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L.A. Metro’s Struggle with Homelessness Is ‘Big Dilemma,’ Loukaitou-Sideris Says

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Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris was featured in a Los Angeles Times article about Metro’s attempts to grapple with homelessness. Unhoused residents have long found shelter in the transit agency’s stations, trains and buses, but their numbers have grown as the L.A. homelessness crisis has deepened. Metro counted 5,700 homeless riders on its system last August. A study by the UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies found an increase in the number of homeless people on the Metro during the pandemic as shelters closed and commuters stayed home. “It’s a big dilemma,” explained Loukaitou-Sideris, lead author of the study. As Metro aims to revive transit ridership, many commuters are concerned about the issues of homelessness and rising crime. “The agencies to a certain extent, and rightly so, feel that they are in a transportation business, and they have to deal with a challenge that is not of their own making,” Loukaitou-Sideris said.

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Loukaitou-Sideris on Saving Sundance Square

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Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris spoke to WFAA News about the future of Sundance Square in Fort Worth, Texas. Once the heart of entertainment in the city’s downtown, Sundance Square was the site of fine restaurants and retail, but many businesses have recently left, prompting concerns about the future of the district. Many current and former tenants of Sundance Square cited concerns about changes in property management, including the standard of maintenance and upkeep. According to Loukaitou-Sideris, “There needs to be much better collaboration and coordination between the city and the private management.” She added that Sundance’s struggles could impact all of downtown Fort Worth. Loukaitou-Sideris recommended large weekly concerts and restaurant open houses to provide a much-needed spark that Sundance Square is currently lacking. “You really need to think of how to attract people to create this buzz,” she said.

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UCLA Luskin Students Host First In-Person Event at Golden Age Park

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Students affiliated with the UCLA (Un)Common Public Space group hosted more than 100 attendees on Feb. 26 to celebrate Golden Age Park, a pocket park in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles that incorporates ideas championed by Urban Planning Professor Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris. The Saturday afternoon event included food, games and music provided by 45 members of the Heart of Los Angeles’ Intergenerational Orchestra. Five members of a Shakespeare troupe also performed an excerpt from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Gus Wendel MURP ’17, a doctoral student in urban planning at UCLA, said the (Un)Common Public Space group was formed in 2021 as a collective of community members, students, researchers, performers and public space activists with the goal of activating public spaces in different neighborhoods using research, performance and community-based events. Usage of Golden Age Park, which opened in 2019, had been hindered by its relative newness and by the COVID-19 pandemic. A primary purpose of the event was to build local awareness of the park’s presence and to promote its intergenerational appeal. “By creating opportunities for people of all ages to share time, space and experiences, intergenerational public spaces support engagement, learning and understanding across generations,” Wendel said. In addition to students in UCLA Luskin’s urban planning program, organizers and supporters included the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies, UCLA cityLAB, the Heart of Los Angeles (HOLA), the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust (LANLT) and St. Barnabas Senior Services (SBSS). The UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative provided additional support, as did the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation.

Urban Planning doctoral student Gus Wendel welcomes the crowd on hand to celebrate Golden Age Park in Westlake.

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Golden Age Park celebration

 

Luskin Summit Takes On Global Climate Justice

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Assistant Professor of Urban Planning Kian Goh led a dialogue about equity, grassroots activism and climate change in the Mar. 2 Luskin Summit webinar “Cities and Global Climate Justice.” Goh, who serves as associate faculty director of the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, started the conversation by discussing community-based activism in Jakarta, Indonesia. Eric Chu of UC Davis spoke about competing visions of the urban built environment and the power of activist groups to reimagine what their communities will look like through a lens of justice and equity. Hugo Sarmiento of Columbia University noted that, in Colombia, the main drivers of risk are social, economic, political and oftentimes racial exclusion from the housing market. “Residents have already been displaced by war and conflict, and now they are being displaced by the city,” he explained. Idowu “Jola” Ajibade of Portland State University said issues such as environmental degradation, homelessness, joblessness, and lack of access to sanitation and health care affect the way that climate change is perceived in the Global South, where many communities are already marginalized. “The ways in which people are challenging the system also helps us think about how we might transform the urban society more equitably,” Ajibade said. Kasia Paprocki of the London School of Economics and Political Science discussed how the transition from a rural to urban economy is seen as a necessary and even positive development, which dismisses the experiences of many of the individuals being displaced. Michael Fleming of the UCLA Luskin Board of Advisors was on hand to welcome the panelists.

