,” came a soft voice rising from the audience, stealing a bit of Abrams’ thunder.

“That was on my notes,” quipped Abrams, who explained that the bill would directly attack Social Security, Medicare and “all the public benefits that are the foundation of our social welfare system.”

She then asked who would deal with the costs of economic hardships on the front lines.

“Social workers!” she answered emphatically, adding, “We are going to have to be the ones who pick up the pieces of those who are displaced, who are homeless, who are pushed into the criminal justice system, who don’t have enough to eat and who don’t have housing.

“So,” Abrams added, “we need all of you, not just those entering social welfare, but the planners and the policy makers because you are the future that is going to have to fix what is happening today.”

Manisha Shah, associate professor and vice chair of Public Policy, highlighted the expertise of Luskin faculty in areas such as health policy, education, immigration, inequality, science and technology.

“We have a lot of flexibility in the department based on what your interests are and what you want to do, what type of policy arena you want to work in,” said Shah, who cited the department’s mixture of qualitative and quantitative approaches to evidence-based policymaking and analysis.

Vinit Mukhija, professor chair of Urban Planning, said that diversity and excellence are not trade-offs in outlining the holistic approach his department — which will soon celebrate 50 years at UCLA — takes in making admissions decisions. Urban Planning emphasizes not only grades but also a student’s personal statement, recommendations and the importance of relevant work experience.

First-year Social Welfare student Guillermo Gonzalez Lopez welcomes prospective UCLA Luskin students to the Diversity Recruitment Fair. Photo by Stan Paul

Mukhija, who studies informal housing and slums in the global north and south, explained his own interest as a planner in finding ways to improve living conditions in slums, and his goal to “learn about them to change our ideas about cities and about our design ideas, our rules and to have more just cities.”

Also providing information and encouragement were recent graduates of the Luskin School’s programs who participated in a series of discussions with aspiring students.

Panelists were asked what motivated them to apply to Luskin in their chosen disciplines.

“Communities of color are not always exposed to urban planning although we’re often experiencing the negative effects of what actually happens,” said Carolyn Vera MURP ’17, who was born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. Vera, who now works at a transportation consulting firm, said that when she moved back to Los Angeles following her undergraduate years, she didn’t recognize the city she grew up in, citing the effects of gentrification. Vera said urban planning is such a diverse field and, “I knew I wanted to stay in L.A. and work with my community.”

It was homelessness that brought Cornell Williams MSW ’12 to UCLA Luskin Social Welfare.

“I was homeless for a year. I had a college degree and I was sleeping in the park,” said Williams, now a psychiatric social worker for Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and clinical director of the Jeffrey Foundation in Los Angeles. “Like a lot of our clients and people we have the passion to serve, I was stuck in that position and I had no knowledge of resources and access.”

Williams said the experience forced him to ask tough questions about himself and his future. “I came to one of these events and had an interest in all three programs,” but he said that Gerry Laviña, director of field education and associate director of D3, “was a big part of helping me conjure or stir the gifts inside of me to choose social welfare.”

Williams said UCLA Luskin’s Social Welfare gave him the flexibility to work in “every environment you can think of, and I’ve worked in a good number of them myself.”

The day’s events also included breakout sessions led by a number of the School’s sponsoring and organizing student groups: D3, Luskin Leadership Development, Social Welfare Diversity Caucus, Policy Professionals for Diversity & Equity, and Planners of Color for Social Equity.

Attending the event was recent UCLA graduate Vanessa Rodriguez, who said she hopes to enroll in the MSW program next fall. Rodriguez, who grew up in Boyle Heights and has worked with children with autism, said she has always had a passion for helping people. She said her reason for pursuing an MSW degree would be to work with women and victims of domestic abuse.

Among the staff and student volunteers who made the day a success was second-year MSW candidate Marisol Granillo Arce, who said she had attended a number of Luskin diversity related fairs before applying. Granillo Arce, who now also works as a graduate researcher for the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, said it is exciting to meet future agents of change and tell them: “You’ve got what it takes to be a social worker, urban planner, and public policymaker.”

Granillo Arce added: “I think that individuals thinking of applying get the unique opportunity to know the staff, professors and students in the different departments. It is truly inspirational. You end up leaving the fair more confident and inspired.”

UCLA Study Finds Price of Freedom Too High for Poor L.A. Families While bail companies made millions in profit, hundreds of thousands of residents in poor communities remained behind bars awaiting trial, according to researchers

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By Stan Paul

Between 2012 and 2016 more than $19 billion in bail was levied on individuals arrested for felonies and misdemeanors by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), according to a new study conducted by the Million Dollar Hoods Research team based at UCLA. Of this, $17.5 million in cash went to the court and more than $193 million in nonrefundable bail bond deposits were pocketed by bail bond agents.

