Here’s how jail-based health treatment failed my family: Guest commentary

As the child of a formerly incarcerated person, I’ve lived with the consequences of a failed law-enforcement system that believes jails can be places for rehabilitative treatment and care. This illusion eventually cost my dad his life.

My dad was a poor man of color raised in the smallest city in Los Angeles County. He served long sentences for drug-related crimes and parole violations. Being locked up exacerbated his existing physical and mental health issues. There were no services to greet him at the gate when he was released, and so imprisonment became law enforcement’s version of treatment. When he tried to find a job and a home, he was rejected at every turn because of his felony record.

At a meeting in Sacramento earlier this month, the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), a small board dominated by law-enforcement officials, appointed the chairs of the committee who will recommend where to spend the millions of dollars of savings generated through Proposition 47, the law passed one year ago that reclassifies certain low-level crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Sixty five percent of this money must be allocated to diversion, mental health, and substance use treatment programs, giving California an opportunity to improve health outcomes for thousands of families.

But at that same meeting, despite testimonials from dozens of community members like myself whose lives have been harmed by incarceration, the BSCC voted to allocate $500 million in jail construction funds to counties across the state. Given that many of these new jail projects are being promoted as mental health treatment centers, sheriffs may soon be lining up to make the case for needing Prop. 47 funds to run these facilities. Awarding funds to expand jails makes no sense when national conversations have turned toward reducing jail populations.

The committee appointed by the BSCC to direct spending of Prop. 47 funds has the power to ensure that those savings go to treatment and care in the community, changing the culture surrounding substance use and mental health. This is the approach that finally worked for my dad.

When my dad was released for the last time in 2007, it was support from other formerly incarcerated people also grappling with substance-use and mental health conditions that helped him stay out of jail. He found his way to Homes for Life, a community-based organization in Southern California providing affordable housing and counseling for homeless and mentally-ill people. Living in a caring community empowered him to enroll in Long Beach City College’s Substance Abuse and Addiction Counseling degree program. It is bittersweet knowing that my dad didn’t find the resources he needed until he was 50 because society prioritizes punishment over healing.

Driving home to Southern California from Oakland this past spring, I prepared myself to see my dad for the first time in 20 years. It would also be the last time. I wept reflecting on 20 years of lost opportunities for our family because a poor brown man’s health conditions made him a criminal.

The real crime is the failure of law enforcement to know the difference between health care and incarceration. There is no happy ending to our story. My dad died without realizing his capacity to be a father and contribute to his community. I only find solace knowing he left this world trying to be the best person he could be.

My dad’s story is not exceptional. Families and neighborhoods continue to be torn apart by the same system that claims keeping communities safe means building more cages for people, when what they really need is comprehensive health care not administered by law enforcement.

Instead of accepting money for new jails, counties should reject the funding and give people with mental health and substance use conditions what my dad didn’t get: a fair chance at health, and a fair chance at life.

Angela Aguilar is a masters in public health candidate and a doctoral student in ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
Via: http://www.dailynews.com/opinion/20151124/heres-how-jail-based-health-treatment-failed-my-family-guest-commentary

Los Angeles Lifts Its Minimum Wage to $15 Per Hour

LOS ANGELES — The nation’s second-largest city voted Tuesday to increase its minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020, in what is perhaps the most significant victory so far for labor groups and their allies who are engaged in a national push to raise the minimum wage.

The increase, which the City Council passed in a 14-to-1 vote, comes as workers across the country are rallying for higher wages and several large companies, including Facebook and Walmart, have moved to raise their lowest wages. Several other cities, including San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle and Oakland, Calif., have already approved increases, and dozens more are considering doing the same. In 2014, a number of Republican-leaning states like Alaska and South Dakota also raised their state-level minimum wages by ballot initiative.

The effect is likely to be particularly strong in Los Angeles, where, according to some estimates, almost 50 percent of the city’s work force earns less than $15 an hour. Under the plan approved Tuesday, the minimum wage will rise over five years.

