A Care First Justice System
This episode of Changemakers LA is hosted by Program Officer Wendy Gomez who oversees LISC LA’s Alternatives to Incarceration Incubation Academy. The Incubation Academy is a capacity building program for grassroots organizations serving the reentry population across LA County. Wendy talks to a graduate of the Incubation Academy about why community-based services are so critical in reentry and reimaging a justice system that is focused on care first.
Joining LISC LA for this conversation is:
- Danielle Lafayette, Executive Director of Unite a Nation, Alternatives to Incarceration Incubation Academy Graduate
If you're interested in the justice system and how it impacts individuals and communities, this episode of the Changemakers LA Podcast is a must-listen. Host Wendy Gomez speaks with Danielle Lafayette, the founder and Executive Director of Unite a Nation, a community-based organization providing housing, economic stability, and restorative justice services to formerly incarcerated individuals. The conversation explores why a care-first approach is crucial in the reimagination of the justice system, and how community-based services such as housing, economic stability, mental health, and peer support can facilitate healing and build stronger, safer communities. This episode offers insights and personal experiences that shed light on the complex challenges and opportunities facing the reentry population and the importance of community-centered solutions.
About our guest:
Danielle Lafayette is the founder and Executive Director of Unite a Nation, providing housing, economic stability, and wraparound services to formerly incarcerated individuals and youth development programs. She is justice-impacted and a strong advocate, having witnessed close family members impacted by the criminal injustice system.
If you would like to learn more about how we support place-based initiatives for housing, economic development, and alternatives to incarceration at LISC LA, please visit us online at www.lisc.org/los-angeles and follow us on twitter @LISC_LA.
You can find the rest of the series on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. Subscribe to hear more conversations about the people and places that shape Los Angeles.
This podcast was produced in collaboration with Ronnell Hampton, Founder of Growing Greatness Now. Growing Greatness Now is a consulting firm committed to social and environmental justice.
Want to dive into the full transcript? Check it out below!
Wendy Gomez 00:13
Hi, and welcome to the latest episode of the Changemakers LA podcast presented by LISC LA. The Changemakers LA podcast is a tribute to the people and the policies that make LA neighborhoods good places to live, work and play.
Wendy Gomez 00:30
My name is Wendy Gomez, I am a program officer overseeing the Alternatives to Incarceration Incubation Academy. The Incubation Academy is a capacity-building program for small grassroots re-entry organizations serving justice-impacted people across Los Angeles county.
Wendy Gomez 00:50
On today's episode, we are going to talk to one of our guests about why community-based services are so critical in the re-entry space and in reimagining a justice system that is focused on care first.
Wendy Gomez 1:05
Joining us today, we have Danielle Lafayette. She is the founder and executive director of a nonprofit called Unite A Nation. We are so lucky to have you, Danielle!
Wendy Gomez 01:18
Danielle is providing critical services to the community; including housing, economic stability, justice, and healing. She has also been an advocate for reforming the landscape of criminal justice and justice and care in Los Angeles. Welcome, Danielle.
Danielle Lafayette 01:41
Hi! Thank you, Wendy. I'm really happy to be here and I’m really excited about this opportunity.
Wendy Gomez 01:48
Before we get into our conversation with Danielle, I want to level-set us a bit. We're going to start off by talking about why community-based services are so important, to begin with. And what advocacy around alternatives to incarceration and a care-first approach have looked like in Los Angeles.
Wendy Gomez 02:09
First off, before we dive in. I want to outline a few ways prison breaks community connections.
Wendy Gomez 02:18
They are very obvious physical separations, such as physically removing community members, isolating them, and locking them up usually in jails or prisons that are far away from one's communities. And so there is a very physical separation and breakage from the community.
Wendy Gomez 02:37
In addition to that, often prisons require expensive phone calls which are privatized. In California, they can range as far as $17 for a 15 min phone call to call a loved one who is incarcerated.
Wendy Gomez 02:56
Additionally, the system for re-entry lacks emotional, mental health, and economic support. Other forms of mass Re-entry systems are a size one fits all solution that doesn’t work for everyone. They don't work for every type of person or background, so it doesn't meet an individual's complex set of needs and aspirations that they want to achieve when they're coming home.
Wendy Gomez 03:33
So again, we see that there is a system that sets up to reproduce harm and disconnection. This is why today, with Danielle, we're going to talk about what alternatives could look like to that system.
Wendy Gomez 03:46
What it means to bring in community connections that are vital to healing and to ultimately really creating community safety.
