The Brief

Large-scale changes are rare for L.A.’s local government. But now there’s more momentum than there has been in decades for three major reforms to how L.A. is governed.

The proposals are the result of calls for reform after a secret recording was released last year that captured three city councilmembers and a labor official using racist, homophobic and other derogatory language while discussing ways to amass power in the city’s redistricting process.

The proposed reforms would all require a revision to the City Charter, which means voters ultimately have to approve them. But before then, the details and exact proposed language for changes to the Charter have to go through the city council.

First, the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform has to approve a set of recommended changes to the language of the City Charter. Those recommendations are scheduled to be released on Monday, Sept. 18.

Here’s what to know about what’s on the table, what councilmembers have said so far, and what else needs to happen before any of these appear on voters’ ballots.

Creating independent redistricting commissions

This is the map of Los Angeles city council districts that the last redistricting effort started with. It was set in 2011.

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Screenshot Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission

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And this was the draft plan advanced for public feedback by the most recent Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission.

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Screenshot Los Angeles City Council Redistricting Commission draft map

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This proposal would create two commissions — one for the city of L.A. and one for the L.A. Unified School District — that would be completely in charge of the redistricting process, without the need for city council approval over their decisions.

The backstory: : Every 10 years, after the U.S. Census counts up all the people who live in your community, the process of redistricting begins. That’s when officials get together and redraw maps that make up our districts at the city, county, state and federal levels. This is often a politically thorny process, since the demographics and assets of any given district — whether it’s made up of renters or homeowners, or it has an airport or a major stadium — determine how much power that district and its representative have relative to others, and how voting power is distributed across different groups.

In L.A., the city council has ultimate authority to approve the final redistricting maps for both the city council and the L.A. Unified School District. A redistricting commission advises them during the process, collecting input from community members and proposing draft maps, but the city council has to vote on the final decision.

An independent redistricting commission would change this dynamic. It would have sole authority to redraw and approve the maps, so that councilmembers can’t exert the kind of influence they currently have over the process.

Independent redistricting commissions are already in place at the state level, for redrawing Congressional and state legislature districts, and in L.A. County for supervisorial districts. Cities like Long Beach also use independent redistricting commissions. Other places like Orange County and San Bernardino County require the board of supervisors to approve county redistricting maps.

Why we’re discussing this: The leaked City Hall tapes revealed that three councilmembers and the former president of the L.A. Labor Federation were discussing ways to arrange the redistricting maps to benefit their districts at the expense of others — namely, districts with predominantly Black residents, as well as renters. Outrage over the leaked comments damaged trust in the redistricting process and strengthened the push for independent redistricting.

What details need to be worked out: Major questions on the table include how redistricting commissioners would be chosen (currently, they’re appointed by councilmembers, the mayor, city attorney and city controller), and what the qualification requirements would be.

There are also questions about how the commission should be allowed to communicate with the public during the redistricting process. Should councilmembers get extra speaking time during public comment at redistricting meetings? Should commissioners be allowed to receive public input on redistricting via social media, or should that be restricted to public meetings only?

A state legislator has also introduced a bill that would require all California cities with a population of over 2.5 million (that includes L.A.) to have an independent redistricting commission. If the L.A. City Council or voters don’t wind up passing an independent redistricting measure, and if the state bill ends up getting approved, L.A. could still get an independent redistricting commission — but under whatever the state law requires.

What councilmembers have said about this so far: In a November 2022 L.A. Times survey, all the current councilmembers (some of whom were candidates when they answered the survey) supported creating independent redistricting commissions.

Expanding the City Council

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Albert Lao / Courtesy City of LA

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L.A.’s extremely powerful legislature has 15 members, each representing a city district. Expanding the council would mean redrawing our district maps to create even more districts, and then adding councilmembers to represent them.

Los Angeles has long been an outlier in the size of its city council, with 15 councilmembers representing nearly 4 million residents. Each L.A. city councilmember represents about 260,000 people on average — more than any other city lawmaker in the country.

By comparison, New York City has 51 councilmembers for 8 million residents, or about 140,000 per councilmember, and Chicago has 50 alderpersons for 2 million residents — roughly one lawmaker for every 40,000 residents. The size of L.A.’s City Council has remained the same for the past 100 years, even as its population has grown sevenfold.

