Nonprofit falls short of goal to bring free Wi-Fi to LA County's poor

From the San Gabriel Valley to the South Bay and the San Feando Valley, a state-funded group of nonprofits would establish “neighborhood clouds” in small pockets of each community. Residents could browse the web while they waited for their bus or their hair stylist, and avoid using their personal data plans. Businesses, which could host the hotspots, would use the network as a selling point to lure in customers.

One nonprofit executive hailed it as an “historic day” in 2012 when they aounced the network would be coming to Pacoima, a mostly Latino community in the San Feando Valley, with a median family income of $36,000. Only half of the region’s residents had Inteet service at home, according to a survey by the Youth Policy Institute, compared to 69 percent county wide.

“Free Wi-Fi would be terrific for the community,” said State Farm Agent John Heandez, whose office faces a stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard once slated for a network. “Why can’t we have it here?”

At the kickoff press conference, a Pacoima mother took the stage and said the grant projects “will enhance our children’s lives.”

But the free Wi-Fi networks never came to Pacoima. Nor did they reach Rosemead, Huntington Park, or Gardena — other communities selected by members of the Los Angeles County Regional Broadband Consortium.

The group was led by Manchester Community Technologies and the Youth Policy Institute, a major player in L.A.’s nonprofit industry. Together with other L.A. organizations, they won a $2.3 million grant from the Califoia Public Utilities Commission. The funds, paid for by a surcharge on your phone bill, were part of a statewide program to promote high-speed Inteet usage. Over three years, from 2012 to 2014, the grant covered a range of activities: from digital literacy classes, to a booth at the county fair, and free public Wi-Fi.

In the end, Manchester Community Technologies — the nonprofit responsible for the Wi-Fi — did install access points throughout the South Los Angeles area, where the group is based. How well the system worked is another question.

When a state regulator inspected the networks in January 2016, he was able to get online at just two out of 25 locations.

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

L.A. County has one of the lowest rates of high-speed home Inteet coections in the state, said Susan Walters, senior vice president of the Califoia Emerging Technology Fund, a nonprofit that works to expand broadband access.

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“To close the digital divide in Califoia and nationally, L.A. has to adopt [broadband],” Walters said.

This was one effort to help close that “digital divide,” whereby many poorer and rural communities have less Inteet access than affluent ones. The infrastructure and knowledge deficiencies can hold back the local economy and help perpetuate poverty.

Manchester, based in Inglewood, rents a small commercial storefront in a one-story building. Executive director Revlyn Williams says the corporation has no full-time employees besides her. Everyone else is either an inte, a subcontractor, or subsidized by a county welfare-to-work program, she said.

The nonprofit managed $453,000 over the three-year grant — its portion of the $2.3 million, according to figures provided by state regulators. That covered digital literacy trainers, a technology consultant, pamphlets for businesses, about $100,000 of Wi-Fi equipment, plus administrative and other costs. In one year, Manchester budgeted $13,000 for installing equipment.

Besides launching the Wi-Fi networks throughout the county, Manchester agreed to oversee the consortium’s South Bay region. The state divided the $2.3 million among five L.A. county subregions, with a nonprofit heading each of the area’s efforts.

In the San Feando Valley, the Youth Policy Institute led the classes, outreach and other programs. YPI also oversaw and managed the county’s grant funds, as the consortium’s fiscal agent. In 2012, YPI received a separate $30 million federal grant to target schools in Pacoima and Hollywood. With their coections in the community, YPI staff provided Manchester a list of institutions to approach for public Wi-Fi, including San Feando Gardens public housing — which, according to Williams, did install a hotspot. When it came to approaching businesses, though, Manchester was on its own.

TROUBLED MODEL

The Wi-Fi networks didn’t unfold as plaed for a multitude of reasons, said Williams and others.

Small business owners were asked to coect an access point — similar to a home router — to their existing Inteet coection. But the public coection could slow down their stores’ Inteet speed and, they feared, pose a cybersecurity risk. Many businesses weren’t interested, Williams said. Also, some of the mom-and-pop shops in Pacoima weren’t coected to the Inteet in the first place. In some immigrant communities her staff struggled with language and cultural barriers, Williams said.

The consortium also targeted public buildings, but L.A. city officials wouldn’t approve public Wi-Fi on city property because of security conces, a spokesman for the mayor said.

