Ventura struggles with its homeless population, rent control may spread in LA, "Hear in SoCal" is our new series about the sounds of our region.
3 obstacles to helping Ventura’s homeless with mental illness
California's coastal communities have been faced with a growing homeless population. Ventura County is no exception.
Last night, a Ventura City Council meeting was overcome with calls to provide more services for the mentally ill.
The outcry comes after Anthony Mele was fatally stabbed while having dinner with his family last week, at the beachside Ventura promenade. The man thought responsible has been identified as a local homeless man, whom authorities say struggled with mental illness.
The group headed to Ventura City Hall chanting “Enough is enough” and “Do your job.” They started at Aloha Steakhouse, where a 35-year-old man was fatally stabbed last week as he dined with his daughter, 5, and wife.
— Arlene Martinez (@avmartinez)
The group headed to Ventura City Hall chanting “Enough is enough” and “Do your job.” They started at Aloha Steakhouse, where a 35-year-old man was fatally stabbed last week as he dined with his daughter, 5, and wife. pic.twitter.com/JBFOuCMcgi
— Arlene Martinez (@avmartinez) April 24, 2018
In 2018, Ventura's homeless population grew 13 percent, the first increase in years, while the number of homeless families and veterans fell.
1. There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution
Ventura's homeless population is far from homogenous so the path to shelter and stability can differ greatly. It's made up of low-income individuals struggling with rising housing rates, families with children, veterans, and those fleeing domestic violence.
Roughly a quarter of the population is chronically homeless and struggles with mental illness and addiction.
"Homelessness is multifaceted and the populations that are affected are just as diverse as the reasons they end up in that situation," said Tara Carruth, manager of the Ventura County Continuum of Care– a coalition dedicated to ending homelessness.
The killing of Anthony Mele was particularly shocking as most of the crimes committed by the homeless are non-violent. Conversely, Carruth said,"Homeless people are at a higher risk of being victimized on the streets."
2. Gaps in the system
While the city and county of Ventura have a number of mental health services in place, it's really tough to get better while living on the street.
"People who are really struggling with mental illness and substance abuse, it's hard for them to fully participate in their treatment, comply to their medications, when they don't have their own personal safety or place to be," said Carruth. "We have very limited year-round shelter programs in Ventura and struggle with the high-cost, low-vacancy, rental market, to find people appropriate housing."
3. Refusing treatment
If an individual doesn't want to accept mental health services, there's not a whole lot authorities can do. Even when law enforcement is familiar with a local individual, they cannot simply force mental health treatment on them. "The courts protect people's individual rights and their right to self-determine and make choices," said Carruth.
For extreme cases, some California counties, including Ventura, voted to participate in Laura's Law which allows the courts to legally compel individuals to accept treatment in special circumstances. The requirements to qualify for forced hospitalization are severe and Carruth said Laura's Law is not often successfully enacted in Ventura.
SoCal housing prices reach all-time high
The median price of a single-family home in Southern California hit an all-time high in March. It is now $519,000, according to the real estate data firm CoreLogic.
Anyone who's attempted to buy a house in recent years will tell you: competition is steep because the number of available homes is decreasing. According to Richard Green, professor with USC's Price School of Public Policy and the Marshall School of Business:
What's driving the LA real estate market
It's hard to build anything new, particularly on the owner side. For single-family homes, there are basically very few places left you can build them. We have Newhall Ranch and down in OC there's the El Toro area, but other than that, there's not a lot of places to build new single-family homes.
On the condo side, lenders are reluctant to lend to condo developers. Condos relative to apartments, if you build an apartment, if it opens while the market is soft, you can still rent it out and get enough to cover the mortgage payment.
On the other side of it, we've had tremendous job growth. Unemployment is at about its lowest level ever. There are a lot of high-paying jobs particularly in the tech sector. And those people have a decent amount of money and are using that to go into the housing market, and that's pushing up prices.
What income levels can support a median price house
If you look at the prices, the typical Angeleno with a median income of $65,000 can't afford that half a million dollar house, but a very striking thing I learned recently is one of the fastest-growing income groups is people who make $200,000 a year or more. At that income, you can afford a $500,000 house and that's an area where we're seeing job growth.
