Act & Organize

United Parents and Students is committed to combating illegal dumping and litter on our streets, and to ensuring that every neighborhood has the right to sanitary public spaces. In 2015, the Los Angeles Times reported that “more than one-third of pleas to remove refuse from dozens of neighborhoods in Central, Northeast and South L.A. were ignored even as sanitation workers responded to 99% of requests in other parts of the city.” While more affluent areas were serviced quickly to pick up garbage and dumping, requests from lower-income neighborhoods were often ignored by the Bureau of Sanitation. Moreover, trash on the streets of lower-income neighborhoods often comes from illegal dumping by businesses and individuals to avoid costs of properly disposing of their garbage. Between 2011 and 2018, illegal dumping crimes had increased by 69%. Parents and students are dedicated to holding city officials accountable for their promises to clean up the streets in Los Angeles.

In April 2019, four senior students from Oscar de la Hoya Animo High School won first place in the City Controller Ron Galperin’s L.A. Datafest competition for their work in advocating for updates to the Clean Streets Index, a city-monitored system that tracks street cleanliness throughout the city. Started through Mayor Garcetti’s Clean Streets Initiative, the Bureau of Sanitation uses the Clean Streets Index to rate all city streets on a cleanliness scale of 1-3. While the Index boasts 97% of streets rated as “clean,” students found major discrepancies between the rating their own streets were given, and what they saw everyday in their neighborhoods. To combat inequities in the data and the experiences of cleanliness between neighborhoods, students recommended that the city update the clean streets index, institute harsher penalties for illegal dumping, and install more trash receptacles in areas with a high density of dirty streets.

United Parents and Students has also hosted multiple community walks to teach parents, students, and community members how to use the mobile application MyLA311, which provides any easy way to report illegal dumping, along with other issues like graffiti, stray animals, or needed street repairs. However, the MyLA311 application is currently only available in English, leaving significant portions of the Los Angeles population unable to access the services public works provides through the mobile application. To ensure that as many people as possible have access to city services, United Parents and Students launched a campaign to translate the application to Spanish and Korean. Since beginning in July 2019, volunteers and organizers have collected over 700 signatures from community members to petition City Council to translate the MyLA311 application to Spanish and Korean, the two most commonly-spoken languages other than English in Los Angeles. The ultimate goal is to not only to translate the application, but ensure that all neighborhoods are clean, streets are free of garbage, and city services are available and accessible to all people in Los Angeles, regardless of the language they speak or the neighborhood where they live.

United Parents and Students works to ensure every student is safe as they walk to and from school, and our neighborhoods are free of violence that is traumatic for the community as a whole. We believe that everyone deserves the right to live and grow in a community where they feel safe and secure, but we recognize that violence disproportionately affects low-income neighborhoods. At 15 schools in LA County, most located near the 110 freeway in South Los Angeles, at least 50 homicides occurred in the past 5 years within a 1-mile radius of the school. Along with the physical danger, the trauma that surrounds this violence can be long-lasting, and can lead to poor mental health, absences from school, and difficulty concentrating in class. United Parents and Students works to win physical improvements that provide increased safety for students, such as crossing guards, road signs, and adequate bus stops, along with broader policy shifts such as increased funding for gang reduction and intervention programs, community-based policing models, and community development programs.

For years, students at Animo Jefferson Middle School and Animo Ralph Bunche High School had to walk about ¾ of a mile to get to and from the bus stop nearest to the school. Prevalent gang activity in the area where students walked made their before- and after-school routine dangerous and anxiety-inducing. 300 Parents and students met with Los Angeles Councilmember Price and the Los Angeles Department of Transportation to raise their concerns and advocate for a stop closer to the school. UPAS volunteers and organizers gathered 400 petition signatures to show community support for the change, and as a result of their organizing efforts, two new Dash Bus stops were added, including one only a block from the school, dramatically increasing student safety.

At Animo Legacy Middle School, parents were very concerned about cars speeding down Western Ave, and the danger they posed to students trying to cross the street. Families gathered 300 petition signatures, and worked with the Office of Public Works and Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas’ Office to secure a driver feedback sign and two crossing guards around the school. With these improvements, passing drivers are now alerted to their speed, and students have designated points to safely cross the road.

More recently, parents and students from Animo Pat Brown High School and Animo Florence Firestone Middle School were concerned about a pedestrian tunnel a block away from the high school that was dark, littered with garbage, and provided a hidden location for crimes to occur. After a student was brutally beaten in the tunnel while walking home from school, parents and students decided to act. Parents and students gathered 400 petition signatures to urge Metro, the owner of the tunnel, to close it permanently, obtained Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas’ support for the closure, and went to Metro’s Board Meeting to voice their concern. In late August, 2019, Metro announced that they will close the tunnel permanently, and parents and students look forward to continuing their work to ensure the area is safe.

After advocating for common-sense improvements to physical locations on routes to and from schools, and winning significant changes, United Parents and Students has begun to tackle the root causes of safety issues, such as gang violence, lack of funding for community development programs, and at times strained relationships with law enforcement. Parents and students have begun to meet regularly with members of the Sheriff’s Department to advocate for increased patrols near schools, develop stronger relationships, and better understand how to utilize their community power to advocate for needed changes.

To ensure that every community is treated fairly regardless of zip code, United Parents and Students works to advocate for legislation that implements health and safety standards, and seeks to hold businesses in low-income areas accountable to the same health regulations that are enforced in wealthier neighborhoods. In particular, parents and students have made their voices heard on issues of tobacco products that target teens and youth, and illegal marijuana dispensaries that go unregulated. The ultimate goal is not only to stop businesses and industries that sell dangerous and unhealthy products, but to advocate for change that will benefit the health of all community members.

In 2019, students were inspired through a collaboration with the American Heart Association to create a campaign to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products throughout the city and county of Los Angeles. Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, and flavored tobacco companies often target minors as primary consumers of the menthol and mint flavored e-cigarettes. 68% of high school e-cigarette users report using flavored products, and 4 out of 5 people ages 18-24 who have ever used tobacco report the first tobacco product they used was flavored. Wealthier cities adjacent to Los Angeles like Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach have banned the sale of flavored tobacco, and students are committed to obtaining the same regulations for their communities. The Los Angeles Board of Supervisors is currently considering a motion to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products within the county, and students have gathered over 300 letters signed by students and community members to urge the Supervisors to support the motion at the upcoming board meeting in late September.

United Parents and Students is also committed to addressing disparities in the enforcement of legislation created to ensure the health and safety of all. Many parents raised concerns regarding illegal dispensaries in the city and county that operate too close to schools, sell unregulated products, or sell to minors. Though the sale of marijuana has not been legalized in unincorporated LA County, the laws often go unenforced, leaving community members frustrated about the growing number of illegal dispensaries in the area. Together, community members, volunteers, and organizers worked with the Los Angeles Office of Cannabis Management, County Counsel, and the Sheriff’s Department to close dispensaries that are operating illegally in Los Angeles County, and ensure that dispensaries in the city or county are not located within the legal limit of 800 ft from a school. After reports of two dispensaries selling products to students, parents, students, and community members Animo South Los Angeles repeatedly called the County Department of Regional Planning to report the illegal dispensaries, which are currently under investigation. Parents and students continue to work to ensure that health standards are applied equitably across zip codes, and laws are enforced fairly in every community.