TikTok Employees Will Get Paid Despite Trump's Order, DOJ Says
Tami Abdollah
Tami Abdollah is dot.LA's senior technology reporter. She was previously a national security and cybersecurity reporter for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. She's been a reporter for the AP in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times and for L.A.'s NPR affiliate KPCC. Abdollah spent nearly a year in Iraq as a U.S. government contractor. A native Angeleno, she's traveled the world on $5 a day, taught trad climbing safety classes and is an avid mountaineer. Follow her on Twitter.
U.S.-based TikTok employees should still get paid if President Donald Trump's executive order to ban "transactions" with the company goes into effect next week, the Justice Department said in a court filing on Monday.
The concession is in response to a lawsuit filed last month by TikTok technical program manager Patrick S. Ryan in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California accusing Trump of violating his constitutional rights and defaming and disgracing U.S.-based TikTok Inc. employees by painting them as working for the Chinese Communist Party.
The filling came the same day Oracle confirmed that TikTok's parent company ByteDance Ltd has chosen the Bay Area software giant as its "trusted technology provider." Trump has pushed for TikTok's sale to a U.S. company, favoring Oracle Corp.
TikTok found itself in the Trump administration's line of fire over concerns that China-based ByteDance is sharing the popular app's data with the Communist government. On August 6, Trump issued an executive order giving the app 45 days before "transactions" with the platform are banned. But it offered no explanation as to what those transactions include.
"The government conceded at the eleventh hour because they knew they were going to lose," said Alexander Urbelis, a partner at Blackstone Law Group LLP, which represents Ryan. "We think that the government may have conceded all of our asks because they did not want to risk the court addressing the broader issue of whether Trump's executive order is unconstitutional."
Justice Department lawyers said the administration "does not intend to implement or enforce" the executive order in a way that would prohibit paying wages, salaries or benefits to TikTok employees or contractors. So, there is no need to hit pause on Trump's ban.
But, they made no assurances that Trump's order won't have an impact on employees should ByteDance and TikTok decide to restructure or change employee payments as a result. Blackstone Law Group's lead attorney John D. Lovi said in a letter to the Justice Department Monday that the government still hasn't addressed concerns that Trump's order harms the reputation of U.S.-based TikTok employees, nor has it addressed the holdup on H-1B visas because of the order.
A representative for the Justice Department did not immediately reply to a request for comment. A court clerk on Monday called off a hearing on the case set to hear the request to pause the ban on Tuesday morning.
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More than a year ago, Darius Kemp, then a community manager at cannabis delivery app Eaze, realized the platform didn't have any Black-owned products on their menu.
Today he is Eaze's head of equity and change, spearheading a program for change and to prevent that from ever happening again.
<p>
"Eaze is the largest legal marketplace for cannabis and because of that, it's our responsibility to help correct the governmental and societal problems created by the war on drugs and the over incarceration of Black & brown bodies," Kemp said in an interview with dot.LA. "It's how you fight racism in the long run, (you) create communities that are self-sustaining, that don't depend on the oppressor."
</p><p>
As a continuation of that effort, the San Francisco-based company announced Wednesday that it is expanding its social equity program menu into Los Angeles, featuring local cannabis brand products owned by Black people and people of color.
</p><p>
<a href="https://www.eaze.com/menu" target="_blank">Eaze's platform</a> could go a long way to evening the playing field, essentially putting a "small Black soda company next to Pepsi and Coca-Cola," Kemp said.
</p><p>
Localities across California have worked on criteria for social equity licenses, aiming to prioritize people underrepresented in the industry for cannabis-related opportunities. The rules for each locality are different, but all social equity brands that take part in Eaze's program must have a social equity license or be actively engaged in the application process.
</p><p>
Eaze's Social Equity Partners Program provides social equity brands with "wraparound" financial and operational support to help them scale and become sustainable, including financing and payment structuring, discounted partner portal data analytics, access to Eaze's supply chain, and marketing and PR support. Since last fall, social equity brands have sold nearly $1 million in products on Eaze's platform.
