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Speaker 1: Previously on Weedyan House.

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Speaker 2: I'm homeless, and I want them to stop donating to

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Speaker 2: charities because you're feeding the beast that it's not good.

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Speaker 1: They're not doing the right things with that money. I

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Speaker 1: just really want them to be held accountable.

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Speaker 2: I wish people would start looking at these charities and

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Speaker 2: hold them accountable for not only the finances, but for

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Speaker 2: the way they treat people. I want case managers to

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Speaker 2: be looked into and audited because.

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Speaker 1: They're not doing anything for us. I've gotten no resources

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Speaker 1: since I've been homeless. She has emailed the mayor homeless times.

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Speaker 1: We need a better system in place. She sees the

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Speaker 1: folks that are laying there all night long who are

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Speaker 1: asking for help. Welcome back to Weedian House. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Theo Henderson. It's election time, and voting patterns have shown

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Speaker 1: sluggishness during local and midterm elections. This episode, I'm hopeful

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Speaker 1: that this will not be the case when you hear

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Speaker 1: my conversations with the candidates I spoke with for today,

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Speaker 1: we have a lot of exciting interviews, including my conversation

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Speaker 1: with doctor Cornell West from back in November. Before we begin,

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Speaker 1: I want to thank the candidates. I spoke with for

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Speaker 1: this episode for making it out in the rain to

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Speaker 1: chat with me ahead of their election. I appreciate their ingenuity, creativity, compassion,

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Speaker 1: and willingness to be a public servant for our community.

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Speaker 1: But first let us discuss on house news. First, a

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Speaker 1: reign and want to shelter advisory for Los Angeles. We're

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Speaker 1: airing the list of current available shelters according to LASA,

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Speaker 1: which are open through March thirty. First, I wanted to

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Speaker 1: add that this is recommended that unhoused community members should

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Speaker 1: not reside near water rays or drained due to the

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Speaker 1: toxic levels of bacteria in the water. You will get sick.

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Speaker 1: Here are the shelters currently open, forty four beds at

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Speaker 1: Volunteers of America address forty five one hundred and fifty

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Speaker 1: sixtieth Street in West Lancaster, California. The population they serve

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Speaker 1: is co ED thirty five beds at Advancing Communities Together.

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Speaker 1: It is at thirty eighth six hundred and twenty six

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Speaker 1: ninth Street in East Palmdale, California. Only open from seven

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Speaker 1: pm to seven am on weekdays and twenty four hours

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Speaker 1: on Saturday and Sunday. Population served co ED fifty beds

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Speaker 1: at home at last eighty seven sixty eight South Broadway,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Population served women eleven beds at Assured Lifestyle Housing.

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Speaker 1: Ninety five nineteen South Figaroa At, Los Angeles. Population served

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Speaker 1: co ed nine beds at Assured Lifestyle Housing. Seven hundred

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Speaker 1: West Florence, Los Angeles population served co ed forty one

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Speaker 1: beds at first to serve. Seventeen eighteen West Vernon Avenue,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Population served co ed sixty beds at Bryant

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Speaker 1: Temple Community Development. Fifty five hundred South Hoover Street, Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: Population served men thirty two beds at Abundant Blessings. Eleven

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Speaker 1: thirty three South Ardmore Avenue, Los Angeles. Population served men

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Speaker 1: fifty five beds at New Reflections eighty three eleven Southwestern Avenue,

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles. Population served men eleven beds at Whittier First

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Speaker 1: Day twelve four hundred and twenty six Whittier Boulevard, Whittier, California.

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Speaker 1: Population served co ed and forty beds at first to serve.

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Speaker 1: Seven hundred to West Anaheon Street, Long Beach, California populations

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Speaker 1: served coed our next story tekes US to the Pacific

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Speaker 1: Northwest during this inclement season, Motnomah County in Washington State

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Speaker 1: has closed their shelters despite icy conditions. The objective of

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Speaker 1: the story is to make a point about when shelters

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Speaker 1: are made available. Like Los Angeles, there is a threshold

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Speaker 1: that is used to justifying opening or closing inclement weather shelters.

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Speaker 1: That threatshold is thirty five degrees in Washington. What this

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Speaker 1: means is unhoused people have a higher chance of expiring

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Speaker 1: out in this environment. For example, five unhoused people have

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Speaker 1: died in extreme cold during their most recent cold snap.

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Speaker 1: Official state that this has been the norm and acceptable

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Speaker 1: to do. To compare, in Los Angeles, the threshold for

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Speaker 1: opening shelters this fifty degrees and there are still at

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Speaker 1: least five unhoused people dying the day outside in the elements.

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Speaker 1: In fact, LA has the highest number of unhoused hypotherbia deaths.

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Speaker 1: Imagine trying to survive in thirty five to forty degree

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Speaker 1: weather in a much colder place like Moltnomah County. Our

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Speaker 1: next story Texas to the Senate. In Washington State, Senate

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Speaker 1: Bill sixty two thirty one is being advanced to ban

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Speaker 1: hostile architecture implement across the state. Hostile architecture, as defined

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Speaker 1: by the bills, elements designed to restrict the use of

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Speaker 1: public spaces by individuals experiencing houselessness. What does hostile architecture

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Speaker 1: look like? There are a lot of examples. In Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles and skid Row, the police department has oversized rocks

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Speaker 1: outside their station to prevent the unhoused from sleeping near

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Speaker 1: their station. In places like Hollywood, they have removed benches

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Speaker 1: to prevent unhoused people from sitting near the bus stops.

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Speaker 1: Ever stood outside of seven eleven and the music is blurring.

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Speaker 1: That's another example of hostile architecture designed to discourage unhoused

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Speaker 1: people from residing or resting outside. What this pretends is

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Speaker 1: visible elements trying to erase the unhoused community, which will

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Speaker 1: not solve houselessness, but is a cruel and performative measure

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Speaker 1: against the vulnerable. This is a developing story and we

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Speaker 1: will keep you updated. Next up. Snap benefits commonly known

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Speaker 1: as EBT will increase as eligibility requirements will change as

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Speaker 1: the program received a much needed boost to meet the

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Speaker 1: increased cost of living and inflation. But there is a

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Speaker 1: catch work. Eligibility requirements for the program are becoming more

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Speaker 1: strict after President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act in

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Speaker 1: June twenty twenty three. One group specifically will be affected.

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Speaker 1: Able body adults without dependents, starting at ages fifty one

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Speaker 1: and fifty two will now need to prove they are

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Speaker 1: actively working, training, or in school to qualify for SNAP benefits.

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Speaker 1: Requirements will expand to age fifty four beginning in October

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. SNAP benefits are increasing by twelve point

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Speaker 1: five percent, but as you can see, politicians are working

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Speaker 1: to make it harder and harder where people who need

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Speaker 1: it to gain access. Our final story is about our VS.

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Speaker 1: In episode three, we spoke with unhoused activist Paisley, who

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Speaker 1: describe what's it like living in an RV. Unfortunately, man's

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Speaker 1: on RV living are not only spreading in Los Angeles,

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Speaker 1: it is also happening in places such as Santa Cruz,

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Speaker 1: San Jose, San Francisco, and Santa Monica. To hear more

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Speaker 1: about Paisley's experience, please check out our interview and that

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Speaker 1: is on House News. Stay with us. We'll be back

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Speaker 1: with my interviews with candidates for judge and the upcoming

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Speaker 1: large election. Welcome back to William Howes. I am your host,

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Speaker 1: THEO Henderson. For many un house community members, voting can

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Speaker 1: prove daunting, primarily because they lack a home address. Contrary

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Speaker 1: to what many house people believe, unhoused people can register

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Speaker 1: to vote, and here's how. In California, you must be

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Speaker 1: a citizen of the United States at least eighteen years old,

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Speaker 1: not currently in prison, on probation, or on parole for

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Speaker 1: a felony conviction. You may be eligible to vote if

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Speaker 1: you are a convicted felon whose voting rights have been restored.

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Speaker 1: You are ineligible to vote if you are declared mentally

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Speaker 1: incompetent by a court. Pay attention to care courts bear

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Speaker 1: in mind. We can discuss the limitations about care corps

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Speaker 1: in episode five. You do not need a street address

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Speaker 1: to be eligible to vote. You can include cross streets

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Speaker 1: and routes to help establish your right to vote in

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Speaker 1: your community. You do not need an ID to register

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Speaker 1: to vote. According to the LA Times, you will not

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Speaker 1: be required to show identification when you show up to

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Speaker 1: vote in person, you will have to provide the last

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Speaker 1: four digits of your Social Security number. It is recommended

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Speaker 1: you include an address where you receive mail if possible.

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Speaker 1: This includes the Department of Public Social Services, also known

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Speaker 1: as where people get their EBT, post office box, home

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Speaker 1: of someone you trust, or a business that has agreed

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Speaker 1: to receive mail on your behalf. And with that, let

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Speaker 1: us get into the conversations with these candidates. The first

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Speaker 1: interview is with Leshae Henderson, who's running for la Superior

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Speaker 1: Court judge in seat ninety seven. Here's our conversation without

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Speaker 1: fervor ado. I'm going to welcome miss Henderson.

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Speaker 3: Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 3: I love the atmosphere of the art. The atmosphere is set.

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Speaker 1: I am so grateful to it. I want to ask

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Speaker 1: you what are you running for.

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Speaker 3: I am running because I want to see change in

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Speaker 3: the judicial system. You know, being a public defender for

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Speaker 3: eighteen years, I saw so many things that were devastating.

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Speaker 3: I saw, you know, clients that were homeless, that were

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Speaker 3: being brought into court with nowhere to go, and then

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Speaker 3: once they're sentenced, the're back on the street, which I

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Speaker 3: think is it makes no sense to me. And then

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Speaker 3: a lot of clients suffering from mental health issues and

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Speaker 3: seeing that it's like we've got to do something different,

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Speaker 3: and so I think it's important to have different perspectives.

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Speaker 3: And so that's why I'm running, to bring to highlight

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Speaker 3: new issues and to create new approaches.

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Speaker 1: Before you are running for office, what made you become

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Speaker 1: a defense lawyer? Was it something in your childhood or

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Speaker 1: in your earlier years that impacted you just say I'm

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Speaker 1: going to be a defense lawyer or what? Well?

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Speaker 3: Yes, So originally, when I went to law school at Peppernine,

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Speaker 3: I was talking about being a prosecutor because I didn't

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Speaker 3: know and I saw my mother in court as a reporter,

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Speaker 3: and so I thought, oh, I'll be a prosecutor. Well,

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Speaker 3: when I got to law school, my mother passed my

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Speaker 3: first year. Oh I'm sorry that, and so it sent

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Speaker 3: my family into a lot of school reef.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so third year I graduate, my father passes. So

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Speaker 3: now there's five of us, and I'm like, I've got

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Speaker 3: to take care of my family. So I'm in court

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Speaker 3: fighting for guardianship. I'm dealing with probate stuff with my father,

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Speaker 3: and my brother started to just get in trouble.

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Speaker 1: He's a good he was a good kid.

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Speaker 3: He's deceased now, loves our family, but he just started to.

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Speaker 1: Just act out, and with the grief of his parents passing,

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Speaker 1: I can imagine absolutely.

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Speaker 3: I remember getting a call from school where he was

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Speaker 3: banging his hand on the concrete and so I had

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Speaker 3: to come down there and talk to him. And he

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Speaker 3: didn't want therapy at the time because he was so

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Speaker 3: frustrated at night, I would have to drive around and

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Speaker 3: find him. So and he was struggling with alcoholism, drugs,

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Speaker 3: just having a hard time.

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Speaker 1: Well, well I want to classify weed. He was smoking weed. Well,

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Speaker 1: well that's still you know, Like I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was trying to find a way to deal with

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Speaker 1: the grief in his own way.

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Speaker 3: Yes, in his own way. And so I was helping

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Speaker 3: him as much as I could. And so I get

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Speaker 3: to court and he's been fighting and they don't know

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Speaker 3: what to do with him because he's almost eighteen.

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Speaker 1: So he didn't qualify for a lot of stuff.

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Speaker 3: And so I prayed and I'm like, God direct me,

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Speaker 3: And I ended up meeting someone that was a po

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Speaker 3: that said, hey, your brother is a good candidate for

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Speaker 3: Dorothy Kirby.

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Speaker 1: Where's Doorthia Kirby?

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Speaker 3: It's a program for youth and it's it's they can't leave,

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Speaker 3: but you know, they they're not allowed to leave the property.

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Speaker 3: But when they're there, they get housing, they get treatment.

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Speaker 3: The probation officers are trained with therapeutic skills, so they're

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Speaker 3: getting therapy, they're getting monitored medication, and they can get

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Speaker 3: their diploma.

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Speaker 1: Is Dorothy Kirby program still available or.

