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Tag: Opportunities

Excelling for the 2028 Olympics: Restoring, Not Displacing, LA’s Unsheltered Residents

September 4, 2024 / By Anthony W. Orlando, Daniel Flaming, Gary L. Blasi, Sam Tsemberis / Economic Roundtable

Los Angeles’ most glaring flaw as host of the 2028 Olympics is the nation’s largest population of unsheltered homeless individuals. If LA fails to make inroads on the problem, 2028 will be a disaster for unhoused people and LA’s reputation. Restoring the lives of unsheltered residents will be an Olympic achievement.

Basic Housing Grants to Reduce Homelessness in Los Angeles

April 25, 2024 / By Benjamin F. Henwood, Daniel Flaming, Gary L. Blasi, Sam Tsemberis

Public policy in Los Angeles as long been blind to the central fact that unhoused people are extremely poor. Direct cash subsidies could help move tens of thousands of homeless Angelenos into housing at a far lower cost per person than our current system.

The Work Behind Work: Combatting Homelessness with Jobs

February 14, 2024 / By Ana Alvarez, Daniel Flaming, Manuel Gomez, Seth Pickens

The most common reason unhoused individuals give for why they do not have a place of their own to live is unemployment and lack of income. Homelessness is primarily a problem of income. Upstream interventions that lead to employment will significantly reduce the number of men, women and children who experience homelessness.

Recognizing and Helping High-Need Homeless Individuals: Five Homeless Predictive Screening Tools

March 2, 2023 / By Daniel Flaming / Economic Roundtable

Preventive vs. Remedial Screening Tools The Economic Roundtable has developed five predictive screening tools to identify and prioritize high-need homeless individuals who will have high future public costs because of ongoing crises in their lives that are resolved in expensive institutional settings, including jails and hospitals. 

Image of the downtown Los Angeles skyline and falling figure, created by Daniel Flaming, 2023. Created for the ERt report "Breaking the Fall: Successful Homeless Interventions in the Covid Pandemic." Owned by Economic Roundtable, creation of ERt staff.

Breaking the Fall: Successful Homeless Interventions in the Covid Pandemic

December 14, 2022 / By Daniel Flaming, Seth Pickens and Patrick Burns / Economic Roundtable

Breaking the Fall – Covid Interventions Prevented Homelessness Struggling workers are either everyone’s responsibility now or everyone’s problem later. When poorly paid workers become jobless at the thin edge of the job market and then unable to pay rent, homeless destitution follows. In fact, we are equipped with the tools we need to protect workers from the sharper edges of joblessness and to combat homelessness. 

mage of the downtown Los Angeles skyline and foreground housing , created by Daniel Flaming, 2023. Created for ERt's "Tools from the Realization Project: Resource Library for Identifying and Helping Workers at Risk of Persistent Homelessness." Owned by Economic Roundtable, creation of ERt staff.

Tools from the Realization Project: Resource Library for Identifying and Helping Workers at Risk of Persistent Homelessness

December 9, 2022 / By Daniel Flaming / Economic Roundtable

The Realization Project is a system-change demonstration project of the Economic Roundtable. It has produced public domain library of screening, instructional, personal restoration, and employment tools. The project uses predictive analytic screening tools, which can be downloaded here, to identify unemployed workers with a high risk of becoming persistently homeless. 

Photograph by Camilo J. Vergara, "Jeffrey reading aloud from the Apocalypse, S. Central Ave. at 4th St., Skid Row, L.A...". Image taken in 2014 in Downtown Los Angeles, from his series "Tracking Time." All rights reserved under copyright of the photographer.

Early Intervention to Prevent Persistent Homelessness: Predictive Models for Identifying Unemployed Workers and Young Adults who become Persistently Homeless

March 19, 2019 / By Halil Toros, Daniel Flaming and Patrick Burns / The John Randolph Haynes Foundation

In major U.S. metropolitan areas, the number of long-term homeless needing housing far exceeds the available housing supply, making it difficult to move persistently homeless individuals off of the streets. One of the most promising approaches to reducing these numbers lies in early identification and quick, effective intervention to help those most likely to become persistently homeless. Two new screening tools from the Economic Roundtable can help the most vulnerable people get access to the public services they need as soon as they become homeless, or even before they are homeless, and reduce the flow of people into chronic homelessness.

Photograph by Mark Boster, Los Angeles Times, "A police officer talks with a homeless woman on a downtown freeway overpass in March," 2016. Photograph originally accompanied the Los Angeles Times article "L.A. agrees to pay nearly $950,000 in two cases involving the homeless" by Emily Alpert Reyes, June 14, 2016.

