The nation’s largest Latino-serving foundation focused on investing in Latino youth and families awards grants to 19 Latino-led nonprofits across California, Arizona, and Nevada.
SAN FRANCISCO, April 11, 2024–(BUSINESS WIRE)–On the eve of the certification of California’s 2024 primary election results, the Latino Community Foundation (LCF) announced today $800,000 in grants to 19 Latino-led organizations in California, Arizona, and Nevada to target early Latino voter engagement ahead of the general election. For the first time in the organization’s history, LCF will invest in nonprofits outside of California that are mobilizing voters in key regions where Latinos can have national impact. To date, LCF has invested $1.4 million into grassroots nonprofits that are mobilizing voters.
Latinos represent 19 percent of the United States’ population and account for 36.2 million eligible voters nationwide. California is home to 8.5 million eligible Latino voters, representing over 30 percent of the electorate. “America’s destiny and the destiny of Latinos are intertwined like never before,” said Julián Castro, CEO of the Latino Community Foundation. “Through our grantmaking, the Latino Community Foundation intends on harnessing that power to strengthen and preserve our democracy in this upcoming election and beyond.”
California is home to five competitive congressional seats in this upcoming election. In each of those congressional districts Latinos make up more than 40 percent of voters. LCF is prioritizing organizations in key regions, like the Central Valley, where turnout can have a national impact. “Kings County has historically had one of the lowest voter turnouts in the state. Thanks to the support from the Latino Community Foundation, we can now expand our team and enhance our outreach efforts,” said Ruth Lopez, Director, Valley Voices. “This investment will enable us to bolster engagement in areas with similarly low voter turnout rates, like the unincorporated areas that border Fresno and Tulare counties.”
Arizona and Nevada will be pivotal in the presidential election, and Latino voters will play a big role in each state. According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, approximately 1 in 4 voters in each state are Latino. “The Arizona Center for Empowerment is thrilled to accept the Latino Community Foundation Get-out-the-vote grant,” said Alejandra Gomez, Executive Director, Arizona Center For Empowerment. “This incredible support signifies a powerful commitment to empowering our work to mobilize Arizona Latinos to the polls in 2024. Secretary Castro’s dedication to amplifying grassroots organizations like ours is an inspiration to us all! This grant marks a significant investment in our work and also recognizes the vital role our community plays in shaping our democracy.”
As LCF seeks to promote and protect democracy, it is meeting this critical moment by bolstering the participation of Latino voters in November’s elections. “In the heart of our democracy, every voice carries the weight of our collective future, especially that of the vibrant Latine Community, whose influence is essential in defending our freedoms,” said Blanca Macias, Deputy Director, Make the Road Nevada. “This grant is not merely financial support; it’s a testament to our shared commitment to a brighter, more inclusive, better future. Make the Road Nevada is profoundly grateful for the Latino Community Foundation’s belief in our mission. Together, we pledge to tirelessly work towards a future where every Latine individual and community can flourish without bounds. With this support, we move closer to a Nevada where equity, respect, and opportunity aren’t just ideals but realities for all our gente.”
These new investments are part of the Democracy Fund’s All by April movement, which calls on the philanthropic sector to distribute election-related investments by the end of April in order to help ensure voters are informed, participation is diverse, and that the American people can be confident in the integrity of our election system. All by April is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) philanthropic campaign working to ensure that U.S. elections are free, fair, and representative.
Today, LCF will ramp up investments to the following organizations who are organizing and mobilizing Latino voters in key areas:
Arizona
Arizona Center For Empowerment
Bay Area
The Unity Council
Central Valley
Dolores Huerta Foundation
Valley Voices
Community Water Center
Poder Latinx Collective Fund
LOUD 4 Tomorrow
Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network
Mi Familia Vota Education Fund
Radio Bilingue
Inland Empire
TODEC Legal Center
Nevada
Make the Road Nevada
North Bay
North Bay Organizing Project
Orange County
Orange County Communities Organized for Responsible Development (OCCORD)
CHISPA Education Fund
Statewide
Brown Issues
Building Skills Partnership
Hispanas Organized for Political Equality® (HOPE)
Nationwide
Ai and You Org (AIandYou)
About Latino Community Foundation
The Latino Community Foundation (LCF) is on a mission to unleash the civic and economic power of Latinos in California. LCF has the largest network of Latino philanthropists in the country and has raised $100 million to build Latino civic and political power. It is the only statewide foundation solely focused on investing in Latino youth and families in California. In 2023, LCF named former Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Julián Castro as their CEO. For more info, please visit: latinocf.org
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240411876739/en/
Contacts
Ariana Andrade, (707) 225-3776, aandrade@latinocf.org
Communications Director, Latino Community Foundation (LCF)
Victoria Sanchez De Alba, (650) 270-7810, victoria@dealba.net
De Alba Communications (for LCF)
Christine Dyken had just returned home after picking up her grandson from school, and she was stressed.
