Politics

Black Florida mayor brings presidential campaign to Watts

WAVE NEWSPAPERS — Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Messam visited Watts April 12, touring the area, meeting with community leaders and discussing issues such as gun violence and education. Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Florida, also spoke with members of the Black Los Angeles Young Democrats at the headquarters of the African American Voter Registration, Education, and Participation project in Baldwin Village

Published

5 years ago

April 29, 2019

Oakland Post

By Wave Wire Services

WATTS — Democratic presidential candidate Wayne Messam visited Watts April 12, touring the area, meeting with community leaders and discussing issues such as gun violence and education.

Messam, the mayor of Miramar, Florida, also spoke with members of the Black Los Angeles Young Democrats at the headquarters of the African American Voter Registration, Education, and Participation project in Baldwin Village.

Messam began his first visit to California since declaring his candidacy by speaking to the USC College Democrats April 11, discussing his plan to resolve the student debt crisis and climate change, according to Angelica Urquijo, his campaign’s western region senior adviser.

Messam has called for the federal government to cancel all federal and private student loans. He supports encouraging entrepreneurship training at the high school and college level to prepare students for future unexpected periods of unemployment.

Messam said if elected, his administration would “make it a priority to lead the world and take bold, direct, climate action that will rival the New Deal in scope, rise to the scale of this challenge and apply the urgency required to get the job done in 10 years.”

Messam announced his candidacy March 28, with a two-minute, six-second video recounting growing up as the son of Jamaican immigrants in an area of South Florida known as “The Muck” due to the large quantity of muck, in which sugarcane grows, then going on to play football at Florida State and starting a construction company.

“The problem in America as I see it is that we are not addressing these high-stake problems that we must deal with today,” Messam said on the video. “When you have a senior citizen who can’t afford her prescription medicine, Washington is broken.

“When our scientists are telling us if we don’t make drastic changes today, the quality of air will be in peril, Washington is broken. Every day, people are graduating from universities with crippling debt, stifling their opportunity for financial mobility, that’s what broken with this country.”

Messam also supports changing the health care system “from the top down and drive down costs for patients, including giving the government more authority to negotiate prescription prices for seniors.”

Messam began his political career in 2011 by being elected to the city commission in Miramar, a city in Southeast Florida near Fort Lauderdale with a population of 140,328, according to 2017 Census Bureau figures. Miramar is smaller than Pasadena (142,647), but larger than South Bend, Indiana (102,245), whose mayor, Pete Buttigieg, has announced his candidacy.

Messam was elected mayor in 2015, defeating Lori Cohen Moseley who had held the post since 1999, and re-elected last month. He was the 2018 president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials.

As mayor, Messam has prioritized bringing jobs to the city. He puts leading the effort against oil drilling in the nearby Big Cypress National Preserve and proposing making “our city as a safe zone” for immigrants as among his top accomplishments.

This article originally appeared in the Wave Newspapers.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 24 – 30, 2024

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5 days ago

April 26, 2024

Oakland Post

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MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

Published

2 weeks ago

April 20, 2024

Oakland Post

Mayor London Breed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Contact: Mayor’s Office of Communications, mayorspressoffice@sfgov.org

***PRESS RELEASE***

MAYOR BREED ANNOUNCES $53 MILLION FEDERAL GRANT FOR SAN FRANCISCO’S HOMELESS PROGRAMS

HUD’s Continuum of Care grant will support the City’s range of critical services and programs, including permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and improved access to housing for survivors of domestic violence

San Francisco, CA – Mayor London N. Breed today announced that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has awarded the city a $53.7 million grant to support efforts to renew and expand critical services and housing for people experiencing homelessness in San Francisco.

HUD’s Continuum of Care (CoC) program is designed to support local programs with the goal of ending homelessness for individuals, families, and Transitional Age Youth.

This funding supports the city’s ongoing efforts that have helped more than 15,000 people exit homelessness since 2018 through City programs including direct housing placements and relocation assistance. During that time San Francisco has also increased housing slots by 50%. San Francisco has the most permanent supportive housing of any county in the Bay Area, and the second most slots per capita than any city in the country.

“In San Francisco, we have worked aggressively to increase housing, shelter, and services for people experiencing homelessness, and we are building on these efforts every day,” said Mayor London Breed. “Every day our encampment outreach workers are going out to bring people indoors and our City workers are connecting people to housing and shelter. This support from the federal government is critical and will allow us to serve people in need and address encampments in our neighborhoods.”

The funding towards supporting the renewal projects in San Francisco include financial support for a mix of permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and transitional housing projects. In addition, the CoC award will support Coordinated Entry projects to centralize the City’s various efforts to address homelessness. This includes $2.1 million in funding for the Coordinated Entry system to improve access to housing for youth and survivors of domestic violence.

“This is a good day for San Francisco,” said Shireen McSpadden, executive director of the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. “HUD’s Continuum of Care funding provides vital resources to a diversity of programs and projects that have helped people to stabilize in our community. This funding is a testament to our work and the work of our nonprofit partners.”

The 2024 Continuum of Care Renewal Awards Include:

$42.2 million for 29 renewal PSH projects that serve chronically homeless, veterans, and youth
$318,000 for one new PSH project, which will provide 98 affordable homes for low-income seniors in the Richmond District
$445,00 for one Transitional Housing (TH) project serving youth
$6.4 million dedicated to four Rapid Rehousing (RRH) projects that serve families, youth, and survivors of domestic violence
$750,00 for two Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) projects
$2.1 million for three Coordinated Entry projects that serve families, youth, chronically homeless, and survivors of domestic violence

In addition, the 2023 CoC Planning Grant, now increased to $1,500,000 from $1,250,000, was also approved. Planning grants are submitted non-competitively and may be used to carry out the duties of operating a CoC, such as system evaluation and planning, monitoring, project and system performance improvement, providing trainings, partner collaborations, and conducting the PIT Count.

“We are very appreciative of HUD’s support in fulfilling our funding request for these critically important projects for San Francisco that help so many people trying to exit homelessness,” said Del Seymour, co-chair of the Local Homeless Coordinating Board. “This funding will make a real difference to people seeking services and support in their journey out of homelessness.”

In comparison to last year’s competition, this represents a $770,000 increase in funding, due to a new PSH project that was funded, an increase in some unit type Fair Market Rents (FMRs) and the larger CoC Planning Grant. In a year where more projects had to compete nationally against other communities, this represents a significant increase.

Nationally, HUD awarded nearly $3.16 billion for over 7,000 local homeless housing and service programs including new projects and renewals across the United States.