El Futuro es Latino-Keeping the Dream Alive for the Next Generation

Today we are going to be talking about El Futuro es Latino , which is a research project that we at Chapman University , together with our esteemed team of experts , has put together , and then we will transition to another panel that talks about the community impact here , especially in the Inland Empire .

So what we see is that el futuro es Latino , especially in California , but despite being 40% of California's population , that Latinos in the state of California lag other Latinos nationally in terms of income , home ownership and education .

And so as we get into this , we will see that Latinos really are the workforce , but they are employed with more carbon producing jobs , such as construction . Unfortunately , these are the jobs that are the most vulnerable and at risk in the state of California , which is really pushing environmental policies like net zero .

So what we're seeing here is that you know , overwhelmingly , latinos are California's carbon economy . You know , for example , trucking . We see that Latinos are disproportionately overrepresented in some of these industries . California is the highest percentage of Latinos in the transportation sector than any other state . There are some initiatives .

So , nationally , 51% of Latinos own their own home , but that's just . That's compared to only 45.9% in California . But California we see that it ranked 41st nationwide . And so when we really ask why , the real reason here is the cost of living adjusted and so , unfortunately , it makes it much harder for them to save up and purchase a home .

Some of the highest rates of growth for Latinos is actually here in Riverside and San Bernardino counties , and that is largely because they have lower costs of living compared to some of the where they are actually leaving the very expensive coastal areas and they're relocating to areas where the American dream is still within reach and where they can own a home .

But what we see is that Latinos are still not participating enough . We just find that they're not a home . But what we see is that Latinos are still not participating enough . We just find that they're not voting enough . So this is really the community that needs to get together with policymakers and come out and vote in their own economic interests .

It has been the single most incredible creator of intergenerational wealth , as well as just housing a place to live , a neighborhood . They just don't want us here . So this is about housing . I'll zoom through . We stopped building enough housing in roughly the 1980s .

Before the 1980s or in the 1980s , california was building housing to meet the needs of its population , which was growing rapidly , and housing was a little more expensive in California , but not a lot . What do I mean by that ? A healthy housing market means you should be able to buy a median priced home where you want to live .

That's roughly three to five times median income .

So this housing problem has been captured by the same folks who just raised their gas prices with the idea that we should all take the bus Almost anywhere in California , even if there's no prevailing wage , no affordable units , no demolition , no relocation , no lawsuits , all kinds of very optimistic assumptions it does , of course , pencil and pallow out to the poor

people , right . Why ? Because these are $4,000 plus a month rentals for a one-bedroom , rentals for a one bedroom . If you have $4,000 to spend on housing , do you want one bedroom off the hallway and hope for the best ? And for some people the answer is yes , but for most people certainly families it's not even close .

So my position in this report is California's policymakers and I include our legislative leaders who said yeah , go figure out how to reduce greenhouse gas . We don't care how much you harm people . They handed blank checks . Our legislators reach this goal , you , somebody else , figure it out . That's what our legislators have done .

They've breached their social contract , the deal that they have with voters , to represent voters and the needs of voters . They've betrayed us , which is crazy because we vote for them . There's been zero accountability to voters and taxpayers , to how much costs have increased , and that needs to end .

Our system , designed by boomers , of whom I'm one , is absolutely focused on the me generation . That would be us and not any of you , because high housing prices aren't a one-time thing . Odds are you're paying three , four , five times more than the old person living down the hall . It's a generational Ponzi scheme .

There's a really strong constituency in California that doesn't want to build anything more here , and that's not okay . It's time for change . That change has to come from here . So take the power and the common sense , basta , and now hold your elected officials accountable .

I was not born or raised with an ideology of Democrats and Republicans , so I talk to everybody and I am interested in poor people , and I find that the elected officials talk the most to poor people , and poor people have voted for Trump , for Harris , for Bernie . I serve people because I want to see them do better , not because of their political affiliation .

However , I can see that these parties are not talking to each other .

I think that it was clear with the elections that there's some disconnection at the community , state and national level , and so I wrote my essay on the civic engagement that's missing from this conversation , about who's really talking to the elected officials and if Latinos are not participating in big numbers , then who's driving their policies .

