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After 20 years, the Reverend Andy Bales of Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row is retiring.
The backstory: Union Rescue Mission was founded in 1891 and moved into its current five-story building in Skid Row in 1994.
What's next: Bales' successor will be announced in the coming weeks. Bales plans to work with them during the transition.
For the past 20 years, Reverend Andy Bales has been the CEO of Union Rescue Mission, a faith-based homeless shelter in Skid Row. He helped guide the shelter through the lean years of the Great Recession and unprecedented turmoil of the pandemic, and now, he says it’s time to hang up his hat and return to his home state of Iowa.
“What took me back was my wife a year ago said, 'When you turn 65…I'm returning to hang out with our redheaded grandgirls and you can join me if you'd like.' So I gulped and thought, oh, I'm in trouble. I'll be moving,” Bales said in a recent interview on AirTalk with Larry Mantle, LAist’s daily news program.
“The most important work has been raising awareness that people devastated by homelessness are valuable and precious and should not be left on the streets,” Bales said of his time at Union Rescue Mission. “I think one of the best things I did was break through that NIMBY curtain, that ‘not my backyard curtain."
He said he's also proud of his efforts lobbying legislators in Sacramento and Washington against “hospital dumping,” the practice of releasing unwell patients back into the streets without a care plan in place.
But with the depth of the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles, there’s always more to be done.
“I sure didn't succeed in ending Skid Row as we know it,” he acknowledged.
Throughout his career, Bales has been a staunch advocate of a faith-based transitional care model for people experiencing homelessness, which requires residents to be off drugs and seeking work. This is in contrast to the now-mainstream “housing first” approach, which prioritizes placing people in permanent housing as quickly as possible. But Bales is optimistic the pendulum will swing back toward transitional care.
“I think we're gaining momentum that you need to walk alongside people for the long run, invest in their lives, focus on recovery,” he said.
When Bales returns to Iowa, he’ll leave behind his Pasadena home, which will be transformed by the nonprofit Door of Hope into 20 units of housing for families experiencing homelessness.
“I couldn't think of a better use of our house and my favorite place, my front porch," he said. "Kids will be able to sit and watch hummingbirds and listen to the parrots and relax.”
Topline:
California regulators ordered Health Net to fix how it’s handling the termination of assisted living services for low-income residents after the insurer’s abrupt decision left patients and providers scrambling. The state’s corrective action plan requires Health Net to extend services for all members until the end of the year, rather than stopping some as soon as October.
The backstory: Health Net, one of the largest Medicaid insurers in the country, notified providers several months ago that it was ending its assisted living and home care services contracts. The services are optional under Medi-Cal — California’s version of Medicaid — meaning an insurer can decide annually whether it will continue coverage. Providers and family members said they got little or no warning, leaving them confused and panicked about finding other arrangements.
Why now: In an August letter to Health Net, the Department of Health Care Services cited eight deficiencies in the insurer’s handling of the change, including failure to submit transition plans for members, failure to move members to other medically appropriate care, and denying services to members. Regulators wrote that violations “jeopardize member safety, disrupt continuity of care, and endanger medically vulnerable members.”
Read on... for more on the state's corrective action plan for the insurer.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California regulators ordered Health Net to fix how it’s handling the termination of assisted living services for low-income residents after the insurer’s abrupt decision left patients and providers scrambling. The state’s corrective action plan requires Health Net to extend services for all members until the end of the year, rather than stopping some as soon as October.
Health Net, one of the largest Medicaid insurers in the country, notified providers several months ago that it was ending its assisted living and home care services contracts. The services are optional under Medi-Cal — California’s version of Medicaid — meaning an insurer can decide annually whether it will continue coverage. Providers and family members said they got little or no warning, leaving them confused and panicked about finding other arrangements.
In an August letter to Health Net, the Department of Health Care Services cited eight deficiencies in the insurer’s handling of the change, including failure to submit transition plans for members, failure to move members to other medically appropriate care, and denying services to members. Regulators wrote that violations “jeopardize member safety, disrupt continuity of care, and endanger medically vulnerable members.”
If Health Net does not extend benefits and create individualized transition plans for each affected member, the state may fine them $25,000 per member per day of violation, the letter states.
Advocates and providers estimate about 3,500 Medi-Cal patients rely on Health Net to pay for assisted living costs. Most are elderly, and many have cognitive issues like dementia. Health Net operates Medi-Cal plans in 10 counties: Amador, Calaveras, Fresno, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Sacramento, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tulare.
In a statement to CalMatters, Health Net spokesperson Beatriz Lopez said the company still plans to end the services next year, but will now cover all members through the end of the year.
“Health Net and DHCS share a commitment to advancing the health and well-being of Medi-Cal members,” Lopez said.
