Community-Wealth City: Los Angeles, California

Spanning across 500 square miles of Southern California, Los Angeles is the second most populous city in the United States with an estimated 2007 population of just over 3.8 million people. According to the 2006 American Community Survey, the city is 49% Latino, 31% white, 10% black, and 10% Asian. In 2005, the city elected Antonio Villaraigosa, its first Latino mayor since 1872. Spurred in part by rampant urban sprawl and gentrification in some neighborhoods, Los Angeles has spawned a wide range of community wealth-building initiatives that are seeking to counter these trends. Not only is Los Angeles home to some of the nation's leading community development corporations, but it is also known for innovation in other areas, including university-community partnerships, community benefit agreements, and transit-oriented development.

Organized labor has played a major role in community wealth-building efforts in Los Angeles. Although unions are losing strength and membership in much of the country, they have gained ground in Los Angeles. A city that has had a strong anti-union history and unions that traditionally excluded racial minorities has been transformed into a local labor movement in which Latino activists have often played a leading role and which has placed much greater emphasis on working in coalition with community-based groups. One sign of this is the work of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE). Founded in 1993, LAANE has helped spearhead national efforts to develop community benefit agreements.

A Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is an agreement between a developer and a coalition of community groups and unions that generates mutual cooperation instead of conflict, benefiting members of the community. Businesses, which often receive tax breaks, subsidies and other incentives to operate within a city, now share some responsibility for the surrounding community. Through a CBA, they may be required to provide living wage jobs, local hiring, affordable housing, housing for displaced families, and/or park space. In exchange for making these concessions, businesses gain expedited approval of their projects, lowering development costs. LAANE has been at the forefront of this movement, successfully working to negotiate a $500-million CBA that provides for the community around Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during new construction projects.

Another recent development, helping to change the direction of the city, was the passage of two important transit oriented development propositions -- Los Angeles County measure R and the California statewide proposition 1A in November 2008. The city, well known for its constant gridlock, has shifted increasing resources into transit in the past two decades. Measure R is a half-cent sales tax increase that is expected to provide the resources necessary to finance local transportation projects, including an extension of the subway toward the Westside, light-rail extensions through the San Gabriel Valley, dedicated busways in the San Fernando Valley and a host of highway improvements. Over the next 30 years, this tax increase is projected to generate $40 billion for congestion relief. Another large transportation project, partially funded by Measure 1A, allows the State of California to issue $10 billion in bonds in order to help finance a bullet train from Los Angeles to San Francisco. This project is estimated to bring an additional 450,000 permanent jobs to California by 2035 as a result of economic growth.

An overview of community wealth building efforts follows:

Anchor Institutions

New Schools New Neighborhoods
www.nsbn.org
New Schools New Neighborhoods was formed both to advocate for a vision of public facilities, most especially schools, as vital community centers, and to assist families and neighborhoods in creating built models of community centered learning centers. The group has emerged as California's independent, neighborhood-led master planner, committed to reforming existing approaches to site and designing family resource centers, public schools, parks, libraries, and housing.

Community Development Corporations

A Community of Friends
www.acof.org
Focused on creating permanently affordable housing and a stable community environment, A Community of Friends has completed over 1,225 units at 33 properties, primarily throughout Los Angeles County. Since its founding in 1988, the group has secured over $200 million in financing from city departments, allowing it to develop projects ranging in cost from a $600,000 rehabilitation of a five bedroom house and two free-standing duplexes to a $14.6 million project that provided 114 one-bedroom units for senior citizens.

East Los Angeles Community Corporation
www.eastlacc.org
Founded in 1996, the East Los Angeles Community Corporation works to preserve neighborhood assets and strengthen existing community infrastructure in Boyle Heights and Unincorporated East Los Angeles. The group develops affordable housing, provides financial literacy and first-time homebuyer programs, and other community services. As of 2006, the CDC had completed 7 affordable housing projects, developing a total of more than 190 units of mixed-income housing.