“The effects here will be the biggest by far,” said Michael Reich, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was commissioned by city leaders to conduct several studies on the potential effects of a minimum-wage increase. “The proposal will bring wages up in a way we haven’t seen since the 1960s. There’s a sense spreading that this is the new norm, especially in areas that have high costs of housing.”

The groups pressing for higher minimum wages said that the Los Angeles vote could set off a wave of increases across Southern California, and that higher pay scales would improve the way of life for the region’s vast low-wage work force.

Supporters of higher wages say they hope the move will reverberate nationally. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced this month that he was convening a state board to consider a wage increase in the local fast-food industry, which could be enacted without a vote in the State Legislature. Immediately after the Los Angeles vote, pressure began to build on Mr. Cuomo to reject an increase that falls short of $15 an hour.

“The L.A. increase nudges it forward,” said Dan Cantor, the national director of the Working Families Party, which was founded in New York and has helped pass progressive economic measures in several states. “It puts an exclamation point on the need for $15 to be where the wage board ends up.”

The current minimum wage in New York State is $8.75, versus a federal minimum wage of $7.25, and will rise to $9 at the end of 2015. A little more than one-third of workers citywide and statewide now make below $15 an hour.

Los Angeles County is also considering a measure that would lift the wages of thousands of workers in unincorporated parts of the county.

Much of the debate here has centered on potential regional repercussions. Many of the low-wage workers who form the backbone of Southern California’s economy live in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Proponents of the wage increase say they expect that several nearby cities, including Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Pasadena, will also approve higher wages.

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But opponents of higher minimum wages, including small-business owners and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, say the increase approved Tuesday could turn Los Angeles into a “wage island,” pushing businesses to nearby places where they can pay employees less.

“They are asking businesses to foot the bill on a social experiment that they would never do on their own employees,” said Stuart Waldman, the president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, a trade group that represents companies and other organizations in Southern California. “A lot of businesses aren’t going to make it,” he added. “It’s great that this is an increase for some employees, but the sad truth is that a lot of employees are going to lose their jobs.”

The 67 percent increase from the current state minimum will be phased in over five years, first to $10.50 in July 2016, then to $12 in 2017, $13.25 in 2018 and $14.25 in 2019. Businesses with fewer than 25 employees will have an extra year to carry out the plan. Starting in 2022, annual increases will be based on the Consumer Price Index average of the last 20 years. The City Council’s vote will instruct the city attorney to draft the language of the law, which will then come back to the Council for final approval.

The mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti, a Democrat, had proposed a slightly different increase last fall and later negotiated the details with the Democratic-controlled Council. Mr. Garcetti said Tuesday that he would sign the legislation and that he hoped other elected officials, including Mr. Cuomo, would follow Los Angeles’s path.

“We’re leading the country; we’re not going to wait for Washington to lift Americans out of poverty,” Mr. Garcetti said in an interview. “We have too many adults struggling to be living off a poverty wage. This will re-establish some of the equilibrium we’ve had in the past.”

New York City does not have a separate minimum wage, but Mayor Bill de Blasio has spoken out in favor of higher wages statewide. “Los Angeles is another example of a city that’s doing the right thing, lifting people up by providing a wage on which they can live,” Mr. de Blasio said in a statement “We need Albany to catch up with the times and raise the wage.”Continue reading the main storhe push for a $15-an-hour minimum wage is not confined to populous coastal states. In Kansas City, Mo., activists recently collected enough signatures to put forward an August ballot initiative on whether to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020. The City Council is deliberating this week over how to respond and could pass its own measure in advance of the initiative.

As the Los Angeles City Council considered raising the minimum wage over the last several months, the question was not if, but how much. The lone councilman who voted against the bill — a Republican — did not speak during Tuesday’s meeting.

Still, for all their enthusiasm, some Council members acknowledged that it would be difficult to predict what would happen once the increase was fully in effect.

“I would prefer that the cost of this was really burdened by those at the highest income levels,” said Gil Cedillo, a councilman who represents some of the poorest sections of the city and worries that some small businesses will shut down. “Instead, it’s going to be coming from people who are just a rung or two up the ladder here. It’s a risk that rhetoric can’t resolve.”