Health Net has previously told CalMatters the assisted living benefit “has not led to better care” in terms of fewer emergency room visits or days hospitalized. The benefit is part of CalAIM, a broad state initiative to improve Medi-Cal services and save money by stabilizing high-cost users who frequently end up in emergency rooms. Lopez said Health Net would continue analyzing data and supporting services that result in better health outcomes.
Providers confirmed to CalMatters that their contracts would run through the end of the year.
Hagar Dickman, director of long-term services and supports at Justice In Aging, said the state’s corrective action plan resolves the immediate crisis but fails to address the long-term problem: “Thousands of older Californians are still set to lose their housing on January 1st.”
Allowing health insurers to cancel housing-related benefits creates problems, Dickman said, because most assisted living residents have no other home to return to. Additionally, the Department of Health Care Services has stated that if a member moves to another insurer that still covers assisted living, continuity of care protections would no longer apply, meaning the new insurer might not approve the member's assisted living costs.
"It’s disingenuous to say there are protections and then say the protections don’t apply,” Dickman said. "So the option is skilled nursing or homelessness.”
Pauline Shatara, deputy director of California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform, agreed that state protections are inadequate.
“It doesn’t sound like we found a solution to help pay for these people to remain where they are,” Shatara said.
Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Long Beach will make a slew of parking tickets more expensive and charge higher cannabis taxes to avoid cutting library hours and some specialized police officers. The last-minute change, proposed hours before a City Council vote, reversed a controversial plan city leaders laid out in June to lay off nearly a dozen library employees to help balance its budget.
What's next: Facing a $58 million shortfall, the city will still lay off roughly 180 other employees and cut hundreds more vacant positions. But it will spare library staffing and hours, after the original budget — which would have cut Monday hours at five city libraries, the only ones open that day — prompted fierce public backlash.
Why now: Long Beach City Council members voted 7 to 2 on Tuesday for the revised $4-billion city budget.
Read on... for more on what this means for the city budget and cuts.
This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.
Long Beach will make a slew of parking tickets more expensive and charge higher cannabis taxes to avoid cutting library hours and some specialized police officers. The last-minute change, proposed hours before a City Council vote, reversed a controversial plan city leaders laid out in June to lay off nearly a dozen library employees to help balance its budget.
Facing a $58 million shortfall, the city will still lay off roughly 180 other employees and cut hundreds more vacant positions. But it will spare library staffing and hours, after the original budget — which would have cut Monday hours at five city libraries, the only ones open that day — prompted fierce public backlash.
Long Beach City Council members voted 7 to 2 on Tuesday for the revised $4-billion city budget.
Councilmember Cindy Allen, who objected, called the increased parking fines “predatory fees,” arguing that library funding shouldn’t come at the expense of unfairly targeting people already struggling financially. Allen represents a district that includes the densely populated Alamitos Beach and Rose Park neighborhoods, where parking is already scarce. “We don’t have driveways,” she said.
Kristina Duggan, who represents southeast Long Beach neighborhoods like Belmont Shore, also voted against the budget because it cut Fire Engine 14 near Colorado Lagoon, a move that’s expected to save $3.88 million but drive up response times.
Duggan and Allen both tried but failed to delay the budget vote, with Allen saying the changes were put together in a “slapdash manner” without a chance for the public to weigh in.
She warned her colleagues before the vote that if they approved the budget “without substantial discussion” then they were “complicit in rubber-stamping” a plan that would “affect people’s livelihoods.”
Under the plan, 18 categories of parking citations — including for blocking bike lanes, hydrants, double parking and crosswalks — will rise to a flat $100, up from $74 or $90, to generate $1.5 million. Street sweeping tickets would also get a $5 bump, to $80 — a difference that raises $700,000 in revenue.
In the last fiscal year, which ran Oct. 1 to Sept. 30, the city issued more than 100,000 parking citations and 201,000 street-sweeping tickets, Public Works Director Josh Hickman said. More than a fifth of street-sweeping tickets were written in Allen’s district, and more than half of all parking tickets citywide were issued in the first two council districts, which include downtown and Alamitos Beach.
John Edmond, a local lobbyist who sits on the board for the Library Foundation and spoke in support of the plan, said the $100 rates are on par with cities like San Francisco ($108), Oakland ($110), San Diego ($117). He argued this applies to the “most serious parking violations.”
“We can’t say we’re serious about pedestrian and bicycle safety without accountability,” he said.
The budget also raises the city’s cannabis retail tax from 7% to 8% and increases the cultivation tax to more than $15 per square foot, changes expected to bring in roughly $1.15 million.
