Congressman Lieu's Community Project Funding Requests for Fiscal Year 2023
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Health and Human Services / Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - Health Surveillance and Program Support
Project Name: Mobile Crisis Response Pilot Program
Recipient: City of Hermosa Beach
Address: 1315 Valley Dr., Hermosa Beach, CA 90254
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The goal of the Mobile Crisis Response Pilot Program is to provide an evidenced-based response model for mental health and behavior-related calls involving the City's unhoused residents. Utilizing professional case managers, this program will better serve those in crisis and allow the Hermosa Beach Police Department to focus on other public safety priorities. Ideally, this mobile mental health crisis response model can be scaled and duplicated throughout the region to more effectively address mental health and homelessness in our communities.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Health and Human Services / Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - Health Surveillance and Program Support
Project Name: Behavioral Health Center
Recipient: City of Santa Monica
Address: 1685 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90401
Amount Requested: $1,500,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Santa Monica Behavioral Health Center will provide compassionate and cost-effective around-the-clock behavioral health care for the community, including access to safe temporary housing and stabilizing care. Santa Monica will convert an existing City-owned facility to accommodate 24/7 intakes from first responders and local emergency rooms. While the long-term behavioral health strategy will serve various vulnerable Santa Monica populations, the first phase of the 24/7 center will focus on people experiencing homelessness. The Center will serve as a safe alternative for first responders to drop off people who will benefit from behavioral health care and do not meet the level of crisis to require emergency rooms, psychiatric urgent cares, or jail.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Labor - Department of Labor / Training and Employment Services (WIOA Programs)
Project Name: Los Angeles County Training Center Project
Recipient: County of Los Angeles, Alternatives to Incarceration Office (CEO)
Address: 320 West Temple Street, 7th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Amount Requested: $2,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Fire Reentry Project at LATC will provide a valuable job training program for young adults who have experience in the justice or foster care systems. The 12-month paid residential training program will provide participants with stable housing, wrap-around supportive services, and career-focused training with job placement assistance. Participants will be trained in fire suppression and fire prevention, with access to secure employment after graduation from the program. The program will focus on reducing recidivism rates among participants, increasing employment opportunities among typically disadvantaged populations, and providing supportive services to young adults with prior justice or foster care system involvement.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Health and Human Services / HRSA - Health Facilities Construction and Equipment
Project Name: Furnishing and Equipping Rose Avenue Clinic
Recipient: Venice Family Clinic
Address: 604 Rose Avenue, Venice, CA 90291
Amount Requested: $500,000
Project Description and Explanation: The goal of this project is to fully furnish and equip the Venice Family Clinic to ensure it can provide the high-quality comprehensive care upon which its patients depend. The improvements, including IT equipment and pharmacy and care team meeting room workstations, will accommodate the tremendous growth of Venice Family Clinic's scope of services, including the dramatic expansion of its behavioral health, substance use, optometry, health education, and case management programs. These areas have functioned with inadequate space for many years but will soon have the means to operate at their fullest potential.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Education - Department of Education / Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE)
Project Name: Ready to Succeed Scholarship Program
Recipient: Ready to Succeed
Address: 1514 17th Street #201, Santa Monica, CA 90404
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: Ready to Succeed is an innovative college and career accelerator organization with 200 foster youth and first-generation college student participants and 100 alumni. Current program participants have achieved the following: 90% graduate college within 4.5 years, 92% secure a job within 6 months of graduation, and 95% say they can envision a bright future for the first time. This new funding will help increase program enrollment by 15% and reach even more foster youth looking to complete college and lead productive and fulfilling lives.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Labor - Department of Labor / Training and Employment Services (WIOA Programs)
Project Name: Purpose Lab Employment Project: Workforce Development
Recipient: St. Joseph Center
Address: 204 Hampton Drive, Venice, CA 90291
Amount Requested: $898,053
Project Description and Explanation: The goal of the Purpose Lab Employment Project is to expand the successful job training and career development programs at St. Joseph Center, which serves people who are experiencing homelessness or those who are at risk of becoming homeless. Purpose Lab includes four innovative training programs: (1) Codetalk, a job training program for low income, homeless, and previously homeless women; (2) Fortifi LA, a web technology training program for extremely vulnerable populations, such as those recently released from prison and people with long histories of homelessness; (3) Bread & Roses Training Kitchen, a program that prepares low-income adults with histories of homelessness or incarceration to enter the food service industry as chefs, sous chefs, caterers, and managers of industrial kitchens; (4) KeySkills, an intensive, three-week career coaching course that provides support for vulnerable adults seeking employment.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Education - Department of Education / Innovation and Improvement (K-12)
Project Name: Providing the Pathways to Success – College & Career Support
Recipient: Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles Harbor
Address: 1200 S. Cabrillo Avenue, San Pedro, CA 90731
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Providing the Pathways to Success project will serve 300 or more teens in the Harbor City region. This project will expand upon the successful College Bound and Career Bound programs provided by the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles Harbor. During the 2020-2021 academic year (while schools were closed due to COVID-19 protocol), over 95% of the students who were involved in the program graduated from high school on time. Of that group, 90% attended college this fall. The digital expansion of these successful programs will produce similar results among a new class of young adults.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Labor, Health, Human Services, Education and Related Agencies / Education - Department of Education / Innovation and Improvement (K-12)
Project Name: Expanding Inclusive Friendship School Clubs
Recipient: Friendship Foundation
Address: 2108 Vail Avenue, Redondo Beach, CA 90278