Wendy Gomez 03:55
I'm excited to talk to Danielle about what her organization does. Also, the types of services they provide are really rooted in the community for people who have justice-impacted backgrounds.
Wendy Gomez 04:08
As I mentioned, Danielle is the founder and executive director of Unite A Nation. They provide housing, economic stability, and wraparound services to individuals who are formerly incarcerated and youth development programs for prevention.
Wendy Gomez 04:24
She is justice-impacted herself and has witnessed family members be impacted by the justice system. She is a strong advocate of justice reform in South LA.
Wendy Gomez 04:40
Danielle, I wanted to start our conversation off with why community advocates like yourself get involved in championing a care-first approach. And what care first means to you when it comes to re-envisioning a justice system.
Danielle Lafayette 04:56
Okay, Thank you! Thank you for that. I just wanted to start with how important it is for justice-involved and justice-impacted individuals to lead the work in our communities.
Danielle Lafayette 05:07
That's how I got started. That's how Unite A Nation was founded. I am from the community, I’m from South Los Angeles, born and raised. And my thing is making sure that people like me are involved in this work and leading this work.
Danielle Lafayette 05:23
That's really the start of a care-first model.
Danielle Lafayette 05:35
To answer your question, the love of money is the root of all evil. That is biblical, 1st Timothy 6:10. So a care first approach means putting the love of people over the love of money or love over money.
Danielle Lafayette 05:51
The love of money has a negative impact, and causes systemic racism and oppression. Which then leads to mass incarceration, education inequality, poverty, and illness mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Danielle Lafayette 06:05
The love of people has a very, very positive impact on people and communities. Through love, we create safe housing like Nehemiah House at Unite A Nation, equality in living, education, and food, and we have healing justice, advocacy, green environments, and healthy living.
Danielle Lafayette 06:24
So, with love, we have more peace, better environments, and better communities. With the love of money, we create environments that cause people to strive for wealth or strive for money over striving for what's better for our communities and better for each other.
Wendy Gomez 06:46
I love that it's centered on love. That's the center and the focus of building community-based services. And
Wendy Gomez 06:59
I think that's why we see such effectiveness or why it resonates with so many people as being a transformative justice space. And that's the space we should be moving into. Filling spaces with love when real harm is caused, instead of a costly system that certain people profit off of and that doesn’t provide any of that space or that feeling.
Wendy Gomez 07:30
I appreciate that. Can you tell us a bit about your involvement in the advocacy space? And what that looked like when you were first getting involved with Measure J or a care-first vision?
Danielle Lafayette 07:52
I started in advocacy when I was like 8 years old. But, getting into community advocacy and finding out what it really is, started in about 2014, with neighborhood councils. I learned more about different people in our community and how things are done.
Danielle Lafayette 08:12
That was a growth process for me and I was learning so much. But then, with my experience, I was able to create the change that I wanted to see within my community, and also be that change that I want to see in my community. Then I started with Measure J and then Reimagined LA.
Danielle Lafayette 08:32
I was sending in the letters that were asked to be sent to our elected officials and posting on social media. I was getting the word out about what was going on, and how there are millions of dollars within our local government that we need to have in our community.
Danielle Lafayette 08:56
Something that got me to want to be involved is that we needed to make sure that the money actually came to people like me, came to people that are in our community, that are from our community, and that are doing this work. A lot of people are not getting paid to do this work. They are doing this work for free and they are actually spending. At a time, I was the same way, I had a full-time job while I was doing this type of advocacy. So we're doing a lot in our community to make sure that our communities are better for us.
Danielle Lafayette 09:33
I got involved in Reimagine LA to say that money should come to community-based organizations that are founded by community members, that are led by community members, and that are led by community members who have experience with justice involvement.
Danielle Lafayette 09:57
My dad was incarcerated most of my life. He was a Vietnam veteran who suffered from PTSD. Who Instead of receiving resources, was put in jail because of their PTSD and because he suffered from drug addiction. He never received help from our country. So, I fight for the people who grew up without those resources but deserved those resources. And then I fight for my sons, who are 2 black boys now growing up in this system that I don't want to have a negative impact on them.
Danielle Lafayette 10:37
So for me, being involved in Reimagine LA and being involved in advocacy means so much. It’s because of that love of myself, that love of my son, and that love of my community; it is important to see that prosper in a positive way instead of a negative way.
