MARK WILSON - Revolutionizing South LA

Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have a very special guest, founder, owner of CRCD, Coalition of Responsible Community Development, is in the building. Oh right, And how long has CRCD been around.

CRCD has been around. This year makes twenty years.

Twenty years. So a little backstory about Mark, Mark Wilson is I don't even say your name, huh. Mark Wilson, owner of Coalition of Responsible Community Development, is in the building. It's an honor to have you, guys. I've tried to get this interview for a couple of years now. That just goes to show you know how much I wanted this interview. And you'll learn throughout this interview why on

The Coalition for Responsible Community Development CRCD, we are not for profit community development corporation, so that our mission is to change lives and build neighborhoods responsibly. We do a lot of that work in workforce development. I'll go over

Careers at their choice.

Of course, providing them with wrap around support services along the way, because when you come from a vulnerable background, it's difficult to even keep a job. A lot of times, it's not folks fault that they didn't have.

A place to sleep that night.

It's not folks fault that somebody may have kicked them out because of of their gender, and it's not folks fault on not having adequate transportation and the transportation system in their neighborhood so they can get to work on time, and so we provide those supports what we call barrier supports or support services, so folks can gav game full

Each of our.

Buildings and projects, all based in South LA, have wrap around support services, so we actually have offices and staff at each of our building sites, so they're providing residents with opportunities to move into employment, move into.

Other services, access.

To healthcare, and any other thing that will support them and moving their lives forward and so we're we're proud of that to be able to provide those not only the housing which is very affordable, usually targeting individuals that can move in a place where thirty percent your average income is your rent and it's subsidized by other government sources. So in LA that's a really big deal.

And they're really nice building and they're really nice when you get subsidized. I've pulled up on some of these buildings and these buildings are absolutely stunning. You would drive by it and say, this is a very nice building, and yes, when you do walk in, you do see the support.

Yes, and so so you know, we're proud of that.

We have partnerships with the LA Community College District, so we provide services on site in partnership with colleges like Los Angeles Trade Tech Community College, East LA Community College

So that's pretty exciting.

We've had and withstand that partnership for about almost fourteen years now.

Yes.

Yes, we also partner with youth Field Charter School of California, so we manage charter school on the campus of La Trade Tech where we're working with young people eighteen to twenty six primarily for whatever reason, they didn't complete traditional school, and so they find themselves at CRCD and go through CRCD Academy where they earn a high school diploma and they're duel enrolled in the community college at the same time.

Wow. Yes, and then to go back to workforce development, can you give you an example of some of the trades that do you guys teach or teach me?

Yes, And so fourteen years ago we created CRCD Enterprises, which is a separate entity. It's a for profit entity that is now a general contractor licensed with the state of California. We're also licensed to do let abatement and let abatement training. And so young people that go through are workforce say particularly Youth Bill. So we run the South LA Youth Build or we are South LA Youth Build.

That's the labor unions.

So they have an opportunity to learn about multiple trades, so plumbing, drywall, painting, pipe fitting, concrete and then through that training which is typically about three weeks or three.

Four weeks I want to get in that.

Youth Build is three weeks, and then we have other traders that are eight weeks that are more apprenticeship base.

So for Youth BUEL you do three hundred hours.

If the young person decides for trade they like, they have an opportunity to go through a pathway with a union to become an apprentice.

And the Youth Built age group is age group.

That age group is eighteen to twenty four at entry.

Wow you hear that, guys, So straight out of high school you could pick a trade you can.

Pick a trade as soon as you actually during while you're getting your diploma. With Crcity Academy, you can actually be working on your trade and receiving your high school diploma at the same time.

And when you graduate.

You can work more towards that trade because you will be a pre apprentice. Because our training is approved by the union.

Now is there stipulations if they don't go to the charter school.

If they don't go to our charter school, there's no stipulation. You still can enroll in our mc th training because we now have the Tresa McCoy Regional Infrastructure Development Training Center. So basically it's a training center that we now run the community. It's right off of twenty fifth in Central Avenue.

Wow. That's a big deal. Wow. And then would you say, I want to talk about race a little bit. When you think of South Central you think of predominantly a certain race. What race would you say is the community that you tend to help more so or what is that divide of that race.

So the community itself, meaning residents that live there, are directly a majority of Latino. I would say probably eighty five percent. In our programs, it's roughly fifty percent African American fifty percent Latino.

Wow.

And we get a higher number of African Americans unfortunately, because African Americans make up a high rate of the individuals that are returned to the community from prison.

Wow.

They are the majority of young people that are in the false care system and that age out. Also the majority of young people that are unhoused in LA And because of those statistics and because we work with that population primarily, our African American numbers are higher than the racial.

In the community.

So the community itself is eighty five percent Latino, but we hear about a fifty to fifty racial and the people that we serve.

Yeah.

I worked with a startup that dealt with a lot of apartment buildings, and when you're dealing with low income housing, I noticed when I would talk to property managers what they were dealing with on a regular basis in mental illness or mental struggles was all over the spectrum, Like you had to have a whole different caliber of I mean, you would assume that they were like numb to just

Right, We're not a licensed therapist. And the good thing about SERISD is we know how to partner. We know how to do what we do well, and then we know how to collaborate and partner with others that do their craft well. And so we partner with Kedrin, which has a mental health hospital in South Los Angeles. They're actually working on building a new facility i think close to the Watts and they have some of the best mental health professionals that I've ever worked with and I've

Dropping center called Place Yes.

It's a youth dropping center, so young people from anywhere. Usually we get young people from all over the city, not just South LA. And we're probably one of the few dropping centers in the city of La, particularly in South LA. So they drop in primarily looking for housing opportunities, and we have housing navigators.

Individuals may come in needing mental.

Health support, so we provide support to them by way of KEDRON. Others may just be coming in for other services. Maybe they need to take a shower, maybe they just need to park somewhere and take a nap because they've been up all night. Because a lot of young people do not like going into the shelters that are available

Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, how many people do see RCD I'm getting all don't get all up in people to CRCD employing.

So right now today because we're so CRCD the nonprofit employees about one hundred and sixty seven full time employees.

We probably employ on part.

Time basis through different services or whatnot, another two to three thousand people that come through our doors.