</p><p>
The social equity partners menu already includes Northern California brands Cloud 9, KGB Reserve and SF Roots, which debut in Los Angeles Wednesday along with new L.A.-based brands dreamt and Blaqstar Farms, plus Bay Area-based James Henry SF and Oakland Extracts.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzYwMjYyNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODg1MTI2NX0.IYyFqcYs4E9qz_-qcs1Hbgk2MMVZZuR8MoqKjb4M3YI/image.jpg?width=980" id="2dbaa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ef8cb55fef662d41fd4b399c2c0fd3d7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Bryant Mitchell is the founder of L.A.-based Blaqstar Farms.</small>
</p><p>
L.A.-based <a href="https://www.blaqstarfarms.com/" target="_blank">Blaqstar Farms</a> was founded in 2012 by Bryant Mitchell when only medical marijuana was allowed locally. They worked to provide a medical-grade, non-pesticide flower. Mitchell was raised "with a foot grounded very deep in social injustices" during the war on drugs, he said. He watched family members go to jail. His father was the first Black police officer in Orange, Texas, another factor in making him who he is today.
</p><p>
"I always tell people, 'I'm a social equity candidate, but I want to be the guy known to bring one of the best experiences in cannabis', and that's what we strived to do," Mitchell said.
</p><p>
Eaze's platform has handled over 6 million deliveries and boasts over 600,000 users. It is a very large stage for what are often smaller companies.
</p><p>
"People are hesitant to deal with smaller brands," Mitchell said. "We're not looked at as prudent; we're looked at maybe more of a risk to deal with, as opposed to a benefit. (But) when a company like Eaze cosigns and does what Eaze has done with Blaqstar, it does validate the company in many ways."
</p><p>
Mitchell said Blaqstar has never raised funds and so doesn't have the deep pockets usually necessary for the exposure, marketing and backing that Eaze brings.
</p><p>
"I can't make light of the amount of people, the amount of resources, the amount of money, the amount of marketing, that I've personally seen Eaze put in," Mitchell said.
</p><p>
Blaqstar is selling some of its homegrown flower and pre-roll products on the app primarily in Southern California until it can scale up for larger distribution.
</p><p>
"A lot of people see social equity and they're all approaching it in different ways, and no one is doing it exactly right yet, but you appreciate the companies like Eaze that are trying to get it right and making the sort of effort to do it," Mitchell said.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzYwMjYyOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxNTQ1OTYzMn0._rTW2QUubmgzwMR5n0heZF25DJ81mdxTPCmQqmAGc4w/image.jpg?width=980" id="0805c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6ca657bad0004700e0135157e97b74df" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">dreamt's founder first started using cannabis as a sleep aid while studying for her PhD at the University of Southern California, but found it ineffective.</small>
</p><p>
As most large banks continue to shy away from cannabis — it's still illegal on the federal level — access to capital is even more of a challenge for entrepreneurs who want to work in the industry. That's why Eaze last September also launched Momentum, a business accelerator focused on helping underrepresented cannabis business founders.
</p><p>
Carolina Vazquez Mitchell's (no relation) company was in its first cohort, and her brand <a href="https://youdreamt.com/" target="_blank">dreamt</a> is part of the new social equity partner menu unveiled Wednesday. Vazquez Mitchell first started using cannabis as a sleep aid while studying for her PhD at the University of Southern California, but found it negatively impacted her breathing or was ineffective.
</p><p>
Years later, in 2019, she would go on to found dreamt, a cannabis product dedicated to improving sleep with science. It's the first brand-line for L.A.-based Ciencia Labs, a company co-founded by Vazquez Mitchell, who also serves as its chief scientific officer.
</p><p>
"As you can tell from my accent, I'm not from here, I came here 10 years ago, I don't have an MBA, I didn't start a business before, and my background is in science," said Vazquez Mitchell, who hails from Guadalajara, Mexico, and originally worked in the world of genetics and pharmacology.
</p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzYwMjYzMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDkwMDY0NH0.LdhrIifLR4maFExWBKGKaLaLrG1yO6PG64ugBk7jBZs/image.jpg?width=980" id="37536" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84728f7ea342b939c0924926bcac8b5f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Carolina Vazquez Mitchell's company dreamt is part of Eaze's new social equity partner menu.