Many homeowners are stuck in their current homes
Time on the market for houses is pretty short right now and the inventory is pretty low, but moving onto the next place is particularly problematic for people who bought 10-12 years ago because the housing market has recovered to those levels, but they haven't built equity as a result of appreciation. In the old days, you'd buy a house that increase 40 percent over seven or eight years and use that equity as a down payment. If you bought a house between 2004 and 2006, you're back to where you were when you bought the house but you haven't built any equity. So you don't have the down payment to move up to the next house, and that's keeping a lot of people stuck in their houses. It's pretty tough out there.
How long can housing prices increase
House prices can go up for a long period of time. We saw that in London, where I remember thinking in the '90s house prices would have to start leveling off and it took until Brexit to hurt the economy and the housing market. This is different from 2005 because it's not easy lending that's leading to this. We still have a lot of cash buyers. Prices are rising faster than rent. In principle, housing prices can keep going up for a long time. I worry about here and the Bay Area. A lot of the housing market is being driven by the tech economy. The tech economy is probably the most robust in the world right now. Companies in the Bay Area and here in L.A. are doing really well, and as long as they do, house prices will go up.
Is the L.A. housing market in a bubble
That's what I worry about. If you look at stock prices of tech companies over the past couple months, it's come down. A lot of people, their compensation is tied to stock values. If tech companies start to falter, that doesn't mean they'll go out of business, but if stock values fall 30 to 40 percent, that could lead to a deflation in house values here.
LA's first black firefighter was a secret, and other things you can learn at the African American Firefighter Museum
Station No. 30 on Central Ave. is one of two formerly segregated firehouses in Los Angeles. It closed in 1980. But the building now stands with a different purpose, as the African American Firefighter Museum. It tells the story of segregation and integration in the L.A. Fire Department, and celebrates past and present black leaders of fire departments across the country.
The museum's mission is to promote diversity and to stand up for inequality against all races and genders. It's run entirely on donations and volunteers.
Inside, fireman’s poles emerge from dark wood-paneled ceilings, complete with a uniformed mannequin in mid-slide.
The main room used to house horses, and later, fire trucks, that responded to alarms that ran out of neighborhoods across South L.A. It’s a treasure trove of artifacts. Docent Jimmy Smith points out the old horse-drawn hose wagon.
"The horses automatically would get in front of the carts. They would hook ‘em up, then they would be off to fight fires."
Smith’s an expert at telling old stories, especially about African-American pioneers in the department. Like Sam Haskins, a former slave from Virginia who became L.A.’s first black firefighter in the late 1800s.
But as Smith explained, the department kept Haskins’ job under wraps.
"L.A. City Fire Department didn’t really put out word that he was there because they didn’t want other blacks hearing and thinking that they could come and get jobs like that."
That didn’t stop other black firefighters from joining the ranks.
But in 1924, as segregation swept across the country, they were only able to work in two fire houses. One was Station No. 30, with a team of 26 firefighters.
And it wasn’t easy to become one.
You had to pass a civil service exam, then wait for someone at the station to either die or retire, and fill their spot.
And when you wanted a promotion, "the highest position you could go to in the fire service was that of a captain," L.A. County Fire Captain, Brent Burton said.
Burton is also past president and historian at the African American Firefighter Museum.
Burton: There was a captain that worked here, William Hall. He took the battalion chief’s exam, the next promotion above captain. He took it, passed it. But he got sent a letter, and I wish we had that letter, but this was 1931. It said, ‘It’s a shame you’re not a white man. There is no place, nor plan for a colored battalion chief in this department.’
But in 1954, things started changing. The Supreme Court ruled that separate public schools were inherently unequal, and that segregation was unconstitutional.
And at first, according to Brent Burton, that wasn't a problem for the L.A. Fire Department.
Burton: They put firefighters at a station just southwest of here, number 7, and everybody got along very well. But when word got back to the administration, they pulled guys back. And sent folks to other stations where they felt that it wouldn’t work.
Basically, Burton is said the administration was trying to make things tough for them.
And it worked. Integration looked a lot like segregation with a new set of rules that only applied to black firefighters.
Burton: Like eating with separate utensils. Eating at separate times....During an inspection, when they lined up, the black firefighters stood four human spaces away from the rest of the crew. If you put your food in the refrigerator, they would contaminate it.
Arnett Hartsfield Jr., was an L.A. firefighter who fought for equality in the department.
