Mapping a Just Way Forward for L.A. As Los Angeles grapples with the impact of catastrophic fires, experts in public affairs provide context and insight

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Experts from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs are providing context and insight to news outlets covering Los Angeles’ catastrophic wildfires and the road to recovery. Here is a selection of their comments:

  • Liz Koslov, assistant professor of urban planning, on the need for humane and reasonable policies for recovery after the fires: “Rather than dream we can retreat our way out of the crisis, we must relearn, and learn anew, how to live with fire.” — New York Times     |     More from Koslov:  Bloomberg, Irish Times, The City
  • Megan Mullin, professor of public policy and faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, on the importance of setting community-driven priorities for post-fire recovery: “Without forethought and without coordination, we’re going to risk a rebuild that amplifies the region’s inequality.” — Marketplace     |     More from Mullin:  Vox
  • Paul Ong, director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, on the challenges of recovery in diverse neighborhoods: “Altadena is a litmus test about how committed we are to racial justice.” —  CBS Evening News      |     More from Pierce:  Los Angeles Times
  • Veronica Terriquez, professor of urban planning and director of the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, on the loss of Chicano historian Juan Gómez-Quiñones’s archives in the Palisades fire: “The loss of his papers, the loss of other people’s archives. … We’re losing something really precious.” — Los Angeles Times
  • Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, interim dean of the Luskin School and distinguished professor of urban planning, on the inequalities arising from Southern California car culture, including wildfire risks heightened by climate change: Smog-producing cars became so central to life in the region because of “transportation policy that has quite favored the automobile and given a tremendous amount of investment to build the freeways.” — The Atlantic
  • Michael Manville, chair of UCLA Luskin Urban Planning, on the fires’ stressors on the Southern California housing market: “The upshot is that a lot of people who had been housed — who do have, for the most part, strong incomes — have just been thrust into the housing market, and they’re going to push up prices and rents, and also compete for contractors in an already tight labor market to get things rebuilt.”  — Commercial Observer    |    More from Manville:  Reason, New York Times
  • Chhandara Pech, deputy director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge, on research showing that language barriers prevented some Asian American residents from easily accessing emergency information during the fires: “Government agencies should not only focus on reaching the largest population that’s affected by the wildfires, but it should also prioritize supporting the most vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities.” — Los Angeles Times
  • Paavo Monkkonen, professor of urban planning and public policy, on streamlining the bureaucracy of home-building, a reform long-sought by affordable housing advocates and now coming to pass only in fire-affected areas: “Now suddenly we’re going to get it — but just for this.”  — New York Times     |    More from Monkkonen:   Libération
  • Michael Lens, professor of urban planning and public policy, on L.A.’s elevated housing prices: “Folks who haven’t had to really think about where they’re going to live next — who may have been living in, fortunately, stable housing situations for the last couple decades — are going to see a lot of sticker shock.” — LAist    |     More from Lens:  Los Angeles Times, Fortune
  • José Loya, assistant professor of urban planning, on the likelihood that more affordable housing options can be found farther from the fire zones: “L.A. is still a very, very large place.” — Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
  • Stephen Commins, associate director of Global Public Affairs at UCLA Luskin, on the challenge of cleaning up homes and neighborhoods: “Every home has potential hazards — from older homes with asbestos to any home that contained paint cans, lithium batteries and other standard but toxic when incinerated household items.” — UCLA Newsroom
  • Zev Yaroslavsky, veteran public servant and director of the Los Angeles Initiative at UCLA Luskin, on the city’s preparations for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics: “What we cannot allow to happen is for the Olympics to take away the government’s attention from the most important thing, which is to rebuild after the fire.” — New York Times      |     More from Yaroslavsky:  L.A. Times Today, New York Times
  • Adam Millard-Ball, director of the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, on disconnected streets and disaster preparedness: “We’re seeing that the least-connected streets are in places that have historically been affected by fire. We know that the places that have burned in the past are also likely to burn in the future, and that’s true even in urbanized areas as well.” — Bloomberg     |     More from Millard-Ball:  Streetsblog, Next City
  • Minjee Kim, assistant professor of urban planning, on political rhetoric surrounding government requirements for rebuilding damaged or destroyed homes: “For any rebuilding that needs to happen, there shouldn’t be any additional ‘development permit’ that needs to be secured.” — Politico

 

UCLA ITS Funds Research on Vulnerable Communities, L.A. Fire Response Five projects will explore transportation challenges and community engagement in disaster recovery

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California has long battled wildfires, but the scale and impact of recent fires have pushed emergency response systems to their limits. The fires that broke out in Los Angeles County in January presented new challenges as flames reached deeper into urban areas.

