The Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office (CEO) leads the County’s Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Equity Initiative, which works to eliminate racial disparities in housing and homelessness. To support this work, LA County will partner with FUSE Corps to coordinate and implement recommendations put forward by the County’s Ad-Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness. 

PROJECT CONTEXT

Los Angeles County is celebrated for its diverse mix of nationalities, cultures, identities, and languages. This cultural richness is stifled by stark racial and socioeconomic inequities that manifest in disparities in health, economic mobility, housing, and homelessness—particularly for communities of color[1]. These disparities result from a legacy of governance rooted in white supremacy and structural racism, the impacts of which cost the County an estimated $300 billion in annual gross domestic productivity (GDP)[2]. Black/African American people made up 40% of the total population experiencing homelessness yet composed only 9% of the total census population for Los Angeles County[3]. Data show that people experiencing unsheltered homelessness have increased contact with law enforcement and entrance into the criminal justice system, creating additional barriers to future housing and economic stability.

On July 21, 2020, the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors unanimously established an anti-racism initiative recognizing that racism against Black people results in significant disparities in family stability, health and well-being, education, employment, public safety, criminal justice, and housing. This historic motion created the Anti-Racism, Diversity, and Inclusion (ARDI) Initiative with eight core directives, including developing an action plan to implement the 67 recommendations developed by the Ad-Hoc Committee on Black People Experiencing Homelessness (BPEH). To accomplish this directive, and upon the heels of the Ad-Hoc Committee’s sunsetting in 2021, ARDI has established a BPEH Implementation Steering Committee to build on the Ad-Hoc Committee’s efforts to guide, track, coordinate on, and monitor the implementation of 2018 Report recommendations. The Steering Committee’s core values center on the perspectives and leadership of Black people with lived homelessness experience, understanding that “those closest to the problem are closest to the solution.” This work furthers the goals of ARDI’s comprehensive strategic plan by eliminating racial disparities in housing and homelessness which serves as a contributing factor for many of the plan’s priority outcomes.

The Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office (CEO) first partnered with FUSE Corps to host an Executive Fellow for one year who supported ARDI’s Executive Director to build out a comprehensive strategic plan for the initiative. Building from that initial work, the CEO will now partner with FUSE Corps again to support the coordination and alignment of ARDI’s efforts to reduce disparities in housing and homeless and support the implementation of the BPEH recommendations, particularly the 25 priority recommendations as identified by the Ad-Hoc committee. The Executive Fellow will work collaboratively with the Executive Director, cross-sector partners, and County departments to facilitate the implementation of transformative strategies that advance racial equity throughout the County’s homelessness services system.

PROJECT SUMMARY & POTENTIAL DELIVERABLES

The following provides a general overview of the proposed fellowship project. This summary and the potential deliverables will be collaboratively revisited by the host agency, the executive fellow, and FUSE staff during the first few months of the fellowship, after which a revised scope of work may be developed and agreed upon by the FUSE fellow and the host agency.

Starting in April 2023, the FUSE Executive Fellow, in close consultation with the Executive Director, Racial Equity and the Senior Analyst- ARDI, will work with City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), the County CEO’s Homelessness Initiative (Homeless Initiative), community-based providers, people with lived experience, and County departments to collaboratively lead the development of an action plan that focuses on the elimination of racial disparities in homelessness.

This action plan will work to align and support the implementation of the 67 BPEH recommendations over the next 10 years. This will include developing a strategy that builds upon the Ad-Hoc committee’s prioritization of the BPEH recommendations and identifying a phased approach to implementation. This phased implementation plan will outline short-term strategies that can be implemented over the next two to three years, mid-range strategies that can be implemented over four to six years, and long-term strategies that can be implemented over seven to ten years. The Executive Fellow will facilitate the development of metrics and benchmarks to track progress on the first set of recommendations to be implemented. The action plan will serve as the foundation for future racial equity and homelessness efforts.

Upon completion of the action plan, the Executive Fellow will support initial implementation. This will include the establishment of workgroups based on the plan’s focus areas to bring together additional stakeholders across sectors to implement priority recommendations in the plan. The Executive Fellow will also work closely with County departments, LAHSA, the City of LA, the Homeless Initiative, Community Based Organization (CBO), and people with lived experience to capture real-time insights on their implementation progress and identify additional resources or supports needed to operationalize these priority recommendations.