Model-Based Triage of Permanent Supportive Housing: Improving the Allocation of Supportive Housing Resources

July 1, 2018 / By Jane Carlen, Halil Toros and Daniel Flaming / Santa Clara County Center for Population Health Improvement (CPHI)

This streamlined triage tool was developed for the Santa Clara County Center for Population Health Improvement (CPHI). It provides an empirical tool for prioritizing patients for permanent supportive housing using close-to-real-time data that is available to CPHI. In addition, an industry-wide switch in medical diagnostic classification systems necessitated a conversion of all diagnostic variables from the ICD-9 classification system to the ICD-10 system. 

Silicon Valley Triage Tool: Identifying and Housing High-Cost Homeless Residents

February 17, 2016 / By Halil Toros and Daniel Flaming / County of Santa Clara, Destination: Home

Why the Silicon Valley Triage Tool is Important: The number of homeless people needing housing far exceeds the available housing supply, and there is not a fair, objective system for prioritizing who gets to be housed. The triage tool addresses this problem by identifying individuals for whom the solution of housing costs less than the problem of homelessness.  

Photograph by Daniel Flaming, Economic Roundtable, 2011. Owned by Economic Roundtable

Water Use Efficiency and Jobs

December 1, 2011 / By Patrick Burns / City of Los Angeles Piping Industry, International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, National Inspection-Testing-Certification Corporation, Progress and Education Fund, the Community Development Department and Workforce Investment Board

At the peak of California’s most recent drought in 2009, the Los Angeles economy was in severe recession, with unemployment above 12 percent. These twin crises identified a policy opportunity to tackle both challenges together. Public investments in water use efficiency provide economic and job benefits alongside the environmental benefits from using less water. 

Photograph by Ed Yourdon, "Recession special at Gray's Papaya shop." Photograph uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on March 12, 2009, taken on March 10, 2009. Protected under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED license. The Economic Roundtable has not changed, remixed, transformed, or built upon the material, and is not using it for commercial purposes.

Ebbing Tides in the Golden State: Impacts of the 2008 Recession on California and Los Angeles County

June 8, 2009 / By Daniel Flaming, Patrick Burns and Michael Matsunaga / Economic Roundtable, the California Endowment

The most concrete characteristic of a recession is that demand disappears for some of the commodities produced by workers and unwanted unemployment is imposed on a large segment of the labor force. With growing job losses in the current recession it is important to know, whose boat falls when the economic tide recedes? 

Photograph by Marc Levin, "Profiles." Photography updated to Flickr Creative Commons on December 24, 2007, taken on December 24, 2007. Protected under the CC BY 2.0 DEED license. The Economic Roundtable has not changed this image.

Concentrated Poverty in Los Angeles

February 9, 2008 / By Michael Matsunaga / the City of Los Angeles

Poverty adversely affects the lives of Los Angeles residents as well as the City as a whole.  Among other things, poverty has a direct financial impact on local government because of above-average per capita costs for municipal services related to police and fire protection, courts, education, and other services in poor neighborhoods.  

Photograph by the Greens MPs, "Laurel Tree House Childcare Centre." Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on May 23, 2013, taken on May 23, 2013 in Glebe NSW 2037, Australia. Protected under the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 DEED license.

Running Out of Time: Voices of Parents Struggling to Move from Welfare to Work

July 1, 2002 / By Daniel Flaming, Patricia Kwon and Patrick Burns / Economic Roundtable

How do people change their lives? What kinds of help do working poor parents need to lift their families out of poverty? What obstacles do they face in trying to get a sustaining job? More than eight thousand people answered these questions through a survey undertaken to learn directly from working welfare parents and other poor families about the problems they face and the kinds of help they need to become self-sufficient. 

Photograph "P1060350-Edit.jpg [Poverty is a Cage]" by Neil Ballantyne. Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on May 29, 2011, taken on May 28, 2011. Protected under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED license. The Economic Roundtable has not changed, remixed, transformed, or built upon the material, and is not using it for commercial purposes.

The Cage of Poverty

September 1, 2000 / By Daniel Flaming, Mark Drayse and Peter Force / Economic Roundtable

In his 1963 letter from the Birmingham jail Martin Luther King, Jr. described the despair of people “smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.” It is important to understand the extent to which this image of entrapment still describes the wage-earning lives of the working poor as they try to support their families. 

Los Angeles County, Department of Public Social Services, 2014.

On the Edge: A Progress Report on Welfare to Work in Los Angeles

January 1, 1999 / By Daniel Flaming, Mark Drayse and Peter Force / Economic Roundtable

The loss of a welfare safety net for most adults for most of their lives makes the quality of jobs available to the working poor and their success in finding and keeping jobs increasingly important. The economic and civic life of the Los Angeles region will be shaped by connections that are made, or fail to be made, between the growing ranks of working poor and opportunities for steady, sustaining, productive employment. 

