March 15, 2014

My article in today’s LA Progressive:

There have been more Popes elected than LA sheriffs in the last 80 years.

This year, progressives need to choose carefully in the LA County June election. Not only will we be voting for sheriff but will also fill the supervisory seats currently held by Gloria Molina and Zev Yaroslavky in the First and Third Districts. There may be low turnout and low interest for these contests but at the March 13 general meeting of the LA Regional Reentry Partnership–”LARRP”– I learned why these offices matter to anyone concerned with social justice, public safety, or the rational expenditure of taxpayer money.

But first, here’s what else I learned.

LARRP brings together service providers, government agencies, advocates, and clients all concerned with the reintegration into the community of the formerly incarcerated in ways that are humane and consonant with public safety.

The first time I attended a LARRP meeting, back in July, executive director Peggy Edwards pointed out, “Our reentry providers haven’t looked at themselves as homeless providers and our homeless providers haven’t looked at themselves as reentry providers.”

That has changed and collaboration is now the order of the day with open communication and computerized and filtered lists of clients and services.

Hazel Lopez of the Lamp Community, which provides services on Skid Row, said, “Reentry and homelessness are not separate issues. People coming out of prison are without housing and that is the definition of homeless.”

Danielle Wildkress of the Corporation for Supportive Housing explained, “The Skid Row Housing Trust didn’t think of themselves as reentry providers, but it turned out 60% of the people in their housing were on probation.”

Lopez described a new initiative, the Coordinated Entry Systems-Access to Housing, which has been funded in part by the United Way, while Wildkress explained the workings of the new Jail In-Reach 2.0 program which seeks to end recidivism and the cycle of homelessness.

Both initiatives follow similar models:

“Housing First“

Don’t expect clients to be stabilized physically, mentally, and free of substance abuse before offering them housing. Experience now shows that once people are actually living in permanent supportive housing, it becomes possible for them to get stabilized.

But where is such housing to come from? LA has nowhere near enough to meet the need. Troy Vaughn, also of Lamp, acknowledged, “There’s limited capacity to do development projects” for permanent supportive housing and even when a project can be funded and approved, “it doesn’t get up fast enough.” In the past, he explained, people assumed there had to be a single facility where residents and wraparound services could be housed together. Now Lamp is trying a new approach. Through negotiation, the owner of the Alexandria Hotel agreed to set aside 60
units for chronically homeless people coming out of the hospital. Ten have already moved in. Lamp agreed to find all the supportive services the residents need. Service providers will travel to the client. Vaughn hopes if the program is a success and the residents in the Alexandria remain stabilized, other property owners and landlords will join the effort.

Foster collaboration and streamline services

In LA County, as in many urban areas, people in great need often go without help as they find themselves unable to find their way through a landscape of scattered services and no unified effort. Both of these programs identify clients through street outreach or in-reach into hospitals and jails where they can begin work with a vulnerable person before discharge. Each client is paired with a “Navigator” who helps with documents and ID and makes connections to all appropriate and available supportive services. The Navigator makes sure there’s a bed available–even a temporary one–while actively working toward the goal of permanent supportive housing. When people leave jail, their own Navigator is waiting at the gate to greet them and remains a familiar, friendly presence in the client’s life until new relationships are built with the post-release team.

Put decision-making in the clients’ hands

Navigators offer options but clients are never coerced and are free to accept or reject housing offers. Every step of the way, clients explain what kinds of help they want and need. For example, Kelli Poole, an employment specialist with Chrysalis, who works with Jail in-Reach 2.0, recognizes that many people would write off her clients as unemployable. She said the clients themselves, however–far from wanting to rely on handouts–consider it a priority to prepare themselves for getting and holding down a job.

Prioritize the most vulnerable.

“Usually when a new building comes online in Skid Row,” Lopez explained, “people start lining up 2-3 days in advance to get an application.” Obviously–and as a survey confirmed–it’s almost exclusively the younger and healthier Skid Row residents who get the applications and housing.

People who are chronically homeless, repeatedly incarcerated, and disabled with physical, mental health, or substance abuse issues tend to be excluded. With the new programs, they are the priority. Not only is their need the greatest but, as constant users of ambulances, emergency rooms, hospital stays, jail and law enforcement resources, they are the greatest drain on public funds. Providing the most vulnerable with intensive and extensive services can save lives while saving money. A study of a similar program outside LA found that a chronically homeless person cost $67,376 in public taxpayer monies in a year while housing that person and providing full wraparound services cost only $19,399.

Which brings us to one of the reasons why we need to vote carefully for County Supervisors: What will the Supes do with such considerable savings? Put the money back into housing and reentry services or stash it elsewhere, continuing a tradition of neglect?

Lynne Lyman, the California state director for the Drug Policy Allianceand LAARP co-chair, Policy and Advocacy, cited other reasons for dissatisfaction with the current board.

