Moving forward with purpose at CBU. As I continue my work in Public Administration, my commitment remains the same: developing equitable and sustainable policies that enhance community health and serve our underserved populations. 🦁✨

United in Spirit! 🎉

 

Cheers to the New Year!

As we step into a brand-new year, I'm wishing you fresh beginnings, exciting opportunities, and plenty of reasons to celebrate. Thank you for being part of our community. Here’s to a wonderful year ahead!

The Policy Nexus: When Commerce Erases Community

Metanoia, Maps, and the Courage to Save 2,200 Homes in San Jacinto.

We often speak of the housing crisis as if it is a weather event—something that just happens to us, driven by market forces we cannot control. We see the encampments in the San Jacinto riverbed, we cheer for the $12 million grants to clear them, and we think we are solving the problem. But while we are looking at the riverbed, we are missing the map. In my work as a Doctor of Public Administration student, I study the gap between digital governance (the paperwork) and on-the-ground reality (the people). Recently, I found a gap so wide it threatens to swallow the future of our city. It is called the Stoneridge Commerce Center. 

The Fear Equation: Why We Freeze. Before I explain the project, I want to talk about why we usually ignore these things. Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati argues that fear = uncertainty + loss of control. When developers drop a 500-page Environmental Impact Report on a community, they are counting on that fear. The jargon creates uncertainty. The bureaucratic process makes us feel a loss of control. The result? We freeze. We assume the deal is done. We stay silent because the "Submerged State"—the invisible machinery of government—feels too big to fight. But today, I am choosing to handle that fear. I am choosing metanoia—a profound transformation of heart and mind—to stop freezing and start speaking. The Great Erasure. For years, the original StoneRidge Specific Plan (SP 239) was on the books in San Jacinto. 

It was a promise: a plan to build 2,236 homes, including parks and open space, and to dedicate land to the Housing Authority for affordable units. It was a blueprint for a neighborhood. But a new proposal, currently moving through the Riverside County Planning Department, seeks to erase that neighborhood entirely. According to documents I have reviewed, the new "Stoneridge Commerce Center" (Amendment No. 1 to SP 239) proposes replacing those 2,236 homes with 7,350,000 square feet of light-industrial land uses—essentially, massive warehouses—on 388.5 acres. The trade-off is stark: Old Plan: Over 2,000 families get a home. New Plan: We get 7.3 million square feet of concrete tilt-ups. And the invisible cost? By rezoning this land from residential to industrial, we are quietly deleting the affordable housing set-aside that was part of the original deal. We are trading a future community for a logistics hub. 

The Spring Watch.

The developers likely hope this change happens quietly. The public comment period for the environmental report ended back in March 2024. They are currently in the quiet period, responding to comments and preparing for a final hearing. But we have learned that this project is tentatively scheduled to go before the Planning Commission in the spring of 2026. 

This is not a dead end; it is a head start. We have three months. Three months to ask the uncomfortable questions. Three months to demand that the city and county explain how they plan to meet our state-mandated housing goals if they delete 2,200 planned units from the map. 

Choosing to Speak Anyway, I am sharing this not to scare you, but to empower you. The "Fear Equation" only works if we remain uncertain and passive. I am walking into a space that wasn't built for me—the complex world of Specific Plan Amendments and TEFRA hearings—and I am choosing to speak anyway. I am asking you to look at the map with me. If we want a San Jacinto that houses its seniors, its families, and its future, we cannot just sweep the riverbed. We have to save the neighborhood. 

Season's Greetings & Gratitude - Here's to a Brighter 2026!

 

As 2025 draws to a close, I express my deepest gratitude for your partnership and trust. You are an invaluable part of this community, and your support is the engine that drives our work to protect, educate, and advocate for California’s most underserved populations—including older adults, diverse communities, and those navigating economic challenges or limited English proficiency.

While 2025 brought its share of uncertainty, it also proved the power of collective resilience. As we look toward 2026, we know significant challenges remain in the fight for equity. I invite you to stay engaged in the coming year as we work to turn policy into progress. Together, we can meet these challenges with expertise, compassion, and unwavering dedication. Thank you for believing in this mission.

With gratitude and appreciation, 

Eric

The Invisible Safety Net: Why We See the Homeless, But Never the Solution

 From $13 Billion to One Senior: Unmasking the 'Submerged State' in Housing Policy

photo by Don Leach

This isn't a shelter, it's a permanent home for people like Robert Taylor—a small business owner who paid taxes for 40 years before getting sick. The funding we are voting on today (TEFRA/Bonds) is what allows 'Robert' to move out of his truck and back into our community. If we vote 'No' on this bond, we aren't stopping 'homelessness'—we are keeping Robert in his truck.

We often speak of housing policy in the abstract language of liquidity, collateralized advances, and z-scores. A new report from the Urban Institute estimates that the Federal Home Loan Bank (FHLBank) system generates between $13.2 and $21.4 billion in economic stability annually. But what does $21 billion actually look like? It seems like Robert Taylor. A former motorcycle shop owner in Huntington Beach, Robert spent years sleeping in his truck until a complex web of invisible government financing—tax credits, bond issuances, and FHLBank advances—built the Pelican Harbor community where he now lives. In cities like San Jacinto, we cheer for the visible emergency grants to clear riverbeds, yet we often ignore the administrative machinery that builds the permanent homes. It is time to close the gap between our digital governance and our on-the-ground reality: if we want more Robert Taylors, we must stop ignoring the "invisible" government that saves them.

