Vernon Grant Aims to Close the Digital Divide

The City of Vernon and the California Emerging Technology Fund announced plans to provide access to computers and the Internet for underserved residents in southeast Los Angeles County.

By Gloria Angelina Castillo, EGP Staff Writer

Leticia Chacon, associate director of the Human Service Association, was walking through a parking lot in Huntington Park one day when a woman flagged her down.

“Hey! Hey! Remember me?” the woman told Chacon.

Not too long ago, this parent was one of the many Chacon was helping through a community computer literacy program.

In front of Vernon City Hall on Sept. 11, board members of the Southeast Community Development Corporation (SCDC) accepted a $301,000 grant from the City to help fund a program to close the digital divide in their communities. (EGP Photo by Fred Zermeno)

“She was so excited, she said ‘my child is in fourth grade and in Honors classes, it’s incredible I never believed it was possible,’” Chacon said and added that the mother had also benefited from the computer classes and went from being unemployed and learning how to turn on a computer and use a mouse, to creating resumes and community flyers, and to having a full time job.

“We started teaching the parents children’s programs so they could help their children, and before we knew it they were competing with each other for time on the computers,” Chacon said about the parents and children she has helped. “Parents started learning English—it was an unexpected outcome.”

Unfortunately the kind of advancement and empowerment made possible through the use of technology is often not available to families who have limited incomes and limited knowledge about how to use a computer, this includes a large number of Latino immigrant families.

That’s one reason why the City of Vernon and the California Emerging Technology Fund (CETF) has provided the Southeast Community Development Corporation (SCDC) with two grants totaling $777,000 to provide the largely Latino communities in the southeast with increased literacy and access to computers and the Internet.

“[The collaboration] will provide access like never before and open possibilities in the areas of education and health information access, employment searching, housing and community services and adult education,” Vernon Mayor Leonis Malburg said.

At a press conference last Thursday, September 11, Cesar Zaldivar-Motts, executive director of SCDC, said the effort is a response to a study by scholars at UC Berkeley that found the area suffers from a ‘digital divide’ as a result of “a lack of planning and institutional development.”

The study, “Disconnected: A Community and Technology Needs Assessment of the Southeast Los Angeles Region (SELA),” found that a majority of residents in southeast cities are disconnected from the Internet due to a lack of public access to computers, technical assistance and computer literacy education.

The study concludes that the communities of Bell, Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon and Walnut Park/Florence-Firestone are disproportionately disconnected from the Internet—and that indicates a digital divide inequality.

“The SELA population is young, Latino, low income, have low educational achievement, and more than half are limited English proficient,” authors of “Disconnected” wrote. “While mainstream society is gaining benefits through productive use of IT, Latinos still lack preparation, resources, and the time necessary to ride the learning curve.”

The Public Policy Institute of California states that computer and Internet usage in California and nationwide is at 75 percent and 73 percent respectively. However, the institute reports that Latinos have the lowest usage rates of all ethnic groups with a 58 percent usage rate of computers and 48 percent usage rate of the Internet.

The newly formed Southeast Community Technology Collaboration (SCTC) aims to close the digital divide through a three-year initiative. The collaboration has many purposes, such as: improving education and health outcomes, expanding broadband internet access to the community, expanding a comprehensive computer literacy program, and supplementing current community programs and services through out Southeast Los Angeles County.

The collaboration will be funded by the City of Vernon, which will provide $301,000, and by the CETF, which will provide a three-year grant totaling $476,000. The CETF is a public entity created by the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) through funds secured when it approved the mergers of SBC-AT&T and Verizon-MCI. The fund, valued at $60 million, is set to help Californians who live in rural areas, low-income urban areas, and people with disabilities.

The nearby cities of Huntington Park, Bell, Bell Gardens and Maywood each donated $1,000 to help get the project going. These cities will benefit from the services being funded.

“Our principal goal is to close the digital divide and provide access to information on education, health, of computer literacy and of computer programs,” SCDC President Ronald Garcia said.

Mayor Marburg said the city council voted unanimously to help finance the collaboration.

“Vernon is a city that does more,” Malburg said. “We do more for the people who live and work in our city.”
Malburg, who is related to one of the three founders of the city, noted that Vernon was the first industrial city in the southwest when it was established in 1905. He said that besides supporting businesses and stimulating economic health, Vernon is a good neighbor and has a long history of contributing to community services and programs for neighboring cities.

Vernon Councilman Larry Gonzales, who is a SCDC board member, said they have done several projects in the past and also recalled a transportation program “train on wheels,” a low-income housing project in Huntington Park, and efforts to reduce the drop out rates in local high schools.

“Vernon is always there,” Garcia said. “It has the smallest number of residents but it recognizes the importance of being a good neighbor.”

According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Vernon has less than 100 residents. The City’s Web site states they city is only composed of a 5.2-mile radius.

“Vernon has 1,800 businesses and employs 50,000 people who are in the city from Monday to Friday,” Councilman Bill Davis told EGP. “Our city is a strong economic engine creating hundreds of thousands of dollars for the economy, and we are proud to be good neighbors.”

The collaboration aims to help at least 3,200 residents by installing eight regional technology centers in eight communities in a three-year-period Garcia said. The centers will consist of 80 computer stations located at various community facilities.

In addition, a mobile computer classroom with 15 laptops, a printer and a projector will travel to locations that cannot accommodate a learning center. Garcia said the City of Vernon would pay for all maintenance and gasoline costs of the mobile classroom.

“The mobile class room will provide training to employees and help them improve their job skills just like it will also help students at the same time advance in school,” Councilman Michael McCormick said.

McCormick also said that the programs will not be limited to employees of the city and their families but will be available to the entire southeast area because “the digital divide is everywhere.”

Access to the computers and classes taught in partnership with East Los Angeles Community College (South Gate branch), Southwest Community College and Huntington Park-Bell Adult School will be offered free of charge.

Garcia also announced that the first 500 students who successfully complete a three-month-long computer literacy class would receive a free refurbished computer and two years of free Internet service from AT&T.
He said the two years of DSL service provided to the 500 students by AT&T is valued at $120,000.

Zaldivar-Motts said computer classes, a resource Web site and the mobile classroom could all be available as early as January.

He told EGP that the project is more than a focus on the use of technology.

“The main goal of the collaboration is to integrate the use of technology into the daily lives of residents and children in order to improve their health and educational outcomes,” he said. “It’s not about computers or technology, it’s about how to use tools to improve their lives, communicate with [distant] family, and how to improve academic and health results by using the technology.”

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Vernon Grant Aims to Close the Digital Divide

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