Thousands of people in LA County jails have not been convicted of any crime and languish (at considerable taxpayer expense) behind bars only because they can’t afford bail. While the sheriff has stated his willingness to release some under supervision after a careful risk assessment, he does not have the authority to do so without approval from the county supervisors. It has not so far been possible to get a majority vote granting this authority.

While the supervisors were given $750 million by Sacramento to cover some of the realignment costs involved in sending prisoners back to the county from the state prison system, only a small percent was allocated for reentry services. Much of that small amount doesn’t even make it to the service providers and goes unspent.

Then there’s the plight of LA county’s Three-Strikers. In November 2012, California voters recognized the unjust and unintended consequences of life sentences handed down to nonviolent offenders. With Prop 36, they approved a measure that would offer the possibility of release. A year and four months later, 700 Los Angeles county Three-Strikers who are eligible for release remain incarcerated because they have not yet been afforded a day in court to show they have a place to go and a reentry plan. For men and women with chronic medical or psychiatric conditions–which have often been exacerbated during a decade or more in prison–or who have special needs such as wheelchair-accessible housing, a feasible reentry plan can remain out-of-reach, especially because the board of supervisors (unlike their counterparts in other counties) have refused to allocate any funding for Prop 36ers.

As for the race to fill the sheriff’s office, as voters consider the large field of candidates, it’s important to note that while the department has cooperated enthusiastically with the In-Reach program, here, too, there is a struggle over funds and an underutilization of community-based diversion programs.

Lyman notes that 40 women were released under an alternatives to incarceration program but though community placement is considerably less expensive than jail housing, the sheriff’s department money retained the savings and refused to pay anything for the beds. The alternatives program can reach only a limited number of appropriate individuals as long as nonprofits, already operating on austerity budgets, have to offer their full services for free, relying on fundraising and grant writing while the sheriff’s department holds onto all funding.

Lyman and co-chair Peter Laarman of Justice not Jails, suspecting that county officials really had no clue as to the level of professionalism and effectiveness of community-based residential programs, have led people from the sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office on eye-opening tours of the Amity Foundation , the Tarzana Treatment Centers, and other programs that should be trusted and funded by LA County. A bed with full wraparound services at the Amity Foundation would cost the taxpayer one-tenth of the what the
sheriff would currently prefer to pay in sending prisoners to Kern County.

The sheriff and the supervisors continue to favor a $2 billion jail construction and expansion plan over the fiscally sound use of split sentencing and community-based programs that offer offenders realistic opportunities to turn their lives around.

There are two chances coming up to hear all the candidates vying for your vote for the office of sheriff.

The meeting concluded with a presentation by Pamela Jordan of A New Way of Life about her work as Housing Coordinator for the Reentry Family Reunification pilot program which now serves 25 formerly incarcerated individuals. The goal is to make it possible for the soon-to-be-released to move in with willing family members in Section 8 housing under the program of the Los Angeles City (not County) Housing Authority.

In the past, even families that very much wanted to welcome a member back home were held back by fear. Could they manage the person’s behavior? Would they be risking eviction if their loved one relapsed or committed a new offense?

The pilot program makes sure that their family member gets all necessary supportive services. The system will also sever culpability, so a law-abiding family will not be penalized if the person they’ve offered a home to should happen to reoffend.

What all three innovative programs–CES, Jail In-Reach 2.0, and Reentry Family Reunification–have in common (besides changing lives and neighborhoods for the better) is that they are small scale and underfunded with no guarantees they can continue.

This is why progressives need to ask direct questions of the countywide candidates well before the June 3rd election. When we simply let an offender out the gate with no place to go and no resources, we are often guaranteeing that he or she will reoffend. Continuing an emphasis on punishing people after the fact of crime instead of devoting resources to preventing crime and reducing recidivism serves no one. Good reentry programs benefit all of us. We need to know which candidates are ready to take an ethical and rational approach to homelessness and reentry and which are determined to continue a system that’s proved itself to be inequitable, ineffective, and unsustainable.

In today's LA Progressive:

Abbe Land, West Hollywood Mayor Pro Tem, doesn't want activists to think of "lobbying" as a dirty word. "In the purest form, it's about educating and helping elected officials understand the issue," she told more than 100 community members attending the July 25th workshop, "Your Voice: Learning to Lobby for Social Change," organized by the Advocacy Committee of the National Council of Jewish Women/Los Angeles.  "Paid lobbyists can keep knocking on your door till you let them in, keep  telling you their side, their side, their side--till it's possible forget about the other side." Progressive organizations lobby, too, "to move our agenda forward," she said in her keynote address, but don't have the resources to keep up that kind of constant pressure without the help of the individual activist. The role of citizen lobbyist is crucial.

In the breakout sessions that followed, community members got tips about individual activism while much of the discussion focused
on the role of organized nonprofits as well as informal ad hoc advocacy groups. 
 
