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Crissy Brooks - press@mikacdc.org
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Park gets new light on life
* Christian nonprofit works with city to eliminate gangs, graffiti from Shalimar Park. Residents barely recognize area.
Daily Pilot, Page A-5
Metro Desk
10 inches; 458 words
COSTA MESA — Vicente Hernandez lives in a choice location for a parent of two young children. His family’s apartment on Shalimar Drive perches over a park with swings, a jungle gym and a bench for grown-ups to sit and watch. But until a few weeks ago, Hernandez’ son and daughter never ventured outside after dusk.
Shalimar Park, the smallest park in Costa Mesa, had turned into a haven for gang members in the evening, and the sun often rose on graffiti and discarded beer bottles. That wasn’t a rare sight on Shalimar Drive, which resides in one of the Westside’s poorest areas, but the 1.7-acre park had an additional problem — it turned nearly pitch black after dark, as vandals repeatedly shattered the lamps that rose a few feet off the ground.
“They would just break the light bulbs and throw them out,” Hernandez said through a translator Tuesday evening as he gathered in the newly shining park with a group of neighbors. “There was a picnic table here, and they would graffiti on it.”
Hernandez, though, wasn’t the only Shalimar resident concerned about the play area’s safety. The Mika Community Development Corporation, a Christian nonprofit dedicated to improving life on the Westside, approached the city this spring for help in cleaning up the park.
The city came through and provided bricks for the planters, flowers and shrubs for the garden — and a towering street light that now makes Shalimar Park the brightest stretch on the block.
Tonight at 5:30 p.m., Mika plans to host a community celebration in the new Shalimar Park, with neighbors, city officials and others in attendance.
“It goes back to them,” said Bruce Hartley, the maintenance manager for Costa Mesa, who worked with Mika on the project. “All we did is give them some resources along the way.”
In May, Mika approached the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission and asked for help in cleaning and illuminating the park. The commission agreed to lend a hand, and over the next few months, officials worked alongside residents to repaint the playground and put plants in the mostly barren dirt.
The park at the time had minimal lighting, with a single lamp in the back that mostly pointed away from the park and half a dozen shorter lights whose bulbs rarely survived long. City officials adjusted the lamp in back so it beamed across the park and added a new pole with two lamps by the sidewalk.
Tuesday at dusk, a group of neighbors gathered under the glow of the lights as children played on the swings and bars.
Effy Sanchez, Mika’s neighborhood advisor for Shalimar, said the park barely resembled the dark spot she used to speed by after work.
“Now it’s a new park,” she said. “Tomorrow is a big day for us.”
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Sunday, October 21, 2007
A full-court congregation for all
* Annual basketball tourney aims to unite community, church and police officers to boost relations among the groups in Costa Mesa.
Daily Pilot, Page A-1
Metro Desk
7 inches; 284 words
COSTA MESA — Basketballs echoed off the pavement on Shalimar Drive Saturday morning, as hoops filled a street that rarely experiences much outside traffic. A recreation van parked nearby with children lining up to have their hands painted. In front of the park, a bicycle, shoes and My Little Pony toys covered a raffle table.
It was a day of festivity on Shalimar Drive, once one of Costa Mesa’s most dangerous streets, but it had a more serious purpose underneath. Three years ago, the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Mika Community Development Corporation founded the annual C3 Basketball Tournament to raise money and enforce a positive relationship between the police and the community.
“Every year it’s getting a little bigger,” said Officer Ryan Walker, who spearheaded the tournament. “Even though everybody donates a little bit, nobody’s really in charge. It brings together the whole community.”
The event Saturday pitted 12 teams against each other in a double-elimination contest, with police, volunteers from local churches and Shalimar residents playing alongside each other. (The name C3 stands for cops, church and community.) While adults and teenagers faced off in the competition, students from Vanguard University held a clinic down the street to teach younger children basketball moves.
The winning team consisted of David Sevilla from the police department, Shalimar resident Carlos Arceo and Christian Parra, the youth pastor for the Harbor Christian Fellowship. The three players won gift certificates to Sports Chalet, but as Mika Executive Director Crissy Brooks noted, the tournament was more about community spirit than winning.
“One guy had a little run-in with the police last week,” she said. “I asked him, ‘Are you going to play in the tournament?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s important.’
“Graffitti Artist Goes Good”- OC Register- July 19, 2007
http://www.ocregister.com/life/uranga-graffiti-says-1775056-kids-art
“Private Job Center Planned”- OC Register – August 21, 2005
http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/sections/local/local/article_643245.php
Friday January 27, 2006
New job center closes
* After 3 weeks, temporary facility at OCC is shuttered. Organizers still searching for permanent labor site.
Daily Pilot, Page A-1
Metro Desk
10 inches; 380 words
It’s time to shut up shop again for Costa Mesa’s job center. A privately run site that matches day laborers and contractors opened Jan. 9 in a trailer at Orange Coast College, but its temporary lease ends today with the center still searching for a permanent home.