Danielle Lafayette 10:51
Some people just see dollar signs. They say “Oh, I'm going to help the homeless, because I want to make money”, which is a concept I don't understand. They want to do things for money. We have this incarceration system that enslaves our community, because slavery is really not over it's just been redesigned and renamed the prison system.
Danielle Lafayette 11:10
A lot of our young people are being placed in prison. They are being taught and given certain skills to build this incarceration system and to build money for the wealthy, so that they continue to get rich. It's our job to make sure that system stops and that the money funnels into our community. But, it funnels through us into our community, because that's how we circulate the wealth in our community, and that's how we build to have better communities built by us and for us.
Wendy Gomez 11:43
First of all, thank you for sharing your personal story, it is always really powerful to hear. I've heard it a couple of times, and it never loses its power each time I hear it. So thank you, Danielle, for that.
Wendy Gomez 12:06
The second thing I really want to highlight is the concept that those who are impacted the most should be the drivers of the change. Often the phrase that is used is “those closest to the pain should be closest to the power”.
Wendy Gomez 12:19
And I think that's what's happening here. That's what's happening with organizations like Unite A Nation and with leaders like yourself. You are a phenomenal leader in your community, and you're not alone, and that's the collective power within the advocacy. It's people who have been impacted by this, who understand the inequities and the injustice that plays out here. And they are transforming that to build a different world, starting right here in our own community.
Wendy Gomez 12:51
I want to shift a little to talking more about your organization and taking that vision and advocacy you did.
Wendy Gomez 13:01
For our listeners, something that Danielle mentioned is CFCI, Care First Community Investment, is a big thing that they did. It's realigning our morals through how our local government spends our money.
Wendy Gomez 13:19
It is earmarking certain funds that we know, are incredibly critical like mental health, housing, substance use, and I saw in the budget yesterday a Doula program to address black maternal health. It’s realigning our budgets to be reflective of what our communities need. And then, having those funds go to community-based organizations like the one Danielle runs.
Wendy Gomez 13:55
So, shifting a little bit into that and the types of organizations that should be leading this work. Can you tell us a bit about Unite A Nation model and why it's different than a mass model of transitional living or emergency housing? Why is it so important to keep it at the community base level? And what makes Unite A Nation model unique?
Danielle Lafayette 14:22
So many things went through my mind while you were asking that question, and thank you for that question.
Danielle Lafayette 14:31
I believe we are different and it goes back to the same thing. It is because I'm from the community, I relate to the people that I work with and a lot of the stories they tell me are like hearing my own story all over again.
Danielle Lafayette 14:45
I'm able to help people through a lot of the things that they're going through. It is because I've been through those things in different ways and different places in my life, and I continue to overcome challenges, even though I'm an executive director and I'm in this role.
Danielle Lafayette 15:01
People may see me differently, but I am literally still fighting these battles even in my own personal life. I'm still in South LA. I live here and I'm a recent homeowner. Not that recent, but a little bit recently.
Danielle Lafayette 15:19
These things I'm doing for the first time and I don't have an example. I don't have someone to say, “hey, this is how you do this”. I'm literally learning and going step by step through a lot of things that I'm doing. For me, that's why I feel that I'm different. And that's why funding and utilizing organizations like mine, as the leaders in this work, are so important. It’s because the people that we are helping, we are literally going through those things with them.
Danielle Lafayette 15:49
And that's how the mentorship role comes in. That's how the leadership comes in. We're not looking down on our clients or feeling sorry for our clients. We're uplifting our clients. We're motivating our clients. And we're saying we can do this, and we can do this together.
Danielle Lafayette 16:06
And that is so important to our clients, because then they come to us, and they tell us what's going on. And they have a safe space to be more open with us about the challenges they face because they know we face those same challenges.
Danielle Lafayette 16:24
So that's something that I believe makes us different. Also, because I am from South LA. I'm from the Jungles, Baldwin Village Community.
Wendy Gomez 16:36
Do you mind explaining that a bit more for listeners who aren’t familiar?
Danielle Lafayette 16:43
Yeah. Baldwin Village, that's what they call it now, but it's the Jungles. It's a community in South Los Angeles that's in between Baldwin Hills and Leimert Park, and these wealthier communities. And it's a community of apartments and community members. It's known for the gang, but there's so much more in that community that a lot of people don't know about.
Danielle Lafayette 17:12
With me moving there I got to see so much. It's a lower-income community, but the people there have really great connections with each other. It's a family-centered community. However, there's a high volume of police, incarceration, ticketing, harassment, crime, and different things that are there, along with it being a family-centered environment.