As recovery efforts begin, the fires have highlighted critical gaps in our region’s emergency response and transportation systems, especially for vulnerable communities. To assess and understand these challenges, the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies is funding five rapid-response research projects, with results expected within one to three months:

  • Understanding mobility challenges for vulnerable communities with limited vehicle access — Tierra Bills, UCLA assistant professor of public policy and civil and environmental engineering
  • Improving evacuation plans for transit riders — Madeline Brozen, deputy director of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
  • Bridging gaps in evacuation and resilience strategies for older adults with disabilities — Yeonsu Song, UCLA assistant professor of nursing and medicine
  • Exploring community-driven approaches to infrastructure rebuilding — Megan Mullin, faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation
  • Strengthening street network resilience after disasters — John Gahbauer, UCLA ITS research consultant

The studies aim to support policymakers, transit agencies, emergency planners and local communities in shaping a more equitable and resilient approach to disaster response in the Los Angeles region.

UCLA ITS Director Adam Millard-Ball noted that the wildfire threat in Los Angeles is not going away. “We’re supporting research that can help us to be prepared for a future emergency, and to plan for rebuilding in an equitable, resilient manner,” Millard-Ball said.

Read full descriptions of the projects on the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies site

View more fire-related research from the Luskin School

 

A Celebratory Welcome to UCLA Luskin The entire School community gathers to make connections and launch the new academic year

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This year’s UCLA Luskin Welcome Week opened with the exciting announcement that UCLA has, for the eighth consecutive year, been named the No. 1 public university in the United States.

The news set a celebratory tone for a series of Luskin School events welcoming students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends back to campus to kick off the 2024-2025 academic year.

An orientation for graduate students brought public policy, social welfare and urban planning students together to learn about resources provided by the university and the Luskin School.

The undergraduate program hosted a luncheon for majors, pre-majors and students interested in learning more about the bachelor of arts in public affairs.

And the Block Party tradition continued for the 13th year, with the entire UCLA Luskin community gathering to make connections, learn about opportunities and organizations, enjoy the flavors of Los Angeles and greet the School’s benefactors, Meyer and Renee Luskin.

View photos from:

Graduate Student Orientation

UCLA Luskin Orientation 2024

Undergraduate Open House 

UCLA Luskin Undergraduate Open House 2024

13th Annual UCLA Luskin Block Party

UCLA Luskin Block Party 2024

View More Block Party Images from Stay Golden Photobooth

 

Luskin School Adds 2 Tenure-Track Faculty Social Welfare scholar focuses on health equity and race, while Urban Planning addition has experience in real estate development and land use policy

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By Stan Paul

Two new additions have joined UCLA Luskin’s faculty this summer, bringing research experience and teaching expertise to its graduate and undergraduate programs.

Sicong “Summer” Sun, most recently at the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas, is UCLA Luskin Social Welfare’s newest assistant professor. Minjee Kim, previously in Florida State University’s department of urban and regional planning, is a new assistant professor in urban planning.

Laura Abrams, professor and outgoing chair of Social Welfare, announced Sun’s appointment. “Summer is conducting critical work on the intersections of poverty, race and health and will add greatly to our mission of advancing knowledge, practice and policy for a just society,” she said.

Sun studied at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, earning a doctorate and a master’s degree in social welfare, with a concentration in social and economic development and a specialization in research.

Their areas of interest include health equity and social determinants of health, race, ethnicity and immigration, as well as poverty, inequality and social mobility. One example of Sun’s work — the subject of their dissertation — is racial and ethnic differences in the relationship between wealth and health.

“My recent projects have been investigating how the relationship between wealth and health differ by race and ethnicity, how structural conditions shape people’s differential access to resources, thereby impacting their health and well-being,” Sun explained.

In addition to doing research, Sun will be teaching a graduate course this fall on the foundations of social welfare policy, followed in winter with a course on human behavior in the social environment focused on theoretical perspectives in social work and social welfare.

“I’m excited to expand my research, collaborate with colleagues across disciplines, and work with and learn from local community partners. I’m also looking forward to teaching and mentoring students,” Sun said. “I heard UCLA students are very passionate and smart, with many ideas to change the world. I’m eager to engage with them in the classroom, and support their research, practice and careers.”

Kim previously worked as an architect in Korea on projects from offices and buildings to parks, pavilions and master plans for new towns, turning to a career in academia upon developing an interest in public policy and planning. She earned master’s and doctoral degrees in urban planning at MIT.

“I really wanted to have a greater influence than standalone buildings or projects, which is what really got me interested in public policy as well as planning,” she said.

While pursuing her graduate degrees, she worked for the city of Cambridge as a research associate for the Community Development Department, and then at the development review unit at Boston’s Planning and Development Agency.

Kim began to realize how planning and real estate can have a synergistic relationship when working in these city departments. “I observed first-hand that when planners have an understanding of the real estate development process and the economics of it, they can use the tools under their belts to collaborate and negotiate with developers to identify solutions that can push real estate development towards more equitable outcomes,” Kim said.