Now.

CRCD Enterprises On which is our for profit and construction company, employees today about two hundred and fifty individuals full time. And then CRCD Partners, who is does everything real estate development and it's also a for profit entity, employees about forty individuals.

So all together, if you.

Do the math, we're employing about a little over five hundred individuals.

Can do the math that quick, but.

That's a lot and there's a lot of arms. Yes, yes, I'm genuinely curious what a day in the life of you is. Do you have two phones or one?

I have one phone.

They've tried to give me two phones, but I'm like one is enough. And then I have to have an executive assistant that is more than just another phone, but she takes care of other things and people that's been trying to find me or.

So you have your cell phone number? Are you am? I am? I very lucky and fortunate to have this numb.

I don't want to put it like that, but you wanted to look, I feel cool now.

You got a direct connect.

Yeah, I hit them directly, like please, please, please please, because I think I did try the other ways, which is like going to through other people. See but if you go direct, go direct. If you think about it, it worked best when I went direct. It does so if you see them on the street, guys hit me up.

Yeah, it's a number of things. I don't think.

I know, I'm not doing a lot of PR because I'm typically focused.

On the work.

I've never been someone that like to be all in the videos in front of the newspapers, so I ride a little low. So even doing this is a little different for me.

I love it. I think you need to do more of it. I wonder if does that help or hinder your fundraising processes. I would imagine you have to do some level of PR.

Yeah, I mean with fundraising.

I mean, you know, I do the conferences, I do the panel discussions, and I do those things which helps to get our word and our message out. I do a lot of meetings with different foundations and things of that nature. So I would think that it may hinder it a bit because our message and what we do a lot of folks still don't know. Yeah, yeah, and I appreciate that, and so we're working on figuring out how to do better or be better at.

PR and communications, you know.

But for me myself, I'm just more focused on the work and then allow folks like the board and others to think about ways that we.

Can kind of get out more and get.

In journals, get interviewed by different magazines. Really, you know, talk about the unique work that we're doing in South LA. Because it's tough work that the team is doing. It's not easy when you're managing contracts that have time limits on them and you have a young person or an adult that doesn't have a time limit on when they can get on their feet or when they can somehow

To work with him.

So you know, that's why, you know, the work is difficult, and where there are opportunities for us to talk more about the work, we can be better at doing so because I know there's a lot more people that may want to support what we're doing.

So yeah, yeah, did Amazon ever hit you guys up? I'll discouraged because she has been making it right all around.

You know, I don't think they hit us up, And I can be mistaken, so I don't want a mistake openly.

But I haven't seen anything.

Oh you would know. I've heard, Sorry, she dropped millions on some nonprobability. They just say they just get a random I.

Mean, I'm sure, but I haven't gotten a rack.

Yeah, I think you would know.

Yeah, I would know.

I think you would.

I think see.

When you refer to Amazon about Kensey Scott.

So I believe we did support from McKenzie Scott a couple of years ago.

So yeah, I'm like made it.

Yeah, No, No, she's good. They good folks. You're like a lot of Amazon packages.

No, because she has she definitely, I don't know. She's definitely been making it rain on.

A lot of I mean, her support definitely helped us to move a lot of our real estate development efforts forward.

A lot of people don't know.

You know, when we're doing these projects, you're putting, you know, millions of dollars into them before you even see one dime back, and so you're constantly raising money doing applications. They're very complicated projects to put together. It's not like your typical real estate investment deal where you just buy a hum flip or by rent because you.

Break your progresies, break ground permit request.

And so from from ground from acquisition to breaking ground to actually people moving in is typically a four year process.

Geeze for each project.

And then you're paying the whole time.

You're paying the whole time, you're paying those twenty forty staff, you're paying for permits, you're paying for you know, engineering, architectural services, and a lot of legal fees. Yeah, So affordable housing for the good people that do it all across the country don't get recognized enough for the actual difficulty that goes into it and expertise that needs to

And that's honestly a.

Lot of people don't do it because it's really hard, and it's because you're you have to put so many or go after so many different subsidies to make the project happen. So hats off to folks that do that work, include our team.

How long is a waiting list for you guys for your affordable housing?

So typically, unfortunately, on any given project, you'll have five hundred to two thousand people on the waiting lists, and the waiting list is even more you know, probably you know, I don't know the exact but we get a lot of referrals from Department of Mental Health, so they have a waiting list of thousands of folks we get on a waiting list with LARSA. They refer people to our building, particularly young people. They have you know, hundreds, if not thousands of people on the waiting lists.

And that's why, you.

Know, our mayor, our governor, our council members continue to fight to try to bring in more resources for housing because there's not a lot of units to support the need, so you have to build more. And you know, our mayor has done things to cut down the wait time and the time it takes to actually build a housing project, but it's still not enough yet of buildings in the ground to support the need. So you have a long

Wow, that's when you get a wait list. I'm guessing there's some kind of lottery process to help.

Unfortunately, I mean a lot of us don't like the lottery process because people that we're working with directly or have worked with directly, we can say, hey, we can get you housing. So in fairness to people that have been waiting for sometimes years, there is a lottery process that's controlled by either the housing the apartment, or Department of Mental Health or one of the county agencies.

And as you can imagine, they fill up pretty quickly.

Yeah, and it's with Ruth's Place, the dropping center for youth. How does that whole process work. Is there like a huge waitlist or they're just it's a safe It's.

Just a safe place you can drop in.

Okay. Is it like twenty four hours or something.

No, No, So it is not a shelter and it's not open twenty four hours. It's an eight to five or eight to six where folks can literally drop in, go through an intake process, be placed with a case manager, or if they just coming in to get some food or just want a place to relax, they can do that. Okay, So it's radomly whoever, Yeah, safe place whoever wants to come in.

And then if they come I'm just saying this for all y'all listeners. So if they come in and you're you know, you have say an issue one area transportation or food or how or whatever. You go there, you get linked with a case manager that helps redirect you to help you get those services at least temporarily.

Temporarily and usually our staff is good at connecting folks to warm handoffs.

We don't like you saying hey, go over here.

To follow this website.