And when I was invited to be part of the essay , the question was can you help us understand what type of public policies help Latinos . Can you help us understand how to write better public policies for Latinos ? And my answer was almost immediate Latinos don't need any public policies written for them . We need to be writing them ourselves .

There's one author that was not able to make it here , and I can tell you that all of us disagree on this panel . That's what makes this essay important to me , because we don't all agree .

As Latinas , we have different backgrounds , different immigration stories , but there's one author her name is Gloria Romero who pointed out something that really caught my attention Only 36% of Latino students meet or exceed the English and language arts proficiency and only 22.6% meet or exceed the proficiency standards in math .

Those numbers are not speaking of the workforce that we need to build for all the environmentally friendly jobs that we've been talking about for so long , because they depend so much on you being able to read and write , because you're going to be prompting artificial intelligence .

You're going to have to be able to master the language , but also you need to do math in a way where we haven't done it before .

Math needs to be part of your language , and the fact that Latinos are not even like a 25% of passing math is creating a real problem for workforce when we continue to see that Cesar Chavez schools are named after Cesar Chavez but they fail to produce kids that can read and write .

There's a big disconnect between what we are thinking those schools are doing for our children and what they're actually delivering . And so her question is is the future Latino ? Es el futuro Latino ? So what are we going to do about this ?

Because I can tell you and I will tell you a little bit of my story that the only reason why I think I sort of kind of survived moving to the US and being able to be a professional is because my parents put a lot of effort into putting me into a private school in Mexico City .

And why did they choose to send me to a private school and forego a lot of the things that they could have had for themselves ? Because I can feel it as a parent now you forego a lot of stuff for your children to do better . It's because they got it . They understood . My mom understood mostly .

My mom came from poverty and she knew that people got educated and things changed for their family . Public schools in Mexico are an absolute failure and you have to send your kids to private schools so that they can end up with a little bit better chance . That's starting to happen here . I just gave you those statistics .

For Latinos there's no onboarding system to the United States , so when you arrive you're on your own , and that is not the way that we are going to be able to achieve closing some of these gaps .

So in the room we have some really special people who are really into mentorship , this idea that somebody that has known the road can come back and grab you by the hand and take you down that road .

That's sort of like the place where I see the most hope , where you are able to guide others through these complicated systems but , most importantly , how you teach them to have a voice . So what we found is that you know the economic foundation of the . You know , specifically in the Inland Empire it's extremely low . We have terrible financial health .

We are 50% of the impoverished population . We are not participating in the political process , we are not civically engaged , and that's what my essay is about .

The true change of all of these conversations we've had is the critical mass that should come from the Latino community , by organizing around civic engagement and really understanding what are the barriers that are keeping them from being able to participate fully in the , in the civic engagement process , so that they can say they themselves come and say this is affecting

me in a negative way and I want this policy to change . You don't see that happening in the Latino community right now . So one of my findings was that we actually have a huge group of young people who want to participate , but the biggest barrier in the Latino community , but the biggest barriers that they're finding , is that they don't have time .

So you're seeing that their time availability and their understanding of how to affect this process so that they can change and write those policies that I started telling you at the beginning , that they should be writing those policies . They have to be able to read , to write , to do math , to civically engage and then change the system .

So it's through the mentorship and it's through the connecting to the communities , getting rid of those barriers of language , getting rid of the barriers of transportation . For our region , transportation is huge and so where transportation is hard for us here , for Latinos in the coastal areas , maybe housing , not transportation .

So understanding those nuances cannot be done by people like you and me who go from one meeting to another meeting all the people . It has to come from the community and we have to encourage them to do so .

We wanted to look at education , government policy , government engagement , housing and workforce development , and that's what we really want to mimic in our second panel today . We want to have the discussion focused around the Inland Empire and the different aspects of it . Joel Farkas and Shane Jaffe are going to represent the housing side .

Joel is founder of Fruition Communities , which has done a tremendous amount of residential community development over the past 38 years development . Over the past 38 years You've developed , Joel , 48,000 residential home sites and about 1.2 million square feet of retail space , so you're going to represent how we actually can kind of create communities .

Shane Jaffe is sales manager for HomeQuest , which focuses on a very important segment of affordable housing , which is the manufactured housing side . Mihai Patrou is CEO of Caravanserai and also is the entrepreneur in residence at UC Riverside and runs focuses on entrepreneurship .