Read the full article here

Waiting is a Weapon: How Administrative Time Creates a Hidden Caste

 We often think of time as neutral. A waiting list is just a list; a deadline is just a standard; business hours are just a convention. But in my research as a Doctor of Public Administration student, I’ve come to a different conclusion: Administrative time is rarely neutral—it is often a weapon.

I recently read Judith Dangerfield’s profound analysis of the 14th Amendment, 'The Fourteenth Amendment: Our Constitutional Promise Against Caste.' She argues that the Constitution imposes an affirmative duty on the government to dismantle systems that rank people as superior or inferior.

This framework immediately struck a chord with my current research on a concept I call administrative chrononormativity.

What is administrative chrononormativity? Sociologist Elizabeth Freeman describes chrononormativity as the way society uses time to organize bodies for maximum productivity. There is a correct timeline we are all expected to follow: School. Marriage. Mortgage. Kids. Retirement.

Administrative Chrononormativity occurs when the government embeds that timeline into the state's architecture. It assumes every citizen lives a linear life.

• It assumes you have a stable address to receive mail within 10 days.

• It assumes you have a "standard" family structure to qualify for benefits.

• It assumes your medical needs fit into a fiscal year.

The Temporal Caste System—When you fit the normative timeline, the system works. But for queer bodies, foster youth, and those in poverty, life is rarely linear. It is often interrupted, circular, or delayed.

• Example: A trans individual facing wait times for care that hinge on living as a gender for a set period, ignoring the reality of their lived experience.

• Example: A former foster youth attempting to access aid but missing an age cutoff because their path to independence took longer than the state's "standard" allowed.

If Dangerfield’s "Anti-Caste Principle" holds true, then these administrative timelines are unconstitutional. They rank the linear, normative life as "primary" and the complex, non-normative life as secondary.

The Duty to Disrupt— As public administrators, we cannot hide behind the excuse of standard procedure. If the procedure enforces a caste system based on time, the 14th Amendment demands we dismantle it. We don't just need to open the doors; we need to change the clocks.

Figure 1: Administrative Chrononormativity in Action. Top: A linear life path that aligns with government expectations passes through administrative checkpoints easily. Bottom: A non-normative life path (common in queer and marginalized communities) clashes with rigid timelines. Under the Dangerfield (2025) framework, this "Time Wall" creates a constitutional caste system by treating the bottom group as inferior.

Why Are We Waiting? My New DPA Research on "Administrative Chrononormativity"

As many of you know, alongside my community advocacy work, I am currently a Doctor of Public Administration (DPA) student at the University of La Verne. My goal in this program is to research how our institutions actually work—and often, how they don't work for the communities facing the most significant hurdles.

Here is a sneak peek into my latest research focus. It centers on a concept that sounds complicated but is something many of us have experienced: Administrative Chrononormativity.

In simple terms, this is the idea that our institutions set rigid timelines (like the "9-to-5" standard) that prioritize their own convenience over the reality of people's lives.

When a clinic has limited hours, forms take weeks to process, or appointments have indefinite waiting periods, "time" becomes an invisible barrier to healthcare access—especially for marginalized groups like the Queer community, gig workers, or parents with rigid schedules.

Below is the abstract of the research paper I am developing on this topic, which examines these barriers and highlights organizations such as the Black Researchers Collective that are challenging these delays.

Research Abstract:

Public administration and health policy traditionally operate on straight time—a linear, standardized temporal logic that prioritizes institutional efficiency over community responsiveness. This review argues that this "administrative chrononormativity" creates systematic barriers for populations with non-normative life cycles, effectively trapping marginalized communities in a perpetual "waiting room" while health crises escalate.

To illustrate this temporal conflict, this analysis contrasts the administrative gatekeeping of gender-affirming care against the "informed consent" model. Where traditional policies impose linear waiting periods—forcing patients to prove their identity over time—informed consent models operate on queer time, synchronizing medical access with the patient’s immediate urgency. The former prioritizes risk management; the latter prioritizes survival.

Furthermore, this review presents the Black Researchers Collective (BRC) as a critical case study in resisting administrative delay. Through their methodological pillar, the "Power of Story," the BRC challenges the "ivory tower" timeline of data extraction and delayed analysis. By validating lived experience and narrative ownership as immediate, actionable policy data, the BRC demonstrates how communities can refuse the administrative imperative to wait for external quantitative validation.

The review concludes that achieving health equity requires a fundamental shift in the public administrator's role: from a temporal gatekeeper to a community synchronizer. Policy timelines must be restructured to value qualitative, nonlinear realities. If administrative processes are legally "on time" but communities remain in crisis, the timeline itself is a policy failure. Administrators must learn to set their watches to the community's time, ensuring that support keeps pace with the need.

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Closing Thoughts

I believe that to achieve accurate health equity, we need policies that are "chronologically inclusive"—systems designed for real lives, not just standard business hours.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Have you experienced "time" as a barrier to accessing care or services in our community?