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A Hearing for Chief Judge Merrick B. Garland

Today, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick B. Garland to be the 113th justice of the United States Supreme Court.  By all accounts, Mr. Garland is an outstanding candidate.  He had a stellar career as a lawyer, both in the public and private sectors, and serves as the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, perhaps the most prestigious and celebrated federal appeals court in the country.  And in 1997, he received bipartisan support for his appointment to the DC Circuit.

Yet, if we are to believe what we have seen and heard starting just 15 minutes after Justice Antonin Scalia’s untimely death was announced, Mr. Garland will not be confirmed.  Indeed, he will not even get a hearing.  That a candidate as accomplished as Mr. Garland will not be allowed to make a case to the American public that he is the right person for the job and that he will protect the rights and liberty of all people living in this country, is an undeniably glaring signal of how dispiritingly broken and dysfunctional our politics have become.

Of course, there is more at stake with this nomination than the functioning of our political system.  Critically important cases, whose resolution could undermine efforts to advance equity for low-income communities and community of color, are before the Court.  For example, in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the Court will revisit the constitutionality of affirmative action.  In Evenwel v. Abbott, the Court’s ruling could undermine the political power of minority groups, particularly Latinos.  And at issue in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, is the financial sustainability of unions.  Mr. Garland’s appointment, assuming he is confirmed in a timely manner, could lead to rulings that promote equity in all these cases. 

Article II, Section 2 of the United States Constitution states, “[The President] shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and judges of the Supreme Court . . . ."

President Obama has done his job.  It is time for Republicans in the Senate to do theirs.

Meet the Start-Up Creating a Critical Jobs Pipeline for Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Workers

“I think my most skillful trait is the ability to pivot,” said Angelica Ross. “I believe that pivoting is a huge skill to have.”

Ross utilized her ability to change direction and forge ahead in every step along her path to become founding CEO of the creative design firm and training academy TransTech Social Enterprises. At the outset of her journey, she was fired from a day job after coming out to her boss and co-workers as a transgender woman. She says that her firing fell in line with a general message from society that transgender lives don’t matter. A 2011 report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the National Center for Transgender Equality found that 90 percent of those surveyed who identify as transgender or gender non-conforming experienced harassment or mistreatment on the job or took actions to avoid it; 47 percent reported that they had experienced an adverse job outcome such as being fired, not hired, or denied a promotion.

 

“There’s also a message that you’re not valuable,” added Ross, “except for a certain category of value that you have as an entertainer — either as a sex worker, adult film star, or drag queen.” Like many other transgender people looking to support themselves, put themselves through school, or pay for hormones and medical expenses, Ross began working as a model for an adult entertainment website.

Soon, she had the opportunity to work behind the scenes editing and cropping photos and posting content to the website. She taught herself HTML, CSS, content management systems, and more, using Lynda.com. Ross began to realize that she didn’t have to do sex work or work in adult entertainment to make a living. “I began to think, ‘Okay, now I can run my own adult website.’ Eventually, I realized that I didn’t want to run an adult website. I actually just enjoyed building websites, managing clients, and working as a freelancer.”

Over the next 10 years, Ross built and ran her own successful creative design business. In 2013, she decided to get directly involved to help other transgender people find their professional calling and employment pathway, just as she had been able to do. She began working as a career coach and job readiness expert for the Trans Life Center project at the Chicago House and Social Service Agency, where she worked with both trans and cisgender workers — people whose gender identity corresponds to the sex they were assigned at birth — “dealing with mental health issues, conviction histories, lack of work histories, trauma, abuse, you name it. Some of the challenges were so big that they got in the way of the work and productivity aspect of the job.”

Pivoting from career coach to broader empowerment

“TransTech emerged as a solution out of the center of that storm,” Ross added. After experiencing frustration with some of the social work aspects of her job, she began brainstorming a different system for capacity building and skills training for trans workers, based more on individual accountability. “It’s not just about getting people a job,” said Ross, “because once you get them a job, they might have a hard time keeping that job depending on what skill sets they have and the types of challenges they have to deal with while on the job.”

