Advocacy Trip: Have Your Voice Heard!

February 14, 2019
Posted in News, Policy
February 14, 2019 Hollywood Chamber of Commerce

Advocacy Trip: Have Your Voice Heard!

CHAMBER ADVOCACY TRIP

Join our Washington, D.C. advocacy trip and have your voice heard!

When it comes to advocacy, there’s strength in numbers.

And a delegation from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce will draw upon the strength of local business leaders when it travels to Washington, D.C. in March to advocate for issues of importance to Hollywood and the greater Los Angeles region.

The Chamber will join forces with Access Washington D.C., a group of more than 200 members of the greater Los Angeles business community, to meet with local members of Congress and educate them on everything from regional transportation and infrastructure needs to economic challenges that are unique to our community.

And we need your voice!

Our annual advocacy trip will put us in D.C. from March 10-14 and Chamber members are encouraged to participate. Interested? You can contact Nicole Shahenian, our Vice President of Government Relations, at 323-469-8311 or via email at Nicole@hollywoodchamber.net for more information.

Your participation will help us strengthen the Chamber’s partnerships with key stakeholders in government, education and other local organizations. That, in turn, will further elevate our community as a sought-after destination for commerce, tourism, culture, history, recreation and more.

Hollywood is the entertainment capital of the world — a unique and vibrant place with world-class status in the film and TV industry. However, it is also important that Hollywood is recognized for its overall importance as part of the greater Los Angeles regional economy.

A recent series of reports by area economists reveal that Los Angeles County, Orange County and the Inland Empire have reached historic levels of business and job growth. In fact, the six counties represented by the Southern California Association of Governments (which also include Ventura and Imperial counties) have boosted their gross domestic product to $1.26 trillion from $992 billion in 2012.
That’s a significant jump.

But Hollywood, like other Southern California communities and the state as a whole, faces challenges. One of the biggest is a shortage of housing. Our housing inventory isn’t keeping pace with demand, and that extends to our homelessness population.
In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Daily News, economist Somjita Mitra of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. said California needs 500,000 more homes to keep pace with the state’s population and economic growth.

The Chamber has advocated for increased housing for both residents and others who are forced to live on the streets.

We supported Harridge Development Group’s plan to build a mixed-use development at the Crossroads of the World site that will include 950 much needed apartments. The project was recently approved by the Los Angeles City Council. We also awarded a $1,000 grant to The Salvation Army’s Way In Youth Shelter, which used the funds to secure bedding sets and hygiene kits for young homeless people ages 18 to 25.

We organized Business Community support for the development of a temporary bridge housing facility on Schrader Boulevard for the homeless, which is expected to open up within the next few weeks. And we backed Measure H, a Los Angeles County initiative that helped secure permanent housing for more than 7,400 homeless families and individuals, and Measure HHH, a $1.2 billion bond measure to build about 10,000 units of supportive housing in the city of Los Angeles.

Beyond that, we have supported career-readiness and training programs that better prepare our workforce for high-tech jobs of the 21st Century, and we supported Proposition 68, a statewide ballot measure that authorized $4 billion for state and local parks, environmental protection projects, water infrastructure and flood protection projects.

The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of residents and businesses by speaking out at hearings, writing letters, lobbying on issues that impact our community, and by making trips to Washington, D.C. and Sacramento.

These are all challenges that Hollywood’s elected officials should be addressing whether at the local, State and National levels. They affect Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California and our nation as a whole.

These issues, and the response we get from our business leaders and elected officials, matter. You do business here, so you are already invested in this one-of-a-kind place. Join our delegation and have your voice heard!

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