How would California be if its poor were really heard? A new film offers answers
Commentary by Fresno Bee Opinion Editor Tad Weber: Californians in poverty explain their difficulties in a documentary for lawmakers and the public alike to view. A new documentary, "Poverty and Power," has been produced by End Poverty In California (EPIC), aims to allow Californians living in poverty to share their struggles in a documentary for lawmakers and the public to gain greater understanding and create beneficial policies. The film follows a two-year listening tour led by Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, and EPIC team members. The tour included stops in several California cities, including Fresno, Los Angeles, Ontario and Antioch. The goal of the documentary is to push Sacramento legislators to develop better policies to help those in poverty move up the economic ladder. Participants included an undocumented mother who shared emotional testimony about her struggle, Paloma Sanchez, an undocumented stay-at-home mother of a young daughter, and a Black financier who grew up in South Central Los Angeles in a small family home.
Published : 2 months ago by in Entertainment
Fewer than 10 of the California Legislature’s 120 members are renters. So how can these elected officials possibly understand the plight of tenants under stress from rent hikes?
That, in a nutshell, captures what a new End Poverty In California campaign is about: Having Californians living in poverty share their struggles in a documentary for lawmakers and the public to view and, hopefully, gain greater understanding and create beneficial policies.
The group, formed two years ago to highlight the widespread poverty in California, came to Fresno last week to screen the film, “Poverty and Power.”
The documentary is based on a two-year listening tour conducted by Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, and other members of the EPIC team. The tour consisted of stops in several California cities, including Fresno, Los Angeles, Ontario and Antioch, where local residents got to tell Tubbs of their anxieties, fears and frustrations with living in a state that has become one of the most expensive in the nation.
Devon Gray, EPIC’s president, highlighted the stark dichotomy now present in California: The Golden State has the highest number of billionaires in America, at 186, but also has one of the highest poverty rates. Data from a year ago pegged statewide poverty at 13%. As reported by the Public Policy Institute of California, that’s 5 million state residents living below the poverty line of $39,900 a year.
The state’s cost of living, affected by single-family housing prices that are the second highest in the nation, has been abundantly documented in recent years. On the rental side, while Fresno’s market is cheaper than most big cities in California, rent costs more than four years ago, when the COVID pandemic began.
Gray explained that the purpose of the documentary is to push Sacramento legislators to develop better policies to help those in poverty move up the economic ladder.
But that task sometimes feels impossible, noted participants in a panel discussion after the screening.
Fresno mom ‘tired of asking for help’
One of those was Paloma Sanchez, a Fresno resident who is an undocumented stay-at-home mother of a young daughter.
She took part in the listening session in Fresno, where she shared emotional testimony that is captured in the documentary.
“I am tired of asking for help to people in higher positions than me,” she said through tears. “For what? For them to just, ‘Oh, we are going to handle it.’ But they never get back to us.”
Later on, she says “I am an undocumented mother, and I feel like there are not that many resources out here for me ... So the fact that I have a little one that is documented, I want to make sure she can get whatever she can.”
Sanchez said she knew other undocumented people who are afraid to publicize their status. “But I feel like if you have a closed mouth, you won’t get fed.”
‘I know where I came from’
Hilda Kennedy spoke to another way elected officials can help low-income Californians — by assisting them to access capital and credit. She took part in the Ontario listening-tour stop.
Kennedy is a Black financier who grew up in South Central Los Angeles in a family home that was too small — her brother slept in the living room. As a high school student she was bused to a school in Woodland Hills in forced desegregation.
Today she is the founder and president of AmPac Business Capital, a nonprofit community lender based in Ontario. AmPac makes loans to small businesses that have been turned down at conventional banks. AmPac has made more than $1 billion in loans.
“I know where I came from,” Kennedy said. That is why I work the way I work, and I think about other people and second chances. Because I have had a gazillion chances.”
Another Fresnan in the documentary is Marcel Woodruff, the director of the Community Justice Network. He has mentored more than 3,000 youth from west and southeast Fresno.
One of those he helped was Kieshaun White, a young Black man.
“Kieshaun was that kid who was designated for poverty,” Woodruff said. “He was conditioned to live in permanent poverty for the rest of his life. So he would go to school or be in certain spaces, and he was always the kid you would bounce out.”
White became concerned about the air pollution impacting west Fresno. That part of the city is one of the most polluted neighborhoods in California.
With Woodruff’s encouragement, White created a network of real-time air monitoring stations so residents could see when it was unsafe to venture outside.
“Kieshaun shows the potential for what could be if deeper investments, like the relationships we have, are made,” Woodruff says in the film. “But to understand we are the exception, not the rule. We have to change the rule.”
During the panel discussion, Woodruff also said that “nobody is disposable ... we want to invest in systems where everybody is invested in and belongs.”
That ultimately is the point behind “Poverty and Power” — striving to make California an equitable state where anyone can succeed. One step elected officials can take toward that goal is removing historic obstacles such as red-lining that kept minority communities in certain parts of a city. That occurred in west Fresno.
The film is well worth watching. It can be viewed on Youtube.
Topics: Movies