It's usually refer to good groups that we work with that you know, have a relationship with our team, and then folks are placed in good hands with them. And usually it's a group, you know, like topics or others that may provide resources for un housed families. See, we don't do families and we don't do adults, and so when folks come in they may be over the age of twenty.

Four years old.

So we have partners like them and many others that we can refer people to and help them get services.

Wow, that's a lot. So going back to my question, it was the day in the life.

I mean, you know, the day life.

I mean when you're you know, you're managing your family or the best I can and you know, so a day in the life starts at six in the morning and probably ends at about six about nine at night.

Something like that. Yeah, no, sometimes it's longer than that.

It depends on what's going on and everything scrunched in between. There's a lot of teams, meeting, conference calls, meetings in person, you know, meeting with you know, funders, investors, legal teams, so forth. It depends on what's happening in the week. But every hour, on an hour, there's something going on, and then you kind of sneak in some time for some grub and maybe yeah, speaking of it, maybe a happy hour, but usually a happy hour turn into a meeting too, So yeah, yeah.

Did you take your shot yet? We're about to tell you something important, you man, I like it. You never get those like just me, well just tell me on the phone. No, No, you're going to you're going happy hour, lady. Let's wait till after happy I mean you.

I mean in the earlier days, you know, you got a lot more of those calls. Nowadays it's more so because they want us to do more, you know, And so that's a good feeling to actually be at that place where you kind of the go to organization, or at least one of them that people can go to and depend on. And so because people know we're already doing a lot. Sometime a shock can help get to it.

Yes, smart, I'll take a note in my mind. Now, now that everyone is caught up to who you are today, I had to give you a backstory because you don't do a lot of prs. So we are again thank you, thank you for coming on the show. Now I want to take us back to who you are, back with, way back, way back. So tell me what you're gonna have me eat today. Something you ate when you were broke.

So the easy and you can't go wrong in la but especially when you broke without going to tacos. And so we're gonna have some chicken tacos today on flour tortilla shells. We'll go mix in some cilantro, some salsa, green and red or your choice, with some regular white onions, and then if you like cheese, once done, you can sprinkle some of that on with some dishal our.

Yeah, this is this is good. By the way, We've had some guests do some taco type dishes, and so I went in our fridge I found this. Oh yeah, I tried it, you know, but go ahead, get your get yourself in the kitchen. I don't know if we put the right seasonings out for you. If we have it, it's okay because we could call cutting.

We got some.

Chicken seas season were good. Okay. So take me back to what was going on. Take me all the way back. I want to go broke, broke you. So take me back to what was going on when you were eating tacos.

So my mom and dad, you know, I was fortunate to grow up in a house, two parent household, and both my parents were from the South, so I want my dad. My father was from Harris County, Georgia, and my mom was from Texas Cana, Arkansas, even though they say it's Texas, but I kind of reminded that it's Arkansas. But because of their background, we eat a lot of different Southern food, and one of them was tacos.

I mean it's not traditional La style tacos. It's more like.

Ground turkey, ground chacking, ground everything, I think, because stretch.

Out a little longer and you just kind of eat on that for probably a few days. And my dad, because.

He's a good country boy, busted up the concrete in the backyard and built out a garden so he wouldn't make his own tomatoes and squash and cucumbers.

I think we.

Grew watermelon at season and strawberries and you know, and.

So that's where that's where it goes back to him.

Remind me of of a you know, my elementary or childhood days of you know, eating tacos and it'll be tacos one day, it'll be a burrito the next day, but it'll be the same meat.

I can respect that. Yeah, And you know, now that I think about it, you're right, because ground turkey, you could do tacos and spaghetti.

You know. Yep, you can mix it up.

You can mix it up.

It wasn't no waste. Let's just say that. And so that's what it always remind me of.

And my grandmother and my auntie's they were great, good cooks.

And you know, and so it was just you know.

Who made the best burrito or you know, like my auntie Debbie rest in peace, but she made the best.

Chunky beef still tis there. I don't know how it was made, but it was good.

And what did they do for work?

So my father was a contractor. It was a contractor more of a like a foreman superintendent.

He was the hands on.

Guy probably built a lot of the early shopping centers in South LA. Did a lot of brick mason work, so a lot of the walls and other concrete related work in La.

My dad was part of. He wasn't just one trade.

He knew all of the trades and so that inspired me as a young boy when he told me I was you know, we had to get up and go to work when we were young. So it wasn't no up and go outside and play.

Not for me and my sister.

We had to get up, clean the backyard, wash the dishes. And that's because he had a strong work ethic early on when helping around, you know, things that need to be repaired in the house. He figured out probably when I was about four or five years old, that construction wasn't gonna be for me, meaning the actual being a construction worker wasn't gonna be for me. And so I'm seizing this a little different, but just work with me here,

You know.

Before I may say global warming got into effect, it used to be when I was young, we actually had seasons in La You had your summer, you knew when it was gonna rain. They actually used to sell rain coats in the department stores. They don't know more.

You gotta find it or go online.

But it was like racks and racks of like rain gear that you don't find as much today, you know. And so when it rained, my father didn't work, so it was my mom that had to pick up the slack whole season without working because they couldn't work in the rain. Yeah, and so you know my mom would be there to pick up the slack. Make sure you know, when we were young, we didn't know no difference. I mean, it was not like it wasn't no food on the table. She knew how to stretch things.

You know. It never was like lights didn't go off of it.

Did they ever talk about did you ever hear them argue about money or it was it was seamless.

Never never heard them arguing about money or anything like that. It was seamless.

We would you know, you just have to like they were the old school managing the household budget. You know, there were times you just didn't get certain things. But we didn't never go without nothing, you know.

I mean I don't ever remember.

I didn't really like to wear a lot of fancy tennis shoes and clothes.

Anyway.

When I was in elementary, I used to tell my mom just brought me some dress shoes, just like to do that.

You like to dressing slacks slacks? Did you see your dad dressing like that?

Had? Yeah.

I used to give speeches when I was a young kid, so you know I would go on I called a circuit tour to a lot of the black.

Churches in the neighborhood.

Oh you for real, for real?

And I used to give speeches inspiring other young people at that time.

And so to go to church you.

Had to wear slacks, and you know, at least I think, and I took it real serious in the second grade.

