Urban Initiatives has researched, designed, and implemented several model programs in local communities that have stemmed from our strategic planning activities that include:

• Mama’s Hot Tamales Café which is an apprentice-operated business and job training restaurant that provides hands-on and classroom instruction designed to train low-and-moderate-income residents living within the central region of Los Angeles (that includes the MacArthur Park Area) in the disciplines necessary to begin a career path toward success in the culinary world;

• Business and Employment/Education Center (BEC) which meets the initial and continuing training needs of participants who use the Center that provides the knowledge, tools, and resources necessary to assist them to successfully make the transition from the informal business sector to professional micro-enterprises and food service occupations. There are three areas of specialized instruction: Business Development; Food and Kitchen Management; and Financial Literacy;

• Small Business Kitchen Incubator Program provides large neighborhood-based commercial kitchens consisting of a wide-range of cooking and food preparation equipment to small business entrepreneurs in order to prepare their products for wholesale and retail use;

• Rediscover MacArthur Park is a neighborhood reinvestment strategy that has begun transforming the park and surrounding community from a crime-filled “point of destination” into a thriving business and social/cultural “point of destination by restoring, promoting, preserving MacArthur Park (Los Angeles) as a place for leisure and recreation and advancing the cultural arts and traditions of neighborhood residents and merchants along with other activities such as boat rides, picnics, nature walks, and tours of the park’s public art;

• Homeless Prevention Program (proposed) is a unique community partnership between public and private agencies including faith-based organizations that provide a wide-range of resources in a centralized location for persons who are at-risk of becoming homeless in order to prevent them from becoming homeless;

• One-Stop Homeless Services Center prevent homeless persons from navigating an entire city or county to receive services by providing many of the services under one-roof and integrated into a multidisciplinary case management plan to help ensure that barriers to achieving self-sufficiency are removed.