Having few representatives and many residents means more power for each council member. It only takes a handful of members to band together to pass or block legislation that affects millions of people, whereas a larger council would need more coalition-building and consensus. Angelenos are also much more underrepresented in L.A. than other cities — the average resident generally has to work harder to get their councilmember’s attention on a particular issue.

There have been several ballot measures to expand the size of the City Council — in 1970, 1985 and 1999 — but voters rejected them each time. A common argument was that expanding the council would mean more city officials to pay and a less efficient government. Others said expansion could potentially dilute Black and Latino representation on the Council.

However, a poll released in August by research firm FM3 found that a majority of Angelenos support expanding the council, with 62% of respondents supporting expansion to 23 members and 55% supporting expansion to 29 members.

Why we’re discussing this: Council expansion has come up repeatedly in reform discussions over the past few decades, but this latest push comes on the heels of a slate of corruption scandals involving L.A. City Councilmembers in the past few years. They involved pay-to-play schemes, bribery and conspiracy, obstruction of FBI investigations and more — and that’s on top of the City Hall leaked tapes.

Many people have argued that the concentration of power in the city council contributes to this kind of corruption — more power means more incentives for business interests or developers to court council members with cash or favors in exchange for something that benefits them. Larger districts also mean that people running for a council seat have to spend more money to campaign, which can incentivize corruption, too.

What details need to be worked out: How many members should an expanded city council have? And should all members be in charge of their own districts, or should some of them be “at-large” seats, meaning they represent the city as a whole? Every new seat that gets added to the city council will also need to have additional staffing and support — where would that money come from?

If L.A. expands its number of districts, it’ll also need to figure out how to hold elections for those new council members. Common Cause, one of the organizations advising the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform, suggested shifting council elections so that all seats would be up for election at the same time (instead of staggered every two years) beginning in 2032.

What councilmembers have said about this so far: Opinions within the city council are much more divided on expansion than for independent redistricting. In the L.A. Times’ November 2022 survey, 10 current councilmembers (some of whom were candidates when responding to the survey) expressed support for expansion, although one, Hugo Soto-Martinez (District 13), has expressed concerns.

At a meeting of the Central Hollywood Neighborhood Council in August 2023, Soto-Martinez said expansion would slow council business, increase dysfunction, and weaken councilmembers’ influence with city departments. He said adding more councilmembers would make them more accountable to their constituents, but that would be diluted, he said, by the fact that “most people don’t vote.” Expansion would lead to “more accountability, maybe more democracy,” he said, “but it will come at the expense of a much slower city and a more dysfunctional city council.” However, Soto-Martinez’s office clarified to LAist that he still supports expansion.

Councilmember Traci Park (District 11) also opposed expansion in the survey, saying it would “cost more and create more bureaucracy and gridlock.”

Reforms for the Ethics Commission

Flag fly above an entrance to L.A.'s City Hall

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These are reforms designed to make the five-member Ethics Commission more independent of the city council and to prevent corruption at City Hall. Advocates of these reforms say they are equally if not more important than creating an independent redistricting commission and expanding the council.

Voters created the Ethics Commission with the passage of Proposition H in 1990. The landmark measure gave the panel the authority to enforce city and state laws related to campaign financing, contracts, developers, governmental ethics and lobbying.

Unlike other city commissions, whose members are appointed by the mayor alone, the Ethics Commission is selected by the mayor, city attorney, city controller, city council president and council president pro tempore (one each).

The commission is proposing a series of changes to the City Charter that would require a citywide vote. Here are the main three:

• One would allow the commission to place on the ballot its own proposed changes — without going through the city council. Reform advocates say the council in the past has blocked serious ethics reforms and this would address that problem.
• Another would establish a budget for the commission that would not require council approval. There have been accusations in the past that councilmembers have threatened to cut the department’s budget if it didn’t relax rules on gifts to elected leaders. 
• A third would create an independent attorney for the commission instead of one provided by the city attorney’s office. Critics of the current system say it makes no sense for the commission to be receiving legal advice from an office overseen by the commission. 

In addition, the commission in 2022 issued a 66-page report recommending dozens of changes to the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance (MLO) that could be achieved by simple majority votes by the city council. Many are clarifications designed to close loopholes. One would require lobbyists to identify themselves and their clients when communicating in any way to neighborhood councils.

One of the most controversial is to change how lobbyists are defined. Currently, anybody who gets paid to spend 30 or more hours a quarter lobbying the city council, city commissions and city staff qualifies as a lobbyist. The proposed change would define a lobbyist as anyone who is paid $5,000 or more annually.