So second grade through sixth grade, that was my thing.

Did you know then, what you kind of wanted to do.

When I got to high school and I went to school all in South LA by the way, you know, I started wanting to be a school teacher, an elementary school teacher, because when I was in elementary school, there was only one black male teacher from kindergarten to sixth grade, only see one maybe two male black teachers. And I knew by high school what male teachers, how they influenced positively young black men. And I just wanted to be a teacher.

That was my thing.

I was gonna figure, I'll go to cal State Domingus Hills. That's where a lot of the teachers went Ril Camino to start, you know, So that's what I wanted to do. And then nineteen ninety two hit.

But in nineteen ninety two.

The uprising or what people will say, the riots, okay of ninety two, and.

In my neighborhood.

You know, I watched a lot of the buildings where I used to run down the street and shop at or you know, commercial corridors when we moved into the neighborhood in nineteen seventy nine, burned it.

You know.

Thirty years later, we happen to have a project that is about to open right there on the same corner of Vermont and Manchester in South la which is pretty exciting. But back then, in nineteen ninety two, being in high school, it changed me. I saw the disproportionate investment in resources in our community as well as in young people. And so from that moment, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with young people. I wanted to

And I'm not talking about the people that lived there.

You're talking about like a government and police.

Just the investment politics at the time. They're very different today. The undercurrent of racism. You know, I mean we were called in the news media at the time thugs, you know, criminals, you know, things of course that they don't do as much today they hide it a little more, but then they were pretty blatant and that's how they described us. And they said, oh, they burning their community. Why would

I'm not making up excuses, no, okay, Well, actually it's good to have that because of course that's a that's an obvious question to ask, but that's a very yeah, that's an answer that nobody would think.

Yeah, I mean people didn't feel like they had a connection to those businesses, right. A lot of times people were mistreated when they went in those businesses. You had Natasha Harley that was unfortunately murdered and you know, her killer was given probation. You know, this was before Rodney Key, and so all of this build up was happening, and people didn't feel like those businesses were reflections of them. And so that's why it wasn't felt as if people

But the flip of the coin is that a lot of folks didn't feel that way.

But there was just some plaane on looting and you know, just illegal activity as well.

And as a young man, I was flat dabbed.

In it right in it, not participating of course, but in it because I was witnessing something that was going to be with me for the rest of my life. And it actually changed your trajectory of what I wanted to do as a career. And so that's when I started working more with young people and looking at things that I can.

Do more to support the community.

I even started working with my Korean American and Asian brothers and sisters as well, particularly groups like the Korean Youth and Community Center KYCC, still doing good work today, work with a lot of them doing some community healing work, you know, bringing Black and Korean communities together. So part of that solution to healing is what I wanted to

I would never know that. Yeah, I would have never guessed it.

And so you know, we had programs to address gang violence with Koreans, Latinos and African Americans, you know, and so, but it was nineteen ninety two that sparked something in me that said I needed to do more for community. And from just working with you've spun off this whole notion and ideal I had around would that young person need a job, get well, that young person is gonna need somewhere to live, that young person may want to

But before we get to that part, take me back to Okay, so you find out in nineteen ninety two that now you have this sense of purpose is involved around youth. What is the first job or the first direction you take in like, what are those first conversations with your parents looking like.

So, I mean with my mom and dad, they never said you need to do this. I mean basically, you know, black folks from the country. They want you to be doing something positive. Get your education so you can get a job, you know. But you know, curves happen in life, and one of the curves that happened outside of nineteen ninety two is that a few short years later, I found out I was going to be a young father, and so that changed.

Me a young How old are you like in your early twenties at this point, a.

Fresh out of high school?

In high school, so I am now eighteen years old about to be a father following the nineteen ninety to two riots uprising.

And and your parents weren't.

Oh they was upset, Oh, no doubt, because that wasn't the direction that they thought I was going in. They thought I'm going to college, I'm going to do this thing.

I'm doing that, you know, was accepted to Domingus.

Hills, and so they thought, hey, you're doing what you said you wanted to do.

And now you didn't throw this into the mix.

I did not, just so you know, did not see this coming?

Oh you h yeah, I did not.

I'm so glad, I said, rewind, did you catch me? Like, don't be skipping, don't forget to hit your flower, I'm over here.

Oh yeah, I'm hungry.

So I just want to make sure that you you like it hard or or however.

I mean, I just don't want to because it's chicken. I mean, you don't want to.

You can't mess it up. But yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, that's the thing. You just want to make sure because I ain't gonna do you like I do at home and be tasting it while I'm cooking.

Dad.

Okay, yeah, okay, So yes, I was a teen dad.

So you was a teen dad to a boy or a girl to a girl?

A girl name me money?

Okay, Yeah I did not when I said I did not know this plot twist. Okay, so you become a dad. What's the first job? Are you still living at home?

I got so still living at home.

Because I never you know, so I'm still living at home because I was supposed to live.

On the dorms, living on the doors for a minute.

But you know, I, you know, I needed to figure out how it was going to earn money. I didn't want to borrow money from my mom and dad and didn't want to feel like I was taking advantage of them. I wanted to get out there and work, you know, and so I did, and I got odd jobs working.

You know, for this store or this group or you know.

At the time, because I'm still a youth, I qualified for some of youth employment. So I did that, but you know, of course that wasn't enough. And you know, worked at Staples. A friend of mine at the time that got me a job working with him. I did very well there, thought maybe I can do some work there. But I still was passionate about wanting to work in

Yea, So that was my goal.

Everyone that comes in, they need to buy a computer. So I was I think I was a pretty good salesman. Everyone didn't buy a computer, by the way, but they went and looked at it. And so those two individuals, they worked for a group called the Martin Luther King Legacy Association, which was under the Southern Christian Leadership Conference SELC.

So part of the resources that came out of Washington, d C.

To support South la under the Clinton administration, they were able to form an organization, a youth organization called Youth Empoment Project.

And so they told me, hey, well we may have something for you. Because I was just telling.

Them what I want to do, and they were like, huh, you would be good at maybe maybe you come for interview. I said, when can I come? They said, well, we got time today. So that day I went in my uniform my stables union and went to that interview and then they set up for a second interview to meet with the other staff, and after meeting with them, I got the job and there went my career as far as working with youth. I stayed with that organization, doing everything,

I started doing community gardens. I was doing everything.