Danielle Lafayette 17:42
This is what keeps me going too. There was a kid, and when I went to college I found out that he had gotten shot, and he died. His name was Marcel, and that sticks with me every day. We always danced. We were dancers when we were younger and he was a dancer. And knowing that someone came into our community and killed this kid.
Danielle Lafayette 18:12
It has always affected me to where I always want to fight for our community. Especially our black boys and our black men, because they're not receiving the resources that they need. And I am inspired by his death. We cannot leave our black men and boys behind because they need so much from our communities.
Danielle Lafayette 18:35
That again, is why I believe that my organization is different. I've talked about that a little bit more in one of our other questions. But that's something that really inspires me to say “we need to do more in our communities and we need to lead that change” because we're experiencing these things daily.
Wendy Gomez 18:59
Yeah, I think that's what makes your organization, and the whole model and approach to community-based services unique. Because you know that particular neighborhood so well. The same way somebody else who might be running a community-based organization in Boyle Heights knows their particular neighborhood so well. And the same thing out in Lancaster.
Wendy Gomez 19:26
All these very similar trends, but then, with very specific fabrics and ecosystems. Being able to keep those models really rooted, like you said. Knowing the people that are there and not just getting to know them, but having known them and having a generational impact and leverage in that community and relationships.
Wendy Gomez 19:48
I think that's incredibly important. About why it is unique and why keeping these models very community based is unique and transformative at the end of the day.
Wendy Gomez 20:05
Moving forward, you guys do all these different services like housing, economic stability, mental health, and leadership development. How does your organization approach doing economic stability for the people that come through your program?
Danielle Lafayette 20:26
I would like to say that's about housing first, because before we didn't have housing. I worked with youth in Dorsey High School, and a lot of my students and their families were homeless. They didn't have food and certain things surprised me.
Danielle Lafayette 20:45
I started helping them connect to these resources. And asking questions like, how can I get someone in housing? Then I was able to get someone connected to Section 8.
Danielle Lafayette 21:05
That's what really led me, as well as working in re-entry. I worked in the juvenile halls and in the camps. I was directly with the youth inside of incarceration. Then I worked with them as they returned to the community, and I also worked with them while they were in school. So I had all these different ways of working with our community.
Danielle Lafayette 21:26
But I realized, even our ones coming from incarceration were not able to connect to housing, and some of them couldn't go home. They may have had a family with housing, but they were not allowed to go there, because our government created these barriers that said they couldn't go home. And that's what led me to start our housing facility.
Wendy Gomez 21:38
Will you talk a little bit about violating probation or parole? Do you mind explaining that a little bit about why they can't go home?
Danielle Lafayette 21:45
Okay, yeah. So violating probation or the person that they may have committed a crime with lives in that house or the environment. Let's say the gang injunctions, and you can't be within a certain area with another gang member. Or if they have Section 8, then you cannot live there, because they didn't allow people who had a criminal background to live in a Section 8 unit. Or someone who had subsidized housing, you couldn't live there.
Danielle Lafayette 22:28
There are so many different reasons that create these barriers for people to be able to not go home.
Danielle Lafayette 22:30
And so, just finding housing for our community members became a bit of a challenge. And so that's how I started Nehemiah House because I wanted to house our community first.
Danielle Lafayette 22:46
And then provide the services they need to succeed like mental health services, job readiness, life skills, healthy eating, and living. And just how to be an overall great person within yourself and bring that into your social environment.
Wendy Gomez 23:13
Thank you for outlining one of the barriers that people face for being able to go home, but also how we continue to criminalize people for the simple act of trying to go home. And how the system of incarceration continues to follow people, even after a traditional jail term or prison term sentence.
Wendy Gomez 23:40
So thank you so much for outlining that for anyone who's listening to this.
Wendy Gomez 23:48
And how economic stability really starts with providing housing. That's a huge component of this conversation, especially in LA, where we have such a homelessness and housing crisis and cycle. There is a revolving door between criminalizing homelessness and then almost pushing people who are criminalized into homelessness.
Danielle Lafayette 24:10
And then going into, I didn't mention poverty. The systemic systems of oppression cause poverty, that cause homelessness, that cause mass incarceration.
Danielle Lafayette 24:20
These systems want to cycle our people back into the incarceration system because that's how they keep their money going. Also, our rent is just too high in LA, and there are not enough jobs, or the income of those jobs is too low for people to actually pay rent in our communities.