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Speaker 3: Now it is, but it's something that is available in

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Speaker 3: juvenile courts, so you would have to Unfortunately, it's something

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Speaker 3: where someone's gotten in trouble and then they would see

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Speaker 3: if they qualify. The problem is is there's not that

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Speaker 3: many of those seats at Dorothy Kirby, so you know,

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Speaker 3: we need more of those type of facilities also too.

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Speaker 1: Before if I may interject to maybe there is a program.

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Speaker 1: Maybe their ideas to throw out is programs before things

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Speaker 1: get to the point where there are trouble or you

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Speaker 1: have to be forced into a place that to give

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Speaker 1: you the therapy, maybe it would be more beneficial to

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Speaker 1: have maybe necessarily that kind of program before. Like that's

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Speaker 1: one of the things I always say, why would we

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Speaker 1: wait till they get to the criminals side before? Can

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Speaker 1: you know, cut it off at the past. We don't

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Speaker 1: have to interject those kind of things but that's I'm digressing.

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Speaker 3: So that's wonderful, like therapy groups in the community, you know,

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Speaker 3: because a lot of times in the black community, we're

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Speaker 3: taught to be strong and not talk about what we're

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Speaker 3: going through.

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Speaker 1: And I suffered from that a lot.

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Speaker 3: Like I'm strong, I got the Lord, I don't need

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Speaker 3: to talk to nobody, and I did need to talk.

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Speaker 1: To someone, but to you make a very excellent point

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Speaker 1: because I come up from a generation and I don't

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Speaker 1: want to to tell my age, but the point is,

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Speaker 1: I grew up from a generation that was had a

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Speaker 1: very healthy distrust of medical kind of interventions because they

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Speaker 1: were experimented. I'm from my family's from the South, and

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Speaker 1: you know the Tuskegee experiment and the issues about mental

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Speaker 1: health and the lack of availability for mental health for

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Speaker 1: people of black community members where a lot of times

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Speaker 1: the older generation would just take the person that had

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Speaker 1: different mental challenges inside the house and then they would

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Speaker 1: not put them into institutionalized along with like I said,

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Speaker 1: the healthy distrust of the medical system with you know,

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Speaker 1: you know white people have problems, we don't you know

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Speaker 1: then or then they're thinking, like for example, in my family,

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Speaker 1: they relied a little too heavily on the biblical side,

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Speaker 1: or saying that they have demons and I've come from

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Speaker 1: a very strict Pentecostal family soul, so you it's it's

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Speaker 1: so it's trying to explain it to people like it's

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Speaker 1: not just like you just need to get therapy, which

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Speaker 1: you see a lot of the runoff from people don't

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Speaker 1: want to get it because there has been a lot

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Speaker 1: of misinformation and very harmful narratives that's been sprouting up

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Speaker 1: in the place of the abuse that they did endure

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Speaker 1: when they did try to go get help and things

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Speaker 1: like that. So well, you know, you bring up Pentecostal.

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Speaker 3: I grew up Pentecostal, so I have a joke that

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Speaker 3: Pentecostals we call everything a demons exactly sausage burdens.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know legion, you know that sounds another

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Speaker 1: one that was really big on because they would quote

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Speaker 1: that and know like, you know, you got the demon

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Speaker 1: in you even you Like I remember being a young

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Speaker 1: child and I was acting I'm in school and they

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Speaker 1: would attribute it to the demon it. So I'm like, well,

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Speaker 1: not maybe not be necessarily a demon thing, but just

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Speaker 1: because I stuck a pin in my teacher's chair doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean I'm just I'm just a kid. I have to

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Speaker 1: grow up and learn.

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Speaker 3: And so I really had to learn in the church

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Speaker 3: how to have my own identity, to embrace my spirituality

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Speaker 3: as a Christian, but also know there's other avenues that

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Speaker 3: can make you more well balanced. Absolutely, And at Peppernine,

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Speaker 3: the dean there sent me to counseling oh and I

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Speaker 3: told her I don't want to go. I don't need

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Speaker 3: that because of the shame of that culturally. And she said,

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Speaker 3: just go, let's check it out. And she was the

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Speaker 3: associate dean. So I said, okay, I went. It was wonderful.

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Speaker 3: I got to talk about stuff that I would never

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Speaker 3: tell anyone, and it took me through a very hard

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Speaker 3: time and.

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Speaker 1: Helps you hope and give you skills and things that

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Speaker 1: I think our community benefits from as well as individually.

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Speaker 1: But I definitely agree. I'm going to throw this question out.

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Speaker 1: It might throw you off. Yes, if you can have

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Speaker 1: one superpower, what would it be? Oh, this is what we're

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Speaker 1: talking about, spirituality. What would be a superpower that you

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Speaker 1: would do well? I want to be a person who listens.

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Speaker 3: I have noticed in court that a lot of judges

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Speaker 3: already have their mind made up, some of them, not

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Speaker 3: all of them, and they're not listening. And if they

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Speaker 3: took the time to just listen and hear what's going on,

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Speaker 3: they could formulate better sentences. Sometimes we have our we're

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Speaker 3: prejudging people by their skin color, their financial situation, their orientation,

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Speaker 3: sexual orientation, and we're making assumptions and we don't we

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Speaker 3: haven't heard evidence. So I want to be a listener

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Speaker 3: and then be able to communicate and then craft something

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Speaker 3: creative that will help my community in a totally different way.

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Speaker 3: That's my just to be an excellent listener.

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Speaker 1: That's a good answer. How do you want to be

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Speaker 1: remembered when you're to be elected? What would you how

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Speaker 1: would you like to be remembered at the judge?

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Speaker 3: My vision is to enhance the court system and to

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Speaker 3: create Okay, how I see it is there's the court

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Speaker 3: and then if I could show you what I'm seeing

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Speaker 3: in my mind all these different pathways. So there's the courthouse,

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Speaker 3: then there's services for the homeless, there's a path for

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Speaker 3: mentally ill to receive services. There's a path for pastors

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Speaker 3: and mentors to be involved in the process, and different

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Speaker 3: religious groups that want to create mentors, just all kinds

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Speaker 3: of paths where we are now networking as a village

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Speaker 3: instead of an isolated entity where we're just punishing. So

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Speaker 3: really creating community and networking with different cities and different

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Speaker 3: programs so that we can expand this.

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Speaker 1: The problem is a lot of us are not talking

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Speaker 1: to each other.

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Speaker 3: We don't know this person is collecting statistical data or

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Speaker 3: this person is creating a program for children, and so

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Speaker 3: we just need all to need to talk and start

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Speaker 3: working together.

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Speaker 1: I like the idea of that. Do you feel that

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Speaker 1: in the past, because of how house business has been communicated,

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Speaker 1: that that plays a part in why everyone is in

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Speaker 1: their own corners or basically dealing with it, because I

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Speaker 1: know there was a recent gentleman that has spent six

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Speaker 1: months in jail and he was in house basically it

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Speaker 1: was just a waste of time because now he's back

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Speaker 1: on the streets again and he has to start completely

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Speaker 1: all over, and it really didn't do the necessary job.

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Speaker 1: And I remember one of the things that he has

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Speaker 1: dealing with was from the DV situation and he was

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Speaker 1: altered mentally. He stated that one of the things that

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Speaker 1: he wished that people would ask him when they asked

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Speaker 1: him to go to these groups and things, Why did

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Speaker 1: he do this? Because if he asks, then maybe that's

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Speaker 1: the open door to getting treated and getting treated well.

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Speaker 1: In order for him not to do it, he was frustrated,

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Speaker 1: is like, Okay, they're punishing me, but they're not showing

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Speaker 1: me how to cut it off at the past, I

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Speaker 1: don't have to do these things if I get triggered.

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Speaker 1: What things that I could do that I don't have

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Speaker 1: the same situation or don't have to do these things?

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Speaker 1: And that I think was one of the things that

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Speaker 1: it resonated with me, particularly ahead of time when I

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Speaker 1: was going to do this episode. I'm like, oh, that's

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Speaker 1: a good point to bring out.

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Speaker 3: Yes, I do think that people don't have an understanding

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Speaker 3: of what homeless people go through.

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Speaker 1: Also, there's devastation if you don't.

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Speaker 3: If you have a few items that you're saving and

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Speaker 3: trying to get back to, if you're in custody six months,

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Speaker 3: that stuff is gone when you get out, so you're

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Speaker 3: starting over. That's harsh, you know. And So the other

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Speaker 3: thing though that I that came to my mind when

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Speaker 3: you were talking is the criminal justice system is incentive

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Speaker 3: to five for people who are already on their feet.

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Speaker 3: You look good in probation if you complete your program.

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Speaker 3: You look good if you pay all your fines and

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Speaker 3: fees and you come in and say your honor, you know,

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Speaker 3: I want my probation terminated. But if you if your

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Speaker 3: life is not together because you're going through something, you

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Speaker 3: can't make all of those hurdles. So now you look

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Speaker 3: like you don't care. You look like you're not motivated,

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Speaker 3: and that's a defender. Yeah, you're looking like you you

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Speaker 3: have no desire to participate, but you do. You just

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Speaker 3: don't have the resource.

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Speaker 1: Well sometimes also do I have to point out it's

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Speaker 1: like the city sometimes because they are causing the harm

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Speaker 1: a lot of times is they plant plant. The thing

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Speaker 1: is that the caradenstick approach either you know, you go

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Speaker 1: to this program or you're going to go to jail

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Speaker 1: or you're going to be criminalized, so so thoroughly. And

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Speaker 1: it is not that you people don't want the assistance,

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Speaker 1: but this the way is like it's this or that

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Speaker 1: in order for people to get the assistance. And that's

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Speaker 1: the way that they justify it. Right now, currently we're

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Speaker 1: in inclement weather and they're boasting that you know, they're

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Speaker 1: opening shelters, which is not true. But the issue is

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Speaker 1: that if people explain to you, like for example, the

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Speaker 1: DV victim is if they have two children that are

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Speaker 1: a boy and a girl at the time and they

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Speaker 1: can't go to TV shelters because of that, it's not

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Speaker 1: that they're being resistant to services. It's the reality of

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Speaker 1: some of the programs that they can't avail themselves to.

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Speaker 1: And as a result of that, if you have already

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Speaker 1: made up your mind, if prosecutors have already said that

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Speaker 1: they're doing service resistance, if cops is running around parroting

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Speaker 1: that to parents and nimbies and things like that, so

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Speaker 1: it's no surprise that the judgment will be punitative because

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Speaker 1: you are resistance by the court or you are being

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Speaker 1: you know, you are a criminal they in their mind.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's the nuance that's missed with the

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Speaker 1: justice system in that respect. But I could be abloviating

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Speaker 1: over unnecessarily.

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Speaker 3: I love that, and I was thinking about too, we

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Speaker 3: need more services where people have options. You know, you

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Speaker 3: tell me, hey, I want you to get on your feet,

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Speaker 3: but you have to go to this one program and

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Speaker 3: that's all your options are.

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Speaker 1: That's not helpful.

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Speaker 3: You know, we need more therapeutic environments where you can say,

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Speaker 3: what do you need, what are the conditions, what's going

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Speaker 3: on with your family, and let's work with you and

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Speaker 3: create something that's going to make you succeed.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, And like I said, houselessness is so multi varied,

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Speaker 1: and people have this only binary idea of houselessness. They

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Speaker 1: believe it's for the most part, most people believe it

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Speaker 1: is personal failing. They also believe, because of how well

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Speaker 1: tuned for messaging is about houselessness. By the other side,

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Speaker 1: that is the personal failing. Their services available and people

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Speaker 1: don't want the services, so that's why they're out here.

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Speaker 1: Because you hear it all the time. There's this mentally

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Speaker 1: ill community or there's this people that are in substances,

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Speaker 1: and despite all the research that says there's a people

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Speaker 1: that have mental health issues, but there are multi generational

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Speaker 1: there's over sixty eight thousand unhoused children in LAUSD. Not

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Speaker 1: everyone is on substances, not everyone is mentally ill. Even

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Speaker 1: if you're talking about the children, you can't just you know,

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Speaker 1: to continue the prison to the pipeline system, which is

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Speaker 1: a conversation for another time. But thinking of the image

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Speaker 1: of the thread, a thread that if you pull the thread,

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Speaker 1: you'll see the linkage to it. You know, the kids

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Speaker 1: that are there are people of color that are unhoused

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Speaker 1: in LAUSD, their parents there maybe having unstable housing or

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Speaker 1: unstable with jobs, and they're having to do expend more

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Speaker 1: energy trying to keep up this rat race in California.

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Speaker 1: So something is going to fall to the cracks, and

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Speaker 1: it shouldn't be punitative.

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Speaker 3: I was thinking too that, yes, there's a shame to it,

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Speaker 3: because I remember when my father became ill and he

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Speaker 3: had to leave the police force and my mother had

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Speaker 3: to go back to school. We didn't have very much

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Speaker 3: and we had very little to eat, and my mother

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Speaker 3: was like, where are the programs for the people who

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Speaker 3: are trying to get on their feet. She's like, I

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Speaker 3: don't qualify for any of this. I'm going back to school,

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Speaker 3: so I have just enough for them to say no.