Michael Manville, professor and chair of Urban Planning, said Kim’s diverse skill set will add value to the Design and Development concentration within Luskin Urban Planning, as well as to the new Master of Real Estate Development (MRED) program.

Kim’s vision for real estate development brings about positive change to historically marginalized communities. This is an approach that stands in sharp contrast to the historical practice of real estate development, which had been a tool for race and class exclusion, displacement and residential segregation. A new breed of equitable and socially responsible projects, Kim said, “can reduce the existing socioeconomic inequalities that have been created and perpetuated by past real estate development practices.”

Fittingly, Kim will be teaching graduate courses on public/private development and site planning, which will be about how planners, urban designers and developers can work together to identify creative solutions for building equitable, socially responsive and redemptive development projects. She will also teach a graduate course on zoning for equity, which she has taught previously as part of a multi-campus course in conjunction with Paavo Monkkonen, a UCLA Luskin professor of urban planning and public policy. In addition to these graduate courses, Kim will instruct students in the undergraduate major in public affairs.

“Minjee has already established herself as a productive scholar working at the intersection of land use regulation, real estate development and housing, so we’re thrilled to bring her on board,” Manville said.

‘Tell Your Story in Your Own Words, So That No One Tells It For You’ A commencement message of empathy and resilience for UCLA Luskin’s Class of 2024

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“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, let’s go together.”

Paco Retana, a leading voice in community mental health, invoked this African proverb as he called on UCLA Luskin’s Class of 2024 to embrace a spirit of compassion and collaboration as they set out to put their educations to work.

“In a world increasingly divided by conflict, inequality and environmental crisis, love and respect are more essential than ever before,” Retana told the gathered graduates at two commencement ceremonies on June 14.

“Together, you have the potential to create a tapestry of positive change that is richer and more vibrant than anything you could achieve alone.”

Retana spoke to public policy, social welfare and urban planning scholars earning master’s and doctoral degrees at a morning ceremony at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Later in the day, he addressed students awarded the bachelor of public affairs at the Grand Ballroom in Ackerman Union.

“The superpower you all have — resilience, corazon, heart — has been the key to navigating life’s inevitable challenges and setbacks,” said Retana, who shared his own background to underscore the point.

Born in Pico Rivera to working-class parents who emigrated from Mexico and Costa Rica, Retana was labeled an underperformer in school. But he went on to become the first in his family to attend college, earning two UCLA degrees: a bachelor’s in psychology in 1987 and a master’s in social welfare in 1990.

For more than three decades, Retana has served Los Angeles’ vulnerable youth and marginalized communities and is now chief program officer at the nonprofit Wellnest. He mentors graduate students as part of UCLA Luskin’s Senior Fellows career leadership program, and he will soon become president of the UCLA Alumni Association.

Retana credited his family for their unshakable support and thanked all the loved ones who were present to cheer on the graduates. “Families are the quiet towers of strength that support us in ways we often take for granted,” he said.

Like many of the day’s speakers, Retana acknowledged that the Class of 2024 pursued their degrees during an often painful era.

For the undergraduates, this included beginning their college careers in 2020 as COVID-19 took lives, strained finances and kept people apart. Political polarization, a reckoning with racism and labor strife followed, and the schisms grew deeper this academic year with the devastating loss of life in the Middle East and protests that have divided campuses across the country, including UCLA.

“Today, we gather to celebrate the achievements and the bright futures of our graduating class. Yet we cannot ignore the recent conflicts and violence that have affected our universities, including our beloved UCLA,” Retana said.

“These events remind us of the critical importance of fostering environments where respect, empathy and dialogue are important.”

Students chosen by their peers to deliver commencement remarks also spoke of this difficult moment, calling for moral courage and solidarity. At the graduate ceremony, members of the audience were invited to leave the ceremony to join a pro-Palestinian rally outside.

Retana urged the entire Class of 2024 to “tell your story in your own words, so that no one tells it for you.”

“Your resilience and your heart not only help you to survive hardships, but also to thrive and reach your full potential, turning life’s trials into stepping stones for success.”

View photos of the graduate commencement

2024 UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs Graduate Commencement

Watch the graduate commencement ceremony

View photos of the undergraduate commencement

UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs 2024 Undergraduate Commencement

Watch the undergraduate commencement ceremony

 

Blazing Trails for Asian American Health and Well-Being Social Welfare alumni Bill Watanabe and Yasuko Sakamoto are honored for legacy of leadership

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By Mary Braswell

Alumni, faculty, staff and friends of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare gathered in Little Tokyo this month to celebrate two trailblazers whose life’s work centered on making the Asian American and Pacific Islander community thrive, in Los Angeles and beyond.

Bill Watanabe MSW ’72 and Yasuko Sakamoto MSW ’83 were recognized as the Joseph A. Nunn Social Welfare Alumni of the Year for their decades of leadership in strengthening ethnic neighborhoods and training generations of social workers who would carry on a legacy of service.

