BY SAMANTHA GARCIA AGE: 14 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? L.A.F.C. can support South Central by addressing the problem of police brutality towards men based on their appearance.The men that are targeted the most are either black or Latinos.They are confronted or pulled over and end up getting investigated or arrested for no type of reason. “For every 10,000 residents, about 3,400 more black people are stopped than whites, and 360 more Latinos are stopped than whites. Stopped blacks are 127% more likely to be frisked -- and stopped Latinos are 43% more likely to be frisked -- than stopped whites,” according to the Los Angeles Times. What is your experience with this issue? I experienced this before because my family have been confronted or pulled over before.The brutality towards my family makes me feel violated or very upset.It upsets me because they are profiling my family because they look like “Gang Members”,when they don’t know a single thing about them. What are some ways L.A.F.C can support this change? L.A.F.C. can support this change by educating others.They can share news stories about police brutality and racial profiling.Another thing L.A.F.C. can do is run a local awareness campaign with flyers,posters, and other materials. L.A.F.C. can donate to a group that is helping stop police brutality and racial profiling. We can help L.A.F.C. do this by helping them organize the awareness to stop police brutality. We can also help by recording the police if they are being racist or being brutal.
BY MICHELLE ROSAS Age: 14 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? LAFC can support South Central by addressing homelessness. Homelessness is something that needs to be addressed. Many people are living in the streets, like on the corner of the school there are people living in tents. Since they have no shelter they are living in the streets. I don’t think this is good because they ask for money. Last time my family and I were at a restaurant and a homeless person asked us for money. I don’t think this was right because some people don’t have a lot of money and they feel obligated to give them money because they are scared that if they don’t give them money they might get mad and hurt them.
BY MEREDITH SERPAS Age: 13 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? LAFC can support South Central by addressing homelessness. LAFC says they want to help South Central but so far have only planned a beach clean-up. Homelessness is one of the biggest problems in South Central. Homeless people cause more problems in South Central but it’s not their fault they have no home, no job, no money, and barely any clothes so what is LAFC doing to do about that? What is your experience with this issue? I experience this every time I go home, there is a homeless man living on the sidewalk. Everytime we walk by him my mom tries to pull me to the other side but I don’t mind walking past him, but in Downtown L.A. there are several homeless people and sometimes I do feel unsafe. I don’t think all homeless people are the same: some want money to buy more drugs, others want money so they can eat. We don’t know their story we can’t assume they are all the same or all want the same thing but they deserve a chance to make their life better. They can get cleaned up and get a job to make enough money to at least buy their own apartment. What are some ways L.A.F.C can support this change? LAFC can support this by giving homeless people a job or help them get a job.
BY MARC RIVAS Age: 14 Preferred Pronouns: He/Him Neighborhood: Historic South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? LAFC can support South Central by addressing an event that could potentially clean up most of South Central, or all of South Central. This event could contain people who live in or out of South Central. It will help our community a lot and hopefully it will be the South Central it used to be: a place where it was not trashed and where people got along very well. In the clean up, we can pick up trash off streets, sidewalks, and buildings. We could also start remodeling buildings, parks, roads, sidewalks, and walls (graffiti). We need to build more parks around our neighborhood, which will help our community socialize more. Not to mention schools need support too. This could include more sports teams, swimming pools, basketball courts, and better education. Helping the homeless will also make our community a better place. More jobs and shelters will help them off the streets. The homelessness situation should be handled both by our government and the community. The government needs to find a way to get these people off the streets and by doing that we need to have more organizations that will help them. The government also could make jobs specifically for homeless people for they could get off their feet and start a better future. But the community also had to do their part. We need to help them by trying to get them off their feet, or by giving them advice. This small amount of support could actually change their lives for the better and you too could make a difference. What is your experience with this issue? Living in South Central you can experience different issues- homelessness, gang violence, dirty streets, broken sidewalks. Homelessness is a huge safety hazard and it is horrible for our community. Walking around in South Central you can see at least one or more homeless people camped around every corner on a block. Gang violence is also a big issue too. In my neighborhood, you could hear gunshots every night and there are even worse neighborhoods around our community. It is very risky and unsafe to walk around in the night because of all the gangs in our community.
BY LESLY VERGARA-GOMEZ Age: 14 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? The people from LAFC can support South Central by addressing the issue of homelessness, cleaning up, violence, and gangs. They can help with the homeless people by making food and feeding them since lots of them do not have money to buy food. LAFC has the money to make food and give it to homeless people that are starving. They can also help the homeless people by taking them to an employment program in these places they give job skills classes, resume writing, practice interviews, and more. LAFC can help with the trash and support us by cleaning the community and gathering up lots of people from around the neighborhood including LAFC now that they are part of here as well. When I walk home from school there are streets that smell like urine, dead animals, rotten food, and more disgusting smells. LAFC can also help us with the trash here by donating money to us so it wouldn’t look as ugly and smell as bad anymore.
BY DAVID HERNANDEZ Age: 14 Preferred Pronouns: He/Him Neighborhood: Historic South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? LAFC can support South Central by cleaning everything up. For example, they can go to alleys and pick up mattresses or old couches, or go and clean up all the rain gutters so pollution doesn’t end up in the ocean. Another way LAFC can support LA is to build and maintain parks. More parks and better maintained parks will bring out families, making everybody and the nearby neighborhoods, happy. Finally a big way they can help is to help homeless people. Thats a big problem over here. You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone out in the streets living in tents or walking in a restaurant, asking for money. A way LAFC can help solve this issue is to build shelters, so the homeless people can actually have a home or donate money to soup kitchens to make more food or better tasting food. What is your experience with this issue? I experience this in my daily life. While I walk home I manage to pass by multiple alleys and rain gutters. And every single one of them has trash in them. And To be quite honest, it’s disgusting. People leave couches or beds outside, collecting mold and have insects living in them. One time when I was walking, I saw a family of rats living inside a couch. They chewed their way inside of it and began living in it. I also experience homelessness. I go out to eat at a McDonalds and in a span of 15 minutes about 2 people have asked me for money. I feel bad for them and there is nothing I can really do. That’s about it. This is a daily thing over here in South Central. And hopefully LAFC can help and change this. Making my beloved city of Los Angeles a better place to live and be in.
BY DAISY ROSALIO Age: 13 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central I live in South Central Los Angeles. I enjoy living in South Central because I grew up here and I learned to love it, like most people even though it has its false, it’s still my hometown so I like it and for the most part enjoy living here. I have anxiety so I don’t leave my house much unless I’m forced to. Whenever I do leave my house I notice a lot of things about my neighborhood that I mainly wish we could change. For example it's messy and loud but the loud part is what makes a city a city but the messy part we can fix. There is a lot of trash on the streets or worn out or broken furniture on the streets.
BY ADAMARY MONTIEL Age: 13 Preferred Pronouns: She/Her Neighborhood: South Central How can L.A.F.C. support South Central? LAFC can support South Central by addressing dirty streets. There are a lot of dirty streets in South Central because of littering. Littering is an issue in South Central because we should be keeping our community clean so we can have a good and healthy environment. Keeping our community clean would help.