<p>Vazquez Mitchell said she is trying to use science to make cannabis products better, even if that means disrupting existing cannabis culture by making a pharmaceutical-like product to help with sleep.</p><p>"Cannabis helps, but it's not perfect," Vazquez Mitchell said. For example, it impacts REM sleep, which is essential for memory, learning and creating new synapses for a healthy brain and a healthy sleep cycle, she said. dreamt added additional ingredients to synergize with the cannabis to improve upon sleep without the negative drawbacks. The company's vape pen, and tincture are available on the menu; it's also created a drinkable shot and is working on a gummy.</p><p>"I'm an immigrant, I'm a woman, I look very Mexican," Vazquez Mitchell said. When she arrived as a researcher at the University of Southern California, her "first challenge" was understanding English. "Not a lot of people believe that a Mexican, with broken English, will be successful in science or any other industry."<br></p>
<p>
<span style="background-color: initial;">But she worked hard to prove them wrong. She went on to create products for Pepsi, Quaker, Taco Bell and Gatorade as a food scientist and has developed more than 50 cannabis products, including dreamt. Last November, she landed a $50,000 grant in November from Eaze as part of its Momentum program.</span>
</p><p>
Momentum is announcing applications for its second cohort this fall, said Eaze spokeswoman Elizabeth Ashford.
</p><p>
"I'll throw the gauntlet out to MedMen, Harvest, Caliva and everyone," said Eaze's Kemp, calling out other major cannabis companies. "Give me a call or go out and do your own thing (for social equity). There's no secret sauce here. There's basic business and real social impact."
</p><p>
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</p><p>
<em>Do you have a story that needs to be told? My DMs are open on Twitter </em><a href="https://twitter.com/latams" target="_blank"><em>@latams</em></a><em>. You can also email me at tami(at)dot.la, or ask for my contact on Signal, for more secure and private communications.</em>
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This App Hopes to Give Homeless Outreach Workers Real-Time Data While They're on the Street
Jul 06 2020
Los Angeles invests hundreds of millions each year to alleviate homelessness, but the networks that underlie those efforts are often held together by legal pads and spreadsheets.
It took a person who's suffered through the system to try to update it, so that the homeless and their advocates can get what they need, when they need it.
<p>Anthony Greco is one of the few people who can say he's been on most sides of the issue. He's lived on the streets, dealt with homeless family members and friends, he's worked in the shelters and counseled people dealing with substance abuse. </p><p>"I've literally been on every side of this problem in one way or another," Greco says. "I've been trying to get people into treatment in some way or another since I was seven years old." </p><p>The <a href="https://gethelp.com/" target="_blank">Get Help platform</a> is a result of his lifetime of experience with substance abuse and homelessness. And it's been so effective that Los Angeles took it from beta to a basic tool in the city's plan to deal with one of its largest emergencies: Getting homeless people off the street during the COVID-19 pandemic. </p>
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzM1NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NzY5OTgwMX0.7eDL5buGrN3-zWx64wg-r-UifhEv58FVH1ClrIbymYU/image.jpg?width=1500&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C213&height=2000" id="1fb5c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0d445795aa26f52ac878ded21dc78655" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
Anthony Greco is the founder of the Get Help app.
A Lifetime Getting People Help
<p>Greco grew up bouncing from house to house while his mother sought help at substance abuse clinics. </p><p>"When I was 15 years old, one day I came home from school and my mom and her boyfriend and that family had moved away out of town," Greco says, "and the house was empty except for all the stuff in my room."</p><p>That led him into his own struggle first with homelessness, then with substance abuse and finally into recovery and toward helping people in the same circumstances he'd once found himself in. Ultimately, he got his PhD in clinical psychology and worked with patients with substance abuse issues.</p><p>But at every step in his career, Greco found himself trying to solve the same problem: How do you match a person to the services they need at the moment they're willing to ask for help? Having real-time information is key, he says. </p><img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzNjYxNi9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODc5ODI0MH0.3xsNqy-1Ee3MrHvS7CVTABFjEC0EqdlJMzCiealG38U/image.png?width=980" id="9c73a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b7a969c077329d108656d8fb8d20400e" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<p>"There's a point when someone says that they want to get help," he says. "It's a simultaneous feeling of excitement and absolute dread at the same time, because on one hand, you're so excited that they want to get help and they want to go somewhere and then on the other hand the next thought is where am I going to go? Where am I going to call with how am I going to find an available bed? And it's a nightmare."</p><p>Once someone is willing to get help, the next question is where, and how? Greco describes calling rehab and shelter facilities as a child, as a homeless man and as a clinical psychologist to find a client or friend a bed, only to find that facilities were full or not accepting new residents, or that no one at the center seemed to have an idea of whether they had a place to stay.</p><p>Later, he encountered the same problem from the other end of the phone line when he was working at those same facilities.</p><p>"I remember getting calls, late at night," Greco says. "It was a mom on the other end of the phone wanting to know whether I have space for their son or daughter. And I didn't even know what our census was."</p><p>Had he known the headcount, he would have known how many available beds there were.</p>