Danielle Lafayette 24:44
Economic stability is really providing that housing, but also our education. Our education systems are not equitable. They're not good. So we really want to advocate and go into our schools and provide these programs.
Danielle Lafayette 25:00
100% of our kids that we provided programs to in our school, graduated high school and then have gone on to college and are doing well in life.
Danielle Lafayette 25:10
Providing that gap for a lot of our people so they can succeed in life is very, very important. Education, having quality food, and making sure that we're giving food. We're a part of making sure that our community has healthy food and grocery stores within our communities.
Danielle Lafayette 25:30
So many different things that create economic stability for our community. And then that goes back to the first thing of love. Making sure that we're loving our people enough to provide the resources that they need. In order for them to be economically stable and then grow into being economically viable within our communities.
Wendy Gomez 25:52
Yeah, that is such an important thing to highlight. There are traditional forms of the ways we think about providing economic stability or mobility and then all the other things that support it that really are economic stability. What you guys are doing in terms of housing is a huge economic stability.
Wendy Gomez 26:12
I know you have linkages to helping people find jobs and writing resumes; that is another economic stability. But then the education programs and the food programs are also components of economic stability. And then hopefully mobility from there on.
Wendy Gomez 26:30
So I have one last question as we wrap up. Moving us away from the economic stability part to the mental health and individual growth and development part.
Wendy Gomez 26:40
A lot of the community-based services also talk about peer support, mental health components, and restorative healing. Can you tell us a bit about why mental health and peer support is such a vital service for people coming out of incarceration? And how do you guys do it in your organization?
Danielle Lafayette 27:07
Yeah. We have a program called Healthy Lifestyle Living. And within that program we focus on 6 pillars of health, we added one but we really focus on 6. Those are physical, mental, emotional, relational, spiritual, and social.
Danielle Lafayette 27:25
We really want to make sure that our community has a holistic health approach, and a lot of that starts with the foods that we eat. I know I keep mentioning that, but it is because of my background. I'm also an athlete and I ran track in high school and in college.
Danielle Lafayette 27:44
And even when I ran track, I didn't understand health as far as what you eat and how important that is.
Danielle Lafayette 27:52
Within our communities, we have fast food restaurants everywhere, 7/11’s, and all these things that provide us with quick food. But it's so important that we put the right food into our bodies because that also affects our mental health.
Danielle Lafayette 28:08
Sugar, I know a lot of people focus on drugs and alcohol, but we don't focus on the fact that we're consuming so much sugar within our community. What I do within my program is really start with, what are you eating? And how can we change that?
Danielle Lafayette 28:25
And we did programs teaching them about what sugar is, and how it affects you in such a negative way. Also about how drinking and eating fruit affects your mind. When bringing that to my clients, they were blown away by how drinking a glass of natural fruit juice changed their mindset and opened up their minds in such a different way. So, bringing that into our community is really important.
Danielle Lafayette 28:56
The mental health aspect of our community. People don't understand, we have this thing of like “somehow” people just became mentally ill. We're just like one day we were all fine, and then the next day people were mentally ill. And we have to go away from that and really talk about what is causing mental illness within our communities.
Danielle Lafayette 29:17
There is a cause. The high rent, people overworking themselves, people not having green space and healthy environments, food that we eat, and so many things that are happening. Starting with our children, they're growing up in these environments, experiencing trauma, and different parenting skills.
Danielle Lafayette 29:35
There are so many things that go into creating an adult. And by the time they become grown-ups living in the same system and cycle of now they have to pay. They have to go through all these things, and no one is actually teaching. How do we live in a healthy way? And what do we need in our communities, and in our environment to create this health and mental health that we need? Also just talking about our emotions, what we're experiencing, and how we do that. A lot of us don't know how to talk about that. What does that feel like?
Danielle Lafayette 30:10
Even within myself, I’m learning different feelings. I'm thinking what was that feeling? And I’m really sitting with that and saying, okay well, this is what I feel in that moment.
Danielle Lafayette 30:22
Teaching that to our clients is so important as well as relearning life. Relearning how we live and relearning how we do things, is so important within ourselves. But, there is also this system that we have to change.
Danielle Lafayette 30:40
A system that is continuing to cause people to have mental illnesses and mental breaks. We have to change that community, and that comes with the care-first approach and making sure that these resources are coming into our community. These are things that are making us more healthy in our community, and by providing these resources, they can circulate within our community. That includes funding, food, housing, and making sure that the rent is not increasing so people are able to buy homes within our community.
