LOST ANGELS CHILDRENS PROJECT INC
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Mission Statement
Identifying and smashing barriers to employment, independence and success faced by disadvantaged and marginalized youth through a classic car restoration vocational training social enterprise
About This Cause
T I M E Teachable Inspired Motivated Entry-level Job Candidates Time is so important for youth entering the job market. They are just beginning to understand critical concepts that involve time: time is money, being on time, making efficient use of your time, taking the time to do a job right! The value of time is paramount for the success of a young man or woman. The acronym TIME represents the core of the Lost Angels Work Program. TIME reminds us of our goal and focus for the youth we train as well as the labor market we strive to develop and improve for local industry employers. The Lost Angels Work Program offers paid vocational training in a classic car restoration social enterprise. We pay youth (16-25 years old) to learn new, relevant skill sets that include welding, fabrication, engine assembly, basic automotive electrical, bodywork, auto paint & prep and composites. As youth progress through the intensive twelve-week program, they begin working on actual customer vehicles generating revenue to sustain the program and offset costs. For many of the youth who go through our program, this is the first job experience on their resume. The program also features soft skills workshops on resume building, mock interviews, barrier assessment, wrap-around supportive services and job placement with local employers into living wage positions that turn into careers. We make sure graduates are “job-ready” with their GED or diploma, a valid driver’s license, a registered, insured and reliable vehicle, secure housing and basic needs met. Barrier assessment and wrap-around support is critical for success because we recruit from local youth homeless shelters as well as the L.A. County welfare to work programs GAIN and GROW. Our participants are predominantly black youth, Latinx youth, LGBTQ, single parents, young women, youth aging out of foster care and/or justice-impacted. We target youth who face significant barriers, and help them overcome obstacles to independence and self-sufficiency. The program has been an unprecedented success with a graduate hire rate of 89%. Graduates earn $17-18 per hour and up to $50,000 per year working for Northrop Grumman, Delta Scientific, BYD, Stratolaunch, Edwards Air Force Base, Pacific Lock Co., and other local industry employers in aerospace, aeronautics, aircraft manufacturing, automotive and manufacturing industries. The training program teaches skill sets that are highly transferable to these industries and sought after by local employers. We leverage relationships with these employers to ensure there are living wage job opportunities for our graduates. Youth Success Story: A young, unemployed single mother entered our program with a suspended driver's license, driving an unregistered vehicle that was about to be repossessed by the finance company. While she attended our program, she went to Court and then the DMV to remove her license suspension. The program paid her outstanding vehicle registration fees and helped her negotiate a repayment arrangement with the finance company that ensured the vehicle would not be repossessed. The young woman graduated the program at the top of her class (particularly because of her skill as a welder) and was hired full-time by Delta Scientific as a welder. She is now being considered by Northrop Grumman for their Low Observable Paint Technician program, which offers entry-level pay of $50,000 or more plus benefits. Lost Angels is located in the under-resourced city of Lancaster in the Antelope Valley, where systemic racism, marginalization, the war on drugs, and a school-to-prison pipeline have created barriers to achievement. Lancaster has an overcrowded California State Prison and a Juvenile Justice Center. According to a 2019 Impact Justice report of Lancaster residents surveyed, 24% had been convicted of a crime, 22% had served time in a correctional facility, and 60% had close friends or family that have been incarcerated. The Antelope Valley also faces some of the highest rates of child abuse, neglect, and foster care placements in L.A. County. Substance use and abuse, poverty, homelessness and incarceration negatively impact family life, which is compounded by the severely limited resources for youth. According to the Census, nearly 24% of Lancaster residents live in poverty (compared to 14% in LA County), the median income for males is $36,606 and females is $24,309. Only half of the population that is over age 16 is in the civilian labor force. Many youth are thus homeless because they are on their own and unable to afford housing due to unemployment or underemployment. The degree of youth disconnected from the workforce is at unprecedented levels. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the overall unemployment rate for young workers ages 16–24 jumped from 8.4% to 24.4% from spring 2019 to spring 2020, while unemployment for their counterparts ages 25 and older rose from 2.8% to 11.3%. The picture is starker for homeless youth who had little opportunity to develop the academic credentials, job skills, and work supports needed to gain employment. The Antelope Valley has substantially higher rates of unemployment, homelessness, poverty, and foster placements than the rest of L.A. County. Specific subpopulations of youth also face a higher risk of homelessness: Black youth face an 83% increased risk than their white peers; Hispanic youth face a 33% increased risk; LGBTQ youth were more than twice as likely to have experienced homelessness; Young parents—especially unmarried—had a three times higher risk than non-parenting peers; Youth with experiences of foster care, juvenile detention, jail, or prison; Youth who do not complete high school are 3.5 times more likely to experience homelessness than peers who completed a high school diploma. Lost Angels targets precisely these high-risk populations of low-income youth, aging out of foster care, justice-impacted, and/or experiencing homelessness. We actively recruit youth of color, LGBTQ, young women, and others facing significant employment barriers from local youth shelters as well as from the L.A. County GAIN/GROW programs (welfare to work). Recruitment efforts target the most vulnerable opportunity youth and teach them high-level skills including welding, fabrication, engine assembly, auto electrical, paint & prep and composites. Program participants are 48% Latinx, 35% Caucasian, 17% African American, 5% LGBTQ and 19% have been single parents. Several students were aging out of foster care, five have had criminal records, two were in drug rehabilitation, and three have been unhoused. LACP not only offered job training and career development support, but also addressed these youths' essential needs and barriers to progress. Skills-based training improves the local workforce providing a pool of desirable labor to local employers in the automotive, aerospace, aircraft manufacturing, aeronautics and related industries. As shop classes have disappeared from local high schools, the gap in the labor force for job candidates with industrial arts experience who can work with tools and use their hands has never been greater. Lost Angels capitalizes on this situation by providing precisely the skill sets that employers are looking for, and tailoring curriculum to match hiring needs. Program graduates are also "job-ready," with reliable transportation and basic needs met including housing security. Each training cohort, several or more students complete their GED or Diploma, obtain a valid driver's license, register and insure their vehicles, and handle myriad other problems that can be almost impossible for youth without parental or other support systems in place. With these barriers out of the way, we then leverage relationships with local employers to ensure job placement in living wage positions. We believe this creates sustainable self-reliance and empowerment. Our track record supports this belief. We continue to work with graduates when they leave our program to ensure they keep their jobs, and/or transfer to even better ones. Lost Angels also works to coordinate and strengthen the network of local TAY service providers through strategic partnerships with the City of Lancaster, Antelope Valley America's Job Center, Los Angeles County Office of Education, Volunteers of America shelters, Penny Lane Centers, Children's Center of Antelope Valley Wrap Around Engagement Desert Outreach, Valley Oasis, Project Joy, Paving the Way Foundation, Youthbuild, Timelist Group, Antelope Valley Partners for Health, Tarzana Treatment Facilities, and many others. Lost Angels is a sitting member on several local coalitions including The BEST Village initiative, the AV Education and Employment committee, AV LAARP (reentry), Antelope Valley Health Neighborhood, WEDO Sustainability Meeting, and Youth Care Coordination. Through coordination and collaboration, Lost Angels seeks to maximize the efficiency of resource utilization and service provision to youth in the Antelope Valley and L.A. County. The Lost Angels Youth Workforce Development Program represents a multi-pronged, sustainable effort to reduce youth poverty and unemployment through intensive skills-based training tailored to meet specific local industry hiring needs through a revenue-generating vocational training social enterprise. Lost Angels also focuses efforts on achieving local resource coordination and building strategic community partnerships to offer wrap-around supportive services that help traditionally disadvantaged and marginalized communities overcome barriers to sustainable, living wage employment and economic prosperity.