The Brief

Lisa Peterson interviewed first at Kohl’s, then at TJ Maxx and Target. She applied for jobs at Raley’s, Safeway, Applebee’s, and Olive Garden, too. Once, she advanced to a second interview at the Cheesecake Factory, but like the rest, no job offer followed.

Peterson is 60 years old, with white hair that falls just below her shoulders. She holds her hands near her face, wiggling her fingers as she pauses to recall months spent searching for an entry-level job.

For deaf adults like Peterson, finding work isn’t easy. Either they take a position that requires little person-to-person communication, or their employers must hire a sign language interpreter, which can cost a business more than a hundred dollars an hour. Once hired, some deaf adults say they struggle to attain promotions or feel a sense of belonging at work, especially when there are few other deaf people around.

“I’ve been really just trying to prove that I can work,” said Peterson, speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter earlier this year. “…It’s been a year and a half that I’ve been doing this, and I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with them?”

State and federal disability law require companies to make “reasonable” accommodations for employees who are deaf. California goes further than federal law by offering a more expansive definition of disability, but the definition of reasonable still depends on the size of the employer. Small businesses can argue that the hourly cost of hiring a sign language interpreter is an unreasonable burden. Large employers, such as the government or big companies, are expected to shoulder the cost of interpreters, both at the interview stage and upon hire, said Andy Imparato, executive director of Disability Rights California, a nonprofit organization.

Compliance is “all over the place,” he said.

Working behind the scenes

The last time Peterson searched for a job was 1984, right after she had dropped out of community college. With the help of NorCal Services for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, a Northern California nonprofit, she found a job in the state controller’s office, doing data entry. She stayed 18 years, until her daughter was diagnosed with diabetes. In 2020, Peterson decided it was time to work again and took classes at NorCal Services for the Deaf. 

To help job seekers like Peterson, California’s Employment Development Department contracts with NorCal Services for the Deaf to place career counselors within the state’s publicly run job centers. For over a year, Peterson went to a Sacramento job center near her home in Fair Oaks, often going twice a week, to work on her resume, apply for jobs, or “just keep the ball rolling,” she said.

She had about 12 interviews, many of which she said went well. Employers are responsible for providing interpreters at interviews, but in Peterson’s case, the state covered the costs.

“My ideal job would be retail,” she said, explaining that she wants something that allows her to be around people, such as hanging or organizing clothes in a store. But in interviews, she said, employers tried to steer her into backroom roles.

Lisa Peterson outside of the Sacramento Works job training and resources center in Sacramento on April 23, 2024.

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Miguel Gutierrez Jr.

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CalMatters

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Ryan Gallagher, an Employment Development Department program coordinator, was responsible for helping Peterson secure each interview. Speaking through a sign language interpreter at his Sacramento office, he said businesses often place deaf employees in warehouses, back kitchens, or in data-entry positions that have limited face-to-face communication. “They don’t want to give the client that opportunity because they don’t want to spend that much money on an interpreter,” he said.

In the past 12 months, he has had roughly 60 clients, about half of whom have found jobs. Most go on to work at Amazon, FedEx, or GoodWill, he said.

Over time, Peterson started considering other positions outside of retail. In April, after a year and a half of searching, Peterson accepted a part-time job at FedEx, where she helps put packages together in a warehouse and earns about $18 an hour.

“I’m happy with the work I’ve accepted at FedEx,” she said. “There’s really no time to socialize. It’s pretty busy there.”

Neither working, nor looking for work

In a 2007 survey of deaf youth across the country, more than three-quarters said they would probably or definitely graduate from college, and nearly everyone said they ultimately wanted to get a paying job.

Those dreams are statistically unlikely in California. Roughly 22% of deaf adults 25 and older have a college degree in the state, compared to about 37% for the “hearing” population, according to a recent study by the National Center for the Deaf. The unemployment rate in California is about the same for deaf people as it is for the hearing population, but there’s a catch: The unemployment rate only considers those who are seeking work.

In California, roughly 44% of deaf adults are neither working nor looking for work — compared to about 26% of hearing people. Some deaf adults are in school or taking care of children, as Peterson did for years. Others receive Social Security Income, a government program to help low-income adults with disabilities, or don’t work for other reasons. The study only includes people ages 16 to 64.

“It’s easier to say ‘Deaf people don’t want to work’ than to try and address the larger systemic barriers at play,” said Carrie Lou Bloom, an author of the study.