“The current time-based definition of ‘lobbyist’ poses a compliance and enforcement challenge, because tracking hours can be difficult and imprecise,” the commission stated in its report. “It can also be a challenge because a lobbyist can be paid a large sum of money to spend far less than 30 hours lobbying for a client.”

“In contrast to hours, dollars are an objective and verifiable measure of lobbying activity,” the report added.

Of the 10 largest cities in the U.S., L.A. is the only one that does not currently have a compensation-based registration threshold for lobbyists. New York’s is $5,000 a year. Six of the top 10 cities have $800 a year thresholds including Chicago, Phoenix and San Diego.

How lobbyists are defined is important because they are restricted from engaging in certain activities, including serving on city commissions, giving gifts to elected officials, and making political donations to elected officials and candidates.

Last year, developers and other people with interests at City Hall paid more than 600 lobbyists $73 million to engage in lobbying activities, according to the Ethics Commission.

Two other efforts to amend and update the lobbying ordinance, in 2008 and 2016, went nowhere. “There were no hearings, no votes, no reason given,” said Jeffrey Daar, the Ethics Commission president. “We’re now hopefully having it happen.”

Why we’re discussing this: The new push for ethics reform follows the release of the secretly recorded City Hall tapes. It also comes amid a series of criminal prosecutions of officials — including four members of the city council. They involved pay-to-play schemes, bribery and conspiracy, and obstruction of FBI investigations. The California Clean Money Campaign, California Common Cause, and the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles are among the groups that support the reforms.

What details need to be worked out: The proposed charter changes would need to be approved by the council’s Ad Hoc Committee on City Governance Reform before heading to the full city council and then to voters. The committee has yet to hold hearings on the charter changes.

The committee also has yet to approve the Municipal Lobbying Ordinance changes. Council President Paul Krekorian has proposed an amendment that could weaken it. Krekorian proposed creating a special “nonprofit filer” exempting nonprofit 501(c)(3) like universities and charitable organizations from the restrictions. This would include not just small groups, but also powerful organizations like USC, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Perhaps more significantly, labor unions would also be exempt. Labor unions, developers, and business groups like the chamber of commerce are among the most powerful interests at City Hall.

Various neighborhood councils have weighed in against the exemption.

“It is colluding with these special interests that has brought unparalleled shame and corruption to the halls of City Government in Los Angeles and made us an international punchline to jokes about political corruption,” the Studio City Neighborhood Council wrote in its community impact statement. “It confounds us that the L.A. County Federation of Labor, literally caught on tape as a bad actor, would have the audacity to push for exemptions and that Councilmembers purporting to fight for transparency and the public good would entertain their requests.”

The city council recently rejected a nominee to the Ethics Commission, with at least one member citing her opposition to the labor exemption.

What councilmembers have said so far: City councilmembers have generally said they support ethics reforms, but have offered little about the proposed charter changes. Councilmember Nithya Raman, vice chair of the reform committee, has expressed support for the changes to the lobbying ordinance. “We’re giving the public more of a window into what happens at City Hall, about how decisions are made, about who is influencing those decisions,” Raman said. “They have a right to know. I feel like there is no clearer moment, no more urgent moment for us to take action than now.”

What happens next?

The Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Reform has to approve a set of recommended changes to the language of the City Charter. Those recommendations are scheduled to be released Sept. 18.

The committee will then pass it on to the full council, which will likely take it through a series of discussions and adjustments. Then they’ll vote to send those proposed changes to the ballot in the next election.

According to the Chief Legislative Analyst’s Office, the council must pass any Charter language changes by November 2023 in order for it to qualify for the March 2024 ballot.

Otherwise, they’ll have to pass it by June 2024 to qualify for the November 2024 ballot.

Voters will then make the final decision on whether to approve the changes to the charter.

Rhea Borja and her husband bought their little home in Altadena in 2022. After the January 2025 Eaton Fire, it still stood, in a pocket of other homes that also survived.

At first, that was a relief. As many fire survivors have found, though, remediating smoke damage has been nearly as daunting as rebuilding a home that burned.

That has been true for the Borjas too. They’ve been living in Northern California since the fire, while they work to get their home cleared of the toxic remnants of the smoke.

The Eaton Fire destroyed 9,414 structures, including homes and businesses. For the thousands of structures were left standing, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed laws in September setting new rules for smoke damage cleanup.