Launched in July 2013 in Chicago, TransTech Social Enterprises seeks to empower, educate, and employ trans and gender non-conforming individuals facing barriers in education and in the workplace, as well as to reduce instances of discrimination against them. The organization uses a dual-empowerment model in which trainees learn basic data entry, typing, software, and creative design skills while also working on real, contracted projects with professional clients. Similar to beauty school apprenticeships, clients pay a reduced price in exchange for supporting trainees just developing skills for the first time. Trainees, and anyone from the LGBTQ community, as well as straight and cisgender allies, can become community, professional, or corporate members, gaining access to benefits such as in-person workshops, on-the-job training, and diversity consultations. After an initial pilot program in 2013, TransTech is currently training its second cohort of trainees in Chicago and Washington, DC.

Organizations like TransTech are few and far between considering the vast challenges facing the transgender community. The 2011 survey found that respondents were nearly four times more likely than the general population to have a household income of less than $10,000/year. More than a quarter reported a household income of less than $20,000/year.

Black and Latina trans women face particularly challenging economic circumstances — much of it stemming from the way that institutional discrimination toward people of color, women, LGBTQ, and trans/gender non-conforming individuals overlaps and intersects. “My parents always used to tell us you have to work three or four times harder than White people to get ahead,” said Ross. She often feels like people are standing on the sidelines watching TransTech, waiting for a Black trans woman to fail. “I’m a trans woman of color without a college degree who’s never done these things before, but I’m dedicated, I teach myself, I pick things up quickly, and I’m willing to be the main muscle behind this mission.”

Partnering with the White House

The wins are rolling in. In its first year, TransTech made over $100,000 in creative design sales. In July 2015, Ross was invited to speak at the White House during its first-ever LGBTQ Innovation Tech Summit. U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith introduced Ross, recognizing that “amongst and in our community, the trans community faces some of the greatest challenges for inclusion and economic inclusion.”

Since then, Ross has been working with the White House to develop an employment pipeline for trans people to be hired at entry-level positions there. Nonetheless, TransTech is still in search of more supporters and corporate partners.

“Once people started seeing the White House stuff … we have gotten a lot of people saying, ‘Man, that’s so cool. That’s so wonderful,'’’ said Ross. “But there’s still a gap between that and folks actually supporting our mission, whether that is through volunteering, donating, helping us to raise funds, or helping us to see what [we could be doing differently].”

She said that she’s open for TransTech to continue to pivot and evolve; the organization is not designed to operate with a one-size-fits-all approach. The pilot training session taught the staff valuable lessons that helped inform the design of the second year, with the current cohort helping to tailor the program even further.

Ross explained that equity is central to TransTech’s work. “We need for folks to have a fair stake in the game and that looks different for each person,” said Ross. “What we’re trying to communicate to folks about TransTech is that it is a tool that’s reflective of an individual’s value — and what happens when an individual enters into a collective with that value.”

How the Proposed Fair Housing Rule Will Boost the Economy

Strong and effective fair housing laws are essential for building prosperity — for people struggling to get by, for local and regional economies that benefit from thriving communities, and for the nation as a whole. That’s why a proposed rule by the Department of Housing and Urban Development is so important. As inequality soars and neighborhoods of concentrated poverty are on the rise in most American cities, the rule would push municipalities to deliver on the promise of fair housing. By helping to connect low-income families to neighborhoods of greater opportunity, the rule has the potential to spur economic growth not only within these households, but within cities and regions.

The rule, due out this summer, is called Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). It would sharpen the tools that equity advocates and public sector leaders can use to increase investment in high-poverty neighborhoods, fight racial discrimination in the housing market, and add more affordable housing choices in neighborhoods with jobs, good schools, and other essentials. It would do this in three important ways:

(1)  It would make municipalities more accountable to community member needs by requiring resident engagement on fair housing and community development issues.
     