Dyken — who lives in a quiet corner of North Las Vegas with her daughter, Doreen, and 7-year-old Christopher — needed to move, and the process was overwhelming and expensive.
Doreen was getting divorced, and they’d been looking for a home they could move into quickly — but one that wouldn’t break the bank. The 74-year-old Dyken had moved in with her daughter to help care for Christopher but also because she couldn’t afford rising rents on her own.
Dyken’s income from disability payments, Social Security, her late husband’s pension and tax-preparation work doesn’t go far in a region where housing costs have soared in recent years, echoing conditions in California.
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“We’re really living paycheck to paycheck,” Dyken said last month, standing alongside Doreen, who works at a casino.
Home sale prices in Clark County have jumped by 50% since 2016, to about $414,000, according to an average of the middle-third of values collected by Zillow. The news for renters is no better. Zillow computed the expected price of a lease on a single-family residence, and it has jumped almost 70% over the same period, to about $1,750 a month.
As President Biden and Donald Trump prepare to face off once again in November, the hope of owning a home is all but dead — or at least on life support — for many middle-class voters in Nevada and Arizona, battleground states. The culprits are low supply, high interest rates and population growth — driven significantly by new arrivals from California.
Biden’s focus on the subject during a campaign swing last month is a reflection of how profound the crisis is for voters, political observers say.
“I think he realizes the magnitude of the situation,” Steve Sisolak, a Democrat who was Nevada’s governor from 2019 to 2023, said of Biden. “He’s not out there to chase polls, but when you do poll people, affordability of housing is a major issue. If you’re not in the housing market right now, it’s going to be difficult to ever get into the housing market.”
Dyken said she plans “to hold her nose and vote for Biden,” in part because Trump’s behavior during the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol was so “insulting.” But Doreen, who asked that her last name not be used, said she likely won’t vote. There’s too much going on in her life, and voting never felt like much use, she said.
In the northern Nevada town of Fallon, loan officer Shannon Faught said she’s “leaning toward voting for Trump.” Low interest rates when he was president, at the outset of the pandemic, allowed her to buy several homes, which she uses as rental properties.
Politics don’t weigh on her heavily, she said, but she’d like to see the country run more like a business and thinks Republicans are better positioned to do that.
“I don’t think about the election a ton except for the fact that it’s maybe having an effect on interest rates,” she said, though she recognizes that those rates are set by the Federal Reserve, which is ostensibly insulated from politics. “I think about interest rates. Who knows if they’re being timed with the election?”
The fed funds rate — a benchmark set by the independent Federal Reserve — is about 5.3%, a 22-year high. Inflation has dropped to about 2.5% from 7%.
In Arizona, which Biden won by just 10,000 votes in 2020, home prices and rents have skyrocketed as well, as the unemployment rate remains lower than the national average, at 3.7%.
The jump in prices, driven partially by an influx of Californians, has boosted anxiety.
A study from the Common Sense Institute Arizona found a housing shortfall of approximately 67,000 units as of early 2024.
Daniel Scarpinato, who was chief of staff to former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, said he thinks the border will be the dominant issue among Arizona voters, but issues of affordability and the direction of the economy won’t be far behind. Arizona’s 11 electoral votes and Nevada’s six will be pivotal in a contest where very few states are up for grabs.
A debate has roiled Arizona over proposed reforms to zoning laws. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs recently vetoed bipartisan legislation intended to boost housing that would have removed local control over some planning and zoning regulations.
A recent poll found that 53% of a representative sample of roughly 3,000 U.S. homeowners and renters said housing affordability would affect how they vote in the 2024 election. The same survey, funded by Redfin, found that about 65% of respondents said housing affordability made them feel negative about the economy overall.
“There’s a general sense that this was once an affordable place to live,” Scarpinato said, pointing to increases in rent and homelessness as byproducts of the malaise.