“Maybe the model doesn’t work,” Williams said in an interview, “but that doesn’t mean Manchester Community Technologies didn’t do everything it could to implement it.”

SOME SUCCESS

Despite the Wi-Fi project’s shortcomings, the consortium had its successes. It instructed more than 100,000 people in digital literacy classes and workshops, according to a report filed with the CPUC. It subscribed or “verified” more than 2,500 new broadband accounts and surveyed more than 4,700 individuals about their demographics or Inteet use.

“Being able to show a grandmother how she can coect with her family in Mexico — for someone who doesn’t have computer access, this is mind-blowing,” said Cesar Zaldivar-Motts, executive director of the Southwest Community Development Corporation and lead for the consortium’s Gateway Cities subregion. “This was all possible because we were able to provide classes throughout L.A. County.”

HOTSPOTS, NOT NETWORKS

Income tax accountants, fast food restaurants, Andrew’s Lawn Mower Shop and the Pacoima Pawn Shop all share the same stretch of Van Nuys Boulevard north of Interstate 5, where a network was originally plaed.

When Manchester surveyed businesses there in 2013, just 15 of the 40 had Inteet coections, Williams said. They canvassed the boulevard with limited success.

“We went out there a lot,” she explained, “but how many times can you go out there without participation? People didn’t understand the concept.”

Instead of the proposed network, Manchester installed three stand-alone hotspots: at the Youth Policy Institute office, at Myke’s Cafe and at the San Feando Gardens public housing’s community center.

Dave Andrade, co-owner of Myke’s, said he hosted a Wi-Fi hotspot for about a year, but had to take it down.

“We were all for it, to a degree that it didn’t impact business,” Andrade said, but there was one problem. “We were ruing out of bandwidth and we were ruing out of space on our router.”

In El Monte, Manchester tried to anchor a Wi-Fi network at El Monte-Rosemead Adult School, said Sara Shapiro, the school’s assistant principal and lead of the consortium’s San Gabriel Valley subregion. But leadership at the El Monte Union High School District was in flux, she said, and the initiative never gained momentum.

Manchester “just didn’t get the response they needed,” Shapiro said.

In Huntington Park, Zaldivar-Motts introduced Williams to people at the Chamber of Commerce. But she faced similar resistance from businesses on Pacific Boulevard.

“We said those were our target areas without knowing what our impediments would be,” Williams said.

Now, instead of the consortium, Zaldivar-Motts advocates for the city to install Inteet service on Pacific Boulevard, at City Hall and at public parks.

“That model may have a greater sustainability,” he said. “Someone has to pick up the cost of that service.”

Along those lines, the city of Los Angeles issued a request for participants for citywide free Wi-Fi last summer. Officials are still reviewing the applications.

UNDER SCRUTINY

At the “neighborhood cloud” program’s peak, Williams said Manchester was ruing 16 networks, which consist of three or more access points. The company also installed 30 stand-alone hotspots, Williams said, and has agreements to install 15 more.

When the CPUC regulator visited in December and struggled to browse online, Williams blamed a temporary software problem. But a reporter last month couldn’t detect one network in South L.A. and couldn’t browse on another. Williams again cited software glitches, and said some businesses may have tued off the access points.

“I appreciate the scrutiny,” Williams said. “It made me see some of the holes I have on a daily basis. We need to go back and make the business owners more responsible for the equipment. They opted into it.”

The state began scrutinizing the Wi-Fi program after Gwen Shaffer, a communications professor at Cal State Long Beach, alerted regulars about its shortcomings in October 2015.

After its official inquiry, the CPUC determined that Manchester established more networks than it originally promised, but they were all around South L.A.

“Manchester Community Technologies set up networks per their approved work plan, though not with the numbers and geographical distribution proposed,” spokeswoman Terrie Prosper wrote in an email.

Some of the blame should rest with the CPUC, said Walters from the Califoia Emerging Technology Fund.

“I don’t know what the thinking was,” Walters said. “It sounds like somebody approved a consortium to do something that was maybe out of its league.”

The CPUC is now plaing to audit the consortium program, as required by state law, and the Los Angeles County Regional Broadband Consortium will be reviewed this year, Prosper said.

Another L.A. County group, Califoia’s One Million New Inteet Users Coalition, was heavily criticized in a CPUC audit released in November.

Meanwhile, Manchester and the rest of the consortium applied for a new round of state funding in January. Williams said public Wi-Fi isn’t part of the proposal.