Even economists who support increasing the minimum wage say there is not enough historical data to predict the effect of a $15 minimum wage, an unprecedented increase. A wage increase to $12 an hour over the next few years would achieve about the same purchasing power as the minimum wage in the late 1960s, the most recent peak.

Many restaurant owners here aggressively fought the increase, saying they would be forced to cut as much as half of their staff. Unlike other states, California state law prohibits tipped employees from receiving lower than the minimum wage. The Council promised to study the potential effect of allowing restaurants to add a service charge to bills to meet the increased costs.

And while labor leaders and the coalition of dozens of community groups celebrated in the rotunda of City Hall after the vote, they acknowledged there was a long way to go.

“This says to Los Angeles workers that they are respected, and that’s an important psychological effect,” said Laphonza Butler, the president of Service Employees International Union-United Long Term Care Workers here and a leader of the coalition. “To know that they have a pathway to $15, to getting themselves off of welfare and out of poverty, that’s huge. This should change the debate of the value of low-wage work.”

New proposal would require climate change warning labels at city gas stations

Berkeley commissioners are working to bring climate change awareness right to the gas pump in a proposal that would place warning labels on fuel nozzles.

The city’s Community Environmental Advisory Commission voted Thursday to move forward with a plan that would mandate such labels to be placed in Berkeley gas stations. The signs would state that gasoline consumption releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.

Max Gomberg, chair of the commission, said the label would be a reminder to customers that the gas in their cars has a direct effect on the environment.

“We already require cigarette packs to include warning labels,” said Matthew Lewis, a UC Berkeley sophomore and co-chair of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Sustainability, in an email. “Requiring labels at gas pumps would similarly keep the harm of burning gasoline fresh in people’s minds.”

The plan, which was originally proposed about six months ago to the city by environmental advocacy group 350 Bay Area, has generated backlash from the Western States Petroleum Association, an entity representing petroleum-producing companies.

On Wednesday, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, president of the petroleum association, sent a letter to the commission stating that the plan would violate gas station owners’ First Amendment rights. Citing various court cases, she wrote that a governing body cannot compel a business to state information unless doing so would “prevent consumer deception.” Reheis-Boyd also questioned if climate change was a serious threat to California’s resources.

“Though the proposed ordinance calls these messages ‘warnings,’ they are, in reality, forced reproductions of the state’s and city’s policy opinions,” Reheis-Boyd wrote. “But the messages are not ‘purely factual and uncontroversial information’ – they touch on issues that represent some of the most contentious issues in existence today.”

Still, Tupper Hull, spokesperson for the petroleum association, said he did not doubt the scientific evidence of climate change’s negative effects. Instead, he was concerned with the way the proposal would only affect gasoline distributors.

“To single out one source to the exclusion of others is where we have a strong objection,” Hull said. “I am not aware that they have proposed placing warnings on your vehicles, your stoves and your household furnaces, all of which produce carbon dioxide emissions.”

To assert the veracity of the claim that climate change presents a risk to California, commissioners are planning to cite the California Global Warming Solutions Act, according to Commissioner Andrew Torkelson. The law, which was passed in 2006, contains provisions aimed at lowering the levels of greenhouse gasses and requires certain industries to disclose their emission levels.

Gomberg said City Council is expected to vote on the plan in six to eight weeks.

via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/06/16/new-proposal-require-climate-change-warning-labels-city-gas-stations/

UC Berkeley students lobby in Sacramento for bill to tax oil to fund public higher education

A group of UC Berkeley students joined forces with supporters from various California colleges and universities Thursday morning to lobby for a state Senate bill that aims to reduce tuition at California public institutions of higher education.

About 20 UC Berkeley students were among the 70 supporters who went to Sacramento to bequest members of the Senate Education Committee to support  Senate Bill 1017, which would impose a tax on oil and gas extracted from California soil. The revenue from the tax would be funneled into an endowment — established by the bill — that would generate funds for California public higher education. The proposal ultimately aims to stabilize tuition and roll costs back to 2008 levels.

