ACT-LA

It’s an all too familiar story in Los Angeles.

Thousands of people living in tents, encampments, vehicles and makeshift shelters.

Recent studies estimate that more than 29,000 homeless people are in the city of Los Angeles. In Los Angeles county, more than 58,000 people are unhoused. Though those numbers declined in the last year, homelessness remains a persistent and chronic problem. Addressing that critical need and getting residents access to healthy and affordable housing is a key driver of the work and activities of ACT-LA.

Founded in 2011, ACT-LA, formerly known as Alliance for Community Transit-Los Angeles, is a coalition of 48 organizations focused on equitable housing, transit justice, public health and environmental justice for low-income communities and communities of color. “The members of the coalition share a vision and things we want to change, and it really helps knowing we all are coming with our best intentions. It is a big challenge, but it’s like the superpower of coalition building, and coalition staff see our role as stewards towards that vision and supporting our members so we get there,” said Scarlett De Leon, executive director, ACT-LA.

ACT-LA and its coalition participate in educational advocacy and organizing.

Its key committees are comprised of organizations including the Little Tokyo Service Center, Esperanza Community Housing, Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, LA Forward, Community Power Collective, and Strategic Actions for a Just Economy.

Eva Garcia is a mom of two and a community organizer with Community Power Collective (CPC) and has been a leader in ACT-LA’s Social Housing leadership cohort, a two-year intensive of popular education and skill-based training around housing advocacy. Previously, she was a street vendor, and that is how she became involved with CPC. In 2020, during the pandemic, Eva lost her housing. It was extremely difficult to find a new place to live and she knows many people in her community who have become homeless because of similar situations. That is why she is so passionate about organizing around housing issues. “Social housing will bring solutions to the community to live in dignified housing like the community deserves,” she said. Garcia wants to take the skills she has learned and encourage other community members not to lose hope on housing solutions.

Critical to ACT-LA’s success is creating opportunities for communities to maneuver through byzantine processes impacting housing and transit issues that most affect the people ACT-LA serves. It spearheads conversations around social housing and getting a seat at the tables of power to represent residents’ needs. ACT-LA also addresses systemic inequities in land use policies that underlie the current housing crisis. It’s involved in supporting community organizations and low-income residents who want to advocate for affordable housing and an equitable and reliable public transportation system. ACT-LA’s recommendations were incorporated in the city of Los Angeles’s 2021-2029 Housing Element, a far-reaching plan to house local residents.

The California Endowment’s relationship with ACT-LA spans a decade and funded the group’s work with close to $1.1 million dollars over that period of time. “ACT-LA has done work that is a shining light for the county, state and country. Health is not just the product of individual choice, but actually the product of systems and structures in place. We see so many inequities, so we stand behind our grantee partners who are actually trying to do systems and structural transformation and ACT-LA is one of those that’s right in the fight, “ said Gisele Fong, senior programs manager, Programs and Partnerships, The California Endowment.

Social housing, which seeks to create housing empowering communities using city-owned land or leasing existing buildings to benefit local renters and residents, is another priority for ACT-LA but one that was initially confusing to many.

“With TCE’s work we were able to facilitate leadership development for organizers, grassroots members and complete narrative guidelines and documents that are now broadly used throughout Los Angeles and actually impacting the way the conversation is going around social housing as well,” De Leon said.

Transit justice and supporting safe transit is another top priority for ACT-LA. It launched a transit pilot program that rolled out 300 ambassadors in Metro stations around the city. They keep watch at stations and create connections with riders, lead riders to services and offer help when needed. The ambassador program creates safety on public transportation that is not police-centered instead using a care-centered approach that connects people to services and focused on hospitality.

The program has been so successful it has now been adopted permanently by Metro and has sparked interest from other cities, including Chicago, which have shown interest in replicating the program.

For the past five years,

ACT-LA has also been working on a Vermont Corridor project to get a dedicated, protected route for buses and bikes along miles of Vermont Avenue, one of the busiest transit corridors in Los Angeles county.

Looking ahead and preparing for Los Angeles hosting the 2028 Olympics, ACT-LA sees its coalition sitting at the intersection of transit and housing and anticipating the community’s needs as that time approaches. Its 2028 strategic plan seeks to redefine zoning goals and improve and expand inclusionary zoning for Los Angeles, including strengthening anti-displacement measures and gaining more affordable housing. “We want to ensure that our city
is shaped in a way that really has measurable wins for working class folks in Los Angeles,
homeless folks, transit riders and others,” De Leon said.