The proposals came from Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie, who chairs the city’s Budget Oversight Committee. Ricks-Oddie said earlier Tuesday she had spent weeks preparing these and dozens of other recommendations in concert with city staff, continuously updating them to accommodate new requests that came in from the public and fellow council members.
“If we can’t do this … then we can’t fund the libraries,” Ricks-Oddie said in response to Allen’s concerns about pricier parking citations. “If we reject that, we’re saying no to our library hours on a Monday.”
The budget also sets aside $1 million for the city’s immigration legal defense fund, the Long Beach Justice Fund. That’s well short of the $2.2 million immigration attorneys and local immigrant rights groups say is needed to sustain it amid rising caseloads. Gina Amato Lough of Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project said “the need has never been greater,” citing prolonged detentions, warrantless raids and difficulty accessing counsel.
Since Public Counsel’s $919,000, one-year contract to provide legal services began in November, the group has taken on more than 55 consultations and 46 full-scope cases through the Justice Fund.
After hearing repeated pleas for more money Tuesday, Allen proposed reallocating all the funding for Long Beach’s new Vibe City marketing campaign — which some have derided as a waste of money — to the Justice Fund. She was quickly shot down, with a representative from the City Attorney’s office saying they’re not sure that would be legal, considering the Vibe City campaign is funded by tax revenue earmarked for advertising and promoting the city.
City Council leaders called the budget cuts a necessary, if painful, step toward stabilizing Long Beach’s finances after years of instability papered over with one-time cash — a bet that higher fees now will spare deeper cuts later.
“It’s hard, and it’s personal for everyone, and it will be really difficult on families across this community,” said Councilmember Megan Kerr.
Topline:
The annual Eastside celebration returns Sunday with a parade, festival and live entertainment. Here’s everything you need to know.
About the parade: For decades, organizers have brought together community leaders, performers, businesses and organizations to celebrate culture, community and tradition. This year, the parade will culminate in a festival with family-friendly activations, including live music, local vendors and lucha libre.
When is it? The parade runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13. The festival takes place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on First Street and Mednik Avenue.
Read on... for more on the 80th East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade.
This story first appeared on The LA Local.
Colorful parade floats, charros on horseback and live music will take over Cesar E. Chavez Avenue on Sunday for the 80th East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade.
For decades, organizers have brought together community leaders, performers, businesses and organizations to celebrate culture, community and tradition. This year, the parade will culminate in a festival with family-friendly activations, including live music, local vendors and lucha libre.
This year’s co-grand marshals are singer and actor Dasahev López Saavedra, better known as El Dasa, and Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis.
Here’s everything you need to know.
The parade runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 13. The festival takes place from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on First Street and Mednik Avenue.
The 1.5-mile route will run along Cesar E. Chavez Avenue, starting at Mednik Avenue and ending on Gage Avenue. You can find a map of the parade route and other festivities on the festival’s webpage here. Early arrival is suggested to secure a viewing spot for the parade.
The parade will feature floats, show cars, representatives from Eastside organizations, equestrian teams, marching bands and folklórico dancers.
The festival will include vendors, musical performances, resource booths, a pop-up from local boutique The Goddess Mercado, a free pet vaccination clinic that will administer free vaccines for the first 200 pets, and a free lucha libre showcase by East Los Lucha.
Limited free parking will be available at the East L.A. Civic Center lot located on E. 3rd Street and Civic Center Way. Attendees can also find street parking in the surrounding area.
The Metro E Line’s East L.A. Civic Center station is just a short walk from the event.
If you’re unable to attend or want to watch the parade from home, you can tune in to the live broadcast on ABC7.
For more information, check out the website here.
Topline:
The Department of Recreation and Parks says a fence at MacArthur Park will be temporary and is still on track for construction this fall. Parks officials have not provided a specific date, cost estimate or explained what conditions would need to change before the fence comes down.
What they've said so far: Consultants for the city have described a fence that would be transparent, reversible and designed to blend into the park — in the words, not a dominant feature at the historic park.
How the fence would be used: The current plan calls for the park to remain open during the day, with eight entry points, and close overnight from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. LAPD would close the gates at night, and Recreation and Parks maintenance workers would reopen them each morning.
Read on... for more on what people think the fence will solve.
This story first appeared on The LA Local.
Robbie Hall has a record of the people she has treated for overdoses at MacArthur Park.
The photos of many of the people she has treated are saved on her phone. She can scroll through them and remember each one.
Hall, an ambassador with the nonprofit Five Keys, has been doing this work for about four years and is at the park almost every day, carrying Naloxone, a medication used to reverse opioid overdoses.
She typically responds when someone stops breathing.
“I stopped counting when I got up in my 40s, because it started being gradually three of them, four of them,” Hall said.