And entrepreneurship is a huge driver of prosperity for all communities , but in particular for the Latino community . Graciela Moran , thank you for joining us .

Your focus is going to be on policy engagement on the Inland Empire and how do we muster the right relationship between governmental entities to be able to bring money to community development and focused , successful programs . And finally , stephanie Adams , who is going to be focusing on workforce development .

She is part of the workforce development division here in Riverside County , so thank you very much all for participating . Why don't we start with you ?

We also do park models , which now is kind of like the cool term is tiny homes and they all are , by definition , different types of housing . We homes go on private land . They could be used as main dwellings . They could be used as accessory dwellings . As they were stating earlier , the state of California is becoming more favorable .

One of their solutions to having more housing is by allowing accessory dwelling units in the backyards . Backyard homes , accessory dwelling units , granny flats those were all very popular in the 1920s and then they went away and now that we're in a housing crisis they're starting to allow those a lot more .

So I always tell people that manufactured housing or factory built housing isn't quote unquote affordable housing . But we are definitely a more affordable option . Where can I put a manufactured home ? A manufactured home could be placed anywhere in the state of California . A manufactured home can be placed anywhere in the state of California .

In the state of California , it is against the law for any local ordinance to prohibit you from putting a manufactured home on your property .

I've basically spent 40 years in this business avoiding every single one of those silos , because the only way I feel we can deliver to a customer , a citizen , citizen , home buyer , is to avoid every single confiscatory regulation that the original , the first panel , described . They did a really good job describing it .

The answer to providing the solution is , first of all , you got to recognize how hard it is . I you know I grew up . Carla mentioned some of the school districts here . I grew up in Corona , went to elementary school , junior high and high school there , went to college in LA . I left .

I had a professor in college alternative energy course in the economics department . He's still around and he's one of the most effective advocates to shut down nuclear power plants in the history of the United States . I remember the issues back then .

We we had growing population need for energy and I asked what are we going to do when we have more need and more demand and less energy ? And it was quite clear the answer was fewer people , fewer people .

Today , you can fast forward several decades and look at a chart , all the things that policies try to say don't do as much , don't drive as much , you know , don't ? Well , whatever those things are , the graph is really simple . There's an X graph and there's a Y graph On one side . It's what it is that you should stop doing .

On the bottom it says how much CO2 emissions you save by all those things . It is very clear . There's one thing that saves more than all the other activities combined , and that is one fewer child . All the other 20 , 30 , 40 things that are on that graph don't add up to one fewer child .

I've been to many dinners where there's about six , eight of us sitting around . Invariably someone will say you know , there's too many people in this world . There's eight billion people . How many should we have ? Fewer than a billion . So I say , well , who's buying tonight ? Because the rest of you need to die ?

And I end up buying and no one actually chose to die . They just continue to talk about it . Now what do you do .

Carla had mentioned something very poignant Her family she and her family moved from Mexico City to the United States and the reason they moved was it became so untenable , so difficult , and in housing it's really simple People do not get up and leave somewhere for something else because it's marginally better . People generally leave someplace because it's bad .

I left California when I graduated college , but I came back to see if there was an opportunity to maybe figure out how to deal with the most catastrophic housing crisis in the United States . And there is .

Professor Kotkin and Wendell Cox and all of his other colleagues have done a marvelous job with their worldwide demographic study to describe that there's a lot of places to go .

We've spent a lot of time talking about how difficult it is where we are , but where we are is difficult and I just choose not to persuade those people who hate what I do , who do not like people living there .

I have been to more than 2,000 city council , county commissioner meetings , home and association meetings , various planning directors , city managers in my career More than 2,000 . I've sat in hearings and I've never one time heard someone stand up with this microphone and say I want someone who makes less than me whose house costs less than mine living next to me .

I'm waiting for the time that I hear that speech . I've never heard it , but that doesn't mean they're the majority , they're a small minority . There's probably 60 , 70% of the population in this country , and maybe even the world , that aspire to all the things everyone here is trying to help do , and all of them instinctively .

Yes , they don't necessarily all have great . All of them instinctively .

Yes , they don't necessarily all have great education and the like , they don't have the same opportunities , but instinctively they know there are things that they want and the first and foremost is a safe , wonderful home to raise their family and to provide an opportunity for their future generations and their culture in the community . It's really that simple .