<p><br/></p><h3>If Getting Shelter Were As Easy As Ordering an Uber</h3><p>The idea for the app came when Greco, now a psychologist, found himself unable to get the same basic information he was seeking as a kid.</p><p>"I realized that it was just as difficult for a licensed clinical psychologist to get someone into treatment as it was for a seven year old." </p><p>Greco had pictured a simple app that would match the world of homeless needs to the world of resources available to them. </p><p>"I said, you know, there has to be an app for that," he says. "You can order a pizza at four o'clock in the morning, or a cheeseburger from Sonic and have it delivered from Pomona, but there's no tool to be able to find a bed for my friend."</p><p>Greco quickly realized that if he wanted to be able to offer immediate help, he needed more than a list of numbers; he needed accurate real-time data. Who had open beds right now, tailored to specific needs of individuals — with substance abuse problems, with mental health problems, with kids, with domestic abuse trauma, with medical needs?</p><p>He had a vision for the app, but he didn't have a background in tech or business. Luckily, as he searched for funding for the idea, he came across <a href="https://gethelp.com/about/michael-root/" target="_blank">Michael Root</a>, one of the early engineering pioneers at Riot Games, who quickly volunteered to be Get Help's CTO. The company registered as a public benefit corporation in 2019. </p><p>"I had no idea what I was getting into," Greco says.</p><h3><span></span>Solving Problems for Homeless People<br/></h3><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzM1Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMDk0MTk5M30.-NgVZtA6sG5pXrbmbk8vbgvAaWn_3mRzFEPOIjYvcjw/image.jpg?width=980" id="d82e3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="84e75b0649fa663502d866ff1fa0deeb" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
</p><p>Greco says it usually takes between 6 and 7 approaches (<a href="https://www.presstelegram.com/2019/05/14/outreach-workers-are-crucial-to-connecting-homeless-to-services-cal-state-long-beach-study-finds/" target="_blank">sometimes more</a>) before someone who's experiencing homelessness will accept help — and often the kind of help people on the street are looking for isn't what street teams have to offer. </p><p>"The first service that they often will accept isn't a bed," says Greco, "but they'll accept a place where they can go get a meal." </p><p>Greco says it's critical to seize those moments, where a person is willing to ask for some kind of help, if only to build trust. </p><p>"It's about meeting the person where they're at," Greco says. "And that's what I do as a therapist."</p><p>In other words, he says focus on building trust, and provide people what they need, rather than what you think they need. Not everyone is looking for a shelter bed.</p><p>"That's where I operate from and where Get Help operates from," he says. </p><p>The app tries to reflect this by listing a range of services both big and small from shelter and sober living beds to food pantries, showers, laundry, storage facilities and health care services. All those services are what social workers call a continuum of care that will eventually lead to stability, he says.</p><h3>Solving the Problem for Shelters<br/></h3><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzM2MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMTM0NzIwN30.CdI0rB4pc1AwQcrcr0qkvnVDEbKrwuWqmnszbS4UjPI/image.jpg?width=980" id="61c6b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="258713e7ebd6315399724677fe405e02" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption..."> Greco at the Weingart Center in Los Angeles' Skid Row.</small></p><p>On the other end of the spectrum, Greco realized that if he wanted to be able to solve family members' 4 a.m. emergencies, he'd have to work with the shelters to get the data that would be crucial to getting their loved ones fast help. </p><p>What he quickly found was that many of these shelters and sober living facilities were using outdated tools to keep track of who was in their facility. </p><p>"They were still managing their inventory — and still are — is literally using yellow pads, sometimes whiteboards, Excel documents and email exchanges." </p><p>They reached out to the Weingart Center, one of the first shelters in Skid Row that specializes in providing emergency housing for people with mental illness. By the estimate of its current CEO, the company houses about 600 people nightly, and provides counseling, employment and other other services to thousands more. All of that requires an incredible amount of record keeping. </p><p>"In order to really run an operation," says Weingart's CEO, Kevin Murray, "you've got to do intake, you've got to assign room, you've got to assign food cards."</p><p>In addition, you have to make sure you're collecting the information that health insurers and the federal government require, as well as making sure you're tracking the basic needs — linen and toothbrushes, for example — of the people you're serving. </p><p>"Almost every provider is inputting this practice information in, you know, at least two, maybe multiple systems." </p><p>Greco's team met with Weingart to develop a data management system that could help them track that information.