On a recent September morning at the park, Hall said she found a 14-year-old girl in a bathroom who was experiencing an overdose. Tears welled up as she talked about the people she encounters at the park.
“They need help, they need help,” she said. “This is every day.”
She believes the city needs to address the problem. When asked about the plans to fence the park, she said she sees the fence as one way to improve the conditions she sees on the ground.
“They need to put something up here,” she said.
For Hall and others who work around the park, the fence is less a solution than a stopgap, something concrete to try amid problems that have proven harder to solve.
The Department of Recreation and Parks says the fence will be temporary and is still on track for construction this fall, but has not provided a specific date, cost estimate or explained what conditions would need to change before the fence comes down.
Marco Pacheco, president of the MacArthur Park Park Advisory Board, does not believe the fence will be temporary.
“I think this is going to be permanent,” Pacheco said. “This is going to be a permanent fixture of some sort because first of all, you don’t put up a fence that costs millions of dollars to take it down. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Pacheco isn’t the only one who has doubts.
Richard Barron, who served on the Cultural Heritage Commission for 22 years before departing in July, also questioned whether the city would follow through on its promise to remove the fence.
“I doubt that the fence is going to come down,” Barron said, “especially when they’ve spent all that money. Even taking it down costs a lot of money, you know, and you’re going to throw all that material away?”
The Board of Recreation and Park Commissioners approved $2.3 million in funding for the project. The city has not said how much money will ultimately be spent on the fence.
The city’s consultants have described a fence that would be transparent, reversible and designed to blend into the park.
Leila Hamroun, a senior preservation architect with Tetra Tech, the consulting firm working with the city on the project’s design, said the fence won’t be a dominant feature.
“The whole intent here is to guarantee that it just blends in, that it’s seamless,” Hamroun said. “It’s reversible, transparent, minimalist, consistent with the evolution of urban parks over time.”
The fence is expected to be about 8 feet tall, with gates at eight existing entrances. Decorative elements would be considered separately, with community input expected next year.
For Michelle Garcia, who has been a vendor around MacArthur Park since 2015, it could help distinguish vendors from the people living in the park.
“I support it if they could get the homeless people out,” Garcia said. “They are the ones that make MacArthur Park look bad. But they also make us look bad, because we sell around the area, so they think we’re like them, which we’re not.”
Garcia was among a group of vendors at MacArthur Park who held a Sept. 2 press conference to call attention to what they described as police harassment and citations that pushed vendors away from the park.
“Like us, we’re trying to work and get money for our bills, our rent,” she said.
Police have their own expectations for what a fenced park could accomplish.
The Los Angeles Police Department has stepped up enforcement around the park through a joint task force with the Drug Enforcement Administration focused on drug dealing in the area. In July, Rampart Division Capt. Benedict Fernandes said the operation had significantly disrupted the drug trade, but that drug users were spreading into surrounding neighborhoods in search of narcotics.
“We know that all the communities around have been impacted because it got spread this way, sort of like a shotgun blast,” he said. “It went south, it went east, it went north, it went west.”
Fernandes said the next phase of the enforcement effort would focus on connecting unhoused people and drug users with shelter and recovery services.
The fence, he said, is meant to make the park less convenient for drug activity and “prevent crime” inside the park.
“Because that’s the problem,” Fernandes said. “The Alvarado corridor at MacArthur Park has been convenient for drug users for years. We’re just trying to make those things stop.”
Fernandes said the temporary fence along Alvarado and now the orange bollards installed in the area, have worked to disrupt that activity.
But Hall, the outreach worker administering Narcan at the park, has not seen those types of improvements on the ground.
“Since they did that big bust? No, it got worse,” Hall said when asked whether she had seen fewer overdoses in the area.
She said people wait for police to leave the park before returning.
“If it wasn’t for Five Keys, there would be a lot more dead bodies here,” she said.
The plan calls for the park to remain open during the day, with eight entry points, and close overnight from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. LAPD would close the gates at night, and Recreation and Parks maintenance workers would reopen them each morning.
The department says the fence is intended to make the park easier to maintain. Illegal dumping, littering, vandalism and graffiti have made routine maintenance difficult, according to the department, which has said MacArthur Park generates more graffiti cleanup requests than nearby Lafayette Park.
The city has pointed to nearby Lafayette Park, which is fenced and closed at night, as a model for MacArthur Park.
Pacheco, the president of the park’s advisory board, said he has heard general support for the fence among community members.
“In many cases, community members alluded to Lafayette Park having been fenced for a long time, the difference between the two parks, Lafayette being a lot safer and a lot cleaner and less of a problem than MacArthur Park,” he said.
The fence still needs final approval from the five-person commission that approved the project’s conceptual phase in October. The commission has not yet set a date to consider the final plans.