Local business, church and community leaders organized the private center, called the Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities, to fill the void after the Costa Mesa City Council voted in 2005 to close the Job Center the city had run for 17 years.
The city initially opened the Job Center to stem residents’ complaints about workers loitering and soliciting jobs around Lions Park and elsewhere in the city. These days, complaints about day workers often focus on whether they’re legal residents of the U.S.
When the city’s facility closed Dec. 31, the private group set up a phone system for people who need workers. That’s still operating and will continue after the temporary center at OCC closes today, said Crissy Brooks, executive director of Mika Community Development Corp. Brooks has been a driving force behind the new, private labor center.
The OCC spot was never intended to be long-term — school officials agreed to lease the space during the winter break, which ends Monday. Since the center has been there, Brooks said, about 30% to 40% of workers have found jobs on any given day. It’s about the same success rate as the city’s Job Center, but fewer workers have used the OCC site, she said.
As an alternative, some workers have called up old bosses, while others have continued to seek jobs near the closed Job Center at Placentia Avenue and 17th Street.
Plans for a permanent labor center are elaborate and include English classes, job skills training and help for those who want long-term jobs.
But a location is still the missing piece.
With the OCC site closing today, some who have used it aren’t sure where they’ll go.
‘We don’t know right now,” job seeker Moises Morelos said Thursday.
The Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities phone line is (949) 764-1528.
It’s suggested that employers try to call the day before workers are needed and leave a message about how many they want. Labor center organizers will return the calls.
Tuesday January 10, 2006
Job center finds a short-term home
* OCC hosts the private group taking over for city’s shuttered center, but lease ends when classes start in late Jan.
Daily Pilot, Page A-1
Metro Desk
17 inches; 654 words
Day laborers who used Costa Mesa’s Job Center have a new place to look for work, though it’s not permanent.
The Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities opened Monday in a trailer at Orange Coast College. The center is paying the school $25 a day in rent. A group of business, church and community leaders are behind the privately-run center, which is not affiliated with the city.
At the moment, it looks a lot like the old Job Center, which the city operated at 17th Street and Placentia Avenue. That center was opened in 1988 and closed Dec. 31 by order of the City Council.
On its first day, the new center registered about 15 workers, said Crissy Brooks, executive director of Mika Community Development Corp. Brooks is helping to operate the new center.
Much like the city’s Job Center, workers arrive and register by showing some sort of ID — a Social Security card, driver’s license or green card, for example. They’re signed up on a first-come, first-served basis, and they sit outside the center’s office in chairs to await jobs.
Laborers pay a $10 fee the first time they register and $1 each day they use the center. Contractors are being asked to pay a flat fee of $10 each time they pick up workers.
The money is important because the center is nonprofit and needs to be self-sufficient, Brooks said. Some workers also provided financial help — about 170 laborers donated a total of $2,000 toward center operations.
“I think that just says a lot about their vision for a new place and how seriously they take it,” Brooks said. “It’s their livelihood.”
The center will operate at OCC through Jan. 27, because classes resume Jan. 30. Employment center operators are still searching for a permanent facility.
The temporary site came about when someone with the private labor center group called OCC to see if space was available, said Doug Bennett, the college’s director of institutional advancement. The school regularly rents out space not used for classes to various organizations — for example, a small church rents a lecture hall for Sunday services, and motorcycle training courses are held in a parking lot on weekends.
Bennett said OCC officials had a few concerns about the controversy that has surrounded day labor centers in recent months, “but we didn’t see it as a major issue.” The center likely won’t make a permanent home at OCC, he said, because there isn’t room, given the number of students and amount of traffic on campus when school is in session.
In the meantime, Brooks is hoping to get the word out to contractors about the new location.
“I was kind of concerned because it was temporary and people might not know where it is,” said Christopher Otis, who was looking for a job Monday. “I’ll be more excited when they get their regular place.”
Anti-labor center protesters have been ramping up their activities lately, holding demonstrations around the nation last weekend. But Brooks said she’s not worried about whether they’ll come to OCC.
“I think that as long as there are people who need workers and there are workers willing to work, it’s going to serve the community,” she said.
“People have a right to speak out against that, but I’m confident that the good that it does will overpower whatever opposition they may have.”
On Monday, the center’s first day, one worker got hired.
“We all cheered,” Brooks said.
Laborers and contractors who want information about the Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities can call (949) 764-1528.
Sunday January 08, 2006
SUNDAY STORY
Without a center
Daily Pilot, Page A-1
Metro Desk
27 inches; 967 words
The early-morning scene at the corner of Placentia Avenue and 17th Street is noticeably different these days. It is void of constant activity.
Gone are the blue benches and umbrellas that filled the front lot of the Costa Mesa Job Center. Gone are the city employees who staffed the office, and gone are the rows of day laborers who waited to be matched up with contractors.
When the Costa Mesa City Council voted last year to shut down the Job Center, which had been in service for 17 years, reality set in for job seekers and employers that the days of a centralized, labor-ready center are over — for now, at least.
