June 24 - July 28, 2022
LA County to Fund Over 100 Units of Permanent Supportive Housing at West Los Angeles VA Redevelopment would bring 112 units to campus By Dolores Quintana The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has approved the release of up to $163 million of funding that would pay for the construction of affordable and permanent housing in three areas of the county: the West Los Angeles VA Campus, unincorporated Florence Firestone and the City of Alhambra as reported by Urbanize Los Angeles. This plan would create 407 homes and over half of those homes would be set aside for people in the county who are unhoused. The vote was unanimous. The project at the West Los Angles Veterans Administration campus is being
developed by Century Housing Corporation. The County Supervisors’ approval would give the development company $47.2 million in bond financing to convert Building 157 and another building (156) into housing. These two buildings have both been vacant for over 50 years. They were used as office buildings and as medical clinic in the past. After they are redeveloped, the developer’s plans are to create 112 permanent supportive housing that would be set aside for veterans alone. The rents for these apartments would be set to be affordable for those who only earn below 30 to 50 percent of the median area income. The West Los Angeles Veterans Collective is the overall group that Century Housing Corporation is part of and that has been given the responsibility of redevelopment of the West Los Angeles VA campus that sits west of the 405 freeway.
Rendering of West LA VA Buildings 156 & 157.
Credit: Los Angeles County
Brentwood School Being Sued by Parent for Alleged Racism and Antisemitism School officials call lawsuit “baseless” By Dolores Quintana Brentwood School is being sued by the parents of a student who studied there as reported by Fox News. The Brentwood School is a private school and the lawsuit accuses them of having a “racially divisive, anti-Semitic” ideology, according to a parent of one of the students who attended the school. The suit further alleges that the school treats Jewish people as “oppressors”. Jerome Eisenberg filed the suit in a Los Angeles court which also alleges that Michael Riera, head of the Brentwood School committed a “bait-and-switch with the school’s curriculum and culture” and that Riera and the school have a “scheme to transform the school under a racially divisive, anti-Semitic ideology that seeks to indoctrinate children to reject Western values.” After Eisenberg and other parents who are Jewish told Riera that they were concerned about the school’s new curriculum, the lawsuit claims that the school “intentionally shut them out of the policy deliberations” and “openly welcomed parents that comprised the school’s various other ethnic and racial affinity groups into the decision-
making process.” according to Fox News. com. Part of the lawsuit is Eisenberg’s claim that the school violated the Unruh Civil Rights Act and for breach of contract, intentional infliction of emotional distress, as well as other allegations according to Fox News.com. Eisenberg additionally claims that his daughter was kicked out after paying the school’s tuition because of his objections to the school’s “virulent discrimination.” according to Fox News.com. Brentwood School issued a denial of the lawsuit’s allegations and they said, as quoted by The New York Post, “The allegations contained in the complaint are baseless, a work of whole fiction and nothing more than a desperate attempt to embarrass the school.” He blames the aftermath of the death of George Floyd for this change and claims that prior to the protests after Floyd’s death that the school was a “meritocratic, academically rigorous institution” that suffered significant changes in policy after the death of Floyd. Eisenberg claims in his suit that “Brentwood surreptitiously changed its curriculum and policies,” by delegating “curriculum and community policies to its Office of Equity and Inclusion,” after he paid tuition for the year. He further alleges that this policy shift was responsible for a
Brentwood School.
change in the school’s policy from “giving students a classically liberal education and towards a forced re-education that rejects Enlightenment values in favor of an identity-based ideology of grievance, resentment, and racial divisiveness.” Eisenberg’s lawsuit states, “The curriculum change shifted away from teaching students critical thinking skills— how to think—and started indoctrinating them into what to think, based on Brentwood’s preferred political fad of the
Photo: Facebook
moment.” He claims that in his daughter’s class books like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Lord of the Flies” were no longer part of the curriculum but that the book “Stamped” by Ibram X. Kendi now was. His lawsuit goes on to allege that “For instance, English Department told parents that if they wanted their children to read Shakespeare or Hemingway, they should
Brentwood School, see page 4