</p><p>"They actually sat down with our people at all levels to find out what they needed, and what would be helpful to them," Murray says. "We both sort of opened up to each other about what we wanted to do. And so we were participants in developing the system."</p><p>The result, Greco says, saved Weingart time and money by cutting down the number of steps that shelter staff had to take to do intake and reducing the number of data entry mistakes they made. </p><p>"Those errors result in billing errors," and those billing errors and mistakes can result in a place like The Weingart Center losing millions a year in funding opportunities.</p><p>It also made the information on how many beds the center had at any given time easily accessible, so that Get Help's app could make them available to service providers on the streets looking to get people housed.</p><p>"it's certainly, you know, added a lot of simplicity in our lives," Murray says.<br/></p><h3>From Pilot Test to a Citywide Crisis</h3><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQzMzM3My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwODYzNjE0Nn0.CjM02WZve2UrNvT1NH-4aOTBhbxLEK7iJR1eO_JoI6I/image.jpg?width=980" id="df49d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="347c78916d2fef22507a2f4846d5561a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">An estimated 82,955 people fell into homelessness during 2019 in L.A County, and an estimated 52,689 people found the way out of homelessness in that time, <a href="https://www.lahsa.org/homeless-count/" target="_blank">according to the county's most recent data.</a><a href="https://www.lahsa.org/homeless-count/" target="_blank"></a></small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo courtesy of Get Help</small></p><p>In late 2019, Get Help worked out a pilot program with a small faction of LAPD officers who patrol Skid Row and other areas to assist with routine clean ups of homeless encampments. </p><p>The officers in LAPD's Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement (HOPE) team downloaded the Get Help app and used it to direct the homeless folks they encountered to services in the area. </p><p>"The response was overwhelmingly positive," Greco says, adding that some officers reported it had changed the dynamic between some of their patrol and homeless in the area. Officers had real-time information they could offer to homeless folks, and their role went beyond enforcement to being able to offer assistance. </p><p>After six months, the plan was to expand the app's use in the city, when an even larger crisis hit.</p><p>"We had just got through a successful pilot with L.A. (city) and we're talking about expanding it, we were doing work on expanding to a different additional shelters, (and) we were starting conversations with L.A. County," Greco says, "And COVID-19 hit." </p><p>The city settled on an emergency plan to house vulnerable homeless people in recreation centers and other city facilities that had closed due to the pandemic. </p><p>Jimmy Kim oversees emergency operations for Los Angeles's recreation and parks department. He was tasked with creating the shelters, developing a system for keeping track of its inhabitants, and keeping them safe.</p><p>"The systems that we're using are so archaic," Kim says. "You know that saying, 'time is money', right?"</p><p>At first the city relied on regular manual headcounts, pen and paper and Google docs to keep a tally of those staying at its sites. It quickly found that process was inefficient. </p><p>"And so we came across (the app) in the mayor's office," says Kim. "They actually introduced us to the folks over at Get Help as part of a pilot program." </p><p>The app allowed them to streamline the process, and provided the mayor's office with real time information on the number and location of beds occupied. </p><p>"The quicker we could get them (registered), the quicker we could get people in," Kim says. "And then the less time they have to spend on doing registration, the more time they could spend on doing more important things."</p><p>The system proved a success, allowing Kim to keep track of registrations and discharges at the 24 shelters the agency oversaw, and allowing his staff of around 94 employees access to real-time data on who was where. </p><p>"I actually want to take that and use it for our normal shelters as well because it'll help us streamline that process and get real time usable data," Kim says. "You know, literally at the tip of your fingertips." </p><p>The department is now thinking about configuring the app to do contract tracing for shelter residents who come down with COVID-19, and it's thinking about expanding beyond the homeless emergency function, to other emergencies that require rapid sheltering — such as wildfires and earthquakes. </p><p>"Now, we're having those conversations," says Kim, "because I think it will help us streamline and get data a lot quicker… And if you have real-time data, you can make better decisions that way." </p><p>Meanwhile, Get Help is available to individuals, organizations and outreach workers in Apple's <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/get-help-app/id1319554390?ls=1" target="_blank">App Store</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=help.get.gethelp.city.la" target="_blank">Google Play</a>. His team is working with several large local shelters and sober living facilities and the county to expand the data available in Get Help's app that can be used by families, street teams and concerned residents looking for immediate help.<br/></p>Related Articles Around the Web
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