Photograph "Clondalkin dole protest" by The Workers Party of Ireland (no individual photographer mentioned). Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on August 15, 2010, taken on September 10, 2009 outside the Social Welfare Local Office, Clondalkin (County Dublin), Ireland. Protected under the CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 DEED license.

Survival Skills: Welfare to Work in Los Angeles

January 1, 1998 / By Mark Drayse, Cher-Amie Inocentes, Daniel Flaming and Peter Force / Economic Roundtable

Recent welfare reform legislation mandates that aid recipients become employed and economically self-sufficient. The allowable interval of continuous assistance is limited to 24 months for current recipients and 18 months for new recipients, with a lifetime limit of five years on welfare. At least 150,000 current welfare recipients in Los Angeles County must move into the workforce, securing at least partial employment by December 1999. 

Photograph "Long Beach McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Plant; 28.07.1995" by Aero Icarus, Zürich, Switzerland, obtained and used 1995. Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on August 26, 2010, taken on July 28, 1995. Protected under the CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED license.

Economic Restructuring in Long Beach: Opportunities and Challenges in a Post-Aerospace Economy

September 1, 1997 / By Mark Drayse, Daniel Flaming and David L. Rigby,UCLA Lewis Center For Regional Policy Studies / Economic Roundtable

The City of Long Beach and other centers of aerospace production that reaped the rewards of the 1980s defense-spending boom must now confront the realities of restructuring. Since World War II, the Douglas Aircraft plant made Long Beach an important center of the US aerospace industry and dominated the local economy. In 1992, the Long Beach aerospace industry employed 36,100 workers, which was 22 percent of the city's total employment. Almost all of these workers were employed by McDonnell Douglas. Long Beach aerospace workers earned a total payroll of over $1.5 billion, which was 30 percent of the city's total payroll. These figures understate the total impact of aerospace on the Long Beach economy, through linkages with firms in other industries that provide inputs to the aerospace industry, and purchases of goods and services by aerospace workers.

Post Cold War Frontiers: Defense Downsizing and Conversion in Los Angeles

January 1, 1996 / By Michael Oden-Rutgers University Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Ann Markusen-Rutgers University Project on Regional and Industrial Economics, Daniel Flaming and Mark Drayse / Economic Roundtable

This study examines how firms, workers, and regional economic development institution are dealing with the severe effects of defense downsizing in the Los Angeles region. Between 1988 and 1994 the Los Angeles region lost 127,000 jobs in defense-related industries, including aircraft, missiles, instruments, and electronics. The long economic slump set off by defense cuts has incited a major debate between the advocates of regional institution building and proactive economic development and those arguing for the laissez-faire approach of reducing taxes, wages, and environmental costs. 

Photograph by Kevin Haggerty, "Queen Mary" uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on November 21, 2005, taken on November 20, 2005. Protected under the CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED license.

Long Beach Business: 1994 Long Beach Business Survey

April 27, 1995 / By Daniel Flaming / Economic Roundtable

SYNOPSIS Purpose The 1994 Business Survey was initiated by the City of Long Beach to guide and strengthen its business outreach and retention efforts. Technical guidance, data analysis, and report preparation was carried out by the Economic Roundtable. The purpose was to: Identify the concerns, needs and opportunities of businesses in order to strengthen City programs for supporting Long Beach’s economic base. 

Photograph by Niall Kennedy, "Fuel Cell parking only: Fuel Cell parking sign at SRI in Palo Alto" Uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons on February 10, 2008. Protected under CC BY-NC 2.0 DEED license.

Fuel Cells for Transportation: Technical Feasibility and Economic Impacts

May 8, 1994 / By Daniel Flaming, Mark Drayse, John M. Lee, Fuel Cell Engineering, Marshall Miller, Uc Davis Institute Of Transportation Studies And Union Of Concerned Scientists, David L. Rigby,UCLA Lewis Center For Regional Policy Studies and David Swan, Uc Davis Institute Of Transportation Studies / the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority

Fuel cells are a feasible power system technology for future transit vehicles. The advantages of fuel cells include high efficiency and extremely low vehicle emissions. Progress in fuel cell technology is moving rapidly with limited commercialization expected in this decade. Transit vehicles are a logical first application of fuel cells in transportation. Fundamental to the application of fuel cells to transit is the choice of boarded fuel. Hydrogen and methanol are the favored fuels to store on the vehicle with methanol being converted into a hydrogen rich gas on-board the vehicle. Hydrogen simplifies the fuel cell power plant at the expense of the refueling facility. Methanol simplifies the refueling facility at the expense of the vehicle fuel cell system. Depending on the vehicle mission, range and payload advantages for each fuel can be shown. The total direct and indirect employment created per $1 Billion of demand for fuel cells is 15,157 jobs. Approximately 77% of this employment is found in the manufacturing sector.

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