434
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: So we're struggling.

435
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:16,439
Speaker 3: I've got five kids, We're trying to make it, and

436
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,880
Speaker 3: there's no program. So then you look like and then

437
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 3: like you said, nothing's available. But you can be working

438
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:24,959
Speaker 3: very hard and still be struggling.

439
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:27,240
Speaker 1: An absolutely point, which is in a lot of the

440
00:25:27,280 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: people of color communities, particularly in the black and brown communities,

441
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 1: there have been programs outside of the system, like, for example,

442
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: recently it's been when the pandemic happened, it opened a

443
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: lot more eyes to realize how precarious housing and food

444
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:48,120
Speaker 1: insecurity is because there for again, like I have gone

445
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: to battle with some of my house friends who used

446
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 1: to say people just like being out there and this,

447
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: and then they will try to cover up. Well I

448
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: don't mean it, but I'm like, no, you don't understand

449
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 1: that you can have a medical emergency and do all

450
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 1: of the things that's necessary and still be unhoused or

451
00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: still on your way out to be unhoused, and there

452
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,280
Speaker 1: is no program that's going to be able to get

453
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: you back on your feet because most people that are

454
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,679
Speaker 1: being on house it takes at least six months to

455
00:26:14,720 --> 00:26:17,120
Speaker 1: a year to try to get back if you can

456
00:26:17,160 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: be able to get back on your feet. Given that

457
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:24,120
Speaker 1: EBT is going through his own financial challenges, and most

458
00:26:24,160 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: importantly that when the pandemic that the back rent is

459
00:26:27,720 --> 00:26:30,080
Speaker 1: due now there's going to be a much more of

460
00:26:30,119 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: a wave of people that are going to be on

461
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: the streets. And Mutual AIDS has been stepping in doing

462
00:26:36,080 --> 00:26:38,639
Speaker 1: the work of what the city should be doing or

463
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 1: the government should be doing, is providing food security as

464
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:45,800
Speaker 1: well as housing security for these greedy landlords. That's just

465
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: going to basically just throw out a lot of the

466
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 1: slice of the community, which I want to point out

467
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: there is a high uptick of elderly women that are unhoused,

468
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,199
Speaker 1: that are becoming more unhoused and want you to drink in.

469
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 1: That is to understand that these communities, it's not just

470
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,679
Speaker 1: these young, strong whiper snappers that are able to do

471
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 1: the job, but it's more so that people are have

472
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: been settled in life, they did all what they were

473
00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: supposed to do. They have medical issues. Now rent is exploding.

474
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:21,920
Speaker 1: They're debating and eating medical and trying to keep a

475
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: roof on their head and on, you know, like it's

476
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:25,800
Speaker 1: trying to make a dollar out of fifteen cents.

477
00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 3: Yes, and I have friends that lost their husband, you know,

478
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 3: and then they're widowed and now they don't have two

479
00:27:31,359 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 3: incomes and then they're struggling to make ends meet as well.

480
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 3: So there's so many scenarios that are going on, and

481
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,199
Speaker 3: it has expanded and we've got to address it, you know,

482
00:27:41,320 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 3: outside of the court system, because the court system is

483
00:27:44,560 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 3: only for if someone is charged with an allegation. But

484
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 3: we have to have something that is expensive and that

485
00:27:50,920 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 3: is a solution rather than you know, action base based

486
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 3: on if someone has a bad behavior.

487
00:27:57,520 --> 00:28:00,480
Speaker 1: What's the most difficult thing that you have any countered

488
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,160
Speaker 1: as being a defense attorney and how did you overcome it? Well,

489
00:28:04,440 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 1: I will.

490
00:28:05,000 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 3: Tell you the difficult thing for me was when now

491
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:12,080
Speaker 3: the laws better? Now, so there's more programs, but there's

492
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,639
Speaker 3: been times where I'll go out, research, interview the client,

493
00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:18,200
Speaker 3: find out what's best, the mental health worker finds a program.

494
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,919
Speaker 1: I'm excited. I even get the DA on board.

495
00:28:21,320 --> 00:28:24,879
Speaker 3: And then the judge fights me and I'm like, oh,

496
00:28:25,560 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 3: like no, and now I have a third attorney. I'm

497
00:28:28,040 --> 00:28:30,720
Speaker 3: fighting and I'm trying to calm my client down. And

498
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: You've done all this work and there's all these things

499
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:36,640
Speaker 3: that go into making that happen. And when you see

500
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 3: something fall apart and you know it's going to help

501
00:28:39,400 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 3: that person, it really really is disappointing and disheartening.

502
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: Yes, I wanted to say, you know, why should people

503
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:48,600
Speaker 1: vote for you, missus Anderson?

504
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 3: Yes, I want people to vote for me because I

505
00:28:52,160 --> 00:28:55,920
Speaker 3: believe in fairness, and I am a part of the community.

506
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 3: I love my community. I grew up in South Central

507
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 3: We were canvassing in Inglewood and I was like, Ooh,

508
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 3: I could go pick up some soul food over here.

509
00:29:04,200 --> 00:29:10,120
Speaker 1: You know those barbecue hookup Yeah, yeah, I used to

510
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 1: teach you about that many years ago. Yeah, I knew

511
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: that where. And I'm very disappointed just to point out

512
00:29:15,200 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 1: that there's shrinking soul food restaurants that's around, which I'm

513
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: very disappointed about Californa. I'm from Chicago and we had

514
00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:24,880
Speaker 1: and we still have, so many your soul food spots then,

515
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: so I just didn't realize I was spoilt.

516
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 3: Yes, it's hard, but yeah, I'm from the neighborhood I

517
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 3: grew up. I you know my neighbors. We all work

518
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 3: together to try to change things, and I want to

519
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 3: keep that same energy going and bringing that into the

520
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 3: court system. I love doing legal research, so if something

521
00:29:47,440 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 3: is presented to me, I will research it.

522
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: I love that.

523
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:55,400
Speaker 3: I also want to incorporate more programs and and I'm

524
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:57,600
Speaker 3: going to be fair to everyone. Some people think when

525
00:29:57,640 --> 00:29:59,560
Speaker 3: you have the background of being a public defender, you're

526
00:29:59,600 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 3: only going to side with public defenders. I know how

527
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 3: to weigh out the law and be fair to everyone.

528
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 3: And I'm also an adjunct professor at Pepperdine, Oh So

529
00:30:08,880 --> 00:30:12,560
Speaker 3: I teach juvenile rights at Pepperdine and Carriso School of Law,

530
00:30:12,600 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 3: and so that's been amazing working with students, motivating them

531
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: to walk in excellence. And so I will preside in

532
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,640
Speaker 3: excellence and do my best to care for everyone who comes.

533
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,280
Speaker 1: In front of me. Now that sounds cool, I'm excited.

534
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 3: I want people to know that it's time for change,

535
00:30:30,000 --> 00:30:33,520
Speaker 3: that God is raising up new voices and there's going

536
00:30:33,600 --> 00:30:35,880
Speaker 3: to be different things happening, and I just.

537
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 1: Feel good about it.

538
00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 3: I feel like it's time for us to band together

539
00:30:39,760 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 3: and get people in office that really care about our community.

540
00:30:43,400 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 3: And so I'm excited to be here with you and

541
00:30:45,160 --> 00:30:47,760
Speaker 3: excited to see what happens with the election and tell

542
00:30:47,760 --> 00:30:50,160
Speaker 3: people to get out and vote. Yeah, the little march

543
00:30:50,200 --> 00:30:51,040
Speaker 3: fit that's you.

544
00:30:56,920 --> 00:30:59,360
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to Liche. You can find out more

545
00:30:59,360 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: about our coming at www dot lache for Judge dot com.

546
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,400
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll be talking to more candidates

547
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 1: for judge. Please stay Junbed Welcome back to Wedian House,

548
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 1: where we're asking candidates and the upcoming elections the important

549
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: questions about howvill serve the unhoused community in their position.

550
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: Next up is George Turner, who's running for LA Superior

551
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: Court Judge in seat thirty nine. Here's our conversation.

552
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm George Turner and mister Turner is running for

553
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 4: I'm ready for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge seat

554
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 4: number thirty nine.

555
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: And thank you for joining us in the studios today. So, George,

556
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about yourself.

557
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 4: Absolutely so. I'm born and raised in the city of Inglewood.

558
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 4: I went to a public school with my whole life.

559
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 4: Went to Morning's High School. Then I went on to

560
00:32:02,040 --> 00:32:06,360
Speaker 4: UCLA majored in political science with a focus on race

561
00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 4: class agender. Then I went on to UCLA Law School,

562
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 4: where I graduated with a concentration in critical race studies.

563
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 4: You know, I'm a bit of a local dude. You

564
00:32:16,840 --> 00:32:18,880
Speaker 4: know you can catch me at a local costco father

565
00:32:18,960 --> 00:32:24,160
Speaker 4: of three, happily married, and someone who just revels in

566
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 4: my community and being a part of it.

567
00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 1: Growing up here in Englewood. Did it affect the way

568
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,840
Speaker 1: that you became interested into criminal law or what was

569
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: the moment that the rubber met the road.

570
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,000
Speaker 4: So there were a lot of experiences. So I grew

571
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:42,400
Speaker 4: up in the middle of what we what has been

572
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 4: come to be known as mass incarceration. So the way

573
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 4: I explained it is, over the last half century, the

574
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 4: state of California's built twenty three prisons and only opened

575
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,880
Speaker 4: three colleges. They based this decision on third grade test scores.

576
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 4: Those were my test scores, and so I saw family

577
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 4: and friends and community members constantly harassed by law enforcement

578
00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:09,800
Speaker 4: and cycle in and out of the system. I remember

579
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:14,480
Speaker 4: one of my earliest experiences was of an armed robbery

580
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 4: where someone put a gun in my face when I

581
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 4: was like three and asked my mom for her purse.

582
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:26,560
Speaker 4: I also remember a drug raid where the Inglewood Police

583
00:33:26,560 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 4: Department were looking for a particular person and they ransacked

584
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,280
Speaker 4: the duplex that I lived in in search of them.

585
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 4: So yeah, I was very much so aware of this

586
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:37,680
Speaker 4: thing that we call mass incarceration and the impact that

587
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:43,520
Speaker 4: law enforcement has on my community specifically. But you know,

588
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 4: also growing up in Inglewood, I loved the Lakers and

589
00:33:46,400 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 4: I was a good student, so I knew that there

590
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 4: was something that I would that helping my community was

591
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,840
Speaker 4: something that I was passionate about, but I didn't really

592
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 4: I don't know if I had specifically said that I

593
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 4: wanted to be a specific public defender, which that's what

594
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 4: I've been doing for the last fifteen years. I knew

595
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:09,400
Speaker 4: that I wanted to fight the institutions. That's why I

596
00:34:09,440 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 4: went to UCLA. When I went to UCLA, it was

597
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:14,760
Speaker 4: right after the end of Proposition two on nine.

598
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:16,919
Speaker 1: It's Proposition to all nine.

599
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:19,920
Speaker 4: So Proposition to all nine effectively ended affirmative action in

600
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 4: the state of California, particularly in higher education. When did

601
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 4: this happen? I started the summer of ninety nine. It

602
00:34:28,320 --> 00:34:32,600
Speaker 4: officially started out, believe that that fall. And let's talk

603
00:34:32,640 --> 00:34:34,960
Speaker 4: about the impact. So the direct impact was that there

604
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:37,920
Speaker 4: were less than one hundred African American men not an

605
00:34:37,920 --> 00:34:41,800
Speaker 4: athletic scholarship my freshman year of college. And this is

606
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 4: at a school that had over three thousand freshmen, right,

607
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:47,759
Speaker 4: and there were less than one hundred of us not

608
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 4: in athletic scholarship who were black men. So you know,

609
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 4: you go, even in like a sort of African American

610
00:34:54,160 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 4: studies class, you'd be one of two or three African

611
00:34:59,239 --> 00:35:01,080
Speaker 4: Americans in the class, and one of them will be

612
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 4: a professor, would be the professor.

613
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,480
Speaker 1: So being able to figure out how we.

614
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 4: Ended up in this situation, how we ended up in

615
00:35:08,000 --> 00:35:11,000
Speaker 4: a situation where you know, we have all this relationship

616
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 4: with law enforcement, and you show up to the universities

617
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 4: and you're getting this sort of individualized or isolating sort

618
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 4: of experience. So I studied race, class and gender. When

619
00:35:22,560 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 4: I got to UCLA Law school, I was like, well,

620
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 4: I want to change the world, and the professors are

621
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 4: telling me why it's okay to the world is the

622
00:35:30,000 --> 00:35:33,919
Speaker 4: way it is, trying to normalize sort of inequality. And

623
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 4: I said, well, maybe you know, law school isn't for me.