“The growth for the state from an economic standpoint has been off the charts and fabulous. If you owned a home, your value has probably tripled or quadrupled,” Scarpinato said. “But if you want to move and upsize because of a growing family or something, I think that there are some real stresses on people and just generally a sense that the quality of life is changing.”
In the run-up to his Arizona and Nevada visit last month, Biden called for a $10,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers and for funding to build or renovate more than 2 million homes. He called for the creation of a $20-billion competitive grant fund to accelerate housing creation. His administration is also looking for ways to incentivize local municipalities to do away with stringent zoning restrictions.
These proposals would require Congress to enact legislation, unlikely in an election year.
In 2021 and 2022, about 140,000 Californians moved to Arizona. In the same period, about 110,000 Californians moved to Nevada, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau. This influx is part of the reason prices for housing went up in these states, said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist. There are large parts of the country, she said, where residents are doling out more than 30% of their income on rent. Fairweather and other economists say spending more than that on rent and utilities makes residents “cost burdened.” In 2022, 22 million Americans met this standard.
She said Biden’s ideas were encouraging, but building new homes is the only answer to the crisis.
“That’s the only thing that’s really going to matter 10 years from now. I think everything else is too small to really make a difference in a product that’s so large,” Fairweather said. “Despite there being such a strong economy, when you look at [gross domestic product] or unemployment, people still feel like the economy isn’t good for them because of how high housing costs have gotten.”
Trump, whose campaign didn’t respond to requests for comment, offered few specifics about how he’d bring down home prices. He has mused about getting rid of the Fair Housing Act, which protects minorities from discrimination in the purchase or renting of housing. His campaign characterizes these regulations as waging a “full-scale war on the suburbs.”
Biden, meanwhile, has been “working to lower housing costs, help first-time home buyers achieve their dream of owning a home and lower rents, while Donald Trump spent his time in office gutting affordable housing programs and letting Wall Street firms jack up housing costs on hardworking families,” said the president’s senior campaign spokesperson, Sarafina Chitika.
Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, said it was a relief that Biden spoke so directly about the housing crisis when he visited Nevada. The anger over rising prices has made his own reelection contest more competitive, Horsford said, and has become the animating issue in conversations with constituents.
“The person who’s feeling the stress and the anxiety isn’t at fault. It is incumbent upon those of us who are in office to explain our position and what we’re doing to make it better,” he said in an interview at the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, which he once ran. “I encouraged the White House to center the issue of housing and lowering the cost of housing — not to just talk about inflation as this broad general term. That’s not how average Americans talk about it.”
He described how in his Clark County district, large corporations have swept in, buying up hundreds of rental homes at a time. Many of the companies are based out of state, he said, and have turned around and quickly raised prices, done little to invest in upkeep and evicted residents at higher rates.
He has introduced legislation to empower the federal government to better track home purchases and look for market manipulation among institutional investors.
In the Culinary Academy’s dining room, Horsford chatted with Ameeluz Cauton, who works at the Bellagio hotel, about the strain of finding stable housing. Caulton, 35, has worked at hotels and casinos for more than 15 years and at one point owned a home with a boyfriend. They broke up, and she struggled to find a roommate. Then the house next door became occupied with “sketchy people,” she said. For a while, she felt “trapped,” because selling the home wouldn’t give her enough to rent or buy something new, since prices had jumped so significantly.
Eventually, she resolved to just sell and move in with her sister, a temporary solution that’s working fine, she said. Her union, the politically powerful and Democratic-aligned UNITE HERE Culinary Workers Union Local 226, has a down-payment assistance program for first-time home buyers or those who haven’t owned in three years.
Many of her colleagues have felt a similar crunch, and it will certainly be on their mind this election season, Cauton said.
“They’re gonna vote for whoever is going to help them keep their jobs stable,” she said. “I don’t think they’re going to stick with a specific party. It’s just whoever is in line of what we need and what’s going to help us for our future. They could interpret both parties in a different way. But it’s whoever is for the workers.”
Mark Wahlberg says his family can “thrive” in their new home of Nevada.
The ‘Boogie Nights’ actor, 52, are now settled in Las Vegas after he moved there with his wife Rhea Dunham, 45, and their four children from California in 2022.
He told People about how they are loving their new home: “It’s a place where my kids can thrive and do their thing and pursue their interests.
