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No Going Back L.A. Report

The Committee for Greater LA came together earlier this year to understand the effects that COVID had on different populations throughout Los Angeles County. Business, philanthropy, labor, government and other community leaders held weekly data briefings on topics such as employment, housing and homelessness, youth and trauma, with COVID-19 as a throughline. Following the murder of George Floyd, the committee expanded its focus to takes in a comprehensive view of systemic racism—especially anti-Black racism.

We propose a sweeping regional agenda for system change.

The independent report, a collaboration of the Committee for Greater LA, USC’s Equity Research Institute and UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and funded by philanthropy, includes 10 guiding principles addressing areas from housing, economic justice and mental and physical health to youth voice, immigration, and the role of the nonprofit sector.

Those accompany dozens of major policy recommendations ranging from establishing high-speed internet as a civil right; promoting “California citizenship” to ensure equal access to services for all residents, regardless of immigration status; and a regional Housing-for-All strategy to end homelessness in Los Angeles, among many more.

In addition to No Going Back’s stark moral charge to repair an unequal society, its practical dimensions serve as a radical economic development plan that would restore the more than $300+ billion in annual GDP that Los Angeles loses every year due to systemic racial disparities, as calculated by the Equity Research Institute at USC.

Executive Summary
Context & Guiding Principles
Policy Recommendations

15 Topics

Dive into the 15 topics and 176 recommendations

Economic Stress

We must prevent the pandemic from worsening health disparities and ensure access to critical services for communities with serious comorbidities.
Read The Excerpt

Black Life In Los Angeles

Black people have been fighting this fight, and it is time for Los Angeles County to invest in its Black communities.
Read The Excerpt

Housing Affordability

A bold, long-term plan for an affordable Los Angeles.
Read The Excerpt

Homelessness

As such, we must not only end unsheltered homelessness in Los Angeles County, but also disrupt, dismantle, and rebuild the systems that allow our neighbors to fall into homelessness.
Read The Excerpt

Healthcare Access

Our goal is that all residents of California, regardless of citizenship or immigration status, must enjoy health care access at a rate they can afford from gestational periods to end of life care.
Read The Excerpt

Healthcare Interventions

We must prevent the pandemic from worsening health disparities and ensure access to critical services for communities with serious comorbidities.
Read The Excerpt

Internet As A Right

The clearest goal is accessible in-home broadband on a device more usable than a smartphone for each household in Los Angeles.
Read The Excerpt

Education

Every student —regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, language, disability, family income, or zip code— should feel supported and have access to a high-quality education.
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Child and Family Well-Being

In order to get equity right and to heal the inequities created we must invest in the permanency of community-based care models for the highest-need families and at-risk youth.
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Mental Health

We must develop culturally responsive interventions to improve wellbeing at individual and community levels within all community ecosystems, such as educational, faith-based and health care environments.
Read The Excerpt

Youth

Los Angeles County must celebrate and support youth leadership and empowerment.
Read The Excerpt

Immigrants

Moving forward, Los Angeles County must commit to insure accessibility, mobility, and voice for immigrants regardless of status.
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Alternatives To Incarceration

We need a community-based system of care in place of County Social Services.
Read The Excerpt

Non-Profit Sector

Los Angeles County must strengthen the nonprofit sector as a key part of civil society in the recovery.
Read The Excerpt

Transportation

We envision a transportation future in which all people—of every age, ability, income, zip code, race, and ethnicity—feel safe and free, experience a sense of community, and can easily access their basic needs.
Read The Excerpt

175 Policy Statements

The report puts forward 175 recommendations for policy and practical action to disrupt, dismantle, and rebuild:

Review minimum parking requirements.

Fill funding gaps for public transit

Reduce barriers to active transportation and encourage choice.

Work closely with grassroots organizations to solve transportation issues.

Better coordination between City and County governments to effectively meet the needs of community organizations.

Restructure contracts to multi-year contracts and reduce restrictions, as well as requirements that often add an administrative burden

Understand and fund the full costs associated with effective non-profit service delivery.

Build the capacity of indigenous-led groups

Include Native American groups in funding streams

Make transformative investments in BIPOC led and serving non-profits dedicated to dismantling systemic racism

Reorientation of government budgets and policies to justice.

Invest in community spaces, land trusts, and cooperatives that can be operated by non-profit, community-based organizations.

Philanthropy must recognize the importance of the non-profit sector in addressing the negative impacts of COVID-19, including structural and systemic racism.

Enforce the detention center ban and strengthen refusals to participate with any federal efforts

Permanently allocate funds towards community investment and alternative practices such as rental assistance, youth organizing, and restorative justice. Community-based service providers at this moment need flexible, unrestricted funding to serve their communities, clients, and staff

Authentically engage and compensate for the leadership of system impacted individuals to be Community Health Workers (CHWs)

Provide effective treatment in a community-based setting instead of jail time

Utilize mental health professionals and social workers to provide mental health interventions for individuals experiencing mental health and/or substance use disorders with minimal involvement from law enforcement.

Service Delivery - Centralize COVID-19 resources to increase coordination and access for service providers navigating the release of people from jail.

