title https://www.pacbiztimes.com Proudly serving Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:17:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 Forum focuses on needed affordable housing for area educators  https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2024/03/07/forum-focuses-on-needed-affordable-housing-for-area-educators/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 00:17:29 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=92559 Many students at California’s public colleges and universities have to sleep in their cars because they can’t afford permanent housing, including dormitories. Among them are those enrolled at CSU Channel Islands, according to Linda Braunschweiger, CEO of the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County. “There’s a large percentage of them,” she told the Business Times on Read More →

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Many students at California’s public colleges and universities have to sleep in their cars because they can’t afford permanent housing, including dormitories.

Among them are those enrolled at CSU Channel Islands, according to Linda Braunschweiger, CEO of the Housing Trust Fund Ventura County.

“There’s a large percentage of them,” she told the Business Times on March 5, a few days after her nonprofit co-hosted a symposium at the school.

The Feb. 29 forum addressed the need for more affordable housing for students, teachers, administrators, and related education sector employees in Ventura County — the least affordable housing market in the nation.

The “Home for Education” event gathered community leaders to focus specifically on the challenges of how to convert excess land that is owned by school districts in the county into affordable housing.

“The purpose is to bring together the development community and the education community to sit down and start talking about how to meet those challenges,” Braunschweiger, who is also the CEO of the Housing Land Trust Ventura County, said during a break at the event.

Braunschweiger said the two primary hurdles are the costs of developing affordable housing projects and finding long-term financing for them.

School districts in Ventura County that own excess land that can be developed into affordable housing include the Ojai Unified School District, which is entertaining just such a project, the Ventura Unified School District, and the Pleasant Valley School District, she said.

Housing Trust Fund Ventura County was launched in 2011 to help increase affordable housing options throughout the county by leveraging public-private partnerships to provide low-cost, flexible loans in the pre-development stage.

Co-hosting the symposium with the trust fund were CSUCI, Ventura County, the Ventura County Office of Education, and the Ventura County P-20 Council.

The forum highlighted the trust fund’s accomplishments, including $27.5 million in funded or committed loans since 2013 and $40 million raised.

That has resulted in 1,177 affordable apartments and homes committed, funded, and produced throughout Ventura County for very-low, low- and middle-income employees, transitional-age foster youth, veterans, farm workers, and the homeless.

One of the symposium’s keynote speakers, Al Grazioli, director of real estate and business development for the Los Angeles Unified School District, said affordable housing has several benefits for school districts.

It can attract and retain qualified teachers and staff, make districts become employers of choice, and allow employees to live in and become a part of the communities they serve.

“We needed housing yesterday,” he said.

The other keynote speaker, Abraham Galvan Sanchez, an attorney with Best Best & Krieger, agreed.

“There is a dire need for teacher housing,” Galvan Sanchez, who specializes in land use and housing laws, said.

A step in the right direction, he noted, was Assembly Bill 2295, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law in 2022, adding a new section to the state’s Government Code.

The section considers housing development projects on property owned by a local educational agent to be an allowable use of the property, provided certain criteria are met.

Braunschweiger said she would like to see the Ventura County business community step up and invest more to help solve the region’s affordable housing problem.

“If you look up in the Bay Area, Silicon Valley and all that area, huge corporate headquarters commit and donate millions of dollars towards solving the housing crisis up there,” she said.

“I’d like to see the business community in Ventura County and bigger corporations do the same thing,” Braunschweiger said. “They can be a player in solving the problem.”

And in so doing, they can help themselves by creating more affordable workforce housing, she said.

The scarcity of such housing frequently makes it hard for employers to fill positions since many qualified candidates can’t afford to live in Ventura County.

The symposium concluded with tours of two housing developments adjacent to the CSUCI campus – University Glen and the under-construction Anacapa Canyon. 

Both developments were built on educational properties owned by CSUCI and will be home to nearly 2,000 residents including university employees, educational allies, alumni, seniors, and the public. 

“These developments remind us that discussions like today have the potential of becoming homes tomorrow,” Braunschweiger said in a press release.

“Today we took an important step towards ensuring more homes for all as a community,” she said.

email: mharris@pacbiztimes.com

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Tri-county colleges offer career readiness classes https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/09/21/tri-county-colleges-offer-career-readiness-classes/ Thu, 21 Sep 2023 18:21:00 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=90826 California Gov. Gavin Newson has ordered the development of a statewide career education plan to help students at public learning institutions enter the workforce. One of the goals of the plan, announced Aug. 31, will be to build connections between schools and employers to enable graduates to transition more seamlessly into careers. Several universities and Read More →

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CSU Channel Islands photographer Whitney Howard (right) helps senior Gabriel Perez pose for a head shot as part of the university’s career readiness class. (Mike Harris / PCBT Staff)

California Gov. Gavin Newson has ordered the development of a statewide career education plan to help students at public learning institutions enter the workforce.