The report, “The Price for Freedom: Bail in the City of L.A.,” is the work of Kelly Lytle Hernandez, interim director of UCLA’s Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and two UCLA graduate students: Isaac Bryan, a master of public policy student at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, and Terry Allen, an education Ph.D. candidate.

In California, those who are arrested for crimes, in most cases, have the right to freedom prior to trial if they can post bail determined by the court. Money bail is the mechanism for this freedom, which is also intended to ensure that the accused will appear for all court pretrial and trial proceedings.

Of the total of bail assessed — nearly $4 billion for each of the years in the study — approximately 70 percent was unpaid, meaning that nearly a quarter of a million people remained in custody before arraignment and trial. This percentage, which translates to more than $13.5 billion that went unpaid, also represents overwhelmingly those unable to pay — the poor. According to the study, disproportionately bearing the burden of the actual dollars paid for bail bonds were women, “namely black women and Latinas, representing mothers, grandmothers, aunts, friends and wives of the accused,” the researchers said in the report.

“This is an astounding toll that Los Angeles residents — not yet convicted of any crime — are charged for their freedom,” said Hernandez, also an associate professor of history at UCLA and one of the nation’s leading historians on race, policing, immigration and incarceration. “It’s no wonder that so many Californians remain imprisoned before trial simply because they cannot afford bail. This is an extraordinary amount of wealth taken primarily from low-income, communities of color.”

Of almost $200 million paid for bail bonds, Latinos represented $92.1 million, African Americans $40.7 million, and whites $37.9 million, the study’s authors reported. Among communities studied, four out of the top five were located in South Central Los Angeles and the greatest amounts of bail paid were in city council districts with the highest unemployment, with homeless individuals making up nearly $4 billion of the money bail levied in the areas studied.

The information, obtained through public records act requests fulfilled by the LAPD in March of 2017, was broken down by City Council districts “so elected officials can see how much their constituents are paying to a private industry that doesn’t generate outcomes,” Hernandez said.

Bryan, who served as lead author of the report, is a second-year MPP student at UCLA Luskin.

“I think the bail report will revive a conversation on the economic sustainability of such a wide net in pretrial incarceration, the morality of such a punitive system reaction to poverty, and the disparate racial impacts associated with the current money bail system,” he said. “I am hoping it is the final push that is needed to spur policymakers toward a more equitable pretrial system.” Bryan is also serving as a David Bohnett Fellow in Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Office of Reentry, established in 2015.

Hernandez said that other states have found other non-monetary ways to ensure that the accused will return to court. Six states currently use an algorithm to help determine risk to public safety and risk of flight, Bryan said. New Jersey, for example, uses such a risk assessment tool. Prosecutors are still able to disagree with the algorithm, which may require another hearing before a judge.

According to Hernandez, the alternatives have “functioned well, if not better than money bail.”

But, for L.A., most people are not able to pay money bail, according to the researchers. For those who pay bail bond agents, that money — typically about 10 percent of the bail amount levied — is never returned and additional fees apply, the research team reported. “Among them, many individuals as well as their families and communities are simply too poor to pay the price of freedom,” they conclude.

The report may be accessed online.

A New Tool to Help Plan for Expected Growth in Electric Vehicles Luskin Center’s Plug-in Electric Vehicle Readiness Atlas informs investments, policies and plans to meet consumer demand

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More than 82,000 electric vehicles were registered in Southern California between 2011 and 2015. The number of new plug-in electric vehicles registered there during 2015 increased a whopping 992 percent from 2011.

Now, a report produced by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation forecasts continued exponential growth in the electric vehicle market, with more than 700,000 plug-in electric vehicles expected to hit Southern California roads by the end of 2025.

This forecast assumes that over time more residents of apartments and other multi-unit dwellings will be able to charge at home. The report, the Southern California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Readiness Atlas, can help make that happen, according to J.R. DeShazo, director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.

“We wanted to provide a tool that decision-makers can use to accommodate forecasted consumer demand for electric vehicles and charging infrastructure,” DeShazo said. For example, the atlas provides planners with critical spatial information for meeting charging demand in multi-unit residences and other places. It can also help utilities identify where utility upgrades may be needed to accommodate additional electricity loads.

The atlas documents the concentration of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) in a given neighborhood, visualizes how that concentration varies over the course of a day, and projects PEV growth over the next 10 years for each of the 15 sub-regional councils of government within Southern California.