(While 501(c)(3) nonprofits can lose their tax-exempt status if lobbying takes more than 5% of their time and resources, they are not
banned entirely from approaching officials on behalf of specific legislation. Good information on how to navigate rules and restrictions and maximize lobbying to the full extent of the law is available at the website of the organization Alliance for Justice.)

Legislate? Or Educate?

 There's no limit on 501(c)(3) organizations (or anyone else) when it comes to campaigns to educate officials about issues.

 Emily Austin, who facilitated the workshop on "Policy Process 101: Transforming Ideas into Policy," explained that education must sometimes precede any attempt to make policy given the many obstacles to
  getting a bill into law. Even if you can get legislation introduced, it's
  likely to die in committee unless the ground has been fully
prepared.


To illustrate how this might work in real life, Austin
shared her experience addressing teen dating violence in her role as Director of
Policy & Evaluation for Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit dedicated to intervention and prevention of domestic violence and sexual assault. Through its work with survivors, POV was aware that many teens were victimized but when staff went to the broader community, they found parents insisting their kids didn't even date so couldn't possibly be affected.
 POV collected statistics and reports to show the prevalence of the violence and began to collect powerful personal stories as well. 
 
"Think about who your allies might be," she said. "Unlikely allies, too." Progressives sometimes overlook the support a cause
might get from groups--in this case, law enforcement and prosecutors--that aren't always in agreement with our values. 
 
You also need to identify the opposition and what their arguments might be. An Orange County politician, for example, was opposed to any discussion of dating violence because dating implied sexual activity. In today's economy, you can expect arguments about funding, so think about possible resources and be ready to make the argument--with specific figures--that
spending money now will prevent higher costs later.

 Determine your venue, Austin said. Do you think the issue is best addressed on a federal, state, local, or organizational level?
Once you know your venue, find a champion there. Whether a bill needs to be shepherded into law or a regulation or policy needs to change in a bureaucracy, someone has to work toward this goal with almost single-minded focus and push hard for it in a knowledgeable and articulate way. 

POV connected early on with Steve Zimmer, a Los Angeles teacher and counselor for 17 years, who knew firsthand that students
were suffering abuse. When he was later elected to the school board, he became an ideal champion--committed, able to speak at a press conference in an entirely credible way. He didn't need to have talking point provided to him and was able to answer any questions with ease. (As Abbe Land pointed out, a paid lobbyist has to be prepared because they get fired if they don't know the issue very well. We have to be sure we are every bit as knowledgeable when we speak to people in power.) In October 2011, Zimmer got the school board to pass a unanimous resolution in favor of a prevention program for the city's public schools. Though no funds have been identified yet to implement such a program or the curriculum prepared by POV, the problem--after years of educating the community--is at last officially recognized. As Austin said, "It's on the map." Even this limited progress to the goal took years while POV did the research, developed and nurtured relationships, and prepared the ground with public awareness.

For now, the organization continues to educate peer leaders who can talk to other teens. And while you're figuring out how to
 influence others, Austin said, look at your own organization. Is it living up to its stated goals? For example, when people think of teen dating violence, the common assumption is this refers to girls who are victims of boys. Austin said POV looked to be sure its own board and policies were friendly to LGBT teens and youth who were questioning their sexuality and/or gender.

Whatever your cause, remember you need to raise community awareness and support before trying to promote a bill. Sometimes,
Austin warned, the community may  get passionately behind a cause after a particularly terrible event. These laws sometimes go through quickly--too quickly. "Legislation created after one specific set of facts--such as laws that tend to be named after a survivor or victim" are often poorly drafted "without thinking of unintended consequences." Think through any proposed bills or recommendations with care.

Everyone Has a Role

Serena Josel, Director of Public Affairs at Planned Parenthood Los Angeles, spoke on "Mobilizing Your Base: Grassroots and Grasstops Lobbying"

 For legislative advocacy, she said, you need three ongoing components that work together: a policy analysis team to study a bill and consider what real-life impact it would have; a media team to communicate these impacts to the public; a lobbying team of paid lobbyists if possible, plus the grassroots and the grasstops, the latter being members or allies of your group who are prominent in the community or have special relationships or access to decision makers because they are big donors or as colleagues or former staffers or through, for example, family, friendship, business.

 "Last spring when Congress tried to defund Planned Parenthood," she said, "what did we do?" First, the policy team warned the organization to take the threat seriously. Though the same amendment had been offered in Congress every year for six years, it never before had a chance of passing. This time, the policy team put out the alert that "it had legs." The media team got to work with radio and television interviews and social media to make the buzz louder and get people engaged.