Watanabe and Sakamoto were two of the three original staff members of the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC) when it opened in 1980, and they served together for more than three decades.

The nonprofit now employs more than 150 people, providing culturally sensitive social services, affordable housing, support for small businesses, and programs for children, families and seniors. The June 8 alumni celebration took place in the recently opened Terasaki Budokan, a community sports and activity center 30 years in the making.

Over the years, the service center has also served as a learning site for more than 120 social welfare interns, 60 from UCLA — including three current  faculty, Susan Lares-Nakaoka MSW ’99 UP PhD ’14, director of field education; Toby Hur MSW ’93 and Erin Nakamura MSW ’12.

A group of former interns nominated Watanabe and Sakamoto for this year’s award, and many delivered moving tributes to their mentors.

“Bill was well-known for his visionary leadership, unwavering ethics and persistence in pursuing social justice goals … and also, the way he just always does the right thing,” Lares-Nakaoka said of Watanabe, who served as the center’s founding executive director for 32 years before retiring in 2012.

three young people in historic B&W photo

LTSC’s three original staffers: Yasuko Sakamoto, left, Bill Watanabe and Evelyn Yoshimura. Photo courtesy of the Little Tokyo Service Center

Born in the Manzanar incarceration camp during World War II, Watanabe went on to complete his education and rise to several leadership positions at organizations that serve marginalized populations and fund community development. His efforts to save and restore historic places significant to the AAPI community earned him a “hero award” from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And as a past UCLA Luskin Senior Fellow, he has mentored graduate students in leadership and career development.

“You can see his massive reach, both locally and nationally,” Lares-Nakaoka said.

Alumna Hiroko Murakami MSW ’09 spoke of Sakamoto’s lasting impact as LTSC’s director of social services until her retirement in 2016. Programs to provide counseling, reach out to isolated members of the community, support families dealing with Alzheimer’s and provide transitional housing to survivors of domestic abuse are among those designed and launched by Sakamoto.

Murakami said Sakamoto was a creative leader, even initiating a series of tofu cookbooks “to introduce healthy eating to a wide audience, with the funds raised going to emergency services and domestic violence counseling.”

Sakamoto advocated on behalf of new immigrants and reparations for detained Japanese Americans, and has been a frequent speaker in both the United States and Japan, where she was born. She has received a commendation from the Consulate General of Japan in Los Angeles.

Despite numerous accolades over the decades, the two honorees never prioritized building up egos or empires, instead keeping their focus on community needs, the afternoon’s speakers noted. That outlook was evident in their comments to the gathering.

“This recognition is due to a collective effort, not just Bill and me,” Sakamoto said. She expressed gratitude to Evelyn Yoshimura, the third original LTSC staffer, and other employees, volunteers, partner agencies and places of learning like UCLA that sent budding social workers into the heart of Little Tokyo.

“Personally, I have always felt the student interns who I worked with were my great teacher. … They guided me to become a better social worker and effective supervisor,” she said.

Watanabe personally thanked Nunn, a UCLA Luskin professor emeritus who is the namesake of the annual alumni award and was present at the celebration.

“The name of Joe Nunn is a very highly honored name in the school of social welfare at UCLA,” he said. “And so to receive this recognition in his name is a very, very big deal for Yasuko and myself.”

He said UCLA was “perhaps the most courageous school of social work in the country” for opening its doors to him in the 1970s.

“I wrote a heartfelt autobiographical statement basically saying, if I get accepted, I commit myself and dedicate myself to work in this community to try to make a change,” Watanabe said.

“So I want to thank UCLA for taking a chance and allowing people like myself and Yasuko — who was much more qualified than I — to be able to be trained and educated so that we can serve the community.”

View photos from the celebration

Social Welfare Alumni Awards 2024

New Study Provides First Nationwide Window on Juvenile Lifer Population The most comprehensive tracking effort to date looks at resentencing, release and other key outcome data, including mortality and exonerations

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By Stan Paul

A newly published study in the Journal of Criminal Justice provides a picture of a unique subset of incarcerated people across the United States — juvenile lifers — or the more than 2,900 minors given juvenile life without parole sentences since the first was meted out in the late 1940s.

The open-access study originated from a grant awarded to Laura Abrams, professor of social welfare, to lead an extensive national study of young people who are ultimately given a chance at freedom after having been sentenced to life in prison.

The study is the first to supply concrete numbers and a full demographic profile of the Juvenile Life Without Parole, or JLWOP, population. It includes information on resentencing and release statuses, plus other key outcomes such as mortality and exonerations.

“The present study offers the most comprehensive national tracking effort of the JLWOP population to date,” the researchers wrote.

The study provides time-series views into core outcomes and considers variation in state-level policy contexts and resentencing mechanisms.