In a 2009 interview of for the UC Berkeley California Firefighters History Project, Hartsfield said that only one white firefighter spoke to him on the job. That firefighter said...
Hartsfield: '...Hartsfield you’ve got all the advantages. You got the NAACP, you got the Supreme Court.' I said, 'Hold it, Bill...Come down to headquarters. Tell them you’ve just discovered some black blood in your family tree...and you’ll have all my advantages.' And he never bothered me again.
In 1955, Hartsfield worked with 30 colleagues to form a social organization for black firefighters called the Stentorians, which means a loud and powerful voice--a voice they took to the Mayor of L.A. in 1963, says Burton.
Burton: And once they explained to the mayor what was going on, the mayor issued a formal order to the department that you will act like a grown-up department and you will all eat together. So that stopped that.
More than 50 years later, diversity is still a work in progress at the LAFD. A statement from the department reads:
"The LAFD continually works to develop a workforce that reflects the diversity of the city we serve. Our current recruitment efforts reflect that mission and effort."
As of February this year, about 12 percent of the city’s fire department is African-American. That’s 374 people, out of more than 3,000.
Hear in SoCal: The horns of Glendale
Living in Southern California means great weather, beautiful vistas -- and an array of rich sounds. In an effort to gather and explore the region's lavish soundscape, we're kicking off a new series called "Hear in SoCal."
The idea is to gather and explore all of the unique, surprising, and occasionally annoying sounds that help define where we live, right here in Southern California.
So, lend me your ear and I'll play you a sound:
NOW: Our new series "Hear in SoCal" explores all of the unique and occasionally annoying sounds that help define where we live.
— Take Two (@taketwo) April 24, 2018
First up: the loud horns of a Northeast city. https://t.co/MJmushKoxg pic.twitter.com/lHXdQqKCRm
Care to guess where this one came from? Hint: not the 405 freeway at rush hour.
This particular sound was captured on the corner of Glendale Boulevard and California Avenue in the city of Glendale Sunday night.
Two things were happening simultaneously:
- One was a protest of last month's presidential election in Armenia.
- Glendale's population is roughly one-third Armenian, so Sunday night's activity was also a commemoration of Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which is observed every year on April 24th.
This is just one of many sounds we hear in SoCal.
What are you hearing? What sounds are part of your community? Send them to us on
or Facebook.
Getty Museum to Cleopatra: 'It's not all about you'
“The overarching goal of this exhibition is for visitors to understand Egypt, Greece, and Rome not as monolithic, separate entities but as cultures that shared and exchanged aspects of their religion, artistic traditions, languages, and customs in an evolving milieu.”
-- Jeffrey Spier, Getty Museum senior curator of antiquities and co-curator of "Beyond the Nile: Egypt and the Classical World"
We all know one detail about Ancient Rome’s dealing with Egypt: Her name was Cleopatra. KPCC Cultural Correspondent Marc Haefele says a new exhibit at the Getty digs a lot deeper than the Hollywood treatment of this ancient land.
Cleopatra (properly Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt) was the last member of the last Egyptian Dynasty, not to mention assassin of her siblings, admiral, general, author, and lover of two of history’s most famous men, Anthony and Caesar. We know her because of Hollywood: first with Claudette Colbert in “Cleopatra’’ of 1934:
Then the most famous of all, with Elizabeth Taylor; in 1963, which was then the most expensive movie ever made...
And there was even an obscure 1989 Rolling Stones song, "Blinded by Love:"
The queen of the Nile
She laid on her throne
And she was drifting downstream
On a barge that was burnished with gold
Royal purple the sails
So sweetly perfumed
And poor Mark Antony's
Senses were drowned
And his future was doomed
He was blinded by love
But Cleopatra -- handsome, murderous and brilliant as she was -- is only a portion of the Getty’s mighty new 2,300 year show: “Beyond the Nile.”
How about this roly-poly dawn-red hippopotamus, small enough to fit in your back yard, big enough for the kids to ride, charmingly cute and beautiful, who extends his right foot in welcome. Carved in stone 2,000 years ago by a craftsman unknown, he signals the juncture of the mightiest civilizations of the ancient Western world.
A thousand years before Homer, as commerce spread around the Mediterranean, civilizations like Crete and Mycenae’s artistic and cultural influences intermingled with that of the great Nile kingdom. Getty director Tim Potts says this exhibit shows how much the Mediteranean lands owe one another.
