Taste of Soul is more than a family festival, it is also an economic empowerment festival designed to spotlight our Black businesses in and around South Los Angeles. Although the COVID-19 pandemic canceled all events for 2020—our support for these businesses is never canceled. To that end, Bakewell Media has launched the ‘Support a Black Business Advertising Campaign.’
In response to an increase in shootings of unarmed Black men and women, including the recent shooting of Dijon Kizzee in South Los Angeles, and subsequent protests against the racialized violence endured at the hands of law enforcement towards communities of color, Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, in collaboration with the Institute for Nonviolence in Los Angeles (INLV), led a leadership level virtual dialogue on Racism, Policing, the Pandemic + Beyond.
Black Americans have to be involved at all levels of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. We cannot afford to be silent, detached, denied, or prevented from being at the decision-making tables in terms of COVID-19 public health policies, research, clinical trials, remedies, and vaccine development. Our lives and future are at stake.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors today extended a moratorium on evictions through Oct. 31.
The board also set the county’s moratorium as the minimum standard for cities countywide, something Supervisor Kathryn Barger had previously pushed back against.
The Los Angeles City Council voted today to declare a fiscal emergency and approved plans to furlough more than 15,000 city employees and carry out early retirement buyouts for another 1,280 employees to try to recoup as much anticipated lost revenue as possible due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayor Eric Garcetti said today that he signed an executive directive to make city services more accessible online and contact-free whenever possible amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Garcetti said people can already pay bills online, and contact-free pickup services of materials from libraries is available, but “this directive is a critical step to not only modernize government but to keep us safe as we open up city services, or the city services that have stayed open and that you depend on don’t put you at risk.”
The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) is moving forward with one of the single-largest bulk orders of laptop-style devices in the history of California’s community college education system to help meet the burgeoning technology needs of its students to complete lessons in remote learning platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic.
L.A. Controller Ron Galperin, in cooperation with the City’s Economic and Workforce Development Department (EWDD), updated his interactive map and microloan tracker displaying the microloans funded by the City of Los Angeles to help small businesses get the assistance they need during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the program started, EWDD has distributed more than $5.9 million to 419 Los Angeles businesses — an increase from the $3.4 million to 227 businesses reported when Galperin first released the tracker in July. Available at lacontroller.org/microloans, Galperin’s microloan tracker is updated through the beginning of August and includes a map with the name, location and loan amount for each recipient.
Wealthier communities went from being the most mobile before the COVID-19 pandemic to the least mobile, while poorer areas have gone from the least mobile to the most mobile, according to a study by the University of California, Davis.
While a compelling case can be made for a significant expansion of the Los Angeles City Council, a more modest and immediately doable approach to demonstrating our concern with minority rights in these turbulent times would be to free Watts from Council District 15 and join it with Council District 9.
African American stakeholders are ramping up their outreach to undercounted census tracts where Black Californians live after the U.S. Census Bureau announced this week that it will stop the national count at the end of September. The state too is intensifying its last-ditch initiatives to achieve an accurate count of all Californians as enumeration goes into its final stretches. Federal legislation that would have extended it through October has stalled in the U.S. Senate.
“Pediatricians are always concerned when we see a drop in immunization rates since this could lead to an increase in vaccine preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough,” said Dr. Mark B. Salzman, regional lead, pediatric infectious diseases, with Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “If vaccination rates decline, we may possibly see an increase in some preventable diseases that can have dire consequences on children’s health.”
Johnson’s EquiTrust is providing critical financial support to underserved communities and businesses that have been traditionally neglected. These small and diverse businesses often have difficulty developing strong lending relationships with big banks. According to the Center for Responsible Lending, up to 90% of businesses owned by people of color have been, or will likely be, shut out of the PPP program.
West Los Angeles was one of 22 Kaiser Permanente hospitals recognized among the “Best Maternity Care Hospitals 2020” by Newsweek magazine. The elite designation, awarded to only 231 hospitals in the United States, identifies leading maternity care programs based on rigorous quality and safety standards. Kaiser Permanente hospitals represent nearly 10% of those named to the prestigious list nationwide – and 44.4% of those listed in California.
In the heart of the Crenshaw District, in South L.A., a community food distribution drive through was held at the Los Angeles Sentinel on Saturday, July 18, 2020 from 9M – Noon, to provide groceries for community members experiencing economic hardship due with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bakewell Media, Los Angeles Sentinel, Mothers In Action, AFGE, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Labor Community Services, the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, Miguel Contreras Foundation, Teamsters National Black Caucus, Councilmember Herb Wesson of CD 10 and County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas of the 2nd District collaborated to successfully distribute groceries to 2,500 families in Los Angeles and surrounding areas.