624
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 4: And I was kind of wandering around the law school thinking,

625
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 4: you know, maybe I should go to grad school or

626
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 4: do something else. And I happened to stumble upon a panel.

627
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 4: It was a prosecutors and defense attorneys, and the defense

628
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,480
Speaker 4: attorney worked for the Public Defender's Office, and he said,

629
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 4: you know, have you ever been driving and seeing a

630
00:35:58,560 --> 00:36:01,600
Speaker 4: police officer stopped to kids and have them sitting on

631
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 4: a curb and going through their car? Well, I represent

632
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 4: you know those kids. Now I remember thinking, yeah, I

633
00:36:09,160 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 4: have witnessed it. And I've also been those kids, and

634
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:14,719
Speaker 4: so you know, I would love to represent them and

635
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 4: defend them. And so I started working as a public

636
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,840
Speaker 4: defender my first year, my first summer of law school,

637
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 4: went back my second summer, went back to the first

638
00:36:23,040 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 4: semester of my third year, and was just really passionate

639
00:36:26,560 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 4: about the work. And I've been there for fifteen years now. Wow,

640
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:33,600
Speaker 4: it seems like a blink of an eye. Sometimes it

641
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,359
Speaker 4: absolutely does. I can imagine. One of the things that

642
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 4: my show is dealing with.

643
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 1: We deal with the issue of houselessness and how because

644
00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:46,360
Speaker 1: you raised some excellent points about one of the relationship

645
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: with the police and people of color blurtriicularly black folk,

646
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:54,520
Speaker 1: and the idea of the prison pipeline, and I want

647
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:59,640
Speaker 1: to sert another conversation point that sometimes is not always

648
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:04,400
Speaker 1: bringing into sharper relief, and that is the unhoused community.

649
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: Because many people have this idea about houselessness. They believe

650
00:37:09,040 --> 00:37:13,439
Speaker 1: it's a personal failing. They believe that the only way

651
00:37:13,680 --> 00:37:16,560
Speaker 1: is that their service assistant, they're mentally ill, or they

652
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:22,480
Speaker 1: have substance usage abuse issues. And inasmuch as that conversation

653
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:25,560
Speaker 1: point is being advanced and beaten to death by the

654
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: city and the government, and the Nimbi's and everywhere else.

655
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,759
Speaker 1: What is always missed is about the unhoused community and

656
00:37:32,840 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: their intersection between that. And it is not an accident

657
00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 1: that three to four times likely the police officers are

658
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: going to be interacting not with necessarily always house black folk,

659
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: but with unhoused black people. They have two to three

660
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: chances higher likely of having to be used for a

661
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: use of forces done on those community members. But the

662
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:01,440
Speaker 1: conversation fades away because our society does look at houselessness

663
00:38:01,760 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: as the lynchpin of what is really going on with

664
00:38:05,000 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 1: white supremacy, capitalism and other deleterious kind of effects that

665
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,400
Speaker 1: are affecting our communities. But I wanted to access like,

666
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:15,680
Speaker 1: for example, you're running for office, you're running for judge.

667
00:38:16,280 --> 00:38:19,040
Speaker 1: What is it if you had a superpower? What would

668
00:38:19,120 --> 00:38:24,360
Speaker 1: you do to either change the world or would you

669
00:38:24,520 --> 00:38:27,160
Speaker 1: change the situation or would you just have really a

670
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: cool car like Batman and just you know or what?

671
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,960
Speaker 4: So I'll get you answer the question. Thank you, great question.

672
00:38:35,640 --> 00:38:38,160
Speaker 4: So there's a lot in what you said. You know,

673
00:38:38,200 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 4: so I've been a public defender for the last fifteen years.

674
00:38:40,560 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 4: Of what I currently do is that I'm the deputy

675
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 4: in charge of the Homeless Mobile Unit, and what our

676
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,319
Speaker 4: specific edict is is to help our unhoused neighbors get

677
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:52,200
Speaker 4: their records clear, their criminal records cleared. And the reason

678
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,439
Speaker 4: why this is so significant is because the loss changed

679
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,320
Speaker 4: significantly over the last actually year.

680
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:57,680
Speaker 1: And a half.

681
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 4: So ho SB seven thirty one is a law that

682
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 4: was created by community members, advocated on behalf of community members,

683
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 4: and now it is the actual law. It basically has

684
00:39:12,880 --> 00:39:15,560
Speaker 4: said that pretty much, as long as you don't have

685
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 4: a case pending, you're not on probational parole, you don't

686
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,399
Speaker 4: have to register as a sex offender, that you are

687
00:39:23,480 --> 00:39:26,000
Speaker 4: eligible to get your record cleared. And I asked a

688
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 4: question because with SB seven thirty one, one of the

689
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,440
Speaker 4: things that I, as an unhoused person dealt with is

690
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,880
Speaker 4: the fair evation kind of conversation. If there is unhoused

691
00:39:35,880 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 4: community members that had tickets or citations for fair evasion,

692
00:39:39,360 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 4: will that make them ineligible? So long as they don't

693
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 4: have a warrant? Okay, then you are eligible. So I've

694
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 4: had clients who had murder convictions who are eligible, who

695
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 4: are eligible Okay, So it's literally as long as you're

696
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 4: not on probational parole, don't have any warrants, don't have

697
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,520
Speaker 4: any pending cases, and don't have to register as a

698
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 4: sex offender. You are eligible, right, So that throws open

699
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:04,399
Speaker 4: the floodgates. It used to be a time that if

700
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:06,560
Speaker 4: you had a strike, you weren't eligible, or if you

701
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:08,959
Speaker 4: were to prison, you weren't eligible, or like you said,

702
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 4: you have a ticket here or there, you're not eligible.

703
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 4: The community members have actually through this law, have changed

704
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,080
Speaker 4: a significant amount of things. And actually part of the

705
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,520
Speaker 4: law actually puts the onus on the Department of Justice

706
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 4: to clear old records. So if you have a record

707
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,640
Speaker 4: that is old, you haven't haven't picked up any new cases.

708
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,320
Speaker 4: It's actually the responsibility written right into the law that

709
00:40:28,640 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 4: the DOJ is supposed to clear your record.

710
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 1: So that was what must and I'm Jeff sorry to

711
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: introduct this is probably advantageous for unhoused people. What's the

712
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 1: first step that an unhoused person that wants to do this,

713
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:45,920
Speaker 1: what should they do? So there are a variety of

714
00:40:45,920 --> 00:40:46,720
Speaker 1: different venues.

715
00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 4: Okay, if you go to the courthouse where you have

716
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 4: your criminal cases, you can actually go right to the

717
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 4: public Defender's office and they can help you fill out

718
00:40:56,560 --> 00:40:59,839
Speaker 4: the paperwork. There are also a variety of different organizations

719
00:40:59,840 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 4: that do as ARC. The Anti Precipitism Coalition, they actually

720
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,480
Speaker 4: do it. The LAFFLA, which is the Legal Aid Foundation

721
00:41:09,560 --> 00:41:12,320
Speaker 4: of Los Angeles, they actually also have a part to

722
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 4: do it. But my unit, which is the Homeless Mobile Unit,

723
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 4: actually goes out into the community at resource fairs and

724
00:41:20,680 --> 00:41:24,040
Speaker 4: we actually go out into the community, bring out a table,

725
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 4: some chairs, some electricity, and we do it right there

726
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 4: at the table with clients so that we sort of

727
00:41:30,480 --> 00:41:33,360
Speaker 4: assume that once they leave us that we won't be

728
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 4: able to get in too much contact with them. So

729
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:37,160
Speaker 4: we do as much as we can right there at

730
00:41:37,160 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 4: the table.

731
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 1: Anything that the young house person need, like ID social

732
00:41:41,800 --> 00:41:42,480
Speaker 1: or anything like that.

733
00:41:42,719 --> 00:41:46,160
Speaker 4: If they know their Social Security number and they and

734
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:48,520
Speaker 4: really we don't even need the SOB security number, driver's

735
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 4: license number if you have that, we don't need a copy.

736
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 4: But if you know it, it'd be great. Only thing

737
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 4: you need is some time and some patience. And you

738
00:41:56,880 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 4: got to catch us because it's only twelve people of us.

739
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 4: It's only two of us in the year.

740
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:00,880
Speaker 1: Oh mind.

741
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, so do you have like a rhyme or reason,

742
00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 4: like a map or schedule or a scheduled time or

743
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,840
Speaker 4: place that people can show up or how can people

744
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:14,000
Speaker 4: type into the service. Absolutely, So we are at the

745
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:19,400
Speaker 4: Refreshpot in downtown Los Angeles what is every third Thursday,

746
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:22,399
Speaker 4: and it's us and also actually the City Attorney's office

747
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:24,960
Speaker 4: where they actually clear out a lot of the traffic warrants.

748
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: So we're there the.

749
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 4: Third Thursday of the rest refresh Spot and we do

750
00:42:28,600 --> 00:42:32,160
Speaker 4: a variety of different events. So we have a partnership

751
00:42:32,200 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 4: with some folks to the housing developments, We have partnerships

752
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 4: with the Wineguard Center. We have we just did an

753
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 4: event last weekend at Jim Gilliam Park. Excellent particularly of

754
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,320
Speaker 4: doing their aggressive nature of sweeping in this place and

755
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:48,160
Speaker 4: going to house people.

756
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: This is like a very primal jewel to half. I

757
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:53,719
Speaker 1: think this is one of the things that I'm like, oh,

758
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:55,960
Speaker 1: this is good to know. And I think that you

759
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:59,920
Speaker 1: introduced this to our audience. This is very para. It's paramounted,

760
00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: I think.

761
00:43:00,640 --> 00:43:02,320
Speaker 4: And we are we are in search of trying to

762
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,040
Speaker 4: help as many people as possible. So you asked me

763
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 4: what I would do, what would my superpower be? And

764
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 4: I think that is another great question because I'm also

765
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:10,720
Speaker 4: a comic book Nerd.

766
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 1: In your DC of Marble. We gotta conclar that I

767
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:18,000
Speaker 1: am a Marvel God. We got to cut this interview off. Sorry,

768
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:23,640
Speaker 1: I know, but it's got a nerve to be on myself.

769
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:26,319
Speaker 4: So so it's funny because you know, my children off

770
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 4: often ask me, though, what would my superpower be? And

771
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 4: I'm always like, I don't really, I don't really think

772
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:34,880
Speaker 4: of a superpower per se. Now, if I could change things,

773
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 4: actual change things, I would love to have the ability

774
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:43,880
Speaker 4: to spread empathy. I think that it is too easy

775
00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:48,200
Speaker 4: empathy soaker, yeah, exactly, exactly. Someone who could just spread

776
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 4: empathy like I could feel it and spread it around

777
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:53,480
Speaker 4: to the people, because too often what we do is

778
00:43:53,640 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 4: we'll put a label on somebody and they'll put that

779
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,239
Speaker 4: person in a box. Oh this person is unhoused, so

780
00:43:59,560 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 4: now my mind, they are, and the unit listed all

781
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,680
Speaker 4: of those things that you previously stated. This is someone

782
00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,320
Speaker 4: who must have mental health issues. This is someone who's

783
00:44:07,320 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 4: made bad personal choices, This is someone who has who

784
00:44:10,520 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 4: has a problem with drugs and alcohol. And you know,

785
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 4: none of us fit into any box, but we certainly

786
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 4: don't fit into the boxes or labels that people who

787
00:44:20,320 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 4: don't even know us fit in to what what would

788
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,359
Speaker 4: have for us. And that's not me saying that there

789
00:44:26,400 --> 00:44:28,800
Speaker 4: are people who are in house who have mental health issues.

790
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 4: But those are two different things. Right, You can have

791
00:44:31,600 --> 00:44:34,359
Speaker 4: mental health issues and be housed. Yeah, you could have

792
00:44:34,480 --> 00:44:37,840
Speaker 4: You could be a functioning addict, right, And there are

793
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,440
Speaker 4: a lot of those things. But you know the box

794
00:44:40,480 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 4: that I often try to remind people of when we

795
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,520
Speaker 4: talk about our unhoused population, I say the number one

796
00:44:47,600 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 4: growing population or group amongst unhoused of folks who are

797
00:44:51,480 --> 00:44:54,359
Speaker 4: working forty hours a week. So so you know what

798
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:55,840
Speaker 4: I what I say is that when you think of

799
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 4: someone who's on house, I think of someone who is

800
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:03,799
Speaker 4: working forty hours a week, right, doing the work that

801
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:07,960
Speaker 4: my grandmother and my mother and my grandfather did, and

802
00:45:08,160 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 4: they can't find a place to stay.