Reentry Planning - Create and publicize a protocol to support people released from jail to meet physical needs and emotional needs in a way that promotes public health.

Supportive Housing - The closing of Men’s Central Jail (MCJ) calls for new construction of supportive housing (corresponding to the number of people caged at MCJ).

Implement De Facto county citizenship

Expanding voting opportunities to immigrants

Implement virtual local assistance centers for naturalization.

Expand access to legal resources and representation.

Expand universal Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) and CalFresh to immigrants regardless of status.

Increase wages, extend emergency paid sick leave and paid family leave, and implement stronger protections for immigrant workers

Work to eliminate the usage of E-Verify for nongovernment businesses

Uplift the voices of underrepresented immigrant groups such as Black and indigenous immigrants.

Integrate systems that serve immigrants into the same systems that serve citizens across all sectors, from mental health to public education, and beyond, and prioritize local funding streams.

Expand healthcare to all immigrants

Support local health care clinics serving immigrant communities regardless of status.

Provide quality, accurate, multilingual, and culturally appropriate information to immigrants.

Increase access to capital for street vendors and small businesses.

Allocate disaster response funds for immediate economic support

Lower the voting age to 16

Incorporate youth councils in every form of government

Invest in youth organizing.

Invest in youth data collection.

Incorporate elements of youth organizing to school curriculums and other youth serving programs.

Develop economic opportunities for youth.

Fund youth centers, youth programming, and youth-serving organizations.

Shift funding from punitive juvenile systems to community-based supportive services

Build a Community Ambassador Network

Support the LACDMH + UCLA Public Partnership for Wellbeing

Use Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) to promote racial equity in public health research, policy development, and advocacy

Develop multiple access platforms wherein this educational material may be accessed (e.g., on-line, in-person)

Provide on-going training for professionals and para-professionals which supports their educational development and helps them evolve in terms of racial, cultural, and other socio-political factors impacting the communities within which they work.

Provide education on specific mental health risk factors which is readily accessible to all. This includes providing information in languages that are native to the targeted community, which are culturally appropriate and take into account different levels of formal education.

Address Basic Needs

Flexible funding is available to include reimbursement for paraprofessionals (peer providers) as a way to spread mental health knowledge and interventions, engage individuals at risk, and expand mental health services.

Promote prevention, early access to care and a culture of thriving by developing and implementing creative programs, which include community voice from, design to implementation and evaluation, as well as resource allocation.

County Abuse Prevention Funding

Further research on mutual aid project design and leadership is needed to develop a genuine model for community-based care

Create a professional development track for Community Health Workers

Prevent systems from punishing families for social determinants

Telehealth Counseling

Child care

Family Resource Centers

Initiate a community-led process to design and implement these localized prevention support systems, which will address the strengths and needs of each identified community

Policy makers should support Community Schools in the use of data for continuous improvement strategies.

Expand the Community Schools Model

Engage parents and students

Focus on cultural competency

Support equity-based funding policies

Support students, families, and school staff during remote instruction

Use the return of revenue to subsidize machinery purchase vouchers or accomplish goals beyond universal broadband access

The City or County should become the ISP of first resort at minimum pricing and with broad and generous cross-subsidy programs funded by higherincome rate payers.

Establish the internet as a publicly held utility.

One-time investment of state-level funds to provide a voucher for the purchase of cost-efficient equipment for households without school aged children, conditioned on income and, like Lifeline, limited to families making 135 percent or less of the federal poverty level income.

The provision of every school-child in California with a moderate to low cost device to provide functional access to the web and its resources from home

Broadband service should made available to every household through expansion of, and enrollment in, the existing Lifeline subsidy and an infusion of state and local resources

Call for the City, County, and State to make a policy commitment to 100% meaningful and usable broadband web access in five years’ time.

Declare meaningful access to the internet as a civil rights issue in California.

When it is safe to do so, fund outreach efforts to bring patients back to their healthcare providers for preventative care, especially cancer screening, HIV and STD testing, diabetes screening and care, and nutrition counseling.

Provide temporary isolated housing for all people with COVID-19 who do not live alone. In addition, childcare and eldercare resources should be offered as well, to reduce the likelihood of transmission to vulnerable Angelenos

Dramatically improve testing capacity and access to testing

Mitigate the direct impact of the novel coronavirus on marginalized communities.

Enable organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and other support services to provide virtual care by investing in technology for both the organization and the patients they serve

Promote the adoption of video services for providers that serve patients with substance use, such as buprenorphine prescribers and therapists.

At community health centers (FQHCs and FQHClook-alikes): promote the adoption of video services to maximize Medicare and private insurer compensation

At the county level: ensure that the Department of Health Services’ outpatient clinic facilities, including both primary and specialty care, are able to maximize patient care and compensation through telephone and video visits.

Enable the transition to remote care or “telehealth” by investing in technology and skills.

Provide interest-free loans to private service providers and clinics hard hit by COVID-19 shutdowns, like substance use treatment facilities

Ensure adequate supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other tools essential to fighting COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

Mitigate impact of lost revenue for FQHCs and FQHC-look-alikes.