“We are looking at this group as a case study to look at positive outcomes of resentencing that may eventually be applied to other lifers,” Abrams said. “We have a unique group based on their age of conviction, but our research is relevant to second chances and resentencing laws and policies writ large.”

Abrams noted that more than half of all current U.S. prisoners are serving sentences of 10 years or more. Consequently, the study has the potential to inform policies related to prisoners serving long sentences and the thousands — one in seven people in prison — currently serving life terms. Ongoing national efforts to end mass incarceration have largely focused on the decarceration of people imprisoned for nonviolent felony offenses.

This publication is part of a three-year study funded by the Houston-based philanthropy Arnold Ventures. It is an ongoing effort to build a base of knowledge that supports safe and equitable sentencing and second-look policies for people sentenced to life for offenses committed before they were 18 years old, Abrams said.

Many juvenile offenders already have spent years or decades behind bars, and others have passed away, Abrams noted.

The research team includes experts from UCLA, the University of Cincinnati, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Michigan, Northwestern University and Temple University, representing disciplines such as social work, human development and behavior, public health and criminology. Abrams and an interdisciplinary team of scholars from across the country are also studying juvenile lifers who were convicted of homicide after being tried in adult criminal courts.

The researchers point out that the United States is the only developed nation in the world that sentences minors to life without parole, a policy that conflicts with provisions of international law. For example, Article 37 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits life sentences for juveniles, which is considered a major human rights issue.

In the United States, harsh sentences for youth convicted of violent offenses increased dramatically with tough on crime policies in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, two U.S. Supreme Court rulings, known as the Miller and Montgomery cases, found mandatory life sentences for minors unconstitutional, which has led to the resentencing and subsequent release of many.

To identify this subset, the team cross-referenced data to identify the JLWOP population starting at the time of the first Supreme Court case, Miller v. Alabama, in 2012 to build a demographic profile and track resentencing, release and mortality statuses. Statistics and data visualization were used to establish baselines at the national and state levels.

Since the rulings, more than 2,500 individuals have been resentenced and more than 1,000 have been released, the research team found. They also noted significant variations by state in the number of JLWOP sentences, the extent to which JLWOP is still allowed, the mechanisms for sentence review, and the percentages of juvenile lifers released.

Because the findings demonstrate variability in how states have responded to the federal mandates set by Miller and Montgomery, challenges and opportunities for policy reform exist, according to the researchers.

Although California is among the top five states nationwide by cumulative population of juvenile lifers, the state “has effectively resentenced everyone,” the researchers reported. States such as Alabama and North Carolina have taken a slower approach with resentencing, contributing to low rates of release.

“Every state has different laws, with California being somewhat ahead of the curve on sentencing reforms for JLWOP. This is why we look nationally but also state-by-state,” Abrams said.

“There has been a dizzying amount of variety in how states have responded to the Supreme Court cases, and how those responses have shifted over time,” said co-researcher Rebecca Turner, an attorney and associate legal director of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. “Since every state has its own criminal code, parole procedures and sentencing procedures, the process for resentencing and resentencing outcomes have varied widely across the country.”

For example, some states retain life without parole as an option for people under 18 but now require a discretionary sentencing process that considers several factors that relate to youth, Turner explained. In such states, individualized resentencings for individuals already serving such a sentence are therefore necessary.

“This has been the case in some states with the largest JLWOP populations, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania,” she said.

Turner noted that based on underlying brain science, reforms to include young adults between ages 18 and 25 have been expanded in some jurisdictions, including California, Connecticut and the District of Columbia. A few states have taken no action in response to the Supreme Court decisions, she said. At least one is challenging the legal precedent.

“The variety in legislative responses and associated procedures has been hugely influential in terms of resentencing and release outcomes, so the work of our group to analyze these complex policy responses alongside broader data trends will be critical in assessing the current landscape, as well as future policy,” Turner said.

Abrams said that the next step is developing a survey tool to reach the 2,900 individuals who were found, of which roughly 1,800 are still incarcerated.

Poco Kernsmith Appointed New Chair of Social Welfare Alumna will return to her doctoral alma mater this summer as a professor

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By Stan Paul

Poco Kernsmith, a social welfare scholar from the University of Texas at Arlington, has been appointed to serve as the next chair of UCLA Luskin Social Welfare.

Kernsmith, who earned her PhD in social welfare at UCLA Luskin in 2002, currently serves as the doctoral program director at UT Arlington’s School of Social Work. Previously, she was a longtime faculty member at Wayne State University in Michigan, where she recently finished a second master’s degree in public health focused on public health methods.

Originally from Minnesota, she graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1994 with a bachelor’s in psychology and women’s studies, then earned a master’s in social work at the University of Michigan in 1995.

