Engineering Change Speaker Series featuring Erich Nakano

There’s some half a million people without homes in the US. 

How do you tackle such a huge issue, in a place like Los Angeles -- the city with the fourth highest rate of unhoused people in the country? Los Angeles is the second largest city in the country, the 23rd largest city in the world. Sprawling Los Angeles houses over 12.5 million people, yet the city is decades overdue in meeting demand for new housing. All this, before even beginning to think about the growing unhoused population. A population which grew and is expected to grow even more due to the current pandemic as well as economic hardships for middle and lower class workers.

How do you balance the needs of the unhoused with the needs of small businesses and local residents? The conversation has become stagnated by old ideas, NIMBYism, and ideology. It can seem impossible to make progress. The challenge to find common ground to work toward solutions is huge. 

The Little Tokyo Service Center is one of the largest property developers in Los Angeles. It’s a community-based nonprofit building developments across the city as part of the solution. 

Join us on Wednesday, April 20 at 12:30pm PDT / 3:30pm EDT to talk with Erich Nakano, Executive Director of The Little Tokyo Service Center. 

We’ll talk with Erich about big solutions, and the importance of simple acts of kindness that any of us can perform that chip away at the problem.