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Diaz on New Latino-Majority Districts in California

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Founding Director of the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative Sonja Diaz was featured in a Los Angeles Times column about the role that California Latinos will play in the midterm elections. New congressional maps were drawn based on the results of the 2020 Census, and the number of Latino-majority districts in California increased from 10 to 16. The six new districts with Latino majorities could help Democrats retain control of the House of Representatives in the upcoming elections. However, some experts are concerned that it may take time to mobilize voters in these districts, which are concentrated in the Central Valley and encompass rural and historically disenfranchised communities that may be hard to organize. “Latinos are at the periphery of California politics even though they’re central to the economy and to its future,” Diaz explained. She said that Democrats should seek Latino candidates who can speak to the concerns of Latino communities.

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Callahan on Defining Objectives of Justice40

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Colleen Callahan, co-executive director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation,  spoke to E&E News about President Biden’s executive order regarding environmental justice in disadvantaged communities. The Justice40 Initiative calls for 40% of federal benefits from climate and energy programs to reach disadvantaged communities. Identifying and prioritizing these communities will be critical, said Callahan, who co-authored a report on implementing Justice40 with an equity lens. “There’s a fear that the states could have a big role in implementing the Justice40 dollars, but without a strong history of equity-centered investments in that type of area — clean energy, climate issues and environmental justice — we’re not actually going to achieve the outcomes that [Biden’s] executive order calls for,” Callahan said. “There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done to really define what our objectives are with Justice 40.”

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On ‘Disappearing the Poor’ Ahead of the Super Bowl

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Research from the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy (II&D) was featured in a Guardian article about the displacement of people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. Officials recently cleared a homeless encampment near SoFi Stadium, where this year’s Super Bowl will take place. Officials cited safety issues in the tent community; many of those displaced did not receive alternative housing or other services. “We see this time and time again. With sports capitalism, celebrations or other big events like the Super Bowl or Olympics, the city tries to make the city look better for investors coming from out of town. They’re very encouraged to try to disappear the poor from the streets,” said Annie Powers, research coordinator with II&D and organizer with NOlympics LA. A recent II&D report on behalf of the After Echo Park Lake research collective estimated that nearly 1,500 unhoused people died while living on the streets from March 2020 to July 2021.

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Leap Comments on Ebb and Flow of Crime

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Adjunct Professor of Social Welfare Jorja Leap was featured in a Wrap article about the rise of violent crime in Los Angeles. Many homeowners in wealthy areas are investing in private security to protect their homes and families, especially after well-publicized home invasion robberies and the recent homicide of philanthropist Jacqueline Avant in Beverly Hills. However, Leap noted that violent crime strikes poorer neighborhoods more than affluent ones. “For every one Jacqueline Avant, there are probably 50 to 100 [homicides] in poor areas,” Leap said. Homicides in Los Angeles were the highest last year since 2006, but Leap noted that they are still much lower than in the mid-1980s and ’90s. She explained that the ongoing pandemic and resulting uncertainty, the 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody and subsequent civil unrest, plus the easy availability of guns have all contributed to people feeling more anxious, which leads to higher crime rates.

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New Activist-in-Residence Uplifts Voices of the Unhoused

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A recent Spectrum News report featured Theo Henderson, an advocate for unhoused people’s rights who was recently appointed as UCLA’s newest Activist-in-Residence. Henderson is the host of the “We the Unhoused” podcast, which aims to shed light on the experiences of those without a home. He created the podcast after years experiencing homelessness himself and now speaks at rallies highlighting social justice issues and leads a movement to create charging stations for the homeless. The Activist-in-Residence program, hosted by the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, provides community activists with a paid position, office space and other resources. Henderson plans to use the platform to “bring unhoused perspectives beyond textbooks by bringing students and faculty to encampments.” A Daily Bruin article noted that Henderson also plans to create a campaign for bathrooms for public use and host a town hall where progressive politicians can engage with students and people who are unhoused. 

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Center for Innovation on Expanding Electric Cars to Low-Income Communities

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The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation was cited in a Los Angeles Times story about innovative electric car ride-sharing initiatives in parts of California. The Central Valley city of Huron attracts thousands of seasonal laborers to harvest crops every year; but the area is also a transportation desert. To address this issue, Mayor Rey León created the Green Raiteros program, a growing fleet of electric cars that shuttle residents all over Fresno County free of charge. Most of the electric vehicle infrastructure is concentrated in the wealthiest ZIP codes, but the Green Raiteros program is challenging that trend. In addition, residents of Rancho San Pedro, near the Port of Los Angeles, are taking advantage of an innovative program to share electric cars at low cost. According to a Center for Innovation study, getting these cars into lower-income communities is “the greatest challenge we now face in meeting our climate goals.”

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