How Are Resettlement Efforts Going For Afghan Families Seeking Asylum In SoCal? We Check In With Local Organizations Who Are Helping
Since the fall of Kabul, we’ve been talking to local organizations who are working to resettle families who fled Afghanistan in August of 2021. In the eight months since, it’s been a process of securing permanent housing, as many families were temporarily set up in hotels when they first arrived. Some are still in those hotels today. Now, with the deadline looming to apply for asylum, comes the additional challenge of securing pro bono legal resources to help families navigate the application process, translators who can help facilitate it. And the organizations who are helping to resettle these families say it’s been hard finding enough people to do these jobs at little to no cost to the families, and that while Governor Newsom has called for additional funding to assist Afghan refugee arrivals in California and has also expanded a public-private fund to include immigrants from Afghanistan, the money isn’t flowing quickly enough from the state to the organizations that need it to provide assistance.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll check back in with World Relief Southern California Director of Outreach and Immigration José Serrano and International Institute of Los Angeles Vice President of Immigrant and Refugee Services Lilian Alba on the status of the resettlement process for the families with whom their organizations are working.
With guest host Kyle Stokes
Can Underutilized Office Space And Golf Courses Be Made Into Affordable Housing?
While California’s housing crisis continues to grow, legislators have been looking for new ways to resolve it. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’s recent proposal, AB 2011, would allow underutilized commercial spaces to be used as affordable housing. There are also other ambitious proposals like Assemblymember Cristina Garcia’s bill, AB 1910, which would incentivize making public golf courses into housing or open spaces.
Today on AirTalk, we discuss these pieces of housing legislation with their respective authors, Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Cristina Garcia.
With guest host Kyle Stokes
How Inflation, Food And Gas Prices Squeeze Finances Are Affecting Local Food Banks And The People Who Are Coming In
As if the financial struggles brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic weren’t enough, just when we thought it might be safe to go out in public and return to work again, gas and grocery prices shoot up and put yet another squeeze on everyone’s wallets. And for many families, as the Los Angeles Times’ Mackenzie Mays reports, this has meant turning to local food banks for help -- in some cases, for the first time. And there’s also the impact of inflation on the food banks themselves in terms of obtaining food, especially if they don’t rely heavily on donations for inventory, and also distributing that food with gas prices as high as they are.
Today on AirTalk, guest host Kyle Stokes talks with Los Angeles Regional Food Bank CEO Michael Flood and Food Bank of Santa Barbara County CEO Erik Talkin about the trends they’re seeing in foot traffic and the challenges that both the pandemic and the recent rise in the cost of gas and groceries have posed to their organizations.
With guest host Kyle Stokes
If you are experiencing food insecurity, you can visit a foodbank in your local area.
Los Angeles:: Los Angeles Food Bank
Santa Barbara: Food Bank of Santa Barbara County
Orange County: The OC Food Bank
Student Loan Debt Has Been Poorly Managed, A New Report Finds – How Will The Biden Administration Remedy That?
On Tuesday, the Department of Education announced a plan to fix its “historical failures” around student loan forgiveness. According to the department, the changes they make will result in immediate debt relief for at least 40,000 borrowers who are saddled with debt. The announcement comes just a day before the Government Accountability Office released a report, faulting the Education Department for sloppy oversight of its income-driven repayment (IDR) program – a collection of plans that offer reduced monthly payments and loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of payments. The study, requested by Congress, identified 7,700 federal student loans that appear to meet the conditions for loan forgiveness but had yet to be canceled as of September 2020. An NPR investigation revealed that these IDR plans have been poorly managed by the Education Department and by the loan serving company it employs.
Today on AirTalk, we’re joined by professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Robert Kelchen to discuss the Biden Administration’s announcement to address student loan debt and the recent revelations of longstanding mismanagement.
With files from the AP
With guest host Kyle Stokes
COVID-19 AMA: Effectiveness Of One-Way Masking, Vaccination Rates Among Kids, And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Sam Torbati, co-chair of the department of emergency medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Topics today include:
Are masks still effective even when many people around you aren’t wearing them?
- How people are navigating the new mask-optional phase of the pandemic
- The D.O.J. will appeal the recent ruling regarding masks on transportation by a federal judge
- Study shows Omicron was more severe for unvaccinated kids between 5 and 11 years old
- Why you may have to wait longer for a COVID vaccine for kids under 5
- C.D.C. advisory panel expresses skepticism of fourth COVID shots for the general population
- WHO: Global COVID cases, deaths declined again last week
- COVID-19 vs the flu
With guest host Kyle Stokes