With support from the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) and the California Energy Commission, the 2017 atlas is an update to the first Southern California PEV Readiness Plan and Atlas created by the Luskin Center for Innovation in 2013. Recognizing that the plug-in electric vehicle market has changed considerably in the last five years, the updated atlas helps decision-makers plan for future changes.

“Like the region’s first PEV plan and atlas, the 2017 update can help open people’s eyes to the promises and challenges posed by electric charging stations,” said Marco Anderson, a senior regional planner with SCAG. As a liaison to cities in the region, he has seen how many cities used the first atlas to find local partners for charging station sites.

The new maps include the following spatial information:

  • the locations and sizes of workplaces, multiunit residences and retail establishments that could potentially host PEV charging
  • the locations of existing charging infrastructure, including the number of charging units/cords and level of service
  • and the locations of publicly accessible parking facilities to fill in gaps in PEV charging, particularly in older urban cores.

 

Unlocking Millions of Dollars in State Incentives for Solar Power New research by GRID Alternatives and UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation quantifies the opportunities and potential benefits of solar power on affordable housing units in L.A. County

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By Colleen Callahan MA UP ’10

Karina Guzman is both property manager and resident of a low-income housing complex for working families in Southern California. Even with the job and relatively affordable rent, Guzman worries about paying her electricity bills. But relief is coming from what she found to be a surprising source: solar panels recently installed on 17 of the 27 buildings in her complex.

The solar panel system will offset the cost of powering lights and other needs in common areas as well as help residents lower their electricity bills. “I can’t wait for the solar panel to help me pay a credit card bill, and maybe even save for a vacation,” Guzman said.

Low-income households typically spend higher percentages of their incomes on energy costs and thus stand to benefit most from utility bill savings due to solar power generated on their homes. Yet, while Los Angeles County is a national leader in the adoption of residential solar, the homes of low-income households account for less than 1 percent of residential solar capacity across the county, according to new research by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and the nonprofit organization GRID Alternatives. This may change.

The study found that cities in Los Angeles County could soon unlock millions of dollars annually in state incentives for residential solar on affordable housing.

Starting in 2018, California will offer a solar rebate program targeted at putting solar panels on the roofs of affordable housing developments. With an annual budget of up to $100 million, the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing program “could make a big difference toward reversing the current inequity in the distribution of residential solar systems,” said Michael Kadish, executive director of GRID Alternatives Los Angeles, which makes renewable energy technology and job training accessible to underserved communities.

The program, along with smaller existing state solar rebate programs such as the Low-Income Weatherization Program available for large multifamily residences located in disadvantaged communities across the state, will encourage the installation of solar systems that help affordable housing residents’ reduce their utility bills.

But there is a catch.

Residents of affordable housing and other multifamily dwellings can only take advantage of state solar incentive programs if their utility offers a virtual net metering policy allowing residents to receive credits from the system. Virtual net metering is a common billing mechanism that allows multiple parties to share the financial benefits of a single solar power system.

Southern California Edison offers virtual net metering, but that’s not the case with municipally owned utilities in cities such as Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and others in the county. Without virtual net metering, there is no real mechanism for residents of multifamily dwellings, including affordable housing, to access the financial benefits of solar.

“Now is a good time for the City of Los Angeles ― which we identified as having the largest share of rooftop solar potential (62 megawatts) and rebate-eligible rooftop solar potential in the region ― to consider removing the policy barrier that is currently preventing myriad residents of multifamily dwellings from realizing the benefits of residential solar,” said J.R. DeShazo, director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation and chair of UCLA Public Policy.

Researchers calculated the potential of 115 MW of rooftop solar power throughout Los Angeles County on the more than 1,100 affordable housing properties that would qualify for a solar rebate. Researchers quantified the potential benefits if this physical capacity for solar on affordable housing was realized in Los Angeles County:

  • $11.6 million annually in utility bill savings for affordable housing residents
  • $4.9 million annually in savings for affordable housing property owners
  • $220.6 million in funding from state programs to spur local economic development
  • 1,800 job years (one year of full-time work or the equivalent) created
  • More than 3,800 job training opportunities and nearly 31,000 job training hours that can be strategically targeted to encourage an equitable clean energy workforce

The report includes recommendations for designing a virtual net metering tariff in Los Angeles to help maximize these types of benefits. Findings also highlight the opportunity to target solar workforce development benefits to residents of affordable housing who are more likely to live in communities with higher unemployment rates than the county at large.

The report can be found online.