803
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:15,279
Speaker 1: I pointed out in my episodes previous episodes, because everybody

804
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,480
Speaker 1: house of unhoused go to the store and eat produce

805
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,760
Speaker 1: fruit and things of that nature, and that is picked

806
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:24,320
Speaker 1: by literally I showed it in one of my episodes

807
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 1: of people literally on housed that are picking your fruit

808
00:45:27,320 --> 00:45:30,200
Speaker 1: out in Oxnar, California. So it's not like that's so

809
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:32,919
Speaker 1: far out the realm of possibility. After they finish their job,

810
00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 1: they cannot afford the place because the place is so expensive.

811
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: They sleep out in the fields where they're picking the

812
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:41,840
Speaker 1: vegetables or fruit. So it is a reality that people

813
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: do not really fathom while they are eating. You know,

814
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:48,560
Speaker 1: that's quite literally. You know, when people say, you know,

815
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: who has the hardest job? I'm like, you know, you

816
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: have you been up to Central California recently? Those who

817
00:45:53,480 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: have very hard jobs exactly so.

818
00:45:58,280 --> 00:46:00,799
Speaker 4: Being able to spread empathy so that I so that

819
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 4: people will know that this person that you're talking to

820
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:08,480
Speaker 4: is a human being, right, a three dimensional human being,

821
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:12,720
Speaker 4: and these sort of preconceived notions that you have about

822
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 4: them probably doesn't work. And if you don't address their

823
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:20,760
Speaker 4: specific issues. And sometimes how about this, Sometimes the issue

824
00:46:20,800 --> 00:46:23,600
Speaker 4: is it costs too much money to live in Los Angeles,

825
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 4: absolutely right. You know people say that, you know, it's

826
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,480
Speaker 4: poor decision making. Well, the story that I always that

827
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 4: I like to tell folks is is that I was

828
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 4: able to buy a home down the street from my

829
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 4: mom's house. Okay, I bought that home because my wife

830
00:46:40,560 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 4: and I had one baby and we were living in

831
00:46:43,040 --> 00:46:46,439
Speaker 4: a one bedroom apartment, and she got pregnant with another child,

832
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 4: and I was like, we can't have two children in

833
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 4: a one bedroom apartment. So I looked all over Los

834
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 4: Angeles and I said, look, I want to purchase close

835
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 4: to where I grew up. Later on that year, they

836
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 4: announced that they were building so far, and the value

837
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:04,560
Speaker 4: of that house doubled. Literally, if I would have waited

838
00:47:04,719 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 4: another seven months, I couldn't afford to stay in the

839
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 4: house that I live in right now. Right, that wasn't

840
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 4: poor decision making or great decision making. That was just

841
00:47:19,280 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 4: a decision that I made out of necessity. Right when

842
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,640
Speaker 4: you think about like how expensive it is to live

843
00:47:25,680 --> 00:47:27,680
Speaker 4: in Los Angeles, that there are a host of people

844
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 4: who are making the best decisions they possibly can and

845
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 4: they can't find some place to stay.

846
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,840
Speaker 1: That's the conversation and why I push so much for

847
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:39,480
Speaker 1: Windy in the House to have this conversation, because it's

848
00:47:39,560 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: debunking and deconstructing the ideals that on house, people are

849
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 1: just liking. Like my friend says, and he loves the rejoinder, well,

850
00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,160
Speaker 1: I don't mean everybody, but you make the moniker because

851
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:54,759
Speaker 1: it's so acceptable that they like being out there. They

852
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:57,839
Speaker 1: don't want help, and I always want to push back

853
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: on it because they don't want the help that you prescribing.

854
00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 1: For example, if and I make the conversational point with

855
00:48:04,920 --> 00:48:10,080
Speaker 1: missus Henderson about the fact that when there is someone

856
00:48:10,120 --> 00:48:13,359
Speaker 1: fling the DV is considerably different when someone that had

857
00:48:13,360 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: a medical emergencies on out in the street. So their

858
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: decision making process is going to be different. One if

859
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 1: they have two children and they're going to DV and

860
00:48:22,520 --> 00:48:24,520
Speaker 1: they have a boy and a girl and they don't

861
00:48:24,560 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: accept boys in the DV place, that considerably shortens their

862
00:48:29,000 --> 00:48:32,560
Speaker 1: choices and they're very minimal choices for DV shelters, And

863
00:48:32,640 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: so they are not being difficult, they're being realistic. The

864
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 1: second thing is the placing a like. For example, when

865
00:48:39,920 --> 00:48:42,480
Speaker 1: you're mentioning when you have a house, you mentioned when

866
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: you knew you wanted to be near your mom. So

867
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:48,759
Speaker 1: most unhoused people like house people want to be near

868
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,919
Speaker 1: that community resources that they can tap into. They don't

869
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:53,920
Speaker 1: want to be out there and promoter. You have them

870
00:48:53,960 --> 00:48:55,960
Speaker 1: to take six or seven buses to take their children,

871
00:48:56,040 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: or they sell themselves to appoint a place a point

872
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,640
Speaker 1: of trying to stay connected to their community. There are

873
00:49:03,680 --> 00:49:07,200
Speaker 1: like sixty eight thousand as higher now at least sixty

874
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:10,640
Speaker 1: eight thousand unhoused children in the Los Angeles School district.

875
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:14,000
Speaker 1: And yeah, and most people don't know that, And this

876
00:49:14,160 --> 00:49:17,120
Speaker 1: is the reality. So if you are understanding that, and

877
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 1: you are on housed and your children are on house,

878
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:21,920
Speaker 1: you're trying to stay near the school that their kids

879
00:49:21,960 --> 00:49:24,279
Speaker 1: want to go with their friends. Like most kids want

880
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: to stay with their friends, they want to stay where

881
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: they're feeling like they're seeing. That's the same thing with

882
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 1: the conversation with unhoused families as well. So those are

883
00:49:33,280 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: the conversational points that are always missed whenever you hear

884
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:39,759
Speaker 1: these nimbies talking about this save our children. Are you

885
00:49:39,800 --> 00:49:42,279
Speaker 1: talking about house children or are you talking about the

886
00:49:42,320 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 1: sixty eight plus thousand unhoused children that you're so concerned

887
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 1: about running off them and their parents? Which brings up

888
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:54,160
Speaker 1: another question, what do people misunderstand about the justice system?

889
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:57,520
Speaker 1: What do people misunderstand about the justice in Ooh, there's

890
00:49:57,640 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: so much that people misunderstand about justice system. I'll have

891
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:03,720
Speaker 1: friends ask me, you know, so I have this charge,

892
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:05,680
Speaker 1: I have this case, and then I'll begin to ask

893
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: them questions that seems strange, like what courthouse are you

894
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 1: going to?

895
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:15,160
Speaker 4: What court room are you going to? What is the charge?

896
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:20,720
Speaker 4: What is the arresting agency? Any institution that we create

897
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 4: is composed of human beings and personalities, right, And the

898
00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 4: thing that people kind of misunderstand about the justice system

899
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 4: is that we have this sort of idea that justice

900
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:36,400
Speaker 4: is blind and that you can walk in and everybody's

901
00:50:36,440 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 4: going to get the same outcome, almost as if everyone's

902
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,560
Speaker 4: a robot or it's some sort of a program. It

903
00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:46,480
Speaker 4: is not a computer program. They're not robots. They're human

904
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:51,400
Speaker 4: beings with their own experiences, their own perspective, their own background.

905
00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:56,080
Speaker 4: And so literally, what happens in the criminal legal system

906
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,400
Speaker 4: in one court room can be different from the courtroom

907
00:50:59,440 --> 00:51:02,200
Speaker 4: right next door because the people who are inside of

908
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 4: it have different experiences. It's funny because that's part of

909
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 4: the reason why I decided to run.

910
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 1: Right.

911
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:10,200
Speaker 4: When you look at the sort of people who are

912
00:51:10,239 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 4: typically bench officers or judges in Los Angeles County, we're

913
00:51:13,200 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 4: talking about overwhelming majority of them are prosecutors or folks

914
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 4: who come from a large like civil law, big firm

915
00:51:20,280 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 4: sort of experience, right, And so it's they have such

916
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 4: a high percentage.

917
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:26,719
Speaker 1: I think something like seventy eight percent.

918
00:51:26,840 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 4: That that particular perspective becomes objective if everyone has the

919
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:37,440
Speaker 4: same experience, if everyone has the same background, then that

920
00:51:37,520 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 4: becomes the background and it becomes objective or reasonable.

921
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:41,359
Speaker 1: Right.

922
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 4: I personally think that getting to a diverse perspective, a

923
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:49,520
Speaker 4: diverse experience, is going to get us closer to justice

924
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:53,239
Speaker 4: than having people just be sort of everyone has the

925
00:51:53,239 --> 00:51:58,280
Speaker 4: same background, everyone has the same experience or aesthetic, absolutely apathetic,

926
00:51:58,360 --> 00:52:00,879
Speaker 4: or just have a sort of perspect they're like, oh, yeah,

927
00:52:00,880 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 4: this is the way it goes.

928
00:52:02,320 --> 00:52:03,279
Speaker 1: I say this all the time.

929
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 4: I personally believe that, you know, if you're a bench

930
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,600
Speaker 4: officer and you're sentencing people to county jail or telling

931
00:52:09,680 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 4: them that they should stay in county jail while they're

932
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:14,280
Speaker 4: fighting their cases, maybe you should go visit county jail

933
00:52:14,680 --> 00:52:17,439
Speaker 4: to see what that experience is like, to understand why

934
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:20,520
Speaker 4: they might be angry quote unquote angry when they get

935
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,960
Speaker 4: in the court. Well, you try waking up at three

936
00:52:23,960 --> 00:52:27,760
Speaker 4: point thirty in the morning every day. You try sleeping

937
00:52:27,800 --> 00:52:31,560
Speaker 4: on that hard bench, You try eating the stuff that

938
00:52:31,600 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 4: they pass off as food, and worry about your safety

939
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:35,040
Speaker 4: every day.

940
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:36,520
Speaker 1: Just try it for a day.

941
00:52:37,360 --> 00:52:40,040
Speaker 4: You know, you know you're talking about someone who is

942
00:52:40,160 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 4: unhoused and they might be acting erratically. Why don't you

943
00:52:43,560 --> 00:52:47,160
Speaker 4: try sleeping outside for a couple of weeks and see

944
00:52:47,160 --> 00:52:49,360
Speaker 4: what you consider erratic and not erratic?

945
00:52:49,400 --> 00:52:51,240
Speaker 1: Exactly right, you think it's erratic.

946
00:52:51,320 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 4: No, that is a logical response to the experience that

947
00:52:55,400 --> 00:52:56,279
Speaker 4: this person is having.

948
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:57,359
Speaker 1: Absolutely right.

949
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:00,160
Speaker 4: So you know, I think that it is important and

950
00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 4: that you have folks who who, even if they don't

951
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:06,719
Speaker 4: have that experience every day, are at least willing to

952
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:09,879
Speaker 4: like find out about it. Or how about this, don't

953
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 4: prejudge someone and ascribe some sort of normative or moral

954
00:53:16,840 --> 00:53:20,960
Speaker 4: idea or attitude about them without knowing what their circumstances are.

955
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:25,760
Speaker 1: You know, well said, given your history and your sits

956
00:53:25,880 --> 00:53:28,520
Speaker 1: on the judge ship, how would you like to be remembered?

957
00:53:28,560 --> 00:53:32,120
Speaker 1: What would be if someone was to say, hey, would

958
00:53:32,280 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: you remember mister Turner? What would you what would you say?

959
00:53:35,239 --> 00:53:37,800
Speaker 1: Absolutely so that that is a great question.

960
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:43,480
Speaker 4: And I'm a boring history buff, right, and I often

961
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 4: think about like all of the sort of great injustices

962
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:52,040
Speaker 4: that have happened across history, whether it be slavery, whether

963
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,560
Speaker 4: it be the genocide of indigenous people and the founding

964
00:53:55,600 --> 00:54:00,399
Speaker 4: of this country, whether it be the Holocaust, always think

965
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,680
Speaker 4: what were the people doing at that time? What were

966
00:54:04,680 --> 00:54:08,760
Speaker 4: the people who are living and breathing and operating doing

967
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:12,640
Speaker 4: at that time, and how is history going to remember them?

968
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 1: Right? Civil rights movement, like, what were the people doing?

969
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 4: And I think that one of the major issues of

970
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:25,279
Speaker 4: our life is going to be mass incarceration. You know,

971
00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 4: we put way too many people in prison for relatively

972
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 4: inconsequential conduct, and then we created this sort of snowball

973
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:38,440
Speaker 4: effect where you consistently put people in the custody. It's

974
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 4: like a conveyor belt of custody, right, And so what

975
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:43,840
Speaker 4: I want people to remember, what I will want my

976
00:54:43,960 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 4: children and people to remember about me, is that I

977
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:52,239
Speaker 4: was not just intimately aware of this thing called mass incarceration,

978
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,120
Speaker 4: but that I did what I could do to sort

979
00:54:55,120 --> 00:54:57,399
Speaker 4: of put it to an end. That's what I want.