And did what was your initial intake job when you first came on.

So I was the program assistant, so I would assist the coordinator at the time, and we ran youth leadership programs at the time, which.

I thought was very good.

It worked with a lot of young people that to me, had every sense of being on track of going to college. But that wasn't a majority population in the community that I found out about because I started.

Walking the community knocking on doors.

You know, you got a black boy walking on doors, don't speak liquor Spanish, but talking to Spanish speaking people about the things that we do in the community that we provided because and that's when I learned that kids.

Were game banging. They wasn't in school.

And then I'm coming back to the organization, like we don't have program Why don't we have programs to serve these young people?

And then they had to be created. So I created them.

Wow, because at the time, the funding was only for that leadership program that that supported young people and it was a good program that was on track of going to college, and that was okay to me. That was okay, that was a good program.

But if you.

Want to change the needle or move the needle in any community, you got to go work with the people on the ground that's participated the things that are let's say, calls in the disruption in the neighborhood.

And so so I chose.

To work with the black and the brown gang members and create leadership programs for them.

Wow.

Yeah, And that was under the MLK.

Yep Okay that was under Martin Luther King Association.

And you were with this organization for how long?

I was at this organization for about four and a half years. So when I left the organization, I was the director. So I went from program assistant.

Through all that went all the way up in four years.

That's great and four years so I became director at the age of twenty three and.

Then when do you when? Why do you leave?

So I left because the organization started changing, not necessarily SEOC, but leadership shifted. There was more of a focus around advocacy and things of that nature. It was less focus on kind of the work I wanted to do. And then I had an opportunity to do more economic development work. So that's when I went over to Dunbar Economic Development Corporation on historic South Central Avenue.

And then for people that don't understand what economic development work means, can you break that down?

So economic development work to me is a combination or community economic development work. So work that's driven by the community to build business, to look at ways to channel financial and other resources in the community. That helps with home ownership, helps with business own ownership, helps with job creation and create engines around the community where that confess your best and so that's what I wanted to do, as well as continue to do youth development work.

Okay. Yeah, so you go to this new organization, I would assume that you enter in at director or higher level.

I went in as the director of Community to Development.

Okay.

So that was a pretty big deal for me because it allowed me to work with or alongside the director of urban Development, which did a lot of the real estate development work for the organization.

And this is your twenty three, this is your pacing very well for us, daddy.

Yeah, and my daughter, I'm still raising her, you know, dealing with a little bit of or a lot of bit of baby mama drama.

That you did you end up marrying your.

I did not. I did not.

You know, guys did the co parenting thing.

We did the co parenting thing, We did the co courting thing, lock of meaning lots of going to court because I didn't want to just pay child support. Didn't mind it. But I think, quite frankly, it was abused on me because I wasn't dead, that wasn't taking care of my daughter.

Yeah, I was there.

It wasn't like I was the guy you had to go find or things that I hate today where people say, well I got to go watch my child.

How do you watch your child? Is your child, you're going to be with your child? Well, I paid chilse what I bought diapers.

The kid need diapers, I mean, so it was more than that for me. You know, it wasn't just you know, so I just felt like it was an unfair kind of thing to me. But I understand so as a young man you don't get it as much as you would as an adult. I wouldn't probably deal with some of the things that I dealt with then.

So we did our co parenting as you call it.

But she spent a lot of time with me, to a point, probably too much, some people would say.

But I thought it was cool because.

I figured, you know, if I'm going to go on the date, you want to go on a date with me, then you got to go with me and my daughter.

That I just became. And I still don't know how to navigate that, I.

Said.

My navigation was quite frankly and giving shouts out to my auntie, to my mom, to my sister. I had support, you know, and I know that's tough because a lot of folks don't have that support and I have to support.

So when I.

Needed to go to work, I had someone that would watch my daughter. If I wanted to go out for the weekend, I had someone that would watch my daughter.

She was very good baby.

People used to call me to ask skin they watch her, and so I had that support.

But I didn't want financial support.

I needed the moral and support needed to help me do that.

And that's a big thing.

More. Oh yeah, no, I caregiver.

Oh man that they liked, oh she loved and it was it was it was a win win.

Got to make yourself one.

Okay, here do you I'm gonna get you out the way on this one.

So you're a young guy moving in all the right directions. Uh huh, you're at You're at.

The dunbar economic development.

Economic development. I'm not trying to give them too much shine. So how long are you there? Before you? Before you? I want to get closer to CR.

So I'm there about four and a half years.

The organization at the time was going through some financial challenges and a lot of us voice our opinions, not to the liking of the leadership at the time, and so.

A few of the key people was let go, including myself. And so.

What happened was there was a vacuum in the community because there wasn't a lot of groups providing those services in the neighborhood for young people, right, So there was a vacuum. So we left, and now you have, you know, no services offered to young people.

So when you left, the company didn't shut down, they just stop providing the services.

Yeah, because we were gone.

And how many people did they lose?

So they lost me and the director of urban development, and then the director of youth development left as well. So those are three key positions. Yeah, trying not to do this the way I do it at home.

So it looks very very pretty, by the.

Way, very impressed with So just forgive me.

I'm very impressed. Look at this, guys.

So look at that.

So you know, we left, and a group of us, about five of us because they end up leaving or getting fired to left.

And you know, we started meeting right. I called it.

We went in the laboratory right away and said that you know, we all could have gotten jobs. I wouldn't say anywhere, but let's say we were sought after people. Yeah, yeah, you know, because people saw our passion and what we did for that organization in a very short time because they were just known for doing kind of historic and other development at the time, maybe some projects here and there, but when we all got together, it turned into something

Oh, this is prior to you guys leaving, prior to us. Now, you guys, so this is the So this is just so everyone knows. This is the rumor mill. You know when you hear little bits of people. This is the part of your story that excited me the most for any little bit of tidbits on the street that I heard. So now I can finally find out the truth, like from the horse's mouth. So this is a very interesting place. So just to recap a group of you guys, some of you guys got let oh some of you guys left.