The Executive Fellow, in close coordination with the Project Manager and Executive Director, will ultimately support the execution of a plan to advance racial equity in Los Angeles County’s homelessness and housing services. Overall, this initiative will advance upstream strategies to address disproportionate rates of homelessness amongst people of color, strengthen cross-sector alignment on homelessness services, and improve the County’s ability to center the perspectives of those most impacted by inequity within the homelessness system.

By April 2024 the Executive Fellow will have overseen the development and initial implementation of an action plan, ensuring its efficiency and effectiveness. This work will include the following:

  • Support alignment of existing efforts – Conduct a landscape analysis and extensive document review on existing initiatives aligned with the BPEH recommendations throughout the County to inform the implementation strategy and action plan; develop surveys, templates, or other tools to collect up-to-date information from relevant agencies on their current BPEH implementation efforts; provide thought leadership on an implementation framework and criteria for prioritizing recommendations for implementation. Utilize findings from efforts underway to prioritize and work plan.
  • Develop a comprehensive implementation plan, inclusive of an action plan – Develop a multi-year implementation plan to align the recommendations contained in the Ad-Hoc Committee report as prioritized by the working group; collaborate closely with internal and external stakeholders to ensure alignment with their racial equity in homelessness efforts; The implementation plan should include a framework outlining the differing goals of short-term, mid-range, and long-term strategies. This implementation plan should include timelines, priority areas, clear roles for the internal and external stakeholders, and data systems for tracking progress.
  • Engage stakeholders and catalyze buy-in – Establish stakeholder workgroups on key focus areas identified in the implementation plan, bringing together relevant public agency partners, community-based providers, County departments, and other parties with instrumental roles in implementation; solicit and incorporate input from stakeholders to build consensus around the plan; communicate and engage relevant stakeholders in progress towards the plan
  • Support implementation of recommendations – Work closely with County departments, LAHSA, the City of LA, the Homeless Initiative, CBO’s, people with lived experience, and relevant stakeholders to capture real-time insights on their implementation progress and identify additional resources or supports needed to operationalize these priority recommendations.
  • Support long-term implementation – Oversee integration of the implementation framework within the County’s broader Racial Equity Strategic Plan implementation efforts by working with leadership across departments to manage the initiative; support capacity building, creating internal infrastructure and systems to evaluate and support progress with additional data systems and tools necessary for long-term process and behavior change; measure and broadly share progress towards goals, and integrate accountability mechanisms for long-term deployment of the framework and action plan; serve as a model for other jurisdictions throughout the region.
  • Other duties as assigned

KEY STAKEHOLDERS

  • Julia Orozco, Acting Branch Manager – Policy Implementation and Alignment Branch, Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office
  • Executive Sponsor – D’Artagnan Scorza, Ph.D., Executive Director, Racial Equity – Anti-Racism, Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office
  • Project Supervisor – Jonathan Nomachi, Principal Analyst

QUALIFICATIONS

  • Approximately 10 years of professional experience in project management, strategy development, strategic planning, project evaluation, or similar relevant fields
  • Past work or educational experience in social services, housing/ homelessness, and/or related fields
  • Experience in anti-racist, diversity, belonging, and inclusion practices.
  • Familiarity with large systems and large systems change
  • Strength in implementation and developing metrics to track progress
  • Excellent stakeholder engagement skills
  • Exceptional written and verbal communication skills with ease in delivering public presentations
  • Superior critical thinking and analytical skills
  • Robust change management and project management experience supporting new processes or programs across multiple coalitions of stakeholders
  • Cross-cultural agility, relating to a wide variety of diverse audiences with strong emotional intelligence and empathy
  • Self-motivated and goal-oriented leader who can also be an independent worker
  • Capacity to sustain progress within potentially ambiguous environments
  • Ability to synthesize complex information into clear and concise recommendations
  • Understands the need for solutions to support all people in a community regardless of race, religion, gender, immigration status, or ethnicity

FUSE Corps is an equal-opportunity employer with a core value of incorporating diverse perspectives into our work at every level. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply for this position.