"The important part about these cultures is they didn't develop in a bubble. There is, in fact, even in the ancient world just as there is today, this huge interchange between cultures, in languages, in the arts, in forms of government, in bureaucracy. All these things were interconnected."
-- Tim Potts, director of The J. Paul Getty Museum
As the Bronze Era collapsed somewhere around 1200 BC, Egypt was civilization’s sanctuary. When the Greeks returned around 700 BC, they found much to admire, and in the Getty show you can see the deep Egyptian roots of classical Greek art and architecture.
After Alexander the Great, Egypt was ruled by the Greek Ptolemy dynasty for 300 years; and the arts, culture, religion and even the sciences flourished.
After Cleopatra, Rome ruled Egypt, and Egyptian imagery and culture flooded the Roman world -- much as the West became obsessed with Egypt after the opening of King Tut’s tomb in the 1920s.
The show’s astounding paintings, statues (including that hippo) and mosaics come from Pompeii, Herculaneum, Palestrina, and other Italian sites. They portray crocodiles, hippos, parties of pygmies along the Nile, as well as the gods and heroes of Egypt. Even Roman furniture evoked Egyptian themes.
But the most astounding Roman borrowing was Egyptian religion. First there was the goddess Isis, of whom there is a particularly sexy statue on display from around 100 BC. Isis joined the Ptolomaic Serapis cult, which Roman Soldiers carried to the far corners of the empire. This religion, with its own trinity - complete with nursing mother - competed with Christianity until outlawed by the newly Christian Empire in 380 AD. The devotional statues at the Getty suggest an alternate history of modern religion.
By odd coincidence, there are three noteworthy displays of ancient Egyptian art in LA right now: the King Tut road show at the California Science Center, a selection of LACMA’s Egypt treasures at the Vincent Price museum in East LA, and this broad-spectrum spectacle at the Getty Center.
See them all, if you can.
"Beyond the Nile" is at the Getty Center through September 9.
"King Tut: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh" is at the California Science Center for a limited time.
"Passing Through the Underworld," with items from LACMA's collection, is at the Vincent Price Art Museum through December 8.
(Correction: The on-air introduction for this feature incorrectly stated that the Getty exhibit puts a "spotlight" on Cleopatra.)
Gay K-pop singer from OC pushes envelope in South Korea
Latin music's leading ladies are burning up the charts
Every week, Take Two's music contributors review the newest and hottest music. This week, with the Billboard Latin Music Awards just days away, writer Justino Aguila has selected music from some of the Latinas leading the pack and changing the game.
Artist: Becky G
Song: Mayores
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMFewiplIbw
Justino says:
Becky G recently notched her first-ever No. 1 hit on Billboard's Latin Airplay chart with "Mayores." She is one of only six women under 21 who've gotten a No. 1 on the chart. "Mayores" features Bad Bunny. The song got attention for racy lyrics, but for Becky G it was a moment of showing the world she's growing and declared, "I'm a woman now."
Artist: Jennifer Lopez
Song: Amor, Amor, Amor (feat. Wisin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t9u_yPEidY
Justino says:
Jennifer Lopez's "Amor, Amor, Amor" (feat. Wisin) recently became her sixth No. 1 song to hit Latin Airplay, and she recently said that accomplishments like that still mean so much to her personally. Lopez is busier than ever with projects, music. She has an upcoming album, TV projects, films and she currently has a Las Vegas residency right how at Planet Hollywood.
Artist: Natti Natasha & Ozuna
Song: Criminal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqEbCxg2bNI
Justino says:
Natti Natasha's "Criminal" with urban star Ozuna has been a great way for Natti to expand her spotlight in music. She's on "Amantes de Una Noche" with Bad Bunny, and he also has a new track, "Pijama" with Becky G.
Artist: Shakira
Song: Chantaje (feat. Maluma)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Mgqbai3fKo
Justino says:
Shakira's "Chantaje" with Maluma has been well received, and the pair is on the latest issue of Billboard magazine. Shakira's tour El Dorado, named after Shakira's chart-topping 2017 album, kicks off June 3 at the Barclaycard Arena in Hamburg, her first tour in seven years following the birth of her two sons and a vocal-cord injury that forced her to postpone the original kickoff slated for last fall. She's back, and this tour is going to big for her.