980
00:54:57,440 --> 00:54:59,760
Speaker 4: I don't want people to wonder what George was doing

981
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 4: when mass incarceration happened. I want them to remember me

982
00:55:02,320 --> 00:55:05,919
Speaker 4: as somebody who was on the ground fighting it every

983
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:07,799
Speaker 4: day that.

984
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,840
Speaker 1: Said, well, mister Turner, you have given us plenty of

985
00:55:11,880 --> 00:55:15,160
Speaker 1: to listen to and to think on did I miss

986
00:55:15,200 --> 00:55:17,800
Speaker 1: anything that you wanted to say anything or add anything

987
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:21,040
Speaker 1: to already at such a voluminous conversation that we had.

988
00:55:21,400 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 4: Absolutely so one of the things that I say anytime

989
00:55:23,440 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 4: that I talk to anyone is I want to thank you.

990
00:55:27,160 --> 00:55:30,319
Speaker 4: Part of the reason why I'm running for judge as

991
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:33,480
Speaker 4: opposed to just going to get an appointment is because

992
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 4: I believe in democracy. I believe that folks ought to

993
00:55:38,080 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 4: know who they're voting for and ought to be held

994
00:55:40,600 --> 00:55:43,600
Speaker 4: accountable to the people that they vote for. But on

995
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:49,480
Speaker 4: the ground, realizing how the sausage is made and realizing

996
00:55:49,520 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 4: that the way democracy actually works is people actually like

997
00:55:53,600 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 4: people like yourself, who are volunteering time, effort, sacrificing other

998
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,480
Speaker 4: things that they could be doing to get people's message

999
00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 4: out and to have conversations. You guys are the ones

1000
00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:07,840
Speaker 4: that actually make democracy real. And so you know, I

1001
00:56:07,960 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 4: just thank folks for their time because listen, you are

1002
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:13,680
Speaker 4: a bright individual, articulated individual. You could be doing a

1003
00:56:13,719 --> 00:56:16,520
Speaker 4: thousand different things in a thousand different ways. So thank

1004
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:17,520
Speaker 4: you for this opportunity.

1005
00:56:17,640 --> 00:56:20,360
Speaker 1: And likewise as well, thank you very much. Mster Turner.

1006
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,759
Speaker 1: Thanks so much to George for his time, and you

1007
00:56:27,800 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 1: can learn more about his campaign over at www. George A.

1008
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:36,080
Speaker 1: Turner for Judge dot com. We're gonna take a break

1009
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:47,799
Speaker 1: and we will be right back. We're back. Finally, we're

1010
00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,759
Speaker 1: talking to Erica Wilie, who's running for LA Superior Court

1011
00:56:50,840 --> 00:56:58,200
Speaker 1: judge and seat forty eight. In the studios today is

1012
00:56:58,239 --> 00:57:01,560
Speaker 1: we have one of the and its that's running for judge,

1013
00:57:01,680 --> 00:57:04,400
Speaker 1: MS Wiley. I'm going to leave it to her to

1014
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:07,319
Speaker 1: introduce herself. Hi, everybody, and thank you so much THEO

1015
00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:10,279
Speaker 1: for having me. I am Erica Wiley and I'm a

1016
00:57:10,320 --> 00:57:13,239
Speaker 1: candidate for Superior Court Judge. Would you like to know

1017
00:57:13,239 --> 00:57:16,040
Speaker 1: a little bit about my background? Yes? Please? Okay take

1018
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:20,600
Speaker 1: it from there, so I'm letting you run the show. Hey.

1019
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,680
Speaker 3: So, I've been a deputy public defender in Los Angeles

1020
00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:28,400
Speaker 3: County since two thousand, but a public defender since nineteen

1021
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,920
Speaker 3: ninety nine. I started in Merced County and this is

1022
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 3: work that I really love helping people. Sometimes I'm the

1023
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 3: only person in the courtroom to be there for that person,

1024
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:42,000
Speaker 3: and I love this work. I've been defending individuals charged

1025
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:46,640
Speaker 3: with crimes from as minor as traffic infractions all the

1026
00:57:46,640 --> 00:57:49,960
Speaker 3: way up to capital murder now in the most recent years.

1027
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,400
Speaker 3: So again this has worked is very near and dear

1028
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 3: to my heart. I started off in my legal career

1029
00:57:56,280 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 3: doing eviction defense for the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

1030
00:58:00,200 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 3: So every job that I have has been on behalf

1031
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 3: of individuals who didn't have the opportunity or resources to

1032
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,360
Speaker 3: hire a lawyer. This, like I said, this work working

1033
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:14,680
Speaker 3: on behalf of people who have no other options is

1034
00:58:14,920 --> 00:58:17,800
Speaker 3: very near and dear to my heart. So that's who

1035
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,120
Speaker 3: I am, someone who really loves to help people.

1036
00:58:20,240 --> 00:58:23,080
Speaker 1: Well, let me take it way back when you were

1037
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 1: growing up, did this affect your choice of joining the

1038
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:30,080
Speaker 1: legal department or was there something that impacted you or

1039
00:58:30,120 --> 00:58:31,880
Speaker 1: shaped you to do this? Oh?

1040
00:58:31,920 --> 00:58:36,040
Speaker 3: Absolutely, My background as a child had a lot to

1041
00:58:36,080 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 3: do with who I am today. I was raised by

1042
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:42,680
Speaker 3: a single mother in south central Los Angeles. There were

1043
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 3: six of us, and my mom supported us on public

1044
00:58:46,880 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 3: assistance but also with the profits from a little secondhand

1045
00:58:50,360 --> 00:58:52,240
Speaker 3: store that she had in the community. So we had

1046
00:58:52,280 --> 00:58:54,960
Speaker 3: a lot of interaction as kids with the people in

1047
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:57,600
Speaker 3: our community and seeing what was going on in our environment.

1048
00:58:58,600 --> 00:59:02,520
Speaker 3: My mom was someone who struggle to support us but

1049
00:59:02,600 --> 00:59:04,800
Speaker 3: also did the best She could for her community. I

1050
00:59:04,840 --> 00:59:07,880
Speaker 3: saw her often give away some of her best goods

1051
00:59:07,920 --> 00:59:10,360
Speaker 3: to women in the community who didn't have the money

1052
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:14,160
Speaker 3: that day. And you know, these women became her staunch supporters.

1053
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:17,160
Speaker 3: They supported her business for years. And so I saw

1054
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 3: that there was just a revolving cycle of give and

1055
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 3: take in the community, that when you give into your communities,

1056
00:59:23,600 --> 00:59:26,640
Speaker 3: that the possibilities are really endless for what you can

1057
00:59:26,680 --> 00:59:27,240
Speaker 3: get out of it.

1058
00:59:27,840 --> 00:59:31,240
Speaker 1: Which brings up an interesting point. Your mother was okay

1059
00:59:31,280 --> 00:59:33,960
Speaker 1: with you going to be into law or what. You know.

1060
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:35,880
Speaker 1: You just came to her and says, hey, Mom, I'm

1061
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 1: going to be a public defender, and she just said, oh, okay.

1062
00:59:39,040 --> 00:59:42,400
Speaker 3: Well, you know I had the opportunity to attend laws

1063
00:59:42,600 --> 00:59:46,480
Speaker 3: well undergrad I attended Fisk University and that's in Nashville, Tennessee,

1064
00:59:46,560 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 3: and it was always my.

1065
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:50,439
Speaker 1: Dreams let's bring that there.

1066
00:59:51,560 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 3: Always my dream growing up in California as a young

1067
00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:59,080
Speaker 3: African American girl, to attention HBCU. And as we all know,

1068
00:59:59,080 --> 01:00:03,240
Speaker 3: they're none here in Los Angeles or California, and so

1069
01:00:04,360 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 3: that was a place where my idols, Nikki Giovanni, w

1070
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 3: e b Du Boys he absolutely had gone to and

1071
01:00:12,040 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 3: so I went there, and then my dad, who was

1072
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 3: originally from Ohio, moved back to Ohio in the meantime

1073
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:22,360
Speaker 3: while I was an undergrad, and so I applied to

1074
01:00:22,360 --> 01:00:26,919
Speaker 3: the University of Cincinnati to be near him. But yes,

1075
01:00:27,000 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 3: my parents have always encouraged me to toward higher education.

1076
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:34,680
Speaker 3: My mom has two master's degrees. Is she later in

1077
01:00:34,720 --> 01:00:38,520
Speaker 3: life took on a job as a middle school teacher.

1078
01:00:39,160 --> 01:00:42,640
Speaker 3: And they've always encouraged education. And my dad was a

1079
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 3: very staunch supporter in me becoming a lawyer. He was

1080
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 3: a chiropractor, and so yeah, they encouraged.

1081
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:58,240
Speaker 1: He got his number people, but you know, yes, healing hands.

1082
01:00:58,280 --> 01:01:01,120
Speaker 3: He very much encouraged me to get as much education

1083
01:01:01,200 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 3: as I can.

1084
01:01:02,160 --> 01:01:05,280
Speaker 1: Which brings up another interesting point is Zach For example,

1085
01:01:05,320 --> 01:01:10,000
Speaker 1: if you had superpowers, what would it be? Oh wow, yeah,

1086
01:01:10,040 --> 01:01:11,440
Speaker 1: I go out left field.

1087
01:01:11,480 --> 01:01:15,920
Speaker 3: So you know what, I have found myself sitting with

1088
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:20,160
Speaker 3: strangers who will tell me their deepest and darkest secrets.

1089
01:01:20,520 --> 01:01:23,040
Speaker 3: And so I'm not a mind reader, but if it

1090
01:01:23,160 --> 01:01:27,360
Speaker 3: was my superpower, I think would just be providing people

1091
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:31,480
Speaker 3: with the opportunity to open up and talk about the

1092
01:01:31,480 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 3: things that have bothered them or are creating issues in

1093
01:01:37,520 --> 01:01:39,680
Speaker 3: their life, or that they just really need to get

1094
01:01:39,680 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 3: off their chest. And I love being in that space

1095
01:01:44,280 --> 01:01:47,120
Speaker 3: because I think that I've been told that I create

1096
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:50,960
Speaker 3: a calming space and non judgmental space for people to

1097
01:01:51,000 --> 01:01:54,800
Speaker 3: talk about who they are and what brings them to

1098
01:01:55,000 --> 01:01:57,600
Speaker 3: this point in their life, certain points in their life.

1099
01:01:58,480 --> 01:02:01,400
Speaker 1: What are the common things, what common misconceptions do you

1100
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:03,080
Speaker 1: find in the justice system.

1101
01:02:04,840 --> 01:02:09,360
Speaker 3: Well, I think that a lot of judges and prosecutors

1102
01:02:09,920 --> 01:02:14,160
Speaker 3: believe that people who find themselves in trouble are people

1103
01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:18,280
Speaker 3: who are seeking trouble, who have made a conscious effort

1104
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:23,040
Speaker 3: to create havoc in the community or to victimize others.

1105
01:02:23,640 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 3: And there's a lack of understanding about a lot of

1106
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:30,040
Speaker 3: the social conditions that bring people into the criminal justice system,

1107
01:02:30,560 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 3: mental illness, poverty, drug addiction. When I talk about those

1108
01:02:34,800 --> 01:02:38,640
Speaker 3: things to prosecutors and judges, there's a lot of times

1109
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 3: a disconnect where they actually ask me questions like, well,

1110
01:02:42,200 --> 01:02:45,280
Speaker 3: what does the fact that your client is homeless have

1111
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:47,200
Speaker 3: to do with the fact that she's got, you know,

1112
01:02:47,800 --> 01:02:51,480
Speaker 3: five convictions for stealing things? And I'm like, well, let's

1113
01:02:51,520 --> 01:02:54,680
Speaker 3: look a little bit further. She's taking food, she's taking

1114
01:02:54,840 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 3: personal items, absolutely, and there just seems to be a

1115
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:02,640
Speaker 3: lack of understand about the connection of the underlying causes

1116
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 3: of crime for a lot of people in the criminal

1117
01:03:04,920 --> 01:03:05,440
Speaker 3: justice system.

1118
01:03:05,600 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: I was going to ask, do you sometimes feel that

1119
01:03:07,840 --> 01:03:10,080
Speaker 1: it's a lack of understanding or a lack of empathy,

1120
01:03:10,200 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 1: because I do know as like being on house because

1121
01:03:13,280 --> 01:03:17,520
Speaker 1: most people don't realize sometimes the reality there is a

1122
01:03:17,640 --> 01:03:22,120
Speaker 1: very distinct reality among unhoused community members and the relationship

1123
01:03:22,160 --> 01:03:25,040
Speaker 1: with the cops who when as revolving door with the

1124
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:30,360
Speaker 1: justice system. Conversely, in house people, because there's house criminality

1125
01:03:30,880 --> 01:03:35,320
Speaker 1: to some degree, but when unhoused suppose it criminality or

1126
01:03:35,760 --> 01:03:39,360
Speaker 1: missteps in the justice system, there's a huge chasm there.

