Board Gives Superintendent Direction to Not Execute Contract with the City of Industry for a Leased Portable at 1603 S. Stimson Ave in Hacienda Heights
CITY OF INDUSTRY, CA – At the Board of Education meeting of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District held on July 29, 2021, direction was given to the Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Alfonso Jiménez to not execute the contract with the City of Industry for a leased portable which had been previously approved on a 3-2 vote on June 24, 2021.
The change in direction came about through Board Clerk Christine Salazar reversing her support for the contract with the City of Industry in consideration of the community. The District, at the request of a community member, facilitated a meeting on July 21, 2021 in order to provide representatives from the East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless (ESGV) and New Horizons Caregiver Group to share with the community the type of services they provide.
These programs sponsored by the City of Industry, currently operating out of Hacienda Heights, would have found a permanent home at a district owned portable for the East San Gabriel Valley Coalition for the Homeless (ESGV) and New Horizons Caregiver Group at 1603 S. Stimson Ave in Hacienda Heights.
ESGV currently provides services out of St. John Vianney Catholic Church in Hacienda Heights and has partnered with the district for the past 6 years. The services provided for families in transition have included winter shelters, Bridge Housing program, emergency assistance centers (hot meals, showers, motel/hotel vouchers), and other services. New Horizons currently is operating temporarily out of the closed Glenelder Elementary School.
The City of Industry provides $25,000 to ESGV to support HLPUSD unhoused families with motel/hotel vouchers as they transition to the housing services through Union Station Access & Engagement Family Solutions program.
LA County Supervisor’s Hilda Solis and Janice Hahn’s offices also budget a Housing Navigator to assist with our HLPUSD families and unaccompanied transitional age youth with housing. The Housing navigator also supports adults that receive support from ESGV.
HLPUSD has integrated a Community Schools model by providing the following through the New Horizons Caregiver Group: resources and servicers provided, district food pantry, food delivery to Equity and Access (E&A) and schools, Operation Success–Backpack program with school supplies, donations to E&A and individual schools – new clothing, toys, and items they received from donors, canned food drive and cereal drive prior to the pandemic that goes back to the district food pantry, McKinney-Vento families for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and provides monthly food distribution reports to E&A and schools.