(2)  It would require a data-driven analysis (an "assessment of fair housing") of community conditions and impediments to fair housing, including factors that contribute to areas of racially concentrated poverty and high unemployment (e.g., school performance, transportation access, and toxic exposures).
     
(3)  It would require jurisdictions to tie federal funding — such as Community Development Block Grants and HOME funds — to addressing the fair housing challenges that are identified.

Taken as a whole, the proposed rule would mean that cities, counties, and states must be proactive to ensure all people can live in neighborhoods where they have access to the opportunities and resources we all need to succeed.

This rule is long overdue. It will help turn around the lasting negative impacts of historically discriminatory practices that contributed to the creation of poor neighborhoods of color, and it will reduce barriers that cut millions of Americans off from economic opportunity. This rule can be a powerful tool to advance equitable economic growth for the nation, and here are five reasons how:

(1)  Reducing growth-limiting racial and economic exclusion: Research shows that families living in disinvested and low-income communities have limited economic mobility and reduced future earnings. This effect creates generational cycles of poverty and limited opportunity: For example, two-thirds of Black children raised in the poorest quarter of U.S. neighborhoods a generation ago are now raising their children in similarly poor neighborhoods. This proposed rule has been proven to help direct more investment to neighborhoods that need them and help low-income families move to neighborhoods with more resources. Both the Puget Sound and the Twin Cities regions built off of their fair housing assessments – part of a pilot for the proposed AFFH rule – to focus new infrastructure investment in Native American, African American, African immigrant, Latino and Southeast Asian communities in need of investment. When St. Louis conducted a fair housing assessment, the city found that Housing Choice Vouchers were being used primarily in low-income neighborhoods where there were few jobs and community amenities. This assessment helped the city revamp its program to help residents find diverse housing choices that better met their needs.
     
(2)   Connecting people to job opportunities: By encouraging more job investments in high-unemployment communities and promoting transit investments that connect these communities to jobs elsewhere, this rule would help people previously isolated from employment opportunities better engage in the regional workforce and contribute to local economies. For example, Puget Sound used its fair housing assessment to strategically plan for a new food distribution hub and job incubators within historically disinvested neighborhoods where job growth was needed. And a New Orleans assessment that found transit was not serving late-shift schedules for hospitality and healthcare workers led to realignment of services to better meet low-wage, transit-dependent workers’ needs.
     
(3)  Creating jobs:
Places that support the development of quality affordable housing and new infrastructure in disinvested neighborhoods also create new jobs both in the short- and the long-term for communities. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that building 100 affordable homes can lead to the creation of more than 120 jobs during the construction phase and roughly 30 jobs in a wide array of service industries once homes are occupied. When coupled with job training, inclusive hiring and contracting practices, and provisions for good wages and benefits, these jobs can help put low-income and unemployed residents on a pathway to good careers and financial stability.
     
(4)  Attracting new employers: Lack of quality affordable housing that connects to transit makes it more difficult for employers to recruit and retain employees, putting the local economy at a competitive disadvantage. In a national survey of more than 300 companies, 55 percent of large companies reported an insufficient level of affordable housing in their area, and two-thirds of these respondents cited this shortage as negatively affecting their ability to hold onto qualified employees. Other survey data suggests that affordable housing availability plays an important role in where new businesses decide to build or expand their operations. In Boston and Chicago, fair housing assessments helped these cities support new affordable homes around growing job centers in order to attract more employers to the area.
     
(5)  Providing low-income families with more disposable income to invest and save: The disproportionate housing burden on low-income communities and communities of color makes it hard for them to save for emergencies, make long-term investments, or spend money within the local economy on necessary goods and services. Affordable rent and mortgage payments, and access to affordable transportation, can substantially decrease household costs, in some cases by as much as five hundred dollars a month. When families can save on housing and transportation costs, it bolsters their resiliency and financial stability and allows greater spending on health care and education. These investments contribute to greater stability not only for these households, but for the broader economy: a recent study found that every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers actually adds about $1.21 to the national economy.

The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule is powerful only if we understand it and put it to use. Learn more about the rule in our upcoming webinar.

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