“We are excited to welcome Poco to Luskin this summer,” announced Interim Dean Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. Kernsmith will officially join the UCLA Luskin Social Welfare faculty as professor and chair on July 1.

Kernsmith said in an interview that she is looking forward to coming back to the Westwood campus after more than two decades and getting reacquainted with the Luskin School.

“Really, I want to understand this whole experience and the people who are in the School and the students, so that I can get a big-picture understanding of what’s happening now.”

Loukaitou-Sideris noted Kernsmith’s expertise in violence prevention, school-based violence interventions and intimate partner violence. Her research has received substantial funding and recognition from federal sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In 2020, she received $2.25 million in federal funding to strengthen violence prevention and response efforts in Michigan schools. Other CDC support has included a $1-million grant for Supporting Healthy Adolescent Relationships and Environments (SHARE), which explored causes of intimate partner violence and identified school connectedness, parental engagement, hopefulness and community involvement as important protective factors for preventing violence perpetration among youth.

Kernsmith’s current work involves the analysis of school policy to create inclusive, trauma-informed environments to prevent and respond to violence or threats of violence in middle and high schools. Other areas of her research include sexual health education, hate-motivated violence and domestic terrorism.

“She will also bring her leadership experience in directing the PhD program at UT Arlington for the past two years and her experience for 20 years prior to this, as a scholar, teacher and faculty member at Wayne State University School of Social Work,” Loukaitou-Sideris wrote in a memo announcing the appointment.

Kernsmith said she is also interested in mentorship and best practices related to graduate and doctoral students — as well as faculty — over their careers, explaining that people who are just starting out or new to a position are generally the only ones considered for mentorship.

“Mentorship is something we need across our lifespan … any time you are making a change to the next step in your career and even into retirement,” she said. “Every transition brings new questions and new opportunities.”

For Kernsmith, one of the biggest challenges in education is promoting respectful dialogue and a free exchange of ideas from different perspectives.

“How do we engage in our intellectual curiosity to better understand separate perspectives when the issues are so heated and emotional? … It’s always a balance.”

Kernsmith will step into a leadership position held by Laura Abrams, professor of social welfare, for seven years. Under Abrams’ leadership, the program saw its reputation grow, achieving the No. 8 standing among social work programs nationally in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings. During that time, UCLA Luskin Social Welfare also hired more than a dozen new faculty and graduated hundreds of skilled practitioners and scholars.

“It has been an honor to serve as the department chair in social welfare for the past seven years … and it is now time to pass the baton,” Abrams said. “I am thrilled that Dr. Kernsmith, an alumnus of our PhD program, will be joining us in the fall as our next chair.”

L.A. Mayor Focuses on the Need for Housing Solutions During UCLA Luskin Summit Karen Bass visits campus to join discussions on the value of research about issues like homelessness, climate resilience, governance and equity in transportation

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By Les Dunseith

On April 17, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass was the featured speaker as scholars, civic leaders and the philanthropic community came together to discuss policy issues during the sixth annual UCLA Luskin Summit.

What was on her mind? Housing.

Bass, who declared homelessness a state of emergency immediately upon taking office as mayor in December 2022, told the more than 300 people in attendance at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center that her office is now turning more attention to longer-term solutions after initially emphasizing urgency in getting unhoused people off the streets.

“It is not reasonable for somebody [needing shelter] to be able to stay around while we get housing built,” she said of the challenge to provide shelter for people in need amid an ongoing affordable housing crisis.

The mayor’s remarks were delivered during a discussion with Jacqueline Waggoner MA UP ’96, the current chair of the Luskin School’s Board of Advisors. Waggoner, who is the president of the Solutions Division for Enterprise Community Partners, said she was heartened by the mayor’s intense focus on homelessness, given the magnitude of the problem in Los Angeles.

Bass, a former congresswoman who now chairs the Homelessness Task Force for the U.S. Conference of Mayors, said that meeting with mayors around the country presents an opportunity to learn from others, and for other cities in the United States to benefit from what is being done in Southern California. She had announced a new housing initiative based on a program in Atlanta two days before speaking at the Luskin Summit.

“I feel good in terms of what we can do and how we should move forward,” said Bass, who then emphasized, “the biggest question is scale.”

two men in ties sit on stage as one speaks

During an on-stage interview by ABC7’s Josh Haskell, left, the results of the ninth Quality of Life Index were unveiled by UCLA’s Zev Yaroslavsky. Photo by Stan Paul

Concerns over housing affordability was also a key takeaway from the ninth annual Quality of Life Index, which was publicly unveiled in the opening session of the 2024 Luskin Summit. The project at UCLA Luskin is directed by former Los Angeles public official Zev Yaroslavsky, now an adjunct faculty member at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Concerns over the high cost of living pushed the satisfaction of Los Angeles County residents back to its lowest-ever level, according to the annual survey, which received coverage as breaking news by media outlets that included the Los Angeles Times, area radio stations and the local affiliates of all four major U.S. broadcast TV networks.

