FOR "TUTOR NICOLE" ONLY

PAGE 93 - Clinical Professor Ralph Fertig, a former social worker, lawyer, retired federal administrative judge, and freedom rider in the civil rights movement, decided to engage the MSW students at the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California (USC) in a project to address the huge problem of homelessness in Los Angeles County. As a result of his efforts, since 2006, more than 1,000 students in Social Welfare Policy classes at the School of Social Work at USC have engaged in policy advocacy to end homelessness in Los Angeles County and beyond. A description of the course and how students success-fully engaged in policy advocacy targeted at addressing the homeless crisis in the region and state is given next. Throughout the winter of 2005 – 2006, students and faculty in USC ’ s Social Welfare Policy classes met with city council members, directors of local advocacy organizations, and ministers and rabbis of prominent local churches and synagogues to develop plans for school-wide action on the issue of homelessness. At that time, a California state senator was in the process of drafting several pieces of legislation related to the problems of affordable housing and homelessness, one of which recognized “housing by right, ” and mandated all cities and counties throughout California to survey and develop plans to house homeless persons. One of those pieces of legislation, Assembly Bill (AB) 2634, became the centerpiece of the spring 2006 Social Welfare Policy course for more than300 masters-level social work students.

PAGE 94 -That spring, students mobilized support for AB 2634. Each of the 14 course sections chose a homeless subpopulation on which to focus (such as veterans, emancipated foster youth, or persistently mentally ill individuals). They developed an extensive profile of the target subpopulation by conducting research “ in the streets, ” visiting local homeless service organizations, taking guided tours of areas such as Skid Row, and interviewing key informants. They also conducted research on relevant elected officials, such as state senators and assembly members, and arranged meetings with them. Individually and ingroups, they worked toward the adoption of AB 2634 by generating support for the bill from social service, faith-based, and advocacy organizations; mobilizing support from the public at large by bringing attention to the media, circulating pamphlets about the issue, gathering signatures for a petition, and conducting town hall-style meetings; and generating support directly from elected officials by meeting with staffers, testifying before legislative bodies, and conducing a letter-writing campaign.

AB 2634 passed both houses of the CA State Legislature that spring, but was vetoed by the governor. The Social Welfare Policy instructors met in the fall of 2006 and committed to fighting on. They met again with the senator to procure his promise that he would introduce the bill again in the next legislative session. This time it would be introduced as Senate Bill (SB) 2. Having ample time to prepare for mobilization around SB 2, the course was revamped to include more sophisticated policy advocacy strategies. This time each of the 14 course sections would be assigned one state senatorial district and its two overlapping state assembly districts. Students would further be instructed to match the needs of a homeless subpopulation to the interests of their state senator or assembly member. For example, where a legislator’ s interest was on schools, students would document out-of-school homeless children, and where the legislator was a veteran or concerned with veterans ’ issues, the students would focus on studies of the homeless veteran population.

Students and instructors approached key elected officials to secure their endorsement of SB 2. They organized a conference on homelessness that filled a local temple, and where the mayor of Los Angeles and the incoming chairman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors pledged their support for SB 2. When the sheriff of Los Angeles County visited the school on another matter, he was confronted by students and asked to sign a petition in support of SB 2. When a team of students welcomed the speaker of the California State Assembly to campus for another event, his vow to back SB 2 was also secured. Other public officials, state legislators, city council members, and the lieutenant governor were approached with similar results. Students followed up with the Los Angeles City Council, testifying before two committees to seek support for SB 2. By April, a unanimous city council resolution urged the state legislature and the governor to pass SB 2. Early efforts were made to work collaboratively with the California chapter of NASW to make SB 2 a focal point of the annual Lobby Days event in the state capitol, which meant that more than 800 social work students from around the state lobbied members of the California legislature in the spring of 2007 to support SB 2. The bill passed the CA State Assembly and Senate with even wider margins than AB 2634 had in the previous year. In October 2007, the governor of California signed SB 2 into law.

The obvious next step was to engage students in the implementation of the piece of legislation they had fought so hard to pass. Since SB 2 left implementation planning to local jurisdictions, meetings were held prior to the beginning of the spring 2008 semester with a number of experts from low-income housing agencies, homeless advocacy organizations, and the Los Angeles Mayor ’ s Office to discuss best-practice policies for implementation. The uniform response was to secure an Inclusionary Zoning ordinance. A meeting with the chairman of the Los Angeles City Council ’ s Planning and Land Use Management Committee provided an opportunity to discuss inclusionary zoning and the city ’ s plans to implement SB 2.

PAGE 95 - The semester began with a congregate assembly of students in which a Los Angeles City Council member asked the class to join him in seeking the support of other Council members for his Mixed-Income Housing Ordinance. The ordinance provided that all housing developments of four or more units must include 10 to 15 percent affordable housing, offering incentives to developers to make it economically feasible. Students were assigned to city council districts and prepared testimony to deliver to their respective city councils. Although they secured the support of four of the fifteen city council members, they needed at least eight. To their disappointment, a key member of the city council stalled on the ordinance, and by the end of the semester (and still to this date), it still hadn’t gone up for a vote. Students and instructors together decided to shift their focus in the 2009 policy courses to the issue of homeless families and children. This time more than 350 students in 16 course sections focused on working with legislators to introduce legislation that would establish housing rights for homeless families and children. The students spent the semester interviewing homeless families on the streets and in shelters to document their situations, providing written testimony to the CA State Senate and Assembly on their findings, and developing “Children ’ s Right to Housing. ” This 16-point resolution was presented to and endorsed by United States Congresswoman Maxine Waters in spring 2009. Representative Waters subsequently introduced House Resolution 582, Right of Children to Housing, into the 111th session of the United States Congress.