So you know, of course, we were all pissed off because of the void that was in the neighborhood. Primarily we were all thinking about the people really not ourselves at the time. You know, I'm a young man at this time, I'm probably twenty six, twenty seven, and so we're pissed and we you know, the truth is, we have I thought about something like this happening because of the way that the organization was moving, and you know, things that were happening, iris showing up to the office,

She's lived in City Terrace.

At the time, which is near cal State Los Angeles. Lived in this hill where you got to climb up like eighty steps or it felt like two hundred, and we would go there every day after we were let go and talk about our vision for the community, sort of like a reimagining a group that popped up in the community. What would it be? We went through, we went through what would it be, what should it be? What should it be doing?

Keep men with the co founder of the comedy that Let you Guys Go.

That's an interesting Yes, it was a co founder. We all worked at Dunbar, you know, all of us.

But did she still work there?

Nobody also got let Go and she was the one that was running the youth programming at the time, and so she opened up her home, her living room. When we met at her dining room table circle table, and we were meeting around there with some butcher paper and markers every day talking about or reimagining what would an organization be.

And we talked about that we should be providing jobs or workforce development.

We talked about economic development, working with small businesses, real estate development, doing affordable housing.

We wanted to do social entrepreneurship.

So that's when we put on their social enterprise because before I left Dumbar, I was trying to convince them to do social enterprise.

Work never got off the ground. And we wanted to do education.

We wanted to figure out a way to have a school that focused on the art to serve young people, and we came up with different names, but what we landed with was Coalition for a Responsible Community Development.

And the story goes, we used to go to a bar.

Called four ten Boards in downtown Los Angeles on a street called Boyd and the address was fourteen, So creatively, I guess they created four ten Boyd and we would meet there.

After we left her house and met up.

With other people that necessarily didn't work at the Dumbar but used to be founders of the Dunbar, bankers of the Dumbar.

That kind of stuff.

But they liked us and they loved this concept, like, you guys are gonna do what? So we literally took a napkin and it was a designer there, and we said, well, we wanted to be called like Callition four, but we have to have responsible in there.

And I love that part.

Yeah, you know, it has to be responsible and it has to be community in it.

And then that's when cr City was birth.

On that napkin the name and then the designer at the time, her name was Selda Harris.

She designed our logo right on napkin. She said, what do you want?

I said, it should be like some colors and some boxes or something like that. That's all I got and the group agreed, and that's when she came up with our logo.

So there's a group, how do you become the lead of the group.

So I didn't want they thought I should be the executive director.

Mind you, we had nothing, no budget, no nothing.

And I said, well, I'll do it, but you guys got to vote for it to happen, so it can be your official first action.

And if you don't want it, that's fine. I play my part. And they all voted and said, oh, you're doing it.

And that's how I became the executive director twenty years ago.

Wow yeah wow. And then the funders that you would meet up with ended up funding and helping getting it off the ground.

Helping us.

There was a contract that Dunbar was running at the time, or you know called and you may be familiar with this graffiti removal.

Yes, and so they still do graffiti removal, we do, yeah, well you guys do.

Un No, it went out of business and so we because they were having challenges running that contract, we had an opportunity and was asked, do we want to take on the contract and of course I'm like, yeah, we can do that.

The High Eyes.

Closed had a good brother named Bruce Tito who was running the Los Angeles Conservation Corps at the time, that said, we'll step up. If you guys get the contract, we'll manage it for you while you get set up.

That was a wonderful thing. Council Warman jam Perry at the time. You know.

At council Woman jam Perry at the time. Oh, I'm trying to clean up. So one of the things, sorry, I sweat over when I'm cooking. Yeah, but also one of the things I do when i'm cooking is I like to clean up.

I apologize. So council Woman jam Parry was also instrumental.

So Bruce, I told council Woman Jampari were instrumental and cr CD getting started.

If it wasn't for them.

Providing political support and organizational support and just being a cheerleader.

For us, it wouldn't have happened.

So we were a brand new group with a four hundred thousand dollars contract.

Wow, to start.

And what was it in your first project was the graffiti.

Remove was graffiti abatement. We wasn't doing real estate. We wasn't doing anything. Everything started at cr CD because of graffiti removal.

And at this point, are you when you take on these contracts, are you taking a pay cut too?

Yeah? Of course.

And are your parents still around? Are they saying he's like my first crash.

Yep, yep, So took a pay cut. That was okay.

At the time, I was living on my own take care of my daughter. It was enough to help me take care of my folks.

And you know, that was enough for me. You know.

Then later in life I was able to move in with someone and you know, and you know that's with the story.

We started our youth program, and we started our twenty years ago, twenty years ago, twenty years ago.

Have you guys celebrated your twenty year anniversary.

We'll be celebrating it next year. So they're working on it this year.

I want to call it. I'm gonna call them Ason. You gotta do what you shoo. Yeah, that's a huge accomplishment.

It is.

Now do you ever look back and just like, oh, snap.

Up sometime every day like I can't believe that we was able to pull it off because it wasn't nothing small.

And I asked a couple of people. I said, you think we can do that today? And the answer is always like no, no.

No way, because the right the stars have to align themselves right, the right people had to be there, the right supporters needed to be there, the right circumstances need to be there. So, like with any entrepreneur, it's like, here's the moment where I got to jump.

I got to jump off.

This bridge and hope that that blue thing is water, you know, And that's what we did.

It was just everything was at the right time.

And then, you know, I was twenty seven years old, you know at the time when we started, and you know, I'm thinking, okay, from twenty seven year old in today's climate, would we get that same kind of support.

Probably not.

Why do you think that? So what's different between then and now?

I think the circumstances then technology then, the way that people access services then is very different now. Social media, I think, could have come in and created all types of other narratives. We were able to create our own narrative because there was no social media then, so we were able to go to meetings, we were able to debunk any lies that were told about us from our previous employer. We were able to do that face to face phone call. A phone call wasn't no.

Social media, we think.

I think if social media was around, people could have created a false narrative.

Like a press release exactly exactly. And I don't think in today's time that would have helped us. It would make this thing. I'm trying to be fancy here.

I'm busy. These tacos look good. Turn off the stoves, sit down. You done told your whole life.