So what do I do to do this ? We have a project in Riverside which is doing quite well . We're selling . Our dealers are selling homes for a hundred and ninety thousand to two hundred and forty thousand dollars on leased land . We're're doing that . Unfortunately , we only have 99 sites approved . Shane's company .

He can buy and sell and deliver the home in four to six weeks . It took me six years to get that project approved If I did it at the scale that's needed to solve the California housing crisis .

To solve the California housing crisis , I'd be 4,000 years old , so I'm not going to solve it , but there are 19,000 jurisdictions in this country , so I go to those places and the urban areas that Wendell and Joel talked about represent 20 or 30 of those places .

There's a whole lot of other places where people instinctively love to go , want to go , and we're going to go , do what we can to help them own a home .

I think in the first panel there was a lot of conversation about jobs that are created for immigrants , especially the Hispanic and the Latino community , but I think one of the things that we have been really focusing about is what if we create our own jobs ?

Immigrant myself , I think it's hard to understand when you come to the US and you are limited from getting jobs for various reasons , and I think that when it strikes you that you can create your own job and that's what Carol Vans Sarai has been really pushing for .

Again , whether you are a for-profit or a non-profit entrepreneur , at the end of the day , you are an entrepreneur , you are a business owner , because non-profits are also businesses as well , Some of the things that I wrote down as I was listening to the other panel .

There is more and more conversation about environment and creating jobs that are positively impacting the environment , but I think that's what creating encouraging small businesses , that's what it's all about . They are not going to create most likely businesses . That's what creating encouraging small businesses , that's what it's all about .

They are not going to create most likely businesses that have a negative impact on the environment , and we've seen that over and over again . But , in the same time , expected is that most of the small businesses that we have been working with , especially if they are for-profit businesses , all of them are extremely mission-oriented .

You have small stores owned by Latinos that they are not only thinking about the money they are going to bring to their families , they are also thinking about the community , and part of our work has been not only providing the business technical support , trainings and programs , but also connecting them to funding , and that came from , especially from with the support

of small business grants you know I'm not talking about loans and every time we have been able to provide those financial incentives . One of the things that the small business owners are talking about is well , I will help my community as well .

They're also thinking about the neighbors down the street that will have access to fresh produce because they are able to open a small store , and that's the reality that we have seen . And just this year , I think , we provided around 2,000 hours of coaching individual coaching to for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs .

Caravanserai is also a small business development center , the newest one in the region . The newest one in the region and since we've been in the Inland Empire , we supported about 3,500 businesses and we invested around $2.5 million in microgrants . I would say about 80% went through Hispanic-owned small businesses or nonprofits .

They don't have the financial resources to put in practice what they've learned . And there have been programs like um . California dream fund during covet employment training panel has invested over $10 million just in small business grants to Spanish-speaking entrepreneurs , undocumented entrepreneurs included .

But then we've seen in other big investment projects like California Jobs First , where the reaction to combining training and funding is completely disconnected . We were recently told in writing that providing business grants to entrepreneurs is providing benefits .

It's unfortunate to see that at state level there is this interest in investing literally investing , writing checks to those businesses but then at the lower level is this idea that we are providing a benefit to these entrepreneurs .

And I think , until we get out of that mindset that investing in a small business , giving $10,000 , $5,000 is not providing a benefit , it's increasing the return on investment of everything we do to support those small businesses . And obviously California is looking forward for the next four years . California is a lucky state , if you want .

There's been a lot of support since COVID supporting small businesses , but there is a concern that a lot of the Hispanic entrepreneurs we are working with are undocumented and we don't ask . We just learn about their legal status through our one-on-one coaching and conversations . But we are able to support them and invest in them because this is state .

The funding that we are using is state funding . When we are receiving federal funding , we cannot serve these individuals and I think you know moving forward , that's a concern about who .

How do we are , how we are supporting entrepreneurs that will not be able to get a job and their only option is to start a business and grow a business , and many of them are extremely successful successful .

So I think you know those are some of the things that we , internally , as a team , are concerned about what's going to happen next with the small businesses , hispanic-owned small businesses and entrepreneurs , to move them forward and support their growth .

