CoCo In the News
JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2023
The recommendations, laid out in a report released Tuesday, also include a call for up to $651 million for schools to hire local groups and partners to meet needs. The coalition supporting the demands includes the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, Brothers Sons Selves Coalition, Community Coalition, Inner City Struggle, Reclaim Our Schools Los Angeles, Students Deserve and United Teachers Los Angeles.
The Community Coalition is devastated and disgusted that in 24 hours between Jan. 2 and Jan. 3, the lives of Keenan Anderson, Takar Smith, and Oscar Sanchez were taken from them. Three men, all men of color, all in need of assistance. All three dead after LAPD showed up at the scenes of their emergencies.
Our Weekly: 'Statement from Community Coalition on Los Angeles Police Dept. killings
OUR HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2022
The housing affordability and homelessness crisis in Los Angeles is the culmination of decades of racist housing policies that have separated and pushed out Black renters and homeowners—from redlining to Los Angeles' strategy for how it places freeways. The fixes should be coming from inside City Hall—but as the leaked City Council conversations reveal, those in power, who have the most ability to address our history and make changes that can benefit us all, are more concerned with amassing their power.
LA Watts Times: Yes on ULA – This is What Community Looks Like
“Inside the Issues” host Alex Cohen speaks with President and CEO of Community Coalition Alberto Retana about what’s next for Los Angeles in the wake of racist remarks in leaked audio.
Spectrum News 1: What's next for LA in the wake of racist remarks in leaked audio
There have been other difficult trials for the city’s Black and Latino residents, said community organizer Sylvia Castillo, who back in 1990 co-founded the Community Coalition with U.S. Representative and now-mayoral candidate Karen Bass.
LAist: How Black-Brown Unity In LA Can Survive City Council Racism Scandal
During that era, Sylvia Castillo, a Latina pediatric nurse, teamed up with her friend Karen Bass, a Black emergency room physician’s assistant. Castillo and Bass — now the front-runner in the city’s mayoral race — were heartsick about the way the drug was ripping through their community, particularly what it was doing to the children of drug-addicted parents. They began going door to door recruiting residents who wanted to organize to build better services for the neighborhood.
LA Times: L.A.’s Black-Latino alliance has always been fragile. Can it survive racist recordings?
The controversy engulfing the Los Angeles City Council has opened up long-simmering racial tensions in the city. After days of mounting pressure, the former leader of the Los Angeles City Council resigned her seat yesterday.
NPR: Embattled LA City Councilwoman Nury Martinez resigns her seat after racist comments
South LA has always had to fight to have its voice heard. And, it has been (and will be) no different on the issues of homelessness, displacement, and the right to live in communities in which we have grown up.
LA Sentinel Newspaper: Not In Our South LA
The ongoing issue of gentrification in Los Angeles is no surprise to any of its local residents. Throughout the years, residents have seen the ins and outs of this issue facing some of the most disadvantaged communities.
LA Times: “It is no longer a city where you can raise your kids”: How SoFi Stadium changed Inglewood
The 1992 uprising that roiled Los Angeles put a spotlight on the socioeconomic injustice that bogs South L.A., bringing pledges of investment and community development. Thirty years later, many families don’t have access to better jobs, grocery stores are still a rarity, and the investment that’s coming in is — primarily — making housing unaffordable.
LA Times: South L.A. was promised a resurrection after 1992. The new boom could leave many behind
Some longtime Black residents in South L.A. and its surrounding majority-Black cities resented the influx of Latinos that would radically transform the region in the coming decades. But Montes-Rodriguez didn’t think much of her neighbor’s comment until five days later, when she was in Washington D.C. at a youth leadership conference.
LA Times: Column: He was murdered during the L.A. riots. We can’t forget Latinos like him