One of the goals of the plan, announced Aug. 31, will be to build connections between schools and employers to enable graduates to transition more seamlessly into careers.

Several universities and colleges in the Tri-County region have already been doing that.

The business schools at CSU Channel Islands and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo teach mandatory career readiness courses designed to prepare their students to land their first jobs.

Santa Barbara City College offers a more concise class.

The classes are distinct from the standard career counseling offered at virtually every university and college. CSUCI, Cal Poly SLO and SBCC also offer the standard counseling in additon to their classes.

Jessica Muth, who teaches the CSUCI course, told the Business Times Sept. 13 that the goal of the 16-week class “is to give business students the confidence and skills and the ability to launch into the careers of their choice when they graduate.”

Launched in spring 2023, the no-cost course at the Martin V. Smith School of Business & Economics teaches students how to search for, apply for, and get entry-level jobs after graduation. 

Skills they learn include preparing for the transition from college to a professional job, identifying jobs matching their interests and qualifications and creating professional resumes and cover letters. 

They practice in-class mock interviews, go to career fairs, pitch themselves to prospective employers and learn how to talk about themselves and their interests, Muth said.

Career preparation is students’ No. 1 priority, she said.

“But what we’re finding is that students are under-prepared to enter the workforce,” she said. “So, this class is really embedding career readiness into the curriculum.” 

As part of the course, the students on Sept. 13 had professional head shots taken for their resumes and LinkedIn bios.

One of them, senior Eliana Gonzales, said that through the program, she had landed an accounting internship at the Port of Hueneme.

“All thanks to Jessica,” Gonzales, 25, said. “She helped me build my resume, do a LinkedIn bio and how to network.

“And she was the one who introduced me to my current employer,” Gonzales said. “So, this is a great experience.” 

Senior Gabriel Perez, 25, said he’s considering a career in marketing or accounting.

“Later on in the semester, we’re going to have a career fair, so I’ll have the opportunity to meet employers, local businesses,” he said.

“And kind of just see where I want to apply, where I want to go,” he said. “So, I feel this class is really going to help me.”

Other students who have taken the course have been hired at Premier America Credit Union and Haas Automation, both in Oxnard, Muth said.

Muth said she supports Newsom’s “freedom to suceed” Master Plan on Career Education.

“I think it’s needed to educate Californians to be career ready,” she said.

The plan will be developed in the next year or so by state leaders in education, workforce development and economic development working collaboratively with employers and others.

Up the coast, Cal Poly SLO’s Career Readiness Center at the university’s Orfalea College of Business offers business students various services to help them enter the workforce.

They include a mandatory 10-week course, Business Professionalism and Career Readiness, that has been taught since 2016.

It teaches students many of the same skills as CSUCI’s class.

“We cover topics from career exploration and career decision making to networking, resumes, cover letters, interviewing and everything in between,” said Mallory Stoffel, the center’s coordinator.

“After completing the course, students feel more prepared for the college-to-career transition,” she said.

The center’s various services, which also include one-on-one career advising with Stoffel and career peer advising, pay dividends, she said.

About 81% of the business school’s graduates are working full-time, she said.

Stoffel said career readiness is part of the business school’s mission.

“And so, our leadership has made an investment to really provide these services for our students,” she said.

Santa Barbara City College offers a Strategic Job Search class though its School of Extended Learning Career Skills Institute.

Started about six years ago, it’s a free eight-hour, non-mandatory course that is taught on Saturdays.

“We cover in depth how to find a job in a strategic, most efficient way,” said instructor Janna Mori. “So, I just give the students a lot of tools for how to do a job search.”

The topics covered are similar to those taught at CSUCI and Cal Poly SLO.

They include occupational research, how to find jobs online, networking, resumes, cover letters, so-called brief “elevator pitches,” and interviewing, Mori said.

