How can LA County coping with spike in homelessness, California launches program to trap carbon in farm soil, local ‘Son Jarocho’ musician.
Homelessness jumps among vets, and in Santa Monica
Homelessness spiked 23 percent over last year in LA County according to newly released numbers from the census count taken in January.
It's a stark reminder that the problem in the region continues to get worse, and Take Two takes slices of that figure to look at certain demographics and regions that stand out.
Veteran homelessness jumped by 57 percent over last year:
Interview highlights with Chris Ko, director of homeless initiatives at United Way LA and Home For Good, a program to help homeless vets.
Do you have theories as to why this increased so much?
It points to the fragile economy right now we have in Los Angeles. If there's anything we know about the cause of homelessness, it's the ability to afford rent.
Former President Barack Obama challenged cities like LA to end veteran homelessness by 2015. LA Mayor Eric Garcetti has made it a key part of his agenda. Does this mean that they've failed?
No, I think this is all part of the process of bringing our homeless neighbors home.
I think the challenge is more serious than we assumed.
What do veterans need most right now?
The thing veterans have been asking for is a way to connect to the V.A. if they can't make it to West L.A. ...
That's been working. The numbers of housing placements have been going up, but last year we them stall for the first time in a while after some of the community contacts went away and hiring stalled out.
Homeless in Santa Monica increased by 26 percent, despite holding steady for several years before:
Interview highlights with Kevin McKeown, Santa Monica councilman and a longtime advocate for the homeless.
Did this increase surprise you?
People did notice that there was something going on over the past year.
There's been an increase in anecdotal reports of more people, and what we found is most of the increase was happening downtown and along the beach in Santa Monica.
Housing costs are high throughout the area, but Santa Monica is really expensive. Are these homeless people locals who've been priced out of their homes, or are they people coming from elsewhere?
We did find that many of the homeless in Santa Monica are not from here.
Forty-six percent said they were homeless somewhere else in L.A. County before they came to Santa Monica, and 32 percent came from out of state.
Are your services the reason homeless people are attracted to your city?
We found only 16 percent of people who were homeless came here because of homeless services. ... That just means that the rest of the 100 percent came here Santa Monica's a pretty swell place to be.
Listen to the full interviews by clicking the audio player above.
Dirt — California's secret weapon against climate change
While the country waits for President Trump's decision on the Paris Climate Agreement, California is taking a proactive approach. In fact, it's doubling down on its environmental goals.
Yesterday, the state senate passed SB 100, a bill that would move the state to 100 percent clean and renewable energy by 2045.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0gI45aF5y8
Now, California is ready to seize one more opportunity — the soil that supports our thriving farming industry.
While carbon in the air is bad for the environment, it's actually really good for dirt — especially if you want to grow stuff in it.
Can the state use our farmlands to get some of that carbon out of the air, and get it into our soil where is can do some good?
That's the hope behind the Healthy Soil Initiative — a new program that uses Central Valley's farming soil to curb carbon emissions.
Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Karen Ross, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which is spearheading the program.
Interview Highlight
The science of sequestering carbon in soil
The science is the photosynthesis process which is what plants d0 - taking sun and water, and atmospheric carbon dioxide - absorbing that, turning that into sugar to grow the plant and the crop. And what's not used for that plant growth goes into the root system. And then, it's converted to carbon in the soil.
There's lots of microorganisms all beneath our feet. A lot of the world's biodiversity is in our soil. And we're feeding it. So, we're giving it the nutrients so that it stabilizes that carbon. And we sequester that carbon which is another is another way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Getting the agricultural industry on board
There's a lot of farmers are doing pieces of this because they know that taking care of their soil will help them produce better crops, better yields.
What we want to do is help package a menu of options to advance these practices. So it can be things like increasing the use of compost, planting more cover crops, reduced tillage so we're keeping a cover on that soil throughout the year, and intensive rotational grazing practices.
Quote edited for clarity.
To hear the full interview with Karen Ross, click on the blue Media Player above.
This company is helping California conservatives move... to Texas
Two-time congressional candidate Paul Chabot let go of his political ambitions after losing to incumbent Pete Aguilar in November.
The "year of the outsider" 2016 may have been, but voters in the Inland Empire ultimately decided that Chabot and his "Terrorist Hunting Permits" were perhaps too outside for their comfort.
So Chabot has found a new pursuit. Last week, he launched the website Conservative Move. It's a business aimed at helping people leave blue states like California and move places where they might be a little more comfortable — like North Texas, where Chabot and his family moved in January.
"The purpose of this organization is to help other families create an opportunity where we didn't have much guidance," Chabot says.
After the election, Chabot searched for a community that appeared to uphold the values that he and his family held dear, like safe streets and good schools. Eventually, they decided on McKinney, Texas, a city about 40 miles north of Dallas with a population around 150,000.
Chabot says his move piqued the curiosity of his Facebook friends. This curiosity opened his eyes to a business opportunity.
"So therein came the idea of — why don't we help other people who feel the way we do, providing them some mechanism where they can come to us, and we can at least help guide them in the right direction about how to sell their existing home and how to find a home in a conservative area of this country, starting off first in North Texas, where we are."
Chabot says he doesn't want people to see his company as "divisive," especially in light of last year's bruising election. Instead, he hopes it will spark a conversation.
"We want to be able to express to people that these areas that are conservative have safer streets, better schools, better-paying jobs, lower taxes," Chabot says. "We hope that this doesn't become divisive, but it becomes a bridge that brings more and more people into this camp that loves faith, freedom, family, God, country and apple pie."