What has that looked like in practice? Three Eaton Fire survivors spoke with LAist recently about the challenges they’ve faced.

Remediation challenges

Rhea Borja stands in her driveway just a month or so before the January 2025 fire. All of the houses behind her across the street burned down, including all the trees and greenery.

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Rhea Borja

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On the blocks around Borja’s home, the frames of homes being rebuilt are taking shape. But her home has stood empty for 22 months.

“It has been an enormous test of patience,” she said.

Her home has gone through four remediations. The lead test results after the most recent remediation cleared EPA standards. Since then, Borja has had a new HVAC system installed.

Next up, re-insulating the attic.

She’s hoping to be back in Altadena early next year but recognizes there’s still a lot to do, including remediating the front and back yards. She’ll have to pay for those projects out of pocket.

“I miss Altadena. I miss Los Angeles. I miss being by the San Gabriel Mountains,” Borja said. “So I just feel kind of removed from the area, and sometimes it almost just seems like a dream.”

A hallway in Rhea Borja’s home after it was remediated for a third time in June 2026.

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Rhea Borja

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Rhea Borja removed the remediator’s tape and plastic covering over a living room window of her Altadena home in mid October.

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Courtesy of Rhea Borja

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Simon Perry and his partner have two properties in Altadena that still require remediation.

One is their home right outside of the fire zone, and the other is a rental property right in the middle of it.

At Perry’s home of 15 years, the contamination was off the charts.

“To give you an indication of how badly contaminated it is, the attic crawl space tested at 3,391 units of lead,” Perry said. “So there's 50 times the safe level of lead in the crawl space of the attic.”

Perry had intended to retire the week of the Eaton Fire. He postponed that while he dealt with the fire’s aftermath — spending hours itemizing personal items, then throwing them away.

By the end of September, he and his partner moved for the fourth time since the fire.

Before that move, their temporary home was “full of cardboard boxes and boxes full of stuff, you know, because everything is in transition and has been in transition for 20 months,” he said.

A return home

After 19 months of being displaced, Susan Mohini Kane, husband Bernard Kane and their cat returned to Altadena.

Being displaced was unsettling, but Kane said she learned a lot.

Susan Mohini Kane shared this photo with LAist from March 2026 after most of her home’s contents were removed. The walls were cut up for rewiring.

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Susan Mohini Kane

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Susan Mohini Kane and her husband Bernard Kane began moving in over the summer. A friend gifted her hand-sewn quilt to replace one they lost to smoke damage.

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Susan Mohini Kane

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“More things happened every day that I didn't expect,” Kane said. “They ended up, basically, having to tear our house down.”

The walls of the Kane home were removed and then replaced. They filled and hauled bags of fire-damaged goods out of their home.

Now that she’s back, Kane is excited to return to her work as a voice teacher, singer and songwriter.

Susan Mohini Kane and her husband Bernard Kane are happy to be back in their home after 19 months of remediation and repairs after the Eaton Fire.

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David Rodriguez/LAist

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She wants people who didn’t experience the wildfire to know what people are still going through nearly two years later.

“We're still here. We're still suffering. We're still needing so much help,” she said.

The nation’s largest physician group has backed a near complete ban on the most popular countertop material, which is linked to an aggressive lung disease disabling and killing stoneworkers in California and other states.

The American Medical Association has adopted a new policy opposing the manufacturing, importation, distribution, sale, fabrication and installation of high-silica engineered stone products across the U.S. Doctors in California hope that the declaration by the AMA, which counts more than 250,000 physicians and medical students as members, will spur greater regulation of the factory-made material and promote the use of safer alternatives.

“Workers are developing an incurable lung disease that can progress to respiratory failure and sometimes, death, often at a young age among workers,” AMA Board Member and radiation oncologist Sheila Rege said in a statement. “Silicosis is preventable, and the most effective way to prevent silicosis is to use safer countertop materials containing less than 1% crystalline silica with appropriate dust control measures.”

The move could boost a push by California regulators to phase out the use of engineered stone with more than 1% crystalline silica to make countertops and other construction surfaces. A state workplace standards board is poised to vote on a first-in-the-nation emergency regulation next month. Australia was the first country to ban engineered stone slabs in 2024.

More than 680 stoneworkers in California have contracted silicosis after inhaling toxic silica dust generated when cutting or polishing engineered stone, also known as artificial stone or quartz.

Most of them are Latino men who say they didn’t know about the hazards of handling artificial stone until they or co-workers felt shortness of breath and other worsening symptoms.