Story almost almost hopefully bore you, far from boring.

Okay, so we are back dishes plated. This looks like the best taco I've ever had in l A.

Well, we shall see, we shall see.

Okay, put the sauces on it. Do you need any extra sauces?

No?

Okay, I like this from the cheese. Is this the right size taco?

Show a little smaller? I don't know.

I actually do the shopping for the show.

It works, people like them smaller. Okay, yeah, I ain't did it. That's up.

I'm good. The first second you're gonna grill the onions, but they're perfect.

Just they are. Okay, I'm gonna.

Take your second bite.

Guys, go for it.

M take up.

Very good.

Okay for all your all listeners. Not only gonna you build an empire, hign cook it broke this.

I'm glad you liked you, budget.

Friendly, delicious, You added salsa, I'm gonna add more.

Very good. Now.

Do you also think that a part of why you possibly couldn't do what you did today is because I think and I have this opinion, but I'm curious to see what you say. You were twenty seven when you did a lot of these things, and sometimes I feel like life, I don't know if you want some of this. Life beats you up along the way where you stop to doubt things. Do you think that you, being young,

Not?

No one probably helped kind of motivate it more. You know, the unknown was exciting to me, The possibility was exciting to me. So not knowing actually actually helped, and just being open to learning and being, you know, having good mentors that was willing to mentor me.

They will say they did mentor me, but they did.

They opened up their offices they opened up their back offices, and as much as I wanted to learn, they wanted to teach and expose me. Because I didn't want to be told. I wanted to be showed. And so in running any nonprofit, nonprofit is really the misnomers that it was nonprofit or selling cookies. You're doing the good for the community, and then everything around you somehow is discounting and that's absolutely false. A nonprofit is nothing but a tax code five oh one C three. You still have

Yeah.

Now, some of the partners that you partner or with are impressive in their own right Prime store who from today? Were there ever any partners that you partnered with where you were like, please gotta let this happen, and oh my god, I can't believe they did this.

You know, I think one of the when you say that, I go to Little Tokyo Service Center, which is based in Little Tokyo primarily focused around supporting and helping the Agent Pacific Island their community. But they were my boys and my girls, my sisters and brothers. We used to hang out at the same bar.

This bar come up.

A lot by the way, four ten boys. It's not there in the fourteen.

Boy but but the bar is there. Yeah, asking detail is something like that.

Yeah, I'm gonna look it up.

Yeah, it's from It's still there, but it's not called fourteen Boyds. So that was there after work hangout because they was right around the corner and it was our after work hangout, and so we built this relationship in bond and so when CRCD was formed and wanted to get into real estate, a lot of doors were shut. You know, went to a lot of African American partners and they didn't necessarily want to make that step at

It aligns with what we want to do. Let's do it. And we did.

First partnership, Oh my first partnership that turned into many other projects since you know, that ten unit project that they decided to help us invest in and help us develop and teach us how to be good developers has manifested into over sixteen hundred units now today and we've done three three now doing another one now, so four projects with Little Tokyo Service Center since.

And you went home that day after that partnership like, were you like, oh, I.

Was so excited.

I mean, just like what you said, like holy shit, like this is real, this is like because I knew what that would do for the organization, But I think it was more real to me for this community to believe in me because all I had was a vision and passion that we didn't have any resources, we didn't have any guaranteurs.

Yeah, it was just you guys have.

We had good credibility, you know, and we had good relationship and we had good political relationships that I think they felt could be beneficial to them as well. But they but still when when paying his paper, they took a leap of faith. And that leap of faiths has helped us to be where we are today. So I owe a lot of credit and give a lot of props to my brothers and sisters over at Little Tokyo Service Center.

Shout out to them because without that, they were your first partner.

Yeah.

Now, I started my first business when I was twenty one, and I remember I got an investor. He invested sixteen thousand dollars to a twenty one year old that it took me a whole year to make like sixteen thousand dollars to get it and seeing in one check. It was like getting like an equivalent of getting you had to me a million dollar check for something I believe in when they signed that deal or I'm going to take it back to me. When I got that check, I was like, oh my goodness, what did I do?

It just was a It was more motivation to what you said around. Now you have an added responsibility because you're now responsible for their relationship, for their credibility, for their guarantees, and for the money that they're putting into this project, because these projects.

Are not cheap.

It was a ten unit, you know, building, but it's it was still like ten million dollars.

Oh my god. Yeah.

So every day I would you know, when the staff and like I said, it's we have nothing more valuable than people's faith in people's trust. If that moves, this organization doesn't exist because of those two things that motivated me to do that more it was almost like I became a protector of that, like we were not going to do anything to put them in a bad situation no matter what.

So your your integrity at the end of the day is the staple of the organizer. That's that integrity there, absolutely, yeah, because I would have been on the phone like, oh, what did I get it? If someone hands me any level of responsibility, I go into a deep dive of can I complete whatever I said? I can't complete? You know, But that's that's that's cool to hear that you you knew that. The strength of it was the faith in the trust of the.

Relationship, the faith in the trust.

And I think the motive aiding factor goes back to my parents, particularly my mom. She's a go get her, as a country will say, a whipper snapper, and she doesn't you know turn you know, everything is not no.

No means maybe or not right now or not right now, maybe later, maybe later, Yeah, but it's never no.

And I think that motivating fact yeah, and she's like that to the day. It really motivated me because I

Yeah.

Now, now trying to get into your business kool aid. But you have the non profit side, yes, then you have the for profit side. Can you explain when the for profit side came in and why you felt the need to add the for profit c RCD Enterprises side.

So the founders five of us.

Oh, there's five founders, five founders.

So is myself knowing me so to?

I was going to ask about her. She's still here.

Yep, she's not with c r c D, but she's still doing good work in the community. You go or tease Fernando Miranda, I have a crush on him, and roof Tie I'll let him.

Whenever he would come around him, I would look over that skept seeker just so you know. I how long do you think you guys would have never suspected it?

Huh oh, well, you know he has charming ways with them, but very very cool.

Tax someone showed up.

He definitely helps us to close some deals.

Listen, yeah, you know personality. Yeah, so he's a founder.

He's a founder. Hugo ortis an ami solo myself and roof Teago Tea so roof.