I'm Stephanie Adams County of Riverside Workforce Development and just to give you a brief overview for those of you who have never heard of a workforce development agency , essentially what our mission is is to help unemployed and underemployed residents connect to high-level career pathways , and when I say high-level career pathways , I mean not just a job , so not just

a minimum wage job that is open . It's really sitting down with a family , with a household , determining what their needs are and providing them with further education so that they can have an income to sustain their future . First of all , I just really want to thank Chapman University for the report .

So a lot of the data that we pulled out of that report is what we're seeing , you know , day to day , and I will say that over 50% of individuals that use our services are Latino .

But some of the things that really stuck out to me in that report are that and Carla touched on this when she spoke is that 36% of individuals are only proficient in English language arts and 22% in mathematics , and in reading that , that is something that we see in the workforce development world , and I just wanna point out that obviously , this is definitely

that we see in the workforce development world and I just want to , you know , point out that obviously , this is definitely something that we need to get in front of . It's not something that you can just put the band-aid on , and I think Carla's work around advocacy is really , really helping that .

But as far as what we do in the workforce world is , we are working with people that are experiencing that now , and so people that are not proficient in a specific language or not specific in a specific thing like science or math , they know . I mean , I know what my weaknesses are . Everybody knows .

But when you're constantly weighted down and weighted down , you just feel like you're sinking , and so that's what our job is is to really help people and build them up and upskill them .

And , you know , a message that I've really learned from the workforce development world is that it's never too late , and people that are just now , you know , entering this country , becoming accustomed to you , know how things work here . You guys probably noticed that we're a country that likes to put a time frame on everything .

You have to be 18 when you graduate from high school . By the time you're 20 , you have to know what you're going to do by the time you're 22, . You have to have your whole career and life planned out by the time you're 30, . My gosh , you should be a first-time home buyer , at least you know .

I mean that , I guess , is what people think of the American dream . But you know , it's not realistic and nor does it have to be . And so it's okay for people to know that when you go on a job interview , for example , nobody asks how old were you when you became proficient in math ?

I don't even know what that means , because I'm not proficient in math , but an employer is never going to ask that . And just to point out to you guys , the people that you know walk through our doors and utilize services . A majority of them are men , and our majority are between the ages of in their 30s and 40s . And so what does that tell you ?

Again , it's never too late , right , so we can start over or we can start from the beginning . And so if somebody is going through that feeling where they're just sinking , sinking , sinking , they need to get out of poverty , which is what our jobs are . It is definitely , is definitely doable . That's something that we can help with .

There's so many resources that are out there , for example , adult education providers . It is free to go get a GED or high school diploma , no matter what age you are . They have a lot of programs where , if you're working during the day , you can go get it done at nighttime Again . You go during the day , you can go get it done at night time again .

You want a job interview ? They're not going to say where did you graduate from high school and how old were you . It's never gonna be asked and it doesn't matter .

Essentially , one of the things , too , that I did want to highlight is that and this was in the report from Chapman University is that 94% of Latinos think that they need a strong worth ethic to succeed in the United States , and we actually do see this . And I just want to highlight a program that we recently received a grant for at Workforce Development .

It's called Opportunity Young Adult , and what that grant is is specifically to work with individuals between the ages of 18 and 26 , so considered youth with individuals that are from areas that are typically not served , so communities of different ethnic backgrounds . We say so . In this grant . We were required to enroll a little over 80 participants .

Within one month we had everyone enrolled . That's how eager people are to come in here to really get upskilled and connect to high-level career pathways . This specific grant actually connected people into health care . So we're talking about dental assistants , dental hygienists , licensed vocational nurse things for people that are going to make a substantial living wage .

So just you know . In closing , it's programs like this and a grassroots approach that we really need to help with the community like this and a grassroots approach that we really need to to help with the community .

I think we can all read that there is different voices in that and I really do appreciate all of us coming together , especially in a time like this . So my name is Graciela , like Carla , I think it's pretty valuable to share upbringings and who we are Part of , who we are , naturally comes out in our work .

So I am a proud daughter of immigrants from Mexico Colima Colima de Mexico and my parents same similar situation , mother middle class , but my father from poverty . So definitely the work that I do isn't just , you know , I . It's a nine to five sort of situation . At the Community Foundation , we never clock out , unfortunately , right .