“We all teamed up and went into the meeting, where we pretty much lobbied,” said UC Berkeley junior Elias Saigali. “I think it was very effective.”

Those who attended the Senate hearing had the opportunity to vocalize through testimony either their support of or opposition to the bill. According to Saigali, about 60 people spoke in favor of the bill — including students and supporters from the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a grassroots organization that aims to empower ordinary citizens to take action in their communities.

“Our physical persistence showed that students really care,” Saigali said. “It’s a way for them to understand what we’re going through. It’s important to us.”

Also at the hearing, representatives from the Western States Petroleum Association enumerated their qualms. Particularly, they argued that the legislation would cost the oil industry about 10,000 jobs and would raise gas prices.

SB 1017, which was introduced two months ago by State Senator Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, has long been supported by a coalition of UC Berkeley students. The bill is a development of both Senate Bill 241 — a former iteration of SB 1017 that failed to pass in committee last year — and the California Modernization and Economic Development Act. Authored by UC Berkeley senior Harrison “Jack” Tibbetts, CMED is of similar sentiment to SB 1017 and, in fact, inspired the bill’s provision of an endowment fund.

In a February interview, Tibbetts said SB 1017 could generate upward of $5 billion for higher-education funding in California. He added that California is the only major oil-producing state that doesn’t impose a tax on extracted oil.

On Thursday, SB 1017 passed the preliminary vote in the Senate Education Committee. As a result of this, the state Senate Governance and Finance Committee will review the bill May 9.

“My hope is that if this does pass, it will inspire students to take legislation into their own hands,” Tibbetts said. “There is more to being reactionary. You can actually lead the discussion.”

 via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/04/24/uc-berkeley-students-lobby-sacramento-bill-tax-oil-fund-public-higher-education/

UC Berkeley students gather to discuss Bay Area education reform

UC Berkeley students gathered with Bay Area teachers and administrators in Dwinelle Hall on Saturday to discuss ways to reform K-12 education in the Bay Area.

The event — called the Educate the Bay Summit and last held in 2009 by the UC Berkeley Public Service Center — provided student groups and community organizations the opportunity to showcase their work in improving pre-K and high school student success.

The summit, sponsored by the ASUC, was organized by the offices of senators from various student political parties, including SQUELCH! Senator Emily Truax, CalSERVE Senator Briana Mullen, CalSERVE Senator Justin Kong and Independent Campaign for Common Sense Senator Solomon Nwoche.

Two of the summit workshops were facilitated by ASUC senators. In her workshop, Mullen addressed the challenges of being a tutor and how to better equip tutors to handle students who might come from backgrounds different from their own. CalSERVE Senator Destiny Iwuoma focused on the statewide IGNITE campaign, which centers on outreach to students of underrepresented backgrounds and preventing the expansion of local county jails.

The ASUC Senate recently unanimously passed a bill, co-authored by Truax, in support of increasing early childhood accessibility. The bill calls for the ASUC to endorse the Educate the Bay Summit and also for the Lobby Corps within the External Affairs Vice President’s office to advocate for California Senate Bill 837, which would create a new transitional kindergarten program and add a 14th year to K-12 education.

“I would hope people would get different perspectives on how inequality exists in K-12 education and find newfound solutions to mitigate these problems through student and community organizations,” Truax said.

The conference’s main speakers — Darrick Smith, a professor at the University of San Francisco, and Donald Evans, Berkeley Unified School District superintendent — both spoke about the diversity of the educational experience. A series of workshops followed, facilitated by community organizations and several student groups, such as People’s Test Prep Services, a campus organization that provides free SAT test prep classes to underserved high school students.

“It’s not like we can just go in the community and know what’s best for the community. We need to ground ourselves in the community,” said Katrina DeVaney, a UC Berkeley senior and executive director of People’s Test Prep Services. “You really need to be careful about how you’re approaching education.”