Danielle Lafayette 31:12
We have so many corporations and different people coming in and buying up the housing. A lot of people can't even get their first home or single-family houses because of this. And when they're buying them, they're raising the rent prices in our community. So there are so many things that are happening that are affecting our mental health.
Danielle Lafayette 31:31
And I think we have to talk about that and not just homelessness. How do we fix homelessness? How do we fix mental health?
Danielle Lafayette 31:40
But we need to talk about, what are the underlying issues that are impacting people that are causing homelessness? What are the underlying issues that are impacting people that are causing mental illness? And then we need to change those things. Not just saying, there are people on the street that are homeless. What do we do with them?
Danielle Lafayette 32:00
But how do we prevent homelessness? How do we prevent mental health illnesses? And then how do we also help the people that are experiencing those things right now? How do we make those changes? To me, that's what's really important, creating this cycle of change. Not just bandaging it.
Wendy Gomez 32:20
Yes, exactly, addressing the root of the problem. I love the way that you are framing the conversation of mental health around not being an individualistic issue, but a systemic issue. Talking about breaking generational cycles of trauma. And also the systemic injustices that have caused that trauma. Addressing both, how we break from that within our own mental health. But then also, how we go beyond that to address the systemic issue that has created this.
Wendy Gomez 32:58
I think that's really important. My last question within that is, why is it so important? Within this movement to transform a justice system, to reimagine it, and for those services to be decentralized?
Wendy Gomez 33:14
In US History we have seen a centralized mental health institution. And sometimes they can really replicate incarceration systems. So why so important for that to be decentralized?
Danielle Lafayette 33:30
It's very important for that to be decentralized, because, as you said, it's in a different way of an incarceration system. Or the fact that you may be able to lock a person in a room, and get them to a certain place of mental health or off of drugs. But, that person still has to go back into the real world. They still have to go back home.
Danielle Lafayette 33:55
So, it's better to create better environments for people to live in, create better schools, and create better places of employment that understand the needs of people. Speaking of that, just being a mom and saying, I can't be here right now. I have to go take care of my children. I have to go pick up my children from school. Those types of things cause mental stress to people.
Danielle Lafayette 34:20
So, just making sure that our work environments understand our home environments. Making sure our communities are safe spaces for people to have the mental health that they need. Making sure that we have trees. Making sure we have walkable and livable environments so that people can thrive in, also housing facilities like Nehemiah House with Unite A Nation. Making sure that those housing facilities are in different places within our community and not all in one spot. That they're led by us, and we are giving them these resources in real-time in the real world, and then helping them to succeed in life.
Danielle Lafayette 35:10
To get to a place where they are now having their own house or apartment, or living facility. And they're growing, breaking generational curses or generational traumas, and living in a positive way. So that's really what we want to do, break from the old ways of doing things and create this new way. We are being the change we want to see in the world, and that's what we really have to do.
Wendy Gomez 35:35
Alright, that was my last question. I think we ended on a good note of being that change and leading that change. And again, I think a big theme of our conversation of community-based services, and why it's so important to have them rooted in the community in a decentralized way. As well as, being led by people from the communities. The theme of those closest to the pain, those who understand the pain the most are the closest to the power.
Wendy Gomez 36:00
Danielle, you are an example of someone who really understands the struggles of your community, and as a collective, is an incredibly powerful nonprofit community leader. I’m excited to see that obviously in yourself and in your community, but all across the city and all across the county.
Wendy Gomez 36:30
That is the end of our conversation with Danielle. Danielle again, thank you so much for your leadership and all the insight you provided to us today.
Danielle Lafayette 36:40
Thank you, Wendy, for having me here and speaking to me. And thank you to LISC. Being a part of the Incubation Academy has really helped me to grow so much.
Danielle Lafayette 36:50
I really appreciate the resources that I'm receiving, and I really hope that I can continue to create this change in the community.
Wendy Gomez 37:00
If you would like to learn more about how we support place-based initiatives for housing, economic development, and alternatives to incarceration at LISC LA, please visit us online at www.LISC.org/Los-Angeles. And follow us on Twitter @LISC_LA.
Wendy Gomez 37:20
You can find the rest of the series on iTunes, Spotify, and Google podcasts. Subscribe to hear more conversations about the people and places that shape Los Angeles.
Wendy Gomez 37:32
This podcast was produced in collaboration with Ronnell Hampton, Founder of Growing Greatness Now. Growing Greatness Now is a consulting firm committed to social and environmental justice.