Dozens of workers have died, while 75 have undergone lung transplants since 2019, according to the California Department of Public Health. Physicians in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Texas and other states have reported cases as well, though California is the only state systematically tracking the disease in the industry.

“Having personally gone through the illness caused by artificial stone, I believe that eliminating the use of artificial stone would be a good decision,” said Lopez, a former stoneworker in the Bay Area who underwent a double lung transplant in March after years at a job cutting engineered stone into kitchen and bathroom countertops.

“Health must take precedence over commercial interests,” the father of four added. KQED is not using Lopez’s full name, as he fears losing vital medical care if arrested by immigration authorities.

Major manufacturers of high-silica artificial stone have sought to place the blame for rapidly rising silicosis cases on countertop fabrication employers who fail to follow safety precautions. Cambria, the largest U.S.-based producer of the material, has pushed for a bill in Congress that would immunize manufacturers and distributors from hundreds of lawsuits by sick workers seeking damages.

Meanwhile, the International Surface Fabricators Association, which is supported by Cambria and other manufacturers, has petitioned California regulators to require countertop fabricators to be certified to do business, instead of restricting their use of artificial stone.

ISFA CEO Laurie Weber doubted that a ban would benefit most workers, since “unlicensed, uninspected operators who cut stone unsafely today would continue to cut whatever comes next the same way.”

“ISFA respects the medical community’s concern for workers and calls for a solution that protects them now, licensing and verified compliance for every shop that cuts stone,” Weber said in a statement. “Silicosis is real, it is devastating and it is preventable. We respect the physicians and researchers who have treated these workers and sounded the alarm. Our disagreement is not with the medicine. It is with the idea that a product ban on fabrication, by itself, will protect the people doing this work.”

California, which has more protective silica regulations than federal standards, already requires fabricators to cut the material under a layer of water to reduce airborne dust, and provide workers with sophisticated masks and ventilation systems.

But the rules are expensive and difficult to implement, and Cal/OSHA inspectors have found most fabrication businesses they’ve visited had violations. In addition, mounting evidence shows that workers can get sick even at sophisticated shops complying with the current regulations. Within the next decade, between 1,000 to 1,500 stoneworkers in California could develop silicosis, leading to roughly 285 deaths, according to Cal/OSHA. The state is home to about 5,000 countertop fabrication workers, predominantly Latino immigrants.

Dr. Robert Blink, a San Francisco-based occupational medicine physician urging California to ban high-silica artificial stone, said AMA’s resolution will help increase awareness about its hazards, and increase potential regulation by federal OSHA, other states and even Congress, which is expected to tie or break a record number of physician representatives next year. The material is safe for consumers once installed.

“This is recognition by the larger house of medicine that the material cannot be safely used.” said Blink, a former president of the Western Occupational and Environmental Medical Association. “We’ve certainly been trying to raise the alarm because this is a deadly epidemic that is killing people.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach’s speed cameras are now online at 18 locations throughout the city, and they’re here to stay until at least 2031. They started issuing warnings on Oct. 7, and they will start giving out tickets on Dec. 7.

It’s a big change. Many people have questions about how they work. Many others hope the cameras can finally slow down a stubborn surge in fatal crashes.

If you have a burning question, email jacob@lbpost.com. He might be able to find the answer.

Frequently asked questions

Where are the speed cameras?

The cameras are watching for speeding vehicles at 18 locations throughout Long Beach, with two in each City Council district.

Half of the cameras are on streets where deadly or severe crashes have occurred most often. The other half are in school zones or in areas where street racing is a problem.

How will the cameras work?

Tickets ranging from $50 to $500 start going out on Monday, Dec. 7. The cameras capture only the rear license plates of vehicles. Based on the license plate information, a citation is then sent to the car’s owner at the address where the car is registered.

If you don’t receive a warning during the 60-day warning period, then your first violation will be a warning instead of a citation.

Here’s how the cost of each ticket breaks down.

Payment is due within 30 days, but payment plans and diversion programs are available.

You can find more info on those here.

Where will the money go?

Long Beach officials estimate that citations will generate roughly $5 million in revenue in the first year, with half of that money going to cover the costs of administering the camera program.

The rest will pay for traffic-calming measures in neighborhoods where traffic studies have found they’re needed most. Those safety measures could include things like crosswalks, no-turn-on-red signs and speed humps.