More than half of respondents, or 59%, cited housing as the most important factor in their rating. During a Q&A moderated by reporter Josh Haskell of ABC7 in Los Angeles, Yaroslavsky pointed out that renters are feeling especially pessimistic about their futures.

“In our survey, we found that 75% of renters do not think they will ever be able to afford to buy a home in a place they’d like to live in Los Angeles County. Think about that — more and more people in our region see the American dream of homeownership slipping away,” Yaroslavsky said.

Yaroslavsky’s remarks were followed by six breakout sessions that examined timely policy issues from the perspective of scholarly research originating at the Luskin School and its affiliated research centers.

Summit attendees heard about studies and policy proposals in climate resilience, governance and equity in transportation. Panels made up of UCLA Luskin scholars and experts from the public, private and nonprofit sectors took on pressing issues affecting Los Angeles and beyond:

  • What strategies can governments adopt now to help communities withstand rising temperatures?
  • How is the Southland voter pool changing in this election year, and how can Los Angeles better provide representation for its 3.8 million people
  • How are government agencies and nonprofits meeting the transportation needs of the region’s most disadvantaged people?

Much of the conversation was guided by research conducted by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, the Institute of Transportation Studies, the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies and the Latino Policy and Politics Institute.

two Black women chat while seated on a stage with microphones in handBoard of Advisors chair Jacqueline Waggoner emceed the discussion with Mayor Karen Bass. Photo by Stan Paul
two Black women chat while seated on a stage with microphones in hand
two Black women chat while seated on a stage with microphones in hand
mayor in green poses with young people
mayor in green poses with young people
mayor in green suite chats with young person as they walk
mayor in green suite chats with young person as they walk
four people chat together inside a conference ballroom
four people chat together inside a conference ballroom
people at tables in large ballroom
people at tables in large ballroom

The session with the mayor was the final session of this year’s Luskin Summit. For about an hour, Bass answered questions and engaged in conversation with Waggoner, a native Angeleno with a longtime connection to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA).

Since Bass took office, Waggoner said she has noticed visible change in the homeless population. In the past, she would see people leave the streets, only to return soon after.

“I haven’t seen those same people in a year, and what I would say to you is that you are on the path to permanent solutions,” Waggoner said to Bass.

“But I’m never satisfied,” replied Bass, a former social worker. She understands that people experiencing homelessness need not just roofs over their heads, but social services.

“I come at it with a bias because my background is in health care, and I just think we need to do much, much more,” Bass said.

She noted that mental health is something that people often talk about in connection to the unhoused population, but treatment for chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer are also important and deserve attention.

“I feel that health needs to be at the center,” Bass said.

Waggoner said that with homelessness spreading “in every neighborhood, people want to do something about it.”

two women seatedAngelly Tovar of Rebel Group, left, and Avital Shavit of LA Metro discuss mobility solutions at a Summit breakout session. Photo by Mary Braswell
two women seated
two women seated
man seated, smiling
man seated, smiling
man pointing to screen
man pointing to screen

Noting UCLA Luskin’s public-private partnerships with organizations like Hilton Foundation, a Summit sponsor, Waggoner asked Bass about the role of businesses and other groups in helping to get people into permanent housing.

“We are a state of unbelievable wealth. We have many, many, many billionaires that live in the city, tons of multi-millionaires who do phenomenal charitable work,” Bass responded. “I feel good that we’ve been able to align the public sector. But now we need the private sector, we need private money … to expedite the building” of more affordable housing.

Relying on public money can be a slow process because of regulations, construction approvals and the need to juggle multiple funding streams.

“A private developer comes in and can get the development going,” Bass explained. “So, we are hoping that we can do a capital campaign. Everybody knows capital campaigns — buildings get built.”

During her discussion with Waggoner and the 25-minute audience Q&A that followed, Bass also talked about the city’s LA4LA plan to partner with private donors and business to purchase existing properties, including major hotels, to develop its system of long-term interim and permanent housing.

Noting the scale of the problem and an audience consisting of scholars, philanthropic leaders and community organizations, Waggoner pointed out that many people will need to play a part for Bass to realize her vision of a housing solution in Los Angeles.

“Everyone needs to have skin in this game,” Bass said.

The annual event is organized by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs under the guidance of its Board of Advisors, and naming benefactors Meyer and Renee Luskin were among those in attendance. The event was supported by gifts from 12 local charitable organizations and businesses, many of which have been sponsors since the first Luskin Summit in 2019. This year’s theme was “Transformative Action.”

Mary Braswell and Stan Paul also contributed to this story. 