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
The Ride: Waze rolls out new carpool app for California
L.A. traffic is a nightmare, which is why so many Angelenos use Waze to get around it. But what if an app could actually get rid of some of those cars? That's the goal of Waze Carpool, rolling out to California next week.
"Too many cars. So many empty seats," laments the Waze web site introducing the Waze Carpool app, launching statewide next Tuesday.
A separate app from Waze, Waze Carpool is designed to get people between their homes and work by hitching a ride with someone else who’s traveling a similar route. The app requires a Gmail account and for users to agree for Waze Carpool to track their commute patterns and last reported location to help the app coordinate rides.
Unlike the popular ride-hail services Uber and Lyft, Waze Carpool does not collect a fare. Passengers reimburse Waze drivers for the gas they use at the IRS reimbursement rate of 54 cents per mile. Because drivers are not Waze employees, they are not obligated to carry commercial car insurance or to undergo background checks.
Waze Carpool isn't meant to be an on-demand service, although passengers can request rides at any time. In San Francisco, where the app has been piloted since last year, most passengers request rides up to seven days in advance.
NASA probe will give us first up-close look at the Sun
Fourteen months and counting....
That's when NASA's Parker Solar Probe will do as Icarus did and fly really close to the sun.
Formerly known as the Solar Probe Plus, the project was renamed after astrophysicist Eugene Parker in honor of his contributions in his field - the first time a spacecraft has been named for a living scientist.
The probe will get closer to the red-hot star than ever before as it dives through the Sun's corona where the temperature is over a million degrees.
Unlike Icarus' wax wings, the Parker Solar Probe will have its instruments protected by a heat shield that should keep it at room temperature.
Take Two's A Martinez got the details on NASA's mission with Bruce Betts, Director of Science and Technology at The Planetary Society.
To hear the interview with Bruce Betts, click on the blue Media Player above.
A musician in LA tries to keep 'Son Jarocho' alive
If you’ve ever heard "La Bamba," then you’ve heard Son Jarocho. The Mexican folk music style has been popular in the L.A. area for many decades. In the late 1950s, Ritchie Valens helped to bring a spotlight to it. And in the '70s and '80s, Los Lobos continued to popularize the sound.
César Castro is a contemporary ‘Son Jarocho’ musician who lives in L.A. but comes from the place where the music was born - Veracruz. Castro is a 21st-century renaissance man of Son Jarocho in Los Angeles. Since he arrived from Veracruz, 12 years ago, he’s become a bandleader, an instrument maker, a teacher, and a few other things. But at the center of Castro’s work is the music he plays.
Son Jarocho’s best-known anthem is “La Bamba.” While he plays this tune, Castro demonstrates the genre’s two main instruments: the Requinto - a small four-string lead guitar - and the Jarana, a small, eight-string guitar. Castro says this music opened a whole new world to him when he first heard it:
“When I was thirteen, I had no music background. What I heard was happiness, harmony. But I couldn’t put that in words. I just felt good to walk in that little space, watching people about my age, doing something and I was like, wait, what’s that, curiosity. And finally, when I was able to throw a chord in the Jarana, it was amazing.
Something similar happened to East L.A. guitarist Chuy Sandoval when he first heard this music, eight years ago:
“When I heard Son Jarocho, and most importantly what hit me first was the lyrics, the verses. When I heard what these people were singing about. They were saying words and phrases that I had heard my Mom use at home. I had an emotional response to it. And not only that but it’s so much fun to play!”
Sandoval is one of the four members of Cambalache, a Son Jarocho band led by Cesar Castro. Their new album is called “Constelación de Sonidos - Constellation of Sounds." The tunes are traditional Son Jarocho. But they’re played on something more familiar to Los Angeles—electric guitars. Sandoval says every song in the album is a traditional Son Jarocho:
“But we’re playing them with the sounds that ‘Us’, when I say ‘Us’ I mean the Chicanos that are in the band, the sounds that the Chicanos grew-up with. So, there’s going to be a lot of electric guitar, a lot of rock and roll influence, oldies influence in there, but throwing it in there with Sones Jarochos.”
Rafael Figueroa is a researcher from Veracruz who writes about the music and culture of Son Jarocho. He says it’s easy to see why it’s become so popular in the L.A. area. Figueroa says ‘Son Jarocho’ is an alternative to Mariachi and it’s an easily accessible style of traditional Mexican music:
“You can adapt it to your own needs, you can play with it, you can add some things, you can add people. It’s flexible enough to accommodate almost any taste, you can play it slow, you can play it fast, you can participate even if you’re not really an accomplished musician, you can participate in Son Jarocho somehow.”
A big part of participating in Son Jarocho is the celebration of music and dance called Fandango. This is a gathering where musicians play their instruments and sing, while dancers take turns on a wood platform called Tarima. Castro says the Fandango is an engaging ritual:
“So it’s easy to start participating and you can do it with percussion which can be an easy-in, let’s say that way with a simple pattern and you’re already participating. And then when you feel that, when you feel welcome to a new community then you want to be part of it right, you want to come back, music makes you feel good then you want to keep practicing it.”
Cesar Castro’s band Cambalache will be doing a special concert on June 3rd at the Aratani Theater in Little Tokyo. It will be his opportunity to honor some of the musicians from Veracruz that have helped him along the way - and a chance for many local musicians to honor a teacher who continues to spread the word about Son Jarocho to anyone who will listen.
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.