The cameras are allowed as part of a state-approved pilot program that forbids the money from being spent on anything else.

Why does Long Beach have speed cameras?

Long Beach has been fighting a rising tide of deadly crashes in recent years. Last year saw the city’s highest total – 53 – in more than a decade. This year, there have been 41 fatal crashes, which is more than double the number of homicides.

Local officials see the cameras as part of the solution and lobbied for state authorization to install them under a pilot program. That program also authorizes them in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Glendale, Malibu and San Jose.

Citations are already being issued in San Francisco and Oakland.

Long Beach also got approval to install two more speed cameras on Pacific Coast Highway next year thanks to another state bill.

What other questions do you want answers to? Email jacob@lbpost.com to give us suggestions.

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach families can soon send their children to a free Westside dual-language preschool offering groceries, mental health support and special education services to students and their families.

The new school is housed in the West Facilities Center, a resource hub operated by the city’s Department of Health and Human Services. The center already includes a family health clinic and a Women, Infants, and Children office, and the preschool will augment those by offering wraparound services for the whole family in addition to early education for about 50 students. It’s an effort to invest in families on the Westside, an area of the city where existing providers can meet only 30% of the demand, according to a city press release.

The preschool, operated by the nonprofit Un Mundo de Amigos, is expected to open later this fall, but families can join a waitlist for the new preschool or immediately enroll at one of Un Mundo’s two other sites, according to the program director Yolanda Silva.

All families are welcome to apply, she said — Un Mundo de Amigos has no income requirements — but those with the highest need will be prioritized. That includes low-income families, families seeking employment and those with open court cases. Higher-income families can enroll if space allows, but they may pay a small fee.

Families interested in enrolling in the Westside preschool (or other sites) can contact Silva directly at yolanda@unmundodeamigos.com or by phone at 562-472-8099. They can also book a tour through the preschool’s website and specify that they are interested in the Westside location.

Why it’s opening now

Renovations to the Westside site were recently completed (to the tune of $1.8 million thanks to grants and state assistance Un Mundo received), but the project has been long in the works.

More than 15 years ago, Laurie Petersen founded Un Mundo de Amigos as a way to “give back to the community,” she said. She’d read research about the critical foundations preschool establishes for young children, and she wanted to direct resources toward the greatest need.

“I looked for the poorest ZIP code in the county of Los Angeles with the least number of preschool spaces per capita for four-year-olds,” she said. Central Long Beach came up, she said.

Six members of the Un Mundo team, from left to right: Etney Johnson, Xochilt Hurtado, founder and president Laurie Petersen, Program Director Yolanda Silva, Lessly Ramirez and Arely Castro.

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Photo courtesy of Yolanda Silva

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Petersen bought two used car lots on Long Beach Boulevard between 14th and 15th streets and built the first Un Mundo de Amigos “from the ground up,” she said. Since then, she has founded a nonprofit, donated the school to it and opened a second location downtown.

In recent years, she began exploring options for opening a third location on the Westside, which she called “a desert of resources.” A space at the West Facilities Center, which had been vacant for years, was a perfect option, she said.

It’s especially needed, Petersen said, because of how she has seen the preschool population change. Families are navigating economic challenges and a high cost of living, fears of immigration enforcement, impacts from COVID on young children’s language and development and a larger population of students with disabilities who may not be getting the services they need, she said. Those challenges mean many arrive to kindergarten and aren’t ready to be there, she said.

The interior of Un Mundo de Amigos in West Long Beach. The city of Long Beach celebrated the school’s opening at a ribbon-cutting in October.

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Photo courtesy of the city of Long Beach

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Un Mundo de Amigos aims to fill those gaps by building whole-family support into the school’s approach. Un Mundo preschools have food pantries on site, stocked with fresh organic fruits and vegetables as well as pantry staples and supplies like diapers. Mental health support for families is available twice a week, and they have access to medical clinics and dental care, Petersen said.

The new Westside school will offer early intervention, evaluation and services for students with disabilities — helping fill a critical gap for families, some of whom have to choose between going to work and taking their child to speech therapy, Petersen said.

Un Mundo staff and their partners offer programs and services onsite, since many families are fearful of seeking resources in public, Silva said. She emphasized that the Un Mundo team has worked to build strong relationships with the families they serve.

“It takes a lot for somebody to ask for help,” she said. “We built those relationships where they don’t hesitate if they’re going through a family emergency. They come to us,” she said.