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The goal of this project is to create at least 22 new school clubs that will impact an estimated 1,900 students with special needs. One of these programs is the Inclusive School Friendship Club, which is in operation in 33 high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools throughout the greater South Bay. At each club, children with special needs are paired with student volunteers on a 1-to-1 basis to eat lunch, socialize, play games, and attend school events as a group. As a result of the Inclusive School Friendship Club, students in special education are seen and acknowledged, develop new friendships, experience less bullying and other abusive actions. Overall, students and the school body as whole become more aware of, and able to integrate, special education students, which is vital to their happiness and safety on school campuses.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development / Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) / Economic Development Initiative (EDI)
Project Name: Temporary Housing Program
Recipient: City of Torrance
Address: 3031 Torrance Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90503
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Torrance Temporary Housing Program project will provide participants with a temporary home as well as services to ultimately attain permanent housing. This 40-unit temporary housing program, located on Civic Center grounds, will provide temporary housing in the form of "tiny homes," while offering residents case management and permanent housing navigation.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Energy & Water / Energy
Project Name: SeaChange: Carbon Sequestration Pilot
Recipient: University of California, Los Angeles
Address: 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024
Amount Requested: $2,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: Carbon capture technology is a key component to reducing greenhouse gasses and addressing climate change. The funding for this project will enable UCLA to pilot a streamlined carbon sequestration and storage system that removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and safely stores it at scale. The technology uses a flow reactor, which runs seawater through electrically charged mesh that then lowers the acidity of the water and causes the carbon dioxide in the water to combine with calcium and magnesium to create minerals. Through this process, seawater is drained of carbon dioxide so it can then clean the atmosphere by absorbing more carbon dioxide. The process also creates hydrogen, which can be used as a clean fuel.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development / Department of Transportation / Highway Infrastructure Projects
Project Name: Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing
Recipient: Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority
Address: 570 West Avenue Twenty-Six, Suite 100, Los Angeles, CA 90065
Amount Requested: $2,500,000
Project Description and Explanation: The goal of the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing project is to increase public safety and protect wildlife. Highway traffic poses a significant threat to many native animals in Southern California because their habitats have been split up by roadways. This presents an obvious threat to animals who intend to cross the freeways, but also motorists who may encounter and potentially hit an animal. To solve this, the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing, located within the boundaries of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, will span ten lanes of pavement across the U.S. 101 Freeway. This visionary structure will preserve biodiversity across the region by re-connecting an integral wildlife corridor, and most critically, help save a threatened local population of mountain lions from extinction. When complete, the crossing will be the largest in the world, the first of its kind in California, and will serve as a global model for urban wildlife conservation.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development / Department of Transportation / Highway Infrastructure Projects
Project Name: Manhattan Beach Safe Cycling Project
Recipient: City of Manhattan Beach
Address: 1400 Highland Avenue, Manhattan Beach, CA 90266
Amount Requested: $1,000,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Manhattan Beach Safe Cycling project will close gaps and deficiencies on existing bike lanes to reduce risk of accidents, increase safety and comfort, facilitate access to beach recreation, and encourage people to use bicycles as transportation. The improved bike path, planned with community input, will help increase equitable access to our district's coastline for all constituents.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development / Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) / Economic Development Initiative (EDI)
Project Name: PATH Permanent Supportive Housing Marina Del Rey
Recipient: PATH Ventures
Address: 340 N Madison Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90004
Amount Requested: $3,550,000
Project Description and Explanation: This project will fund the transformation of 12,200 sq ft of an interim shelter site in Marina Del Rey to a permanent supportive housing facility. Currently, the site is home for 29 individuals who came indoors off the Venice Boardwalk and from other areas in West LA, with 4 units still awaiting proper ADA conversion. The final site will include amenities like an outdoor patio area, on-site parking for residents, and a community garden. PATH will provide dedicated supportive services on site including case management, employment assistance programs, as well as three meals a day. Like other Project Homekey sites, PATH Villas Marina Del Rey is a crucial component of California's response to homelessness.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Interior and Environment / Environmental Protection Agency / State and Tribal Assistance Grants (STAG)
Project Name: Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant Modernization for Spill Prevention and Containment
Recipient: City of Los Angeles (Mayor's Office)
Address: 12000 Vista Del Mar, Playa Del Rey, CA 90293
Amount Requested: $3,500,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Hyperion Water Reclamation project will help modernize the Hyperion Water Reclamation Plant, which requires improvements for spill prevention and containment that were not considered when the plant was rebuilt in 1998. The project will connect headworks equipment to the existing Distributed Control System of Hyperion's treatment processes, which will allow for more efficient and faster monitoring and control. The project will also convert three bypass channels for the passive overflow of raw sewage which will greatly reduce the chance of any potential sewage spills so that our beaches and communities stay clean and healthy.
Subcommittee/Agency/Account: Transportation - Department of Transportation - Highway Infrastructure Projects
Project Name: Pacific Palisades Pedestrian Trail
Recipient: City of Los Angeles
Address: 200 North Spring Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Amount Requested: $1,150,000
Project Description and Explanation: The Pacific Palisades Pedestrian Trail will transform 36,000 square feet of underutilized land along the hillside adjacent to Pacific Coast Highway into a half-mile long connection trail between Temescal Canyon Road and the George Wolfberg Park at Potrero Canyon Park, a valuable coastal resource providing substantial public benefits including walking trails, educational interpretive signs and overlooks. The new trail will provide access to Will Rogers State Beach, a historic beach that attracts residents across all of Los Angeles County and tourists from around the world. Funds will allow for the grading and installation of a 3,000-foot long, 12-foot wide decomposed granite trail and protective fence that will meander over the naturally hilly terrain along Pacific Coast Highway to the nearest signaled intersection and crosswalk at Temescal Canyon Road. Since there is no traffic signal or pedestrian crossing at the mouth of the canyon, a safe pathway to the Temescal Canyon intersection leading to the beach will provide public access to the coast and is necessary to prevent park and beachgoers from attempting to cross Pacific Coast Highway dangerously.