1127
01:03:39,520 --> 01:03:42,480
Speaker 1: What do you think it's a lack of education or

1128
01:03:42,600 --> 01:03:43,280
Speaker 1: is it empathy?

1129
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 3: Well, you know, empathy requires the ability to put yourself

1130
01:03:48,640 --> 01:03:50,920
Speaker 3: in the shoes of the person who is standing in

1131
01:03:51,000 --> 01:03:53,760
Speaker 3: front of you. And so if you've been, you know,

1132
01:03:53,840 --> 01:03:57,480
Speaker 3: living in a very privileged community and never had to

1133
01:03:57,680 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 3: deal with the conditions of poverty or homelessness or mental illness,

1134
01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:08,600
Speaker 3: addiction to substances, there's this attitude that well, I've done it,

1135
01:04:08,640 --> 01:04:12,320
Speaker 3: why can't you? And there's a lot of reasons why

1136
01:04:12,800 --> 01:04:15,960
Speaker 3: there's a lot of you know, cushion provided to a

1137
01:04:16,000 --> 01:04:17,920
Speaker 3: lot of people in our communities, and frankly a lot

1138
01:04:17,960 --> 01:04:20,160
Speaker 3: of judges on the bench, and so there really is

1139
01:04:20,160 --> 01:04:23,240
Speaker 3: a disconnect and, like you said, a real lack of

1140
01:04:23,280 --> 01:04:27,840
Speaker 3: empathy and understanding for prosecutors. Many of them are in

1141
01:04:27,840 --> 01:04:31,480
Speaker 3: that same situation, you know, have had a silver spoon

1142
01:04:31,520 --> 01:04:34,800
Speaker 3: and have the lack of the ability to understand why

1143
01:04:34,800 --> 01:04:38,120
Speaker 3: people are in certain situations. But I also find that,

1144
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 3: you know, I've there's this one prosecutor who I that

1145
01:04:41,560 --> 01:04:44,200
Speaker 3: I deal with, and he often tells me, you know,

1146
01:04:44,200 --> 01:04:47,600
Speaker 3: I'm not concerned about your client. I'm concerned about, you know,

1147
01:04:48,040 --> 01:04:52,240
Speaker 3: the people in the community. And I think to myself

1148
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:54,240
Speaker 3: and I actually say to him, this person is a

1149
01:04:54,280 --> 01:04:56,880
Speaker 3: part of the community, and if you're really concerned about

1150
01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:59,240
Speaker 3: the community, you're going to want to put this person

1151
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:03,600
Speaker 3: in the best position they can be in with services

1152
01:05:03,680 --> 01:05:09,400
Speaker 3: and housing and counseling and mental health treatment if needed,

1153
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:13,400
Speaker 3: so that when they return to the community that all

1154
01:05:13,520 --> 01:05:15,920
Speaker 3: of us are in a better position because this person

1155
01:05:15,960 --> 01:05:18,080
Speaker 3: is in a better position. So a lot of time

1156
01:05:18,120 --> 01:05:21,240
Speaker 3: there's a real disconnect there. Certain people in the criminal

1157
01:05:21,280 --> 01:05:25,640
Speaker 3: justice system see their goal as prosecution exclusive from public

1158
01:05:25,680 --> 01:05:27,600
Speaker 3: service and helping individuals.

1159
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 1: Well, I have to ask the proverbial question, why should

1160
01:05:31,920 --> 01:05:32,680
Speaker 1: people vote for you?

1161
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:37,760
Speaker 3: They should vote for me because, first of all, what

1162
01:05:37,800 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 3: you talked about empathy, the ability to see myself in

1163
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 3: the shoes of the people who will appear in front

1164
01:05:44,520 --> 01:05:47,920
Speaker 3: of me in my courtroom, to see myself as a

1165
01:05:47,960 --> 01:05:51,520
Speaker 3: young woman in south central Los Angeles, to see what

1166
01:05:51,600 --> 01:05:55,000
Speaker 3: my neighbors are going through, to see myself in the

1167
01:05:55,040 --> 01:05:56,680
Speaker 3: eyes of the people who stand in front of me.

1168
01:05:57,160 --> 01:06:00,400
Speaker 3: That's critical, I think to a bench officer, as we've

1169
01:06:00,440 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 3: indicated this lack of empathy and disconnect with people in

1170
01:06:03,840 --> 01:06:06,040
Speaker 3: the community or what has led us to where we

1171
01:06:06,080 --> 01:06:09,320
Speaker 3: are today, a system of mass incarceration and believing that

1172
01:06:09,360 --> 01:06:12,240
Speaker 3: we got to remove people from the community so that

1173
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:16,720
Speaker 3: the rest of us, regular people can be okay. Well,

1174
01:06:17,040 --> 01:06:19,120
Speaker 3: I say that that's different. That we're all a part

1175
01:06:19,160 --> 01:06:21,480
Speaker 3: of this community, and a part of making us all

1176
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 3: safe is to help our brother to help the person

1177
01:06:25,120 --> 01:06:28,439
Speaker 3: who is at their lowest place in life, who has

1178
01:06:28,480 --> 01:06:31,880
Speaker 3: the need in this moment, and to provide them with resources.

1179
01:06:32,000 --> 01:06:34,800
Speaker 3: So you should vote for me because I see myself

1180
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:38,720
Speaker 3: as in the eyes of the people who will appear

1181
01:06:38,800 --> 01:06:39,360
Speaker 3: in front of me.

1182
01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:41,800
Speaker 1: I have to ask a good question, is that you

1183
01:06:42,120 --> 01:06:44,640
Speaker 1: decided to run for judge because you've seen that there

1184
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:49,280
Speaker 1: was a deficit or you felt that you could make

1185
01:06:49,360 --> 01:06:51,800
Speaker 1: a difference. Right. Oh, absolutely.

1186
01:06:51,960 --> 01:06:54,200
Speaker 3: This is not something that I would have considered ten

1187
01:06:54,280 --> 01:06:57,440
Speaker 3: fifteen years ago, when the laws on the books, like

1188
01:06:57,480 --> 01:07:02,080
Speaker 3: the three strikes law and enhanced sentencing schemes made it

1189
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:06,160
Speaker 3: really really difficult for bench officers who wanted to do

1190
01:07:06,200 --> 01:07:10,440
Speaker 3: the right thing to legally do so. But I believe

1191
01:07:10,440 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 3: that the legislature and certainly the people in our community

1192
01:07:13,320 --> 01:07:16,360
Speaker 3: voters realize that, you know, the way that we've been

1193
01:07:16,360 --> 01:07:21,480
Speaker 3: doing things don't work. People returning to the system. Recidivism

1194
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:25,000
Speaker 3: is something that's very real. It's because we haven't addressed

1195
01:07:25,000 --> 01:07:27,400
Speaker 3: the underlying causes of crime.

1196
01:07:27,920 --> 01:07:30,840
Speaker 1: So what do you think the underlying causes of crime is.

1197
01:07:31,680 --> 01:07:35,960
Speaker 3: Well, there's definitely a connection in my experience between crime

1198
01:07:36,200 --> 01:07:39,600
Speaker 3: and mental illness. I would say at least seventy percent

1199
01:07:39,640 --> 01:07:43,320
Speaker 3: of my clients have some form of mental illness that

1200
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:46,440
Speaker 3: they're dealing with, not severe in all cases, but you know,

1201
01:07:46,520 --> 01:07:50,000
Speaker 3: depression all the way up to schizophrenia, bipolar disorders are

1202
01:07:50,040 --> 01:07:53,080
Speaker 3: something that many of my clients deal with. I think

1203
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:57,760
Speaker 3: the existence of poverty, obviously, an ability to support yourself

1204
01:07:57,800 --> 01:08:02,000
Speaker 3: and your family. Drug addiction, it's definitely something that a

1205
01:08:02,040 --> 01:08:05,720
Speaker 3: lot of my clients are plagued with, untreated drug addiction, homelessness.

1206
01:08:06,240 --> 01:08:10,160
Speaker 3: All of these things impact and individual's presence in the

1207
01:08:10,160 --> 01:08:13,600
Speaker 3: criminal justice system or likelihood to define themselves in that system.

1208
01:08:14,400 --> 01:08:17,479
Speaker 3: So you can jail your way out of these issues

1209
01:08:17,479 --> 01:08:20,160
Speaker 3: that you're stating. You're saying that there should be something

1210
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:22,360
Speaker 3: else that should be on I don't want to say

1211
01:08:22,560 --> 01:08:24,759
Speaker 3: the books, but they should be something else in place

1212
01:08:25,160 --> 01:08:27,320
Speaker 3: that people don't use as the last resort coming to

1213
01:08:28,800 --> 01:08:31,479
Speaker 3: the court. Absolutely, you can't jail yourself out of you

1214
01:08:31,520 --> 01:08:36,120
Speaker 3: can't punish away mental illness. You can't punish away poverty

1215
01:08:36,240 --> 01:08:39,599
Speaker 3: and drug addiction. You've got to treat these conditions. You've

1216
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:42,840
Speaker 3: got to give people an opportunity to pull themselves up

1217
01:08:42,880 --> 01:08:44,960
Speaker 3: out of the place where they are and have the

1218
01:08:45,000 --> 01:08:48,200
Speaker 3: motivation to do so. Because you're not sitting in a

1219
01:08:48,240 --> 01:08:51,360
Speaker 3: cell for two or three or five years because of

1220
01:08:51,920 --> 01:08:54,240
Speaker 3: the crime that you've committed, but you're in a place,

1221
01:08:54,280 --> 01:08:58,840
Speaker 3: perhaps a community based treatment organization that provides you with

1222
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:02,719
Speaker 3: not only treatment, but support and the opportunity for permanent

1223
01:09:02,760 --> 01:09:05,800
Speaker 3: housing when you graduate from these programs. These are the

1224
01:09:05,840 --> 01:09:08,240
Speaker 3: things that I think that our criminal justice system needs

1225
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:11,360
Speaker 3: to create as a default position to help people, as

1226
01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:14,600
Speaker 3: opposed to, Oh, you're here and so you're going to

1227
01:09:14,600 --> 01:09:17,679
Speaker 3: prison for the crime that you committed, and you mentioned

1228
01:09:18,000 --> 01:09:20,719
Speaker 3: you know the laws on the books. These laws exist today.

1229
01:09:20,760 --> 01:09:23,280
Speaker 3: As I have indicated to you, the law has changed

1230
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 3: over the last ten fifteen years, and it just takes

1231
01:09:26,439 --> 01:09:29,680
Speaker 3: judges on the bench who have the heart and the

1232
01:09:29,720 --> 01:09:33,479
Speaker 3: desire and the courage to use them and to give

1233
01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:34,040
Speaker 3: people help.

1234
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:38,160
Speaker 1: Which follows up to how would you like to be remembered?

1235
01:09:39,439 --> 01:09:42,200
Speaker 1: You mean like after I die? Oh, you know, I'm

1236
01:09:42,200 --> 01:09:44,840
Speaker 1: hearing if people want to go to that letter will

1237
01:09:44,880 --> 01:09:47,040
Speaker 1: go into the upper room. But I mean, I'm just saying,

1238
01:09:47,080 --> 01:09:50,880
Speaker 1: you know, giving you what your ambitions are and you

1239
01:09:50,880 --> 01:09:54,599
Speaker 1: know your trajectory, what would you like to be remembered for, well.

1240
01:09:56,160 --> 01:09:59,439
Speaker 3: Having the courage to help people in situations where other

1241
01:09:59,479 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 3: people might find it controversial. I'd like to be known

1242
01:10:03,240 --> 01:10:07,400
Speaker 3: as someone who, as I've stated, is aligned with my community,

1243
01:10:07,880 --> 01:10:11,599
Speaker 3: someone who sees herself in the eyes of the community,

1244
01:10:11,600 --> 01:10:15,400
Speaker 3: as opposed to being separate from that community. Someone who

1245
01:10:15,600 --> 01:10:18,519
Speaker 3: left the world a better place than she found it.

1246
01:10:20,200 --> 01:10:24,000
Speaker 1: That sounds good. Is there anything that I missed that

1247
01:10:24,040 --> 01:10:24,880
Speaker 1: you want to talk around?

1248
01:10:25,760 --> 01:10:29,799
Speaker 3: Well, I would just encourage people to educate themselves about

1249
01:10:30,080 --> 01:10:34,360
Speaker 3: the candidates in all races on our ballot for March fifth.

1250
01:10:35,160 --> 01:10:37,640
Speaker 3: There are a lot of good candidates out there with

1251
01:10:37,800 --> 01:10:42,120
Speaker 3: a lot of great background, people who have progressive ideas

1252
01:10:42,160 --> 01:10:44,840
Speaker 3: about how to make change in the community and to

1253
01:10:44,920 --> 01:10:47,800
Speaker 3: make a good selection. I mean, judges are our race.

