RoxanneAdams

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected both the incarcerated and their families. In some jurisdictions, inmates are being vaccinated and then released from prison. The link below is to an interesting and relevant article which appeared recently in the New England Journal of Medicine.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2100609

On a far more personal level, a friend became COVID-19 positive last year after becoming incarcerated, and it was a struggle to balance this individual’s unique situation – mentally ill, and who had years earlier sustained a permanent head injury after a workplace construction accident. This person is now back home and living with relatives.

EAH – Where A Roof Is Just the Beginning

                                                            Written by Roxanne Adams

            EAH is a nonprofit organization in California that most people have probably never even heard about, although they have been in business for the past fifty years.  Originally named (put name here), EAH as the organization is known today, owns low-income housing complexes and also manages some on behalf of government agencies.  What that means in plain English is that EAH takes care of tasks that were once handled exclusively by government workers.  This means that the taxpayers benefit from EAH’s services as well because it’s certainly less expensive to have these government-owned and taxpayer-funded housing communities managed by a private entity.  EAH’s current marketing slogan is “A Roof Is Just the Beginning.” 

There is a government-owned public housing community located within the City of Los Angeles and nestled inside the East San Fernando Valley that is designated for low-income seniors over the age of 55 as well as low-income disabled individuals who meet the requirements to live there.  EAH has been responsible for managing this property for the past two years on behalf of the City of Los Angeles Housing Authority. 

            Adriana (this is a pseudonym at the request of the person being interviewed) is in her early seventies.  She came to live at this EAH-managed property by a route that she admits she never would have imagined her own life might have ever taken.  Adriana became widowed at a young age and she and her husband never had any children. She worked her entire life and was renting a house when the owner illegally evicted her after she made what she thought was a routine plumbing repair request.

 Almost at the same time that this illegal eviction occurred, she was stricken with a life-changing illness for which there is no cure.  Adriana lost her job as a result of her illness and she negotiated (for the first time in her life) the complex social services systems that a newly homeless and unemployed person would face. At first she slept in her car, until a friend directed her towards a homeless shelter.  After living in this homeless shelter for about eighteen months, she was offered the chance to move into a public housing project that was owned by the government, a property which is now managed by EAH.

“I never imagined myself at my age, living on Section-8 with the taxpayers paying my rent, although I am also incredibly grateful,” Adriana explained during a recent interview.  When Adriana first moved here, the property wasn’t managed by EAH, and she admits that it was something of a difficult place to live at that time.  “EAH has done a great job of transforming this place into a great place to live,” says Adriana.  Before the COVID-19 crisis began, the management was offering free meals, bingo games and other weekday social events in her building’s community room.  The food programs for low-income residents has been modified because of COVID and an outside charity is currently providing meals to those qualified individuals in 7-day supplies with precooked meals that only need to be reheated.

According to their website, EAH currently manages about 11,000 apartments in 214 different public housing complexes and the nonprofit has also built and currently owns about 104 different properties.  The founders of EAH were influenced greatly by the life and mission of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and began the charity when they recognized that there was a great need for low-income housing which was also available to people regardless of their income or their ethnic background.  The charity began in 1968 with a group of 24 organizations that each pledged $200, and set up an office staffed with volunteers and 50 years later, EAH provides services in both California and Hawaii.

“I love living here!” Adriana said with a smile on a warm Sunday afternoon.  “And I feel so blessed to have been given this chance at living in low-income housing that I can afford.”

A neighbor named Lucille (also a pseudonym) came to Adriana’s door, wanting to know if her dog needed to be walked.  “Every time I think about moving somewhere else, I know that I would miss this community of people.  We are neighbors who look out for one another,” she explained after the neighbor left to walk her dog.  Adriana then explained that she actually met Lucille when both of them were homeless and living in the shelter that ultimately brought them to live in this permanent housing. 

“If it wasn’t for that, Lucy and I would never have met.”  Lucille, a hardened ex-convict and high-school dropout, a short and feisty Latina who was originally from East Los Angeles, and Adriana are the best of friends even though their backgrounds and lifestyles are polar opposites of each other.  Adriana admits that this was one of the most fascinating aspects to her about becoming homeless so late in her life – that the same thing happened to so many other women, who were all very different from each other in their pre-homeless lives.

Latasha Harlins was a fifteen-year-old girl in South Los Angeles who was shot dead in the back of the head after a convenience store owner had wrongly accused her of trying to steal a bottle of orange juice. The anniversary of her murder is rapidly approaching – Latasha died on March 16th, 1991. She was murdered a mere two weeks after the now world-infamous beating of motorist Rodney King, and while his videotaped beating riveted the attention of the entire world, Latasha remains mostly a local story even to the present day. In February of 2021 a mural was unveiled in South Central in her memory.

Latasha Harlins was an honor student living with relatives because her mother had been murdered. She went to the Empire Liquor store on the morning of Saturday March 16th, 1991 to buy a bottle of orange juice. After the store owner accused her of trying to steal the bottle of orange juice, Latasha set the bottle down on the counter and turned to leave the store. The store owner pulled a gun from underneath the counter and shot Latasha in the back of the head. Later, the coroner would find two crumpled dollar bills still in her dead hand.

At first, it seemed as if the criminal justice system was working to right the wrong of Latasha’s murder. Her killer was found guilty by a jury and was facing about 15 years in state prison. However, the judge in her case felt sorry for the woman, and decided to ignore the jury’s decision as well as the information contained in a presentencing report which was highly critical of the killer. There was videotaped evidence from the convenience store security cameras as well as the testimony of two eyewitnesses, children even younger than Latasha who were also customers in the store at the time.

In recent times, some have considered the possibility that the real spark of the 1992 riots was not actually motorist Rodney King, but rather, the murder of Latasha Harlins. In 2013, Brenda Stevenson wrote a book entitled “The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins” in which the author examines this very possibility.

The murder of Latasha Harlins and the sympathetic way the judge in her murder case took the side of her Korean-born killer had a great deal to do with the ensuing hatred of Asian store owners in South Los Angeles. One of my best friend’s mothers recalls as the 1992 riots began, she found herself yelling “Take one for Latasha!” at the TV every time a store with Asian signage was looted or set on fire. As an older woman, she acknowledges today that she no longer feels this anger, and acknowledges that the behavior of one person (in this case the killer of Latasha Harlins) does not speak for the entire group.

The story of what happened to Latasha Harlins would haunt and shape the lives of a great many people, including rapper Tupac Shakur. In at least five different songs he wrote and performed, he talked about Latasha. The first song, “Keep Ya Head Up”, was dedicated to her memory.

EULA LOVE

Eula Love is a name most familiar to Angelenos over a certain age. In 1979, this 39-year-old African-American woman was shot to death by two LAPD officers after she waved a knife at them. She was a recent widow and under a great deal of mental stress as a result of her utilities being shut off after she couldn’t afford to pay her gas bill. There were some reforms implemented regarding LAPD officers and their use of force after Eula Love died, but the entire upcoming 1980s was a very difficult time for African-Americans who lived in Los Angeles when it came to interactions with the police.