In her other research, she has tried to understand what those barriers are. “If parents believed their kid could go to college, get a degree, and work independently,” she said, “their kid would be much more likely to achieve these goals.”

It’s the same trend for children who aren’t deaf. The difference, said Bloom: “Deaf youth just have more hurdles in front of them and less access to resources, role models, mentors.”

Drez Brownridge, a Deaf studies major, at Ohlone College in Fremont on June 17, 2024. Brownridge previously worked at Amazon loading boxes and storing goods. They said they struggled to communicate with their boss and access promotions at work.

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Emily Steinberger

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CalMatters

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For Drez Brownridge, those hurdles began at birth. Brownridge, who uses they/them pronouns and communicated through an interpreter, said they grew up in Costa Rica with grandparents who don’t use or understand sign language. To communicate with their family, Brownridge used gestures, sent notes back and forth, and tried wearing hearing aids, often in vain. They first enrolled at Modesto Junior College in 2016 but dropped out during the COVID-19 pandemic after failing to pass English four times.

For decades, Brownridge lived on Social Security Income, receiving around $600 a month. They were allowed to work while receiving government benefits but their income, including Social Security, could not exceed $2,000 a month.

It wasn’t enough. “Especially in California, $2,000 a month isn’t going to get you very far,” they said. “You’re not going to be able to buy a car or a house, or conduct your life, just on Social Security Income.”

Who gets the promotion?

For those who do find work, other obstacles arise. “We often see people talking about feeling a sense of satisfaction from work, being a productive member of the community, feeling like they’re making a difference,” Bloom said. “Deaf people may not have these feelings about work, if they’re working in environments where they are constantly fighting for access, advocating for themselves, being left behind, being passed over for promotions.”

After leaving Modesto Junior College, Brownridge got a job at Amazon, where they made around $17 an hour. They worked nights, loading boxes and later, storing goods. They used their cell phone to type out notes to their manager and to other employees who didn’t understand sign language, but they struggled to build close work relationships.

Brownridge repeatedly applied for new positions at Amazon, hoping to make at least $25, but they never moved up. “I was disappointed at what I perceived as a barrier,” they said, “… And it wasn’t just me. There were a few other deaf employees as well that were facing the same frustrations, where they had worked there maybe five or 10 years, but just couldn’t move up.”

A spokesperson for Amazon, Sam Stephenson, said the company offers career development for all of its employers, as well as specialized services for those who need it.

If an employer declines to offer promotion opportunities because of a disability, it could qualify as discrimination, though it can be difficult to prove or find legal resources to help, said Imparato, with Disability Rights California. “It’s hard for an individual to go to these enforcement agencies.”

With limited staff and a high volume of complaints, California’s Civil Rights Department is forced to triage cases, Imparato said. In 2022, the department had more than 300 staff processing nearly 26,000 potential discrimination cases, according to the most recent data. Over the course of the year, the department reached just over 650 settlements, though many other cases used private lawyers or fell outside of the state’s legal jurisdiction.

Brownridge never complained about the lack of a promotion, they said. Instead, they left Amazon in 2022 and re-enrolled at community college, this time at Ohlone College, where they now major in Deaf studies. Attending a school with a large population of deaf students colored how they look back on their career at Amazon. “It wasn’t until I got into the Deaf community,” they said, “that I was told that it was my right to go for those jobs, that I had a right to succeed just like anybody else.”

Adam Echelman covers California’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus, a nonprofit newsroom focused on higher education.

Financial support for this story was provided by the Smidt and Irvine foundations.

An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.

The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.

It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.

These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.

Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.

State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.

The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.

Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.

“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with  California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.

What led to the patient deaths?

In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.

The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.

When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.

Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.

The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.

She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.

The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.

In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.

In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.

Who owns Brier Oak?

Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.

Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.

In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.

The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.

The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..

The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.

Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.

A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.

Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.

It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:

Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm?

Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.

How bad is it?

California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.

As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.

Can’t they just make snow?

They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”

But there’s a silver lining!

The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.

Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.

What’s the snow outlook?

SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.

If you go to Big Bear: 

• If you plan to hit the slopes, get on it early, when the snow is at its best given the warm conditions. 
• No snow? There’s more to do than ski and snowboard. Check this list of winter fun events.  
• Worried about traffic? Consider going up earlier in the week. If you can’t do that, consider taking Highway 18 through Lucerne Valley. It’s a longer route if you’re coming from L.A., but less traveled, and less likely to make you car sick (fewer tight curves). 

The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.

Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.

The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.

A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.

Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.

This report is different from others

It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”

It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.

The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.

Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.