1254
01:10:47,880 --> 01:10:51,400
Speaker 3: The judge race is a very low information race. A

1255
01:10:51,439 --> 01:10:54,599
Speaker 3: lot of people don't know who they're voting for. So

1256
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:57,200
Speaker 3: I would just say don't do Aeni Meeni miney moe.

1257
01:10:58,120 --> 01:11:01,479
Speaker 3: You know, all of the candidate dates have social media,

1258
01:11:02,400 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 3: Google their names and there's a wealth of information out

1259
01:11:05,360 --> 01:11:08,759
Speaker 3: there for people to find out about who's a running

1260
01:11:08,800 --> 01:11:11,880
Speaker 3: for office. And I'd also like to say, please vote

1261
01:11:11,880 --> 01:11:14,160
Speaker 3: for me, and.

1262
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:17,080
Speaker 1: Nothing wrong with that. Thank you THEO, thanks for having me,

1263
01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:24,360
Speaker 1: thank you for joining us. Thanks Erica, and you can

1264
01:11:24,439 --> 01:11:29,400
Speaker 1: learn more about our campaign at www dot Wileyford Judge

1265
01:11:29,439 --> 01:11:33,439
Speaker 1: dot com. And here's the interview you've been waiting for.

1266
01:11:33,960 --> 01:11:36,599
Speaker 1: My interview with doctor Corndell West when he made an

1267
01:11:36,600 --> 01:11:44,720
Speaker 1: appearance in La this past November. Here's our conversation. I

1268
01:11:44,760 --> 01:11:47,559
Speaker 1: have doctor Quail West. Funny you. I have to tell

1269
01:11:47,560 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 1: you I read one of your books when I was

1270
01:11:49,040 --> 01:11:51,519
Speaker 1: in college. I remember Race Matters. Of course, it was

1271
01:11:51,800 --> 01:11:56,000
Speaker 1: many moons ago. You've written mothers of other books in there.

1272
01:11:56,520 --> 01:11:59,479
Speaker 1: He's currently running for president, and I'm going to give

1273
01:11:59,560 --> 01:12:02,280
Speaker 1: him some just from the perspective of the unhoused. So

1274
01:12:02,479 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 1: from the un housed perspective, what is it that you

1275
01:12:05,439 --> 01:12:08,120
Speaker 1: offer us that we could vote for you or if

1276
01:12:08,160 --> 01:12:10,280
Speaker 1: we could be interested in your platform.

1277
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:14,080
Speaker 5: Well, my candidacy is actually based on the legacy of

1278
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:17,800
Speaker 5: Mountin Luther King Junior and Fanny Liu Hamer, which is

1279
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:22,559
Speaker 5: calling for the abolition of poverty and the abolition of

1280
01:12:22,720 --> 01:12:29,520
Speaker 5: unhousedness or houselessness. That all we need is massive investment

1281
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:33,519
Speaker 5: of resources to hit the issues of poverty and the

1282
01:12:33,640 --> 01:12:37,160
Speaker 5: un housed. Right now, we have warp priorities not just

1283
01:12:37,200 --> 01:12:41,960
Speaker 5: in Washington, but in society across the board to act

1284
01:12:42,280 --> 01:12:45,679
Speaker 5: if this is a question of just individual behavior rather

1285
01:12:45,760 --> 01:12:48,960
Speaker 5: than a question of the system. We live in a

1286
01:12:49,200 --> 01:12:54,120
Speaker 5: system where we give priorities the war to guns and

1287
01:12:54,320 --> 01:13:00,680
Speaker 5: militarized responses to issues, and we need to demilitarize. We

1288
01:13:00,760 --> 01:13:04,840
Speaker 5: need to acknowledge that there's no way in which this

1289
01:13:04,960 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 5: society can survive if it does not hit the issues

1290
01:13:09,520 --> 01:13:13,479
Speaker 5: of poor and working people. And that has to do

1291
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:15,680
Speaker 5: with jobs with a living wage. It has to do

1292
01:13:15,800 --> 01:13:18,519
Speaker 5: with free medicare, it has to do with free education,

1293
01:13:19,080 --> 01:13:21,960
Speaker 5: it has to do with housing as a human right,

1294
01:13:22,160 --> 01:13:26,960
Speaker 5: like any of the basic human rights. And for me, spiritually,

1295
01:13:27,880 --> 01:13:30,439
Speaker 5: it has to do with acknowledging the dignitive each and

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01:13:30,520 --> 01:13:33,680
Speaker 5: every one of us, no matter what color, gender, sexual orientation.

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01:13:34,760 --> 01:13:38,120
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier about the demilitarization, and it bleeds over

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01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:41,200
Speaker 1: into our society with our bloated budget here at Los Angeles,

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01:13:41,280 --> 01:13:44,960
Speaker 1: with the four billion dollar budget, is that something that

1300
01:13:45,000 --> 01:13:46,200
Speaker 1: you would look into as well.

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01:13:46,840 --> 01:13:49,160
Speaker 5: Indeed, now, of course, you know, at the federal government

1302
01:13:49,200 --> 01:13:53,000
Speaker 5: there's a certain autonomy and independence that the local governments have.

1303
01:13:53,160 --> 01:13:55,519
Speaker 5: I'd use a bullet pulpit to try to get LA

1304
01:13:56,439 --> 01:13:59,759
Speaker 5: to hit its warp priorities, because LA too often simply

1305
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:03,840
Speaker 5: imitates the state and imitates the federal government. If we've

1306
01:14:03,840 --> 01:14:07,599
Speaker 5: got fifty seven cents for every dollar in the US

1307
01:14:07,640 --> 01:14:11,519
Speaker 5: budget going to the military, then my hunch is LA's

1308
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:15,200
Speaker 5: probably got a similar percentage going to the police. So

1309
01:14:15,280 --> 01:14:18,960
Speaker 5: it's still a militarizing of the society in terms of

1310
01:14:18,960 --> 01:14:23,559
Speaker 5: putting military priorities as opposed to the priorities of the

1311
01:14:23,600 --> 01:14:25,559
Speaker 5: social needs of poor and working people.

1312
01:14:25,920 --> 01:14:28,559
Speaker 1: Just like the creation of cop City in Atlanta. One

1313
01:14:28,600 --> 01:14:31,000
Speaker 1: of the things that I've noticed that there has been,

1314
01:14:31,040 --> 01:14:34,800
Speaker 1: like the projects that have been used to use the

1315
01:14:34,880 --> 01:14:38,160
Speaker 1: characters stick approach, the government will only give out money

1316
01:14:38,200 --> 01:14:41,000
Speaker 1: if it has a car storal component or a criminalized opponent.

1317
01:14:41,280 --> 01:14:44,320
Speaker 1: And I was wondering if, particularly for people that had

1318
01:14:44,360 --> 01:14:48,240
Speaker 1: suffered from housess like me and been victimized with that,

1319
01:14:48,240 --> 01:14:51,519
Speaker 1: that really doesn't help the issue. So I really appreciate

1320
01:14:51,560 --> 01:14:54,080
Speaker 1: that you look into that. What are the things that

1321
01:14:54,200 --> 01:14:57,479
Speaker 1: where I believe the conversation that we had at the

1322
01:14:57,600 --> 01:15:00,720
Speaker 1: meeting was getting people that want to help but don't

1323
01:15:00,800 --> 01:15:03,960
Speaker 1: understand what's going on. How could you use this as

1324
01:15:04,000 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 1: your platform to get people to understand a little bit

1325
01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:10,479
Speaker 1: of the complexities. Like I mentioned the increase of elderly

1326
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:13,719
Speaker 1: unhoused women, I should have mentioned that there are sixty

1327
01:15:13,800 --> 01:15:17,679
Speaker 1: eight thousand unhoused children in Los Angeles School District. These

1328
01:15:17,680 --> 01:15:21,200
Speaker 1: conversations go by the wayside because so often people say

1329
01:15:21,280 --> 01:15:24,360
Speaker 1: unhouse people are criminals or mentally ill, or it's a

1330
01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:27,520
Speaker 1: personal feeling. So what could you do to your bullypool

1331
01:15:27,560 --> 01:15:30,200
Speaker 1: pit to bring in people that want to help and

1332
01:15:30,240 --> 01:15:31,040
Speaker 1: they don't know how to go.

1333
01:15:31,640 --> 01:15:34,000
Speaker 5: You know, I've been blessed to teach in prisons for

1334
01:15:34,000 --> 01:15:38,559
Speaker 5: forty one years and as a black man in America

1335
01:15:38,760 --> 01:15:42,880
Speaker 5: having to deal with stereotypes for so long. Too often

1336
01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:48,440
Speaker 5: the prisoners are stereotyped, Too often the unhoused are stereotyped.

1337
01:15:49,000 --> 01:15:51,280
Speaker 5: And so for most people, they want to believe that

1338
01:15:51,439 --> 01:15:57,360
Speaker 5: somehow it's a question of drugs or mental health. And

1339
01:15:57,439 --> 01:15:59,400
Speaker 5: we know about one out of little less than one

1340
01:15:59,439 --> 01:16:03,640
Speaker 5: out of three is tied maybe to substance abuse or

1341
01:16:03,680 --> 01:16:07,200
Speaker 5: tied to mental health. That means that the vast majority

1342
01:16:07,240 --> 01:16:10,760
Speaker 5: of our precious human beings and precious fellows citizens are

1343
01:16:10,800 --> 01:16:14,719
Speaker 5: there because they're dealing with the effects of a deeply

1344
01:16:14,920 --> 01:16:20,200
Speaker 5: unjust capitalist system that puts a priority on profit rather

1345
01:16:20,280 --> 01:16:25,840
Speaker 5: than satisfying human need, and a system that generates consequences

1346
01:16:25,880 --> 01:16:29,720
Speaker 5: that people have to deal with as individuals as if

1347
01:16:29,880 --> 01:16:34,560
Speaker 5: it's their fault, as opposed to being a deep failure

1348
01:16:34,720 --> 01:16:39,400
Speaker 5: of the system. And you need leadership to tell those

1349
01:16:39,640 --> 01:16:43,519
Speaker 5: kinds of truths, and it comes down to do we

1350
01:16:43,680 --> 01:16:46,800
Speaker 5: have what it takes to acknowledge the rich humanity and

1351
01:16:46,880 --> 01:16:49,519
Speaker 5: creativity of each and every one of us, including our

1352
01:16:49,560 --> 01:16:52,280
Speaker 5: precious unhoused brothers and sisters and sibil.

1353
01:16:52,160 --> 01:16:53,920
Speaker 1: Well, doctor West, thank you for your time.

1354
01:16:54,280 --> 01:16:58,519
Speaker 5: Well, I salute you, my brother, because you are not

1355
01:16:58,680 --> 01:17:01,800
Speaker 5: just a force for good, but you have a special

1356
01:17:02,040 --> 01:17:07,520
Speaker 5: kind of eloquent, suspecial kind of courage and a special

1357
01:17:07,640 --> 01:17:11,080
Speaker 5: kind of sensitivity to others. And as I told the

1358
01:17:11,120 --> 01:17:15,599
Speaker 5: group just a few minutes ago, your part of eleven

1359
01:17:16,120 --> 01:17:17,080
Speaker 5: in the LA love.

1360
01:17:22,200 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 1: A huge thank you to doctor West for his time

1361
01:17:24,640 --> 01:17:27,000
Speaker 1: and you can learn more about his campaign over at

1362
01:17:27,200 --> 01:17:32,960
Speaker 1: www dot Cornell West twenty twenty four dot com. And

1363
01:17:33,000 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 1: that about does it for this week. Election is on

1364
01:17:35,479 --> 01:17:39,000
Speaker 1: March fifth. Next time, we'll be back with a look

1365
01:17:39,040 --> 01:17:42,760
Speaker 1: into the realities of the LGBQT in housed community and

1366
01:17:42,800 --> 01:17:46,320
Speaker 1: what they face in their day to day lives. Until then,

1367
01:17:46,479 --> 01:17:50,720
Speaker 1: keep sharing the show. Follow us at wwwwiedi inhouse dot

1368
01:17:50,720 --> 01:17:56,320
Speaker 1: com and at Widianhouse on Instagram. May we again meet

1369
01:17:56,400 --> 01:18:01,919
Speaker 1: in the light of understanding. William House is a production

1370
01:18:02,120 --> 01:18:05,880
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. It is written, hosted, and created by me

1371
01:18:06,080 --> 01:18:11,120
Speaker 1: Theo Henderson. Our producers are Shamie Loftus, Lyra Smith and

1372
01:18:11,240 --> 01:18:15,160
Speaker 1: Katie Fisher. Our editor is Adam Wong, and our logo

1373
01:18:15,320 --> 01:18:18,200
Speaker 1: art is also by Katie Fisher. Thanks for listening.