James [0:00] I guess you can just start off by telling us your name, where you live?
Elizabeth [00:07] My name is Elizabeth, and I live in South gate Hollydale park, I’ve been here for like 2 years. We recently just moved here from not that far so not too far but… big difference its a lot nicer here
James [00:23] Yeah it’s really nice! I guess what would you say is your experience with the LA river.
Elizabeth [00:30] Umm I think there’s only two major things that just might be some opportunit… like population and then the other thing is a lot of [events] they also have here. So they have a-lot of, I wanna say hispanic oriented type of festivals. So they do alot of having to do with smaller businesses. So they encouraged those businesses to come out and they’ll have a little post so they can sell things. And it’s usually free, you buy the food and everything. But they also have uh people that educate us on the LA river and what it brings to the community, like transporting water and providing homes for certain animals. So they try to educate our community, which is nice.
James [01:20] So what have… you’re out here walking your dog. What do you normally use the river for?
Elizabeth [01:31] Probably just walking the dog and then sit. More or less probably just talking to the homeless community because you have to get the word out that we’re gonna be building a shelter. So that people don’t have to stay out there, especially with the rain.
James [01:43] Oh ok. I see. And then I guess we’ll move on to the next question. Are you familiar with the LA river revitalization efforts and projects?
Elizabeth [01:53] No not really
James [01:56] So um basically the city is like, the city of South Gate specifically, they’re hoping to like build more projects like a lot more park-space, opening access to the river, community amenities for the community people nearby. One of the questions we have is what do you think you would want them to build, or your priorities if they were to do projects like that?
Elizabeth [02:33] Maybe more accessibility for like runners and stuff, I know they have stuff like that. But maybe lights because it gets pretty dark. Because honestly I think… it scares me to think that someone is out there… i dont know
James [02:54] And then piggybacking off of that, like what would you say is a concern if they were to move forward with certain projects on the river.
Elizabeth [03:05] I feel like if they were to build more bridges and things like that, a lot more homeless would be there and especially the past few months of all the rain that we’ve got it takes alot of time out of LAPD’s time to come over here. Because we’ve had people who are you know homeless people, who are unfortunately addicted to drugs, some are anyway. And sometimes people aren’t just very cautious. They fall in and then that’s essentially what happens here. That’s kind of a big concern for me.
James [03:39] And then like you mentioned that the river can be pretty dangerous in terms of like when it’s raining. Do you have any concerns especially because you live close to the river. Do you have any concerns with flooding into you area?
Elizabeth [03:56] Not so much because I mean, it wouldn’t rain as much to fill the entire thing. I don’t believe it would, so… I think its pretty deep enough where something like that isn’t gonna happen
James[04:10] Do you think climate change will have an effect on that?
Elizabeth [04:14] Eventually, with something like that? Maybe yeah maybe not in my lifetime, but in the next lifetime of course.
James [04:20] Ok, and then that’s pretty much it
Andrew [04:23] We were also gonna do like kind of like humans of the New York and we’re like trying to take pictures of the community members and if you’re interested we’d take a picture of you
James [04:36] Anything that you [think the city can do better to publicize or community outreach]?
Elizabeth [04:38] Maybe more like city council meetings? I know they have them every once in a while but the last one we pretty much had, was big concern was building the homeless center because it was gonna bring down home prices which kinda sucked
James [04:54] I see
Elizabeth [04:55] But um, maybe they could do things to involve the community in the project for the LA river. Not everyone wants something to be built without everyone knowing about it. Maybe something like that can work? Communication between the community.
James [05:10] Do you think like social media as well?
Elizabeth [05:11] Yeah! Cuz I know some, my next-door neighbors have been here a really long time and they have an app where they talk to each-other. But it’s only a few members… so maybe something on a bigger scale for everybody. Everyone knows everyone, kids all go to the same school and it’s like we’re all the same community because we are pretty much in one corner so it’s like maybe something like that would help like a twitter?
James [05:40] I think that’s it for now, thank you so much!