On Wednesday, June 29, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a plan by the Civil + Human Rights and Equity (LA Civil Rights) Department to launch Peace & Healing Centers in nine communities across the City of Los Angeles. The program will partner with community-based organizations to create physical spaces focused on environmental, social and economic healing in historically marginalized communities.
Health disparities and unequal access to health care afflicted marginalized and vulnerable Los Angeles communities long before the onset of COVID-19.
Fostered youth in marginalized communities are always in need of support and attention, but this year has increased the need to draw attention to the millions of young people without stability and structure in their lives. First Place for Youth, a SoCal organization dedicated to help foster youth build the skills they need to make a successful transition to self-sufficiency and responsible adulthood, is putting their best food forward for young adults in foster care.
“…while this nation espouses the valuing of children in general, this does not appear to be the reality as evidenced by the failure to act in the face of the onslaught of mass school shootings from Sandy Hook to Stoneman Douglas where the majority of those killed were middle class white youth,” said Dr. Ronnie A. Dunn, an interim chief diversity and inclusion officer and associate professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University.