Raising Voices: Community Safety in Los Angeles Podcast

Community safety

Central LA East LA South LA San Gabriel Valley West LA San Fernando Valley Gateway Cities South Bay Long Beach Antelope Valley 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) LAUSD (select only if you have a district-wide partnership)

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

Community safety in Los Angeles is not just about policing or emergency response — it’s about clean air, wildfire relief, safe housing, walkable streets, and a sense of belonging.
In Los Angeles County:
Families live next to oil refineries and are exposed to harmful emissions daily.
Youth attend schools near toxic sites or in neighborhoods with unsafe infrastructure.
Incarcerated people live in environments with poor ventilation, contaminated water, or no green space.
Indigenous and historically marginalized communities continue to be excluded from land and water access.
Wildfires tore through the Los Angeles area, including: Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Topanga, Pasadena, Altadena, and Sierra Madre this January, displacing tens of thousands of people and claiming at least 30 lives.
Raising Voices: Community Safety in Los Angeles Podcast will explore these issues as matters of community safety, equity, and civic responsibility.

Raising Voices: Community Safety in Los Angeles Podcast
In LA County, community safety is about more than policing — it’s about the air we breathe, the land we stand on, and the dignity of having a safe place to live, learn, and belong. Raising Voices: Community Safety in Los Angeles is a narrative podcast hosted by acclaimed reporter, radio talk show host and singer Jearlyn Steele, produced by Red Canary Magazine, that explores what safety truly means for communities too often excluded from that conversation.
Each of the initial 21 episodes is inspired by award-winning Red Canary Magazine stories and combines immersive storytelling with interviews to examine how structural inequities shape everything from wildfire response and housing to environmental health and infrastructure. It shares lived experiences: from families living near refineries and students learning beside toxic sites, to incarcerated people in unsafe conditions and Indigenous communities denied access to land and water.
The series will frame these realities as urgent issues of community safety, equity, and civic responsibility, not just to reveal what’s broken, but uplift the people working to repair it.

Format: 30-minute episodes with intro (2 min), story narrative (8-10 min), guest interview (15 min), community reflection (3 min), and call to action (2 min).
Outro Music Style: Soulful acoustic, ambient nature, lo-fi jazz transitions (1 min). Reflective acoustic fadeout to conclude each episode.

When Raising Voices: Community Safety in Los Angeles Podcast is successful, LA County will expand its understanding of community safety to include clean air, stable housing, safe schools, and a sense of belonging. Communities most impacted by environmental harm, displacement, and neglect — including Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and low-income residents, will be heard, not ignored.
This podcast will help shift public dialogue and policy by elevating lived experiences and local expertise. It will provoke discussion, inspire reflection and motivate action around environmental justice. Residents will be more informed and empowered to demand equitable disaster recovery, healthier environments, and safer infrastructure. Journalists, educators, and civic leaders will use these stories to raise community voices in decision-making.
Ultimately, LA County will become a more connected, compassionate place — where community safety means dignity, justice, and collective care for all communities.