UC Berkeley junior Matt Nguyen, a Teach for America campus representative, emphasized the constitutional history of affirmative action and its implications for K-12 and higher education.

“We’re living in the Bay Area — one of the nicest places but also one of the most inequitable places as well,” Nguyen said. “Even after the summit, the conversation needs to continue.”

Jane Nho is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at jnho@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter@JaneNho.

via: http://www.dailycal.org/2014/02/23/uc-berkelety-students-gather-discuss-bay-area-education-reform/

A brighter outlook for higher education in California

By Nicholas B. Dirks

July 12, 2013

Under the leadership of Gov. Edmund G. "Pat" Brown and University of California President Clark Kerr, the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education in California created a unique three-way collaboration between the university, the public and the state, a partnership that propelled the state to the forefront of scientific discovery, the arts, innovation and economic growth. At the core of that partnership was the idea of access. As Kerr noted, it was the first time in history "that a state or a nation would promise there would be a place ready for every high school graduate or person otherwise qualified."

As I begin my tenure as UC Berkeley's new chancellor, I am struck by the legacy of the Master Plan, made palpable in powerful stories students and alumni tell of how UC has touched their lives, serving as the inflection point for their intellectual formation, their social and cultural awakening, their emergence as political citizens and their preparation for careers. Many talk in particular about how a Berkeley education led them to believe in the importance of public service, with a strong commitment to changing the world for the better.

These stories confirm my belief that higher education is both a private and public good, and that we all have a great deal at stake when it comes to ensuring that the cost of attendance never stands between prospective students and access to our best colleges. By the same token, maintaining such access is a responsibility that must be shared by institutions of higher education and government.

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That is why I applaud the California Legislature and the leadership of Speaker John A. Pérez for the bold effort to make UC and California State University attendance far more affordable through the new Middle Class Scholarship Plan. The plan will reduce tuition costs by 10% to 40% for students from families with household earnings between $100,000 and $150,000.

This legislation, along with the passage of Proposition 30 and a state budget that begins to reinvest in public higher education, acknowledges what is clearly true: The benefits of a college degree extend well beyond the individual student.

In fact, there may be no better investment of public funds. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that states get back about $7 for every $1 they invest in higher education. And yet not all of the public benefits derived from a well-educated population can be so quantified. The collective vibrancy of California's economy and culture relies on the ability of UC to maintain its position among the greatest schools in the nation, and on the state's commitment to making higher education available to more than the privileged few.

For our part, university administrators will continue to focus on supporting crucial financial aid programs, as finances allow. Across the UC system, students whose families earn less than $80,000 a year already have their tuition and fees fully covered. In addition, Berkeley took a leadership role on the affordability front in 2012 with the Middle Class Access Plan, the first program at a public university to extend financial aid to families with total annual income ranging from $80,000 to $140,000. Under this plan, the university guarantees that parents with income in this range and typical assets will not need to contribute more than 15% of their total income toward the annual cost of a Berkeley education. We expect the state's new program to complement Berkeley's, resulting in even greater assurance that middle-class students will be able to afford a Berkeley education.

The cost of accessing the high-quality educational opportunities afforded by the Master Plan has grown significantly in recent years, not least because of changing patterns of state support for higher education. At the same time, every campus has worked hard and successfully to reduce administrative costs and direct the savings to the academic core. But it requires significant resources to support the intensive teaching environment and the high levels of excellence in research and scholarship we have achieved. It is clear that significant increases in support for our colleges and universities will be crucial for the future health not only of these institutions but of our state.

After years of financial challenges that have frayed the ties that bind us together, it is cause for celebration to see voters, legislators and university administrators united again in support of the promise of the Master Plan and a shared commitment to higher education. While more will be required of us all to ensure that our public colleges and universities rest on sustainable financial foundations, the renewed recognition of our deeply shared interests in the widest possible access to higher education gives me real hope for our collective future.

Nicholas B. Dirks, the former executive vice president and dean of the faculty of arts and sciences at Columbia University, began his tenure as chancellor of UC Berkeley in June.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

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