Esperanza Community Housing Corporation
www.esperanzacommunityhousing.org
Founded in 1989, Esperanza Community Housing Corporation develops affordable housing, promotes accessible health care, and pursues economic development in the Figueroa Corridor neighborhood of South-Central Los Angeles. Its Community Health Promoters’ Program trains bi- and trilingual low-income residents to become community health leaders, who better understand community needs and have marketable skills for further employment. To date, the CDC has also completed nine affordable housing projects that provide a total of 165 housing units. In developing Mercado La Paloma, the group has helped create 15 businesses, 80 jobs, and a community-gathering place.

New Economics for Women
www.neweconomicsforwomen.org
Established in 1984, New Economics for Women was founded on the belief that these women could reduce poverty and improve their community by focusing on the needs of women and children. To date, the group has helped develop over 580 mixed units of affordable housing and founded a 44-thousand square foot Academy Canoga Park Charter School. It is currently developing the 15,000-foot Canoga Park Community Center and has finished the Prosperity Center, which is focused on helping generate economic development in the community.

TELACU (The East Los Angeles Community Union)
www.telacu.com
Initially funded through federal legislation, TELACU is the largest Community Development Corporation and one of the largest Hispanic businesses in the United States. TELACU Community Capital, one of its subsidiaries, operates as a Community Development Financial Institution, providing special financing and technical assistance to nontraditional small business owners. Other subsidiaries, TELACU Development and TELACU Real Estate Services provide affordable housing and economic development projects, including a multi-use commercial and industrial center that has created more than 2,200 jobs.

Vermont-Slauson Economic Development Corporation
www.vsedc.org
Located in South Los Angeles, Vermont-Slauson Economic Development Corporation has been a leader in inner city retail development. The 175,000-square foot shopping center it developed in 1981 was one of the few structures that was untouched by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. In 2004, the CDC opened a second large shopping center, anchored by the Mexican supermarket chain Gigante.

Watts Labor Community Action Committee
www.wlcac.org
Established in 1965 by labor union members, Watts Labor Community Action Committee fosters economic development in South Central Los Angeles and provides social services for South Central Los Angeles residents. The group has constructed and manages over 5,000 houses and apartments for low and moderate-income families and senior citizens, in addition to several commercial properties and business ventures. It also runs several programs that generate and recycle income within the community.

Community Development Financial Institutions

Los Angeles Local Development Corporation
www.losangelesldc.com
Trying to encourage additional private investment and stimulate job creation and retention, the Los Angeles Local Development Corporation is a non-profit that provides loans and capital to small and medium-sized businesses in distressed neighborhoods throughout the greater Los Angeles region. Since its founding in 1980, the group has worked closely with the Mayor’s Office, facilitating or funding over $150 million of financing for businesses and real estate development projects in the city.

Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Services
www.lanhs.org
Founded in 1984, Los Angeles Neighborhood Housing Services is both a community developer and lender, serving over 1.7 million families, developing and rehabilitating over 10,700 housing and commercial units, establishing 172 block clubs, educating and counseling over 87,000 homebuyers and families, and investing more than $1.8 billion back into some of Los Angeles’ most depressed neighborhoods. The group has experienced no foreclosures in the 20-year history of its Revolving Loan Fund Portfolio and maintains less than a 3-percent delinquency rate.

Community Land Trusts

Community Foundation Land Trust (CFLT)
www.calfund.org/learn/land_trust.php
Founded in 2002 as a subsidiary of the California Community Foundation, CFLT works to assist low and medium income individuals by developing permanently affordable housing in the LA area. CFLT leveraged an initial $3.8 million endowment to initiate development of 284 homes worth over $80 million and has entered into a joint venture with a major homebuilder (MBK) to build 79 homes in the Antelope Valley. It has obtained two $2 million Program Related Investment (PRI) loans, one from Ford Foundation and one from the California Community Foundation.

Cross Sectoral

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (SAJE)
www.saje.net
Founded in 1996, SAJE has taken a multi-faceted approach to pursuing community wealth building, combining a strong advocacy and community organizing focus with innovative redevelopment strategies, including negotiating community benefits agreements (in which developers agree to provide jobs for local residents in exchange for community support), affordable housing development, and immigrant access to the banking system.

Employee Ownership

Chatsworth Products
www.chatsworth.com
Once a division of a Fortune 500 company (the Harris Company), Chatsworth Products, which produces storage devices for mainframe computer equipment and data, became a 100% employee-owned company in 1991. The company has grown to employ over 900 people today.