In the first few days since the Dec. 31 closure, those searching for work have mostly dispersed to busy street corners and storefronts. Still some, like Costa Mesa resident Joel Morales, wait at the intersection where the Job Center used to be, hoping that employers who need work will still stop by looking for him.
“The hardest thing is to find a new spot,” Morales said. “People knew this was the place to go. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
A NEW DAY
So, what now?
For starters, a group of Costa Mesa residents have set up a phone system that allows employers to call in and find available workers.
The service, at (949) 764-1528, is operated by Mika Community Development Corp., a nonprofit Christian organization that provides services to low-income, Westside Costa Mesa residents. The answering machine is checked several times a day by Mika’s executive director, Crissy Brooks.
On the message, contractors are asked to leave what type of work, what date and how many people they are looking for, as well as a contact number. Workers are simply asked for their phone number and informed that someone will get back to them when a job opens up.
Brooks said more than 100 workers are already on her list, though only a few employers have used the system. She said she went to the Job Center during its final week and passed out information about the service, which is free for both parties.
“The main purpose is to provide information,” Brooks said. “We have a way to stay in touch with the community during this interim period when we are trying to find a new home for the Job Center.”
That effort has been going since summer, when it became evident that the Job Center would close. Brooks has been working with Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce President Ed Fawcett and other committee members on finding funding and a location for an employee training center — tentatively being called Center for Resources and Employment Opportunities.
Morales said some employers he had found through the Job Center had asked for his phone number before the center closed. But for the most part, Morales said, the end of the center has meant a struggle to find work. He said he has heard of a few workers going to other work-ready centers in Orange County.
But according to Huntington Beach Business Development Manager Jim Lamb, most laborers will not be coming to the Luis M. Ochoa Community Job Center in his city.
Opened in 1999, the center is intended to be a place where Huntington Beach residents can come to find work. Lamb, who oversees some aspects of the center, said the Huntington Beach City Council has ordered the center to serve its own population, not other cities’.
“The people who are looking for work generally aren’t mobile,” Lamb said. “My guess is when they close a Job Center, the laborers don’t get in cars and drive, they hang out at the local Home Depot or paint center.
“We’ve always had a gut feeling that people go to the closest place to where they live to find a job.”
NEIGHBORING BUSINESSES REACT
Fawcett said he has been concerned for months about where laborers would go once the center closed down.
Some store owners and employees who work within a few blocks’ radius of the Costa Mesa Job Center said they weren’t concerned about laborers loitering outside their businesses.
“For me, it’s not a problem,” said George Arena, owner of Best Family Custom Framing and Art Gallery, which is less than 100 yards from the now closed Job Center.
Nita Di Schino, human resources manager for Griswold Industries, said her company used the Job Center on a fairly regular basis.
“It was a good resource. It concerns me that people we hired seemed to be having trouble now,” she said.
John Asaro, president of Alden’s Carpet and Drapes, said he didn’t think closing the center served a purpose.
“It’s a bad idea to close it in the first place,” Asaro said. “There will be people wandering everywhere on the street. Closing it down doesn’t make them [the workers] go away.”
Costa Mesa police have not stepped up patrol or established any special units to comb the Westside neighborhood where the Job Center once operated, Sgt. Marty Carver said.
“We have had increased calls for areas such as Placentia and Victoria, in addition to the area near the Job Center,” Carver said. “We’ll handle it like any other patrol call.”
Lamb said he never figured the Costa Mesa Job Center’s closure would affect his city’s center, which he said costs about $50,000 to operate per year.
He said the Huntington Beach center was set up as a way to direct day laborers to one location, rather than having them on street corners, negatively affecting commercial areas.
“I would assume Costa Mesa should have the same concerns,” Lamb said. “The workers are going to stay around.”
Press Releases:
March 2005
It is with great excitement that Mika Community Development Corporation announces the promotion of Crissy Brooks to the position of Executive Director. Crissy was a founding staff member of Mika CDC and most recently, has served as Mika’s Program Development Director. She has pioneered Mika’s core strategy, organizing neighborhood leaders around asset-based solutions.
Crissy grew up in Costa Mesa and attended Azusa Pacific University. She received her B.A. in Communication with a Minor in Spanish and then spent three years in Caracas, Venezuela with Latin America Child Care. Crissy returned to Costa Mesa where she directed an after-school teen program in the Shalimar neighborhood. She is passionate about the Latino community and is privileged to partner with her neighbors and local churches. Crissy’s report with leaders in our community as well as with those we serve make her an obvious choice for this very critical appointment. Mika CDC is facing several new challenges and opportunities to lead positive change in our underserved neighborhoods. In light of this potential, Mika’s staff and board of directors are excited about Crissy’s expanded leadership.
Crissy replaces Mark Orphan who has been Mika’s founding director and is shifting his leadership focus to Mika’s board of directors. Mark is serving as the director of We Care California, one of Mika’s key partners in funding and strategic planning. These leadership changes keep Mika’s founding team together in more focused roles and accompanied by a growing number of strong complimentary leaders.
