Re-think Trade Education: Invest in LA

GUEST COMMENTARY-Is everyone fit for college? Is everyone going to be working in the tech world? The answer is NO. 

I am so tired of watching organizations raise funds, amassing millions and millions of dollars to send overseas when we have our own poverty, illiteracy, homelessness and unemployed people living right here in the U.S. 

How about this: 

Let's call on all the very wealthy, LA’s superstars and entertainers and former elected officials – those who have so much money that they end up having buildings named for them – and challenge them to help bring back and open trade schools built with brick and mortar in addition to the schools that create their courses online. 

Let's subsidize the schooling for every person who is willing to learn a trade. 

Is it not about time we took care of our own -- both adults in our current population and our future generations? 

Plumbers, car mechanics, painters, cooks, electricians, masons, sheet metal workers, carpenters and more are needed in our society. 

The fact that our city is under a siege of development proves that we need those trades now and in the future. 

Let's give our own kids a chance at a better life.

(Jay Handal is a board member of the West LA NC, Co-Chair of the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates and works as a consultant to the cannabis industry.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.