A related course, Personalized Career Planning, is also offered on Saturdays.

email: mharris@pacbiztimes.com

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Street smarts: Paso Robles winery receives industry’s award of excellence https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/07/17/street-smarts-paso-robles-winery-receives-industrys-award-of-excellence/ Mon, 17 Jul 2023 17:40:40 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89926 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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Street smarts: Ronald Reagan Foundation hands out 11 GE scholarships https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/07/07/street-smarts-ronald-reagan-foundation-hands-out-11-ge-scholarships/ Fri, 07 Jul 2023 16:29:00 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89782 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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UCSB teams with leading-online college to make degrees more accessible https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/06/19/ucsb-teams-with-leading-online-college-to-make-degrees-more-accessible/ Mon, 19 Jun 2023 22:30:39 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89539 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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Dubroff: Making psychology relevant for the 21st century economy https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/06/12/dubroff-making-psychology-relevant-for-the-21st-century-economy/ Mon, 12 Jun 2023 19:18:26 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89434 When a handful of young adults from Ventura County traveled to the Pacifica Graduate Institute campus in Carpinteria on June 2, it was a pivotal moment for both Pacifica and the Camarillo-based Project50 program that organized the field trip. Project50, run by counselor Dexter Nunnery, is trying to provide troubled Black youths with a path Read More →

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When a handful of young adults from Ventura County traveled to the Pacifica Graduate Institute campus in Carpinteria on June 2, it was a pivotal moment for both Pacifica and the Camarillo-based Project50 program that organized the field trip.

Project50, run by counselor Dexter Nunnery, is trying to provide troubled Black youths with a path toward success in the workplace and in life.

Leonie Mattison, the energetic new president at Pacifica, is on a mission to bring psychology closer to people who face the challenges of poverty, drugs and domestic violence in their daily lives.

Henry Dubroff
Henry Dubroff

The visit was a revelation for one of the teens, as Nunnery told me over the phone on June 6. She was taken with the institute’s leafy campus and inspired to follow her dream of going to college and eventually earning a degree at Pacifica. “We’re tapping into something that provides inspiration,” Nunnery said.

Mattison said she’s convinced that Pacifica “must reach out to the community if we are going to survive in the 21st century.” She’s set a goal of raising $53 million to train 1,500 licensed therapists over the next decade to reach into urban and rural communities to address “suicide, anxiety, mental illness…the problems we all are trying to overcome.”

And she sees the Central Coast, with its history of philanthropy and its recent brushes with disasters, as a launch pad for her idea to reinvent psychology as a more engaged profession. She wants to create certificate programs under the banner of Pacifica Extension to give new tools to health workers already in the field — and train a new generation coming out of community colleges.

I spoke with her by phone on June 6 after she addressed a summit on campus and spoke to her board about her plans. Reinventing the field of psychology may sound ambitious but for those of us who’ve gotten to know Mattison over the past few years, it’s a mission that’s tailor-made for her.  “It’s time to disrupt higher education,” she said.

Mattison is a native of Jamaica who raised kids, earned a Ph.D., wrote two books and held a full-time job while figuring out how to make it all work financially while living in Santa Barbara. She was chief operating officer at CommUnify before moving over to Pacifica last year as president.

Nunnery is a native of Mississippi who came to California years ago to pursue his innovative ideas about counseling and providing social services. His counseling program works with Ventura County Probation, Child Support Services and public defenders. “Leonia and I have a lot of passion that connects the same way,” he said.

Nunnery said he learned about Mattison and Pacifica through the Black Leadership Roundtable, an effort to connect Black leaders in the tri-county region that the Business Times helped launch in 2021. Nunnery said he learned about the roundtable effort from Travis Mack, a successful CEO in the IT field, and one of the group’s founding members.

Two things need to be said at this point. First, the cost of living on the Central Coast is so high that it adds an extra layer of complexity to mental health burdens for all of us – White, Black, Latino, Asian and Native American. That revelation came to me thanks to a study by the United Ways of California on the “real cost” of living in California.

Second, is that the mental health effects of the disasters we’ve all experienced are cumulative. Since the outbreak of the Thomas Fire in 2017, we’ve dealt with mudflows, mass shootings, more fires, floods and other tragedies that made national headlines. We relive it every time an anniversary comes around and the economic cost of mental health crises, while hard to measure, is not trivial.

Mattison’s desire to ‘open the field of psychology up” and give young people more tools to understand why thoughts of “drugs and suicide are showing up in their unconscious,” might just lead to something much bigger.

The first small step was that June 2 field trip from West Ventura County to the hillsides of Carpinteria. “They listened and they engaged,” Mattison said. “I applaud them for their courage.”

Henry Dubroff is the founder, owner and editor of the Pacific Coast Business Times. He can be reached at hdubroff@pacbiztimes.com.

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Street smarts: Former UCSB basketball star scores NBA Finals appearance https://www.pacbiztimes.com/2023/06/02/street-smarts-former-ucsb-basketball-star-scores-nba-finals-appearance/ Fri, 02 Jun 2023 23:50:54 +0000 https://www.pacbiztimes.com/?p=89314 This article is only available to Business Times subscribers Subscribers: LOG IN or REGISTER for complete digital access. Not a Subscriber? SUBSCRIBE for full access to our weekly newspaper, online edition and Book of Lists. Check the STATUS of your Subscription Account.

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