“Everybody’s adapted nicely. The kids are all out at school, and everybody’s happy.”
Mark said on ‘The Talk’ in 2022 ahead of the move he wanted to turn Vegas into “Hollywood 2.0”, declaring: “After this gubernatorial election, hopefully we go to legislation and get a bill passed so we can get tax credits for the state, build a state-of-the-art studio here and make this Hollywood 2.0. I want to be able to work from home.”
The actor and his wife Rhea, who he married in August 2009, have daughters Ella, 20, and Grace, 14, and sons Michael, 17, and 15-year-old Brendan.
Mark said he “only made a couple of movies in the entire time” he lived in California, so it made sense for him and his family to move away.
He added: “So to be able to give my kids a better life and follow and pursue their dreams – whether it be my daughter as an equestrian, my son as a basketball player, my younger son as a golfer – this made a lot more sense for us.”
He added he and his wife saw the move to Nevada as a chance to “give ourselves a new look” and create “a fresh start for the kids”.
Mark’s latest film ‘Arthur the King’, based on Mikael Lindnord’s 2017 book ‘Arthur: The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home’, sees the actor play an athlete who keeps encountering a stray dog while taking part in an endurance race across the Dominican Republic.
He and his teammates end up taking in the canine, who they name Arthur the King, and making him their mascot.
Mark said about bonding with the animal: “He actually was my neighbour in the Dominican Republic, and so he would, when his trainer would let him out of the house, I would whistle to him and he would run ahead of her.
“And by the time she got over to the house, he had already had a couple steaks and a couple of pieces of chicken and we became fast friends.”
House prices in Louisiana fell at the steepest rate of any US state last year, new data shows.
Between January and December 2023, the average property in the Bayou State dropped by $4,370 to $195,356.
By comparison, homes in Connecticut saw the biggest spike in values, rising by $33,293, according to Zillow data.
The findings come after a tumultuous year for America’s property market which saw housing affordability hit a 39-year low thanks to soaring mortgage rates and still-high house prices.
But fresh analysis by the New Jersey Real Estate Network shows how the picture varies drastically across the country. Researchers looked at how much the average home in each state was listed for in January 2023 and compared it with December 2023.
The New Jersey Real Estate Network looked at how much the average home in each state was listed for in January 2023 and compared it with December 2023
After Louisiana, Idaho saw the second-biggest drop in property prices, with the average home falling from $437,392 at the start of the year to $434,224 by the end. It marked a decline of $3,268, or 0.75 percent.
It was followed by Texas, North Dakota and Nevada which saw home values drop by $1,241, $895 and $448 respectively.
By comparison, the top five states to see the biggest house price increases were: Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island.
Maine saw prices shoot up from $356,515 to $385,019 over the course of the year – an increase of $28,504 or 8 percent.
Homes in New Hampshire increased by 7.49 percent from $416,055 to $447,215.
A spokesman for the New Jersey Real Estate Network said: ‘The spike in housing prices across certain states results from a mix of factors.
‘Economic vitality, job growth and population influx can drive demand, while supply constraints and low interest rates amplify the increase in prices.’
It comes after an unprecedented three years for the US real estate landscape.
During the pandemic house prices ballooned from $329,000 in January 2020 to $433,000 two years later, according to US census data.
Many families were embroiled in a so-called ‘race for space’ as they looked for bigger homes and gardens to spend lockdown. A widespread shift to working-from-home also unchained workers from their city center properties.
During the pandemic house prices ballooned from $329,000 in January 2020 to $433,000 two years later, according to US census data
In January 2022, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was hovering at 3.45 percent, according to government-backed lender Freddie Mac. It is around half today’s rate of 6.66 percent
But house prices have remained elevated ever since, with the median house price still hovering at $420,000 according to Realtor.com.
This is despite the fact mortgage payments have soared in response to the Federal Reserve’s aggressive campaign to hike interest rates to their current 22-year high.
In January 2022, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was hovering at 3.45 percent, according to government-backed lender Freddie Mac. It is around half today’s rate of 6.66 percent.
In real terms, it means a buyer today faces paying an extra $800 per month on their mortgage than if they had bought two years ago.
At the current rate, somebody purchasing a $400,000 home with a 5 percent downpayment faces shelling out $2,442 per month on a 30-year fixed mortgage.
But had they bought in January 2022 – when rates were hovering at around 3.45 percent – they would have paid just $1,696.