S IGNA L T R I BU N E Serving Bixby Knolls, California Heights, Los Cerritos, Wrigley and Signal Hill VOL. XXXIX NO. 17
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Locally produced documentary aims to inform about poverty cycle
April 21, 2017
A change some don’t believe in Campaign-finance tweak in Long Beach isn’t so simple. CJ Dablo Staff Writer
Photos courtesy The Guidance Center
A new documentary– The Bridge: Pathways to a Trauma-Informed Community– produced by The Guidance Center of Long Beach sheds light on how poverty in Long Beach and on Catalina Island has a devastating effect on children in those communities.
Film also explores unique problems on Catalina Island. Cory Bilicko Managing Editor
Nearly 30 percent of children in Long Beach are living below the poverty level, and many of those kids requiring mental-health services are on an ever-growing wait list, rather than getting the help they need to break them out of the poverty cycle. That unfortunate fact is the focus of a new documentary– The Bridge: Pathways to a Trauma-Informed Community– produced by The Guidance Center, a local nonprofit agency that has been providing mental-health services since 1946. Through interviews with community leaders and former Guidance Center clients, the 28-minute film– shot in Long Beach and on Catalina Island– illustrates the consequences of poverty on mental health and how developing a trauma-informed community is part of a far-reaching solution to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty. In an interview with the Signal Tribune Wednesday, Patricia Costales, LCSW, CEO of The Guidance Center, explained how seeing the large number of children in need led to the idea of producing a documentary. “We have so many kids that we serve here, and the kids that we see have a very high need for mental-health services,” Costales said. “And, a couple of years ago, our
wait list got really high. It was very distressing because these aren’t kids who should have to wait for services.” She explained that, shortly thereafter, the County increased funding to her organization to accommodate the wait list, and she was initially very excited but soon realized that the additional money would not go far. “Of course, it was all absorbed immediately, and we’re still running in circles trying to keep up with the demand,” she said. “So, it got me thinking about how our system is structured so that the services are all about treating kids once they’re at this really high level of acuity and need. So, I started thinking we really need to do some more system change. We need to find ways where we can have more of an earlier intervention or preventative role in the community as well.” Costales said the City of Long Beach was concurrently undertaking a similar approach, with its Safe Long Beach initiative. “[Long Beach Police] Chief [Robert] Luna is very much invested in how we can collaborate better in the community regarding trauma and addressing the needs of our families and school districts,” Costales said. “So, we found great partnerships in trying to find ways to have the community respond better to families in need, so that they don’t get to a point of such crisis.” Luna is one of the individuals who was interviewed for the film, along with: Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia; Kelly Colopy, director of
Long Beach Department of Health & Human Services; Tiffany Brown, assistant superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District; Elisa Nicholas, CEO of The Children’s Clinic; and Giovanna Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna is among local leadFerraro, busi- ers who participated in the documentary The Bridge: Pathness owner, ways to a Trauma-Informed Community. community organization has serviced the island activist and a commissioner of the City of Long for decades, she and her staff are well Beach Human Relations Commis- aware of its poverty issues. “[People] think of it as a vacation sion. However, the purview of the doc- spot,” she said. “They don’t necesumentary extends 22 miles out into sarily think about all the people that the Pacific, to Catalina, where pover- make it possible to be a vacation ty is also a problem, exacerbated by spot– the people who work in the hothe fact that the island is dependent tels, who do the construction. Those on tourism and that work can be sea- are the families that live there, and their jobs are seasonal, and their pay sonal. Costales said The Guidance Cen- is low and rent is outrageous there. ter is the only mental-health agency So, you have parents who choose to that serves Catalina and that thera- live there because they feel that it’s pists take the boat out to the island safer than in the big city– they don’t have gangs to worry about– but, to every day. “We’ve really invested in that live there, they’re literally working community because we understand two or three jobs. They’re living in that, if we were to pull out, they a studio apartment with two other wouldn’t get help otherwise,” she families.” Costales added that during the off said. Costales said that when people seasons, some of these families end think of Catalina, they typically up living in tents at the campgrounds. Unfortunately, while the the influimagine big, beautiful houses and leisurely excursions, but, because her
see DOCUMENTARY page 10
A few Long Beach residents, together with three members of the city council, resisted– but ultimately failed to defeat– an ordinance that was often explained away as a mere clean-up of outdated rules governing campaign finances in an election. In a second-reading vote on April 18, the Long Beach City Council passed a key modification to a 1999 municipal campaign-finance law, with the understanding that the new rules will now align with state and federal laws. Proponents for the change in the municipal code cited one case law as one of the main grounds for the modification– the controversial Supreme Court case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The council voted 5–3 on the new ordinance that changes the municipal rules, and one of the significant changes now allows an officeholder to transfer election campaign money from one elected official’s account to another candidate’s campaign. There were problems with the voting equipment for at least one of the councilmembers on Tuesday, and Mayor Robert Garcia called for a voice vote. After the votes were recorded and then displayed on the screen, some in the audience interrupted the council proceedings to challenge the results. The mayor and the city-clerk staff confirmed the tally. Councilmembers Lena Gonzalez, Jeannine Pearce, Dee Andrews, Roberto Uranga and Al Austin voted in favor of the ordinance. Councilmembers Suzie Price, Daryl Supernaw and Stacy Mungo voted against the ordinance. Vice Mayor Rex Richardson was not present for the meeting. In a memorandum issued to the mayor and city council, Deputy City Attorney Amy Webber explained the need for the change to the laws, saying the modification was meant to align the officeholder accounts with the regulations of the state and the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC). Webber noted two key court decisions, which became part of case law surrounding campaign financing. One of the court decisions is the Citizens United case, which essentially protects political spending as “free speech” under the First Amendment. see CONTRIBUTIONS page 10