Preserve the ability of community health centers and other crucial providers to serve marginalized communities

Provide more equitable funding for medical training

Reduce barriers and increase payments for telehealth services.

Integrate funding and delivery of medical and behavioral health care

Pay more for outpatient care, disease management, and population health (and not just to Federally Qualified Health Centers)

Increase Medi-Cal payments to the same level as Medicare

Covered California Expansion to include undocumented adults

Medi-Cal Expansion

Statewide Single Payer

Creating Universal healthcare access

Provide Cash Assistance to Low-Income Workers and Those Who Have Lost Work or Experienced Reduced Hours

Provide basic income support to low-income workers in California through the CalEITC and Young Child Tax Credit

Ensure paid sick leave for workers

Expand paid family leave (PFL) benefits for workers

Ensure fair work week and scheduling practices

Create industry worker safety boards

Invest in high-speed connectivity

Continue with workforce development partnerships

Stabilize the Rental Market

Infuse more money into building housing

Push for more rental subsidies

Address the stark racial wealth gap by encouraging homeownership

Invest in the “caring economy"

Fund, maintain, and prioritize public transportation

Invest in mutually beneficial initiatives that redress chronic community conditions and grow the economy

Support businesses owned by Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and women

Encourage businesses to diversify supply chains

Engage banks in a major effort to increase lending to viable small businesses

Support social enterprise

Create a campaign to overhaul hiring practices

Encourage businesses to recruit, hire and promote Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

Consider reform to our state tax system

Consider redistributing local tax revenue to Jurisdictions in need

Consider increasing taxes on the very highest income households

Reconsider corporate tax breaks

Safety in public and private space

Codify and implement the Breathe Act

Decriminalize and address poverty and homelessness

Stop discriminatory policing and continue deincarceration

Create Systems of Care

Address the systematic anti-Black racism in healthcare

Destigmatize mental health and invest in mental health infrastructure

Support community-based health systems, particularly in this crisis

Invest in a care economy and social service sector

Evolve to an economy of solidarity that generates improved income and wealth for Black Angelenos

Create affordable housing and opportunities for homeownership

Create access to quality jobs that prioritize Black workers’ and small business owners’ growth and leadership

Apply a racial equity lens to all budget decisions

Support Black immigrants

Provide philanthropic support for Black-led organizations

Provide philanthropic and other support to displaced Black communities

Support work that tackles anti-Black racism

Extend Eviction Moratoria and Strengthen Tenant Protections

Provide Rental Assistance Prioritizing Most Vulnerable Tenants

Rental Market Stabilization Program

Public Acquisition of Hotels and Motels for Conversion into Permanent Supportive Housing

Property Acquisition and Land Banking for Affordable Housing Development

Increase and Align Funding Streams and Generate Revenue from New Sources for Construction of Affordable Housing

Remove Barriers to Achieve Construction of 500,000 New Housing Units

Zoning reform

Streamline the Development Process and Remove Barriers to Achieve Construction of 500,000 New Housing Units

CEQA reform

Restructure Governance and Implement Meaningful Regional Accountability

Center Racial Equity

Generating new revenue: Transfer Tax

Generating new revenue: Proposition 15

Generating new revenue: PropGenerating new revenue: Out-of-State Property Transaction Taxosition 15

Generating new revenue: Emergency Bonding Authority

Access to land that is temporarily not in use for safe parking for cars and RVs

Fund and execute the current plan to move 15,000 of the most vulnerable people into permanent housing, including those age 65 or older

Ensure that no one housed temporarily returns to the streets

Provide rent and mortgage relief beyond that offered through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act, extend the eviction moratoria through Spring 2022 and increase tenant protections through universal rent control. Reform eviction process

Employ other immediate plans utilizing land or buildings not in use because of COVID-19 or otherwise under government control

Use Project Homekey to increase acquisitions of hotels, modular, board, and care units

Launch culturally competent education campaign for housing retention for those in housing to prevent homelessness

Implement and fund plans to house all residents over age 65

Shore up financial support for board and care assisted residential facilities for people with mental illness experiencing homelessness.

Streamline processes and begin anti-racist rezoning work including reversing the effect of downzoning.

Minimums on per unit square footage per unit or density caps that preclude SRO or Affordable microunits should be eliminated

Develop a campaign and dashboard to publicly monitor construction of housing and hold elected officials accountable.

Fully implement the recommendations and work of the Ad Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness (LAHSA 2018b).

Secure additional resources to fund solutions at the scale of need, including the creation of new state and local funding sources for permanent supportive housing

Incentivize private investment

Establish or designate a regional centralized agency that, among other things, holds all local governments accountable for funding and siting permanent supportive housing

Every local government should have an action plan to build 25 percent of their very low-income Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) number as permanent supportive housing (PSH)

Re-start the national campaign to end American homelessness by increasing federal funding and erasing decades of cuts

Waive burdensome federal rules that unconstitutionally exclude immigrants and citizen families from housing

Increase access to health and mental health through Social Connection Hubs and other efforts described in the Access to Health section.

Ensure access to housing for those exiting jails, foster care, and other institutions through effective use of the regional accountability described above