Dunn-Edwards
www.dunnedwards.com
Originally a private, family-owned business founded in 1925, since 2001, Dunn-Edwards is the largest employee-owned paint manufacturer in the United States. With more than 1,650 employee owners and over 100 stores throughout the southwestern U.S., Dunn-Edwards totaled more than $300,000 million in revenue in 2007. This employee owned company primarily caters to architects, designers, homebuilders, and property managers in the Southwest.

Local Innovations

Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles
www.ccscla.org/housing.htm
Focusing primarily on community organizing in South Central Los Angeles, Concerned Citizens is also involved with developing affordable housing, youth, and community sustainable programs. Having organized 57 block clubs to date, the organization’s strength comes from its ability to organize the local community to address local issues, such as improving the safety and appearance of neighborhood streets and alleys.

Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy
www.laane.org
LAANE addresses issues affecting the working poor. It was one of the first groups to develop the concept of community benefit agreements, wherein developers receiving public subsidies make corresponding commitments to provide quality jobs and other community benefits. In 2004, LAANE helped pass the groundbreaking Los Angeles Superstore Ordinance, giving communities more control over the construction of big-box stores. That same year, LAANE negotiated a community benefits agreement that commits the Airport Authority to complete $500 million of community benefits projects in connection with its planned airport expansion.

Los Angeles Eco-Village
www.laecovillage.org
Striving to become a healthy urban community model, the Los Angeles Eco-Village promotes sustainable living practices and increases neighborhood self-reliance in a variety of areas such as livelihood, food production, energy and water use, affordable housing, transit, recreation, waste reduction and education. Eco-Village has acquired 48 apartment units through its ecological revolving loan fund and plans to convert the units into a permanently affordable cooperative.

Municipal Enterprises

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
www.ladwp.com
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is the country's largest public utility supplying water and electricity to the city's 3.8 million residents. Each year, it transfers at least seven percent of its electric gross revenues and five percent of its water gross revenues to the Los Angeles General Fund, helping finance city police and fire protection, as well as recreational facilities.

Port of Los Angeles
www.portoflosangeles.org
The Port of Los Angles is the largest container port in the United States and the fourth largest cruise passenger facility. In FY 2004, total operating revenues exceeded $350 million with net income of $90 million. The Port is also a major real estate developer. Long-term plans, for instance, call for the development of 400 acres of Port property into a combination of parkland, commercial, retail, and residential space along an eight-mile stretch of waterfront.

Social Enterprises

Chrysalis
www.changelives.org
Chrysalis helps economically disadvantaged and homeless individuals become self-sufficient through employment opportunities. To this end, Chrysalis runs two businesses, Labor Connections, which serves as a full-service staffing agency, and StreetWorks, which has contracts to clean over 100 city blocks with the city of Los Angeles and nearby Santa Monica.

Homeboy Industries
www.homeboy-industries.org
Founded by Father Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest, in 1992 in response to the civil unrest in Los Angeles, as a means of providing employment training for former gang members, Homeboy Industries has since grown to include a bakery, silkscreen, maintenance, and landscaping businesses. All told the enterprises generate nearly $1 million a year in revenue while providing employment to over 60 at-risk youth while providing job placements for hundreds a year more.

Transformative Action Institute
www.transformativeaction.org
The Transformative Action Institute is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to develop a new generation of social entrepreneurs and problem-solvers. Through its Transform America initiative, the group aims to train 1,000 university students a year in method of social innovation and enterprise. The program also includes a national competition to select the 20 best projects, with each of the winning projects receiving seed money of $50,000 to launch their organizations.

University-Community Partnerships

USC Community Initiatives
www.landfillenergy.com/proven-solutions/projects/michigan/riverview-energy-systems
In 1992, USC President Steven B. Sample started five initiatives that focused the University on improving the surrounding neighborhoods. These five initiatives include action to provide special educational, cultural and developmental opportunities for local children, to work with the community to provide safer streets, to attract more entrepreneurs, and especially minority entrepreneurs, to the immediate vicinity, to encourage USC employees to live in the immediate area, and to increase the hiring of persons who have lived in the surrounding community for the previous five years.