 As for the grassroots lobbyists, how much could they accomplish here in LA where Planned Parenthood enjoys strong longterm
support from our elected representatives? First, whatever your cause, if you've got a compelling personal story, an official who's already on your side can use it in working to convince others. Then, Los Angeles grassroots activists turned to technology. They phoned sympathetic voters in targeted states, told them what was happening in DC and said "Your senator will be one of the deciding votes. Will you let me patch you into their office right now?" In this way, people power in Los Angeles generated calls to senators all around the country. "We won on the federal level," Josel said, though Planned Parenthood is still under attack in eight states.

Grassroots volunteers have also fanned out with cell phones on college campuses and at farmers markets, talking to people and
inviting supporters to make calls on-the-spot to elected officials.

As for the grasstops, Josel passed around copies of a sample chart set up to list all the decision makers relevant to an issue. After you poll the organization's board and active members, you fill in the blanks on the chart: who has a personal connection to each decision maker; who is a professional contact; who knows someone who is an indirect contact and in those cases, fill in that person's name and the nature of the relationship. You can then identify who is best suited to make the approach. 
 
Don't ask your grasstops to call everyone they know, Josel advised. Choose targets with care. Track what happens. Some  grasstops turn out to be have more clout than they expected; some less. 
 
Before any contact is made, the grasstops spokeperson should be carefully prepared. Their relationship means they are likely to have a real back-and-forth conversation with the decision maker so they'll need to know their stuff. The organization can follow up later with additional information if needed and, of course, with thank you notes.

 Decision makers who support you need to be thanked whenever they do the right thing with their vote, Josel said. Just because a person's belief system matches up with yours, doesn't mean they'll always want to go out on a limb for you, especially in an election year. Let them know that constituents have their back by sending a note or a even a photo of a large group of people holding up a big thank you sign.

Keep your grassroots people engaged with updates and reports of progress. 

Tips for Individuals

 Citizen lobbying is most effective when the decision maker can see you face-to-face (in their district or Capitol office or at a town hall meeting) or at least hear your voice on the phone. Meeting with an official's staff members is just as valuable.

Personal letters get more attention than petitions or mass emails. Snail mail shows a higher level of commitment than email. But keep in mind: Physical letters sent to local district offices will rarely be subject to delay but in DC, mail goes through security screening and can take several weeks to reach the recipient. For an urgent matter or when a vote is imminent, phone calls and personally composed emails are necessary. 
 
Use personal language, Josel said, not political jargon or bumper sticker language, e.g., talk about pregnancy and families, not
the opposing camps of pro-choice and pro-life.

On-line petitions may have some effect if the numbers are huge and come from appropriate zip codes.

Think about visual impact. If you're part of a pre-printed postcard campaign, save the cards and deliver them all at once. A  thousand cards dumped in a legislator's office can't be ignored. The same number trickling in over the course of a year or two can be overlooked.

If your letter to the editor is published, send copies to relevant decision makers, or, a participant suggested, bcc (send blind
copies) to the people you want to influence. That way, they'll know your opinion and that you cared enough to write even if the letter isn't published.

Facebook and Twitter campaigns tend to work best with corporations concerned about their image and their brand and are less
 effective when targeting elected officials. It's worth tweeting a representative who's known to use Twitter a lot. If you catch him or her during a particularly boring committee meeting, you may have the chance for an extended exchange.

A Last  Word

 Matt Leighty, who has worked as a lobbyist and teaches a graduate-level course on "Lobbying and Policy Change" at Pepperdine
University offered a workshop on "The Art of Persuasion: Winning Them Over," focused on preparing and delivering oral arguments. As participants could only attend two of the three breakout sessions, I missed his presentation. Which leads to my own tip to fellow activists: Don't beat yourself up if you can't do everything. 

But here's something you can do. The meeting ended with:

 Action Alerts

 Contact Congress to support:

 1. The reauthorization of the Violence against Women Act (VAWA) as approved by the Senate (S. 1925) rather than the House version (H.R. 4970) which was designed to undermine or deny protection to immigrant women (including mail-order brides), Native women, students on college campuses, and LGBTQ victims. 

2. The Fair Minimum Wage Act which would raise the minimum wage in three gradual steps from $7.25 to $9.80/hour by 2014. Get
  your representative on board as a co-sponsor.

If you need help finding your members of Congress and their contact info, call the Capitol switchboard at (202)224-3121 or go
online:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and
         
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm/

 For California actions, contact your state senator to support these Assembly bills being considered by the Senate:

 1. AB 2348 which would allow RNs to dispense birth control to women who have no risk factors. Today thousands of women who
  want contraception are turned away at health centers as there aren't enough doctors to see them. (If you make this call, please let Planned Parenthood know how it went by emailing grassroots@pp-la.org/)

2. AB 593 and AB 1593 which would aid incarcerated battered women who were unable to present a domestic violence defense at the time of a petition for habeas corpus and would give them a chance to present this evidence effectively during the parole  process.

  To find a California state senator:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html