Care-based Safety Solutions Summit

Idea by LTSC Community Development Corporation

ACT-LA is proud to lead LA’s People’s Transit campaign, which aims to transform Metro into a sanctuary for the public, where transit is frequent, well-resourced and safe. ACT-LA seeks an LA2050 grant to convene transit policymakers and stakeholders in a care-based safety solutions summit to align power for deep investments in care-based safety strategies at LA Metro. ACT-LA will build on the role of transit ambassadors as a key care-based strategy and a good example of the kind of experts needed at every mile of transit in LA.

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What is the primary issue area that your application will impact?

Public transit

In which areas of Los Angeles will you be directly working?

County of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a countywide benefit) City of Los Angeles (select only if your project has a citywide benefit)

In what stage of innovation is this project, program, or initiative?

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

What is your understanding of the issue that you are seeking to address?

Public transit is a lifeline for the vast majority of LA Metro riders, despite the current reality that riding transit in LA is rarely quick or convenient. Due to persistent overpolicing, Metro issues over half of its citations a year to Black riders who make up under a quarter of all riders. ACT-LA accounted for these realities and advocated for an ecosystem of care-based safety strategies that are in our 2021 Metro as a Sanctuary report. Since the Metro Board decided to shift toward a “multilayered” public safety approach in 2021, LA Metro has significantly improved the transit ridership experience. LA Metro started a life-saving transit ambassador program, increased budgets for onboard cleaning and maintenance, and sponsored a vendor marketplace at LA Metro’s MacArthur Park Station. Five years later, as Metro launches their new public safety department, care-based safety stakeholders have yet to coalesce on a plan to expand and enhance these strategies over the next five years.

Describe the project, program, or initiative this grant will support to address the issue.

ACT-LA has successfully advocated for Metro to adopt a care-based approach to public safety on transit as part of the coalition’s People’s Transit campaign. This campaign centers on the transit riding experience of people of color and people in low income households who primarily ride transit and are also ACT-LA’s members. ACT-LA’s vision is for LA Metro to serve the public as libraries do, a public system where people go to feel safe, access information, and receive a high level of service. Metro’s efforts in a region that severely lacks affordable housing should include providing affordable housing and resources to people experiencing homelessness to create safety for all. Specifically, ACT-LA calls on Metro to invest in care-based safety strategies instead of law enforcement and to operate frequent, reliable bus service and universal fareless transit. Care-based safety solutions include expanding and enhancing the transit ambassador program and creating vibrant, well-resourced transit stations. Transit ambassadors primarily serve as onboard staff to connect riders to information and resources, though they also have saved 250+ lives from suicide and overdose. In 2020, ACT-LA held a transit summit of riders that launched the campaign. Now, five years later, ACT-LA seeks to convene transit policymakers and stakeholders supportive of care-based safety solutions in a summit to align power for deeper investments in care-based safety strategies at Metro than currently exists.

Describe how Los Angeles County will be different if your work is successful.

Over the last 5 years, LA Metro has started to improve the transit rider experience with care-based safety strategies, but many of those strategies are pilot projects and not resourced adequately to improve the experience of riders across the LA region. If ACT-LA’s work is successful, LA Metro will at least double the number of transit ambassadors to a roster of no less than 750 ambassadors and staff ambassadors on every one of Metro’s 122 bus and rail lines. Ambassadors would enjoy job security as Metro employees represented by a labor union. They would have job training and mental health support to carefully handle and heal from difficult experiences on the job. Ambassadors would be recruited from community-based worker centers to gain cultural competency and Metro would offer ambassadors career advancement incentives in healthcare, social welfare, or related fields. Busy transit stations and stops in LA would be places riders go for reliable resource connection and social support.

Approximately how many people will be impacted by this project, program, or initiative?

Direct Impact: 750

Indirect Impact: 1,000,000

LTSC Community Development Corporation

For over 30 years LTSC has been serving the Japanese/Japanese American community in the Greater Los Angeles area as the only regional provider of bilingual and bicultural social services. LTSC reaches 18,000 people each year. A significant proportion of our clients come to us from the broader Japanese/Japanese American community members who seek services such as child abuse prevention, consumer education, senior services, case management, individual and family counseling, and cultural education for children and youth.

As part of our community development work, LTSC has made significant efforts to revitalize Little Tokyo into a vibrant community. LTSC has worked in partnership with other entities to designate a major portion of Little Tokyo as a National Historic Landmark. LTSC has renovated and upgraded three buildings in the historic district:

*San Pedro Firm Building. This 1923 building was threatened with demolition by the City but quick action by LTSC and community advocates saved the building. After a $3 million renovation, it now provides 42 units of safe, clean, affordable housing to low-income seniors and other residents, and commercial space to longstanding and new small businesses.

*Old Union Church Building. Immediately next-door to the San Pedro Firm Building is the historic Old Union Church, one of the earliest Japanese American Christian church structures built in Los Angeles. In the 1970’s, the church congregation relocated and the aging building suffered in the ensuing years from neglect. Again LTSC led the effort to raise $4 million to bring this building back to life and now this once abandoned space is The Union Center for the Arts. *The Historic Far East Building with its famous Far East CafÃ© is located in the heart of the Little Tokyo Historic District, bearing witness to the birth, growth and development of what was, during its heyday in the 1920s and 30s, the largest Japanese American community in the mainland United States. After suffering severe damage during the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the building’s future was uncertain, possibly taking with it all of its history. LTSC was able to save the building to keep this part of Little Tokyo’s history alive. *Casa Heiwa. Additionally, in 1996 LTSC completed the first new family-oriented housing project to be built in Little Tokyo in over 70 years. Through LTSC’s community organizing efforts we have established relationships with Little Tokyo residents and have taught them to collectively and formally represent their concerns. Moreover, we have worked with residents to develop a model for community involvement in planning. With our support and guidance, the residents have lobbied for two crosswalks, a post office and helped successfully fight to preserve affordable housing at a 100-unit building. They have also lobbied against a proposed 500-bed jail and have fought to limit bail bonds businesses in the area.

Organization website
LTSC.org
Learn about this organization’s budget, leadership and mission
charitynavigator.org

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