We live with our neighbors , we're surrounded with our neighbors , and so that's really why we're able to do the work . So I would say purposefully , because we live together . So really that's why I'm here .

Actually , funny enough , mihai was actually my boss at one point , so I actually was really inspired by the dream fund and how we were able to support entrepreneurs and businesses and really have their , their dreams come true . Right , because I mean there is no starter guide to coming to the United States .

I will say , and a lot of the time here , as as young people , we're figuring it out as well too . So at the Inland Empire Community Foundation , I manage our policy office , thankfully .

I believe four years ago the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation came to the region and they were interested in funding and we're curious , right , the curiosity of what would happen if we have a policy shop here in the region and we've been figuring it out with community .

There are a lot of our partners here , so really they are the ones who we actually go to when we need solutions , like Damian from Parkview , greg from the Atlanta Health Plan Foundation and so many more here . We actually go to them and when there's an issue , we actually ask them hey , what do you think ?

Not only are we the region's community foundation , we're also , too , a convener for the state . We support them with figuring out issues , the gaps here in the region , whether that's workforce , whether that's education , housing , you name it . We're a part of those conversations with the state and we're really happy and proud to have those relationships with them .

Proud to have those relationships with them . We also are the fiscal for California , jobs First , where we get to help out the state figure out what is the workforce going to look like .

We have a regional plan in the process , but you asked me how we do that right , the policy process of it , and I can kind of , I can tell you a step-by-step roadmap of how we've been accomplishing these member asks . Or the money , the private money that's flowing in , or the agency funds that we're getting to non-profits . I could tell you .

But I think today I actually want to change . Based on the panel we talk about youth . We got to start letting youth in . Thankfully to to Michelle Decker , I'm 26 . I'm going to be really honest with you . You don't see 26-year-olds doing this work .

I've been called lucky Lucky girl syndrome is what Gen Z is calling it , but I think I was fortunate to have mentors and I think that's really important . That's one of the things I really picked out of this report is , if we don't start mentoring other young people , latinos we're not going to be up there and creating these policy changes .

So that's one of the one things that I really want to emphasize the most . I mean , the key findings were just incredible . I think I have it noted here , page 43 the barriers right , there's all these different barriers for Latinos , right ? Whether that's language barriers , a generational differences .

We have so many people here are still living within traditional values of their home country and not their country , right ? So is this working , okay ?

So I think when we take into account the young people , we have to kind of think about their generational differences , and when you're hiring folks , you have to remember oh wait a minute , her dad doesn't believe that she should be doing this work , right , because my parents have no idea what I do , and it wasn't until they came to the policy summit .

They talked to Carla and Carla , so graciously . Oh , I'm worried to say here , carla so graciously was like this is actually what your daughter does , but for the longest time . There are so many youth that their parents have no idea what they're doing .

So that's a real thing , and I'm really glad that the report calls it out , because we're still living in these . Even though we're somewhat progressive here in the United States , our parents don't understand what the history to be . Quite . So I think our rule here in my room here is just to make sure , just let us in , really just let us in .

The more young people you have in spaces , the more that you are going to benefit , the more that you're going to have innovation , the more different , different perspectives , different technologies that you're going to have . And I think it's important , one of the things that we're doing at the Community Foundation is we're listening .

All you have to do is just really just stop , take a minute , invite in your partners , invite in community , invite in young folk , students , and just take a minute to listen , and that's really been the avenue for us . So then , okay , great , so you want this ? Now let's dive into resources and do it .

So I mean want this now , let's dive into resources and do it . There's no , really a no-brainer sort of I think add any one of it . Relationships are really important . If that's anything of the report , I mean usefulness of the Latino workforce .

We're innovative , adaptable to change and we're the speakers of what you're starting to see , this huge , I would even say this workforce right , you're seeing Gen Z now taking over managerial roles . You're seeing Gen Z really wanting even applying . It's because it's time for change and obviously , what's been happening and what's been working .

So that's my spiel , I mean really quickly on the Cielo Fund , if I can . We do have a notable different amounts of affinity funds that we do have , which are our signature fund . The Cielo Fund is led by the . We grant nonprofits funds as well as scholarships , but I think , moreover , that's not just our only fund .

As well , too , we also have a Black Equity Initiative fund our Women's Giving Fund , and if we come together as different ethnicities , I think we can accomplish much more together .