Tig was co founder, and roof Tiak was actually.

My former fiance and she passed at the early age of forty six. And she was one of the original funders or financers of our projects because she worked for a group called Corporation for Support of Housing and she ushered in financing projects for young people, for affordable housing projects.

They need walkable space. So all of these things was the priority.

But she was in a position of leadership where we were able to access grants and acquisition financing to support our projects. And she went on to help finance a lot of projects for Little Tokyo Service Center and many other groups in Los Angeles that supported housing people that were un housed.

Yeah, now, and that's what.

That's my roothplace, correct, Okay, Now I got to get into this part. So she was, Yes, she sounds like an incredible person. She played a huge in the community, and her vision of making sure the playing field was fair and comfortable is really beautiful. With that being said, she was your fiance while your company is growing, how did you deal with the grief of her. This sounds like an early passing.

It was an early pass So this year will be fifteen years or nearly sixteen years ago, and so it was the early passing into the life cycle of CRCD.

Yeah, and you're still young at this point.

I'm still young.

So this is five years in so you're probably thirty two.

I'm thirty two, a third round thirty two, thirty three.

Yeah, so you know.

Shed than how are you? It was unsuspected?

It was it was unsuspected because she was diagnosed with cancer.

She had been fighting it for a while. So when she got war.

Ill, that's when it became unexpected because I just never thought that it would happen. I never, you know, live with or had a family member, and definitely not live with someone that you know, had that terrible disease. And so for me, it was highly unexpected and it was like bam, you know, how did.

You deal with the grief? At the same time, like how did you not trying to get in there? But how do you get to that next milestone? Does your partners say fall back? Do you take a break? I don't know how.

How So for me again, you know, another shift in my life. I had family support, and then I had boards support, other community partners support, and of course people thought I would fall back and just take a break. You know, I think I took like two weeks off

Prioritize what's needed for the community.

And so creating CRCD Enterprises and her being able to see us obtain our contractor's license was the pathway that she supported particularly.

Able to see it. So their motivation was really to fulfill that that dream. So it was that's a that's a beautiful, beautiful story. So when you're dealing with a nonprofit, is it that the need of the social enterprises was? When you're dealing with the nonprofit, you have more restricted dollars than dollars than unrestricted unrestricted.

You know a lot of nonprofits, you know, we fight hard to obtain dollars that are unrestricted, whereas with the social enterprise, we're able to generate and come through fee for service contracts that are not like construction, that are not restricted. I mean, we have to deliver, but they're not restricted. When the income passes over as profit and overhead, we're able to use those dollars.

In more flexible ways.

We're able to keep programs open on the lights on, if you may say, when they're funding restrictions that would have prohibited.

Us from doing that.

So a lot of the construction training programs like MC three, we now have a wonderful partnership with LA County to do lead remediation. We call it the Letterbatement program. There's an excellent program. Both programs are excellent because they're pathways into the painters union, pathways into the labor and local local LAOC you know and Local three hundred and with Latderbatemen, and a lot of these pathways, folks are prevailing wages.

And that's that was gonna be my next question. A lot of the trades that I see you training these jobs when people exit the program, they're not minimum wage jobs. These are what would you say the average like.

So for US, if we have for letterbatement, we'll start with that program.

When they're doing lad remediation in.

The training program, which is roughly about seven hundred to twelve hundred hours of training. So when they leave, they leave US as an APPRINT level two or three, which is a big deal on your paycheck. So while they're in the program, they're earning anywhere between thirty and fifty.

Dollars an hour.

That's great, you know, with benefits, with benef with benefits, wow.

You know.

And that's while in the training. So when they graduate from US and they move on to the Painters Union and now they're at apprintice level three, let's say, you know, they're at fifty five bucks an hour and above when they're working on a prevailing wage project.

Wow.

And most of the most, if not all, of the affordable housing projects that are funded by state bond money has a project labor agreement or community agreement in place where contractors have to pay those wages.

Wow. Yeah, that's wow.

Impressive, very impressive. And then my last question I have in my head is does CRCD Enterprises end up doing, if not all, majority of the build development projects for you that so.

That's the goal, that's always been the goal, that we're the go to general contractor for the development team. We're you know, a little ways away from doing a ground up project of that size because yeah, and because you have to get bonding and you know you and bonding requires everything, including your kids and you know, I mean they go real deep in.

It's just not a credit score.

They want to know everything and they want even more guarantees. And so we're getting to where we can bond to build a twenty five thirty million dollars construction project.

We're doing a lot of rehab now.

We do come in as a sub to do a lot of the interior exterior decorative painting or professional painting. So our guys and girls are earning prevailing wages. But we're close to doing ground up. We are general contractors on the last two projects that they're doing. They're all you know, rehab projects right now, and so you know, the team.

Is moving forward. It's a it's a slow grind.

I mean, our team wants to get at it now, but that's not quite how it works and how it's set up.

I love it. I love it all. So where can people find out more information? Did we cover everything or is there a future projects or anything we need to know about.

I mean there's just ongoing on going construction projects.

I mean, we do have our Business Source Center that's contracted with the City of Los Angeles, whereas working with businesses to get them tapped into resources and entrepreneurs helping

Going that's a lot. That's a lot.

So where can everybody keep up with Coalition for Responsible Community Development?

So One easy way is our website. It's kind of loan is www dot coalition are.

Its www dot Coalition RCD dot org. And that's the same social media handle for Instagram and.

Meta and all that Coalition r c D. You can see, I don't use it that much.

Yeah. And then for the enterprises side, where would they find out more?

So more information for the mprise side is www dot c r c.

D, E n T dot com dot com.

And for partners you have cr W www dot c r c D Partners dot com.

Okay, Now, if someone wants to go to one of the sites their links to link them all together to some you'll.

Still be able to get to each of the sites, but you can learn more about each of those companies and who's leading those companies and so forth.

Okay, cool, Well, thank you so much for feeding me. I'm going to finish the mail the second we rep and thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate hearing your story from the horse's mouth directly. No more rumors on how and when. Thank you so much for your time. We really are thankful for what you do for the community and for are you.

Thank you very much for having me.

Thanks for tuning in. Peace Out for more. Eating while Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.