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See additional photos on Flickr:

UCLA Luskin Summit 2024

Watch a recording of the mayor’s discussion with Waggoner and the audience Q&A on our Vimeo channel:

 

 

L.A. County Residents’ Satisfaction With Quality of Life Matches Lowest in Year 9 of Survey High cost of housing is the most important factor impacting the annual Quality of Life Index, particularly among renters

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By Les Dunseith

Concerns over the high cost of living pushed the satisfaction of Los Angeles County residents back to its lowest-ever level, with renters feeling especially pessimistic about their futures, according to an annual UCLA survey.

The Quality of Life Index, or QLI, is a project of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs  that measures county residents’ satisfaction in nine categories. The overall rating fell two points from last year to 53 on a scale from 10 to 100, marking the second time in three years it came in below the survey’s 55 midpoint since the index launched in 2016. That means a majority of respondents are dissatisfied with the overall quality of their lives.

fever chart shows rating change over time

The cost-of-living rating dropped from 41 to 38, the lowest satisfaction score ever observed for any category in the survey. Although all major demographic subgroups rated the cost of living negatively, the lowest scores came from women, 36 (33 from those 50–64 years old) and Latinas, 36 — as well as renters, 35.

Zev Yaroslavsky, director of the study at UCLA, said renters, who make up nearly half of survey respondents, are being disproportionately affected by the economic and inflationary pressures facing the region. More than half, or 59%, cited housing as the most important factor in their rating.

“Housing costs have gone up,” Yaroslavsky said. “And incomes have not gone up anywhere near commensurate with what’s happened to housing.”

While 61% of homeowners feel optimistic about their economic future in Los Angeles County, 51% of renters report being pessimistic. Only 23% of renters think they will be able to buy a home where they would want to live at some point in the future.

pie chart shows only one in four renters expect to buy a home eventually

 

This year’s survey also produced striking results on the issue of homelessness.

“We discovered very little optimism about whether the current programs and efforts to eradicate homelessness will work,” Yaroslavsky said.

More than half, or 60%, of respondents said homelessness in their area has gotten worse over the past year, with only 10% saying it has gotten better. Just 20% are more hopeful than they were last year that the homelessness situation in Los Angeles County will improve.

Respondents were also asked whether they worried about becoming homeless themselves, with the highest levels of anxiety expressed by people living in households earning less than $60,000 annually at 44%, renters 37% and African Americans 33%.

“Despite the best efforts of state and local officials, the public is more negative and less hopeful about solving homelessness,” Yaroslavsky said.

In an election year, do such findings signal possible voter upheaval?

“It feeds an overall sense that things aren’t working well,” said Yaroslavsky, a former elected official. He framed this year’s results in the context of nearly a decade’s worth of research showing positive results for neighborhood quality and racial/ethnic relations, but low marks in categories commonly associated with decisions by public officials.

“A main theme over the last nine years is that Angelenos love the neighborhoods where they live. We appreciate diversity and get along with others better than some people think. And the quality of life for most of us is pretty good,” he said. “But at some fundamental level, people think our governmental institutions are letting them down.”

The QLI showed minor changes from the previous year in most categories, although satisfaction with education fell three points to 48, the second-lowest score behind cost of living. While transportation/traffic jumped eight points in importance from 2023, it remained among the three lowest categories in quality-of-life importance.

Among Angelenos who are employed, 55% are working full time at a workplace away from their home. Of those, 59% of Latinos, 64% of African Americans, 63% of men over age 50 and 63% of Latino men always work away from home.

The last year has seen a modest decline in most ratings for elected officials.

  • Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna is viewed favorably by 34% and unfavorably by 26%. Last year was 37% favorable and 21% unfavorable.
  • Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is viewed favorably by 42% and unfavorably by 32%, a drop from 46% favorable and 23% unfavorable in last year’s QLI.
  • Respondents had a slightly favorable view of the city councils in their cities: 37% favorable and 32% unfavorable. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is viewed more negatively: 27% favorable and 35% unfavorable.

Regarding the environment, 25% of respondents said climate change had a major impact on their quality of life in the last year; 38% saw a minor impact. The 2024 QLI also asked about the availability of air conditioning: 75% of Angelenos have it in their homes but with substantial variation by region, income and race/ethnicity.

  • Some of the differences likely relate to climate patterns: 48% of residents in the ocean-cooled South Bay communities have air conditioning compared to 92% in the hotter San Fernando Valley.
  • Residents most lacking in air conditioning, 40%, are at the lowest end of the income scale (under $30,000 per year), compared to just 11% for those making over $150,000 per year. And 30% of renters do not have air conditioning.

This year’s QLI is based on interviews conducted in English and Spanish with 1,686 county residents from Feb. 22 to March 14. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 3%.

Funding for the Quality of Life Index is provided by Meyer and Renee Luskin through the Los Angeles Initiative. The full report is being published April 17 as part of UCLA’s Luskin Summit.

View the report and other information about this year’s study, plus previous Quality of Life Indexes, on the website of the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

text with report name and a map of Los Angeles County