Tom Lloyd of Culver City may be onto something to provide affordable temporary housing for the homeless and for victims of disasters, a proliferation of which have occurred locally in California as well as in Texas, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, etc.

A few years ago, he and friend were discussing the difficulties faced by returning military vets trying to reintegrate into civilian life. Given the shortage of housing everywhere, temporary housing would be a vital asset in smoothing their transition, and the idea of converting used shipping containers for this purpose occurred to him.

Last year when he started helping some friends who were involved wit raising money for charities that benefit homeless in the Los Angeles Area, that spurred him on to do more research about what it really takes to purchase and convert a shipping container to a comfortable level or find a company that already does the conversions.

Motivated by the Santa Rosa, California fire and seeing the burned-out neighborhoods and the desperation of that community, he found Global Portable Buildings, which is in Santa Rosa and inundated with calls and demands for their products.

Lloyd, a designer with many years of experience, feels Los Angeles would be a great place to try out a few different pilot scenarios to see which plans work and which don’t, and hopes to convince the powers that be. He suggests a cluster of 10 to 20 twenty-foot-long swelling units (converted containers for two occupants) clustered to allow for privacy and easy access to common toilets, showers, laundry facilities and city services, employment and career counseling. This would require a modest size vacant lot or plot of land approximately 100 feet x 200 feet with street access and basic services; like potable water and electricity.

A big twenty-one-gun salute to the Post 617 Commander Jerry King of the Jewish War Veterans of America who traveled to Washington D.C. for the 20th Anniversary of the Holocaust Museum Honoring Holocaust survivors and World War 11 Veterans.

Did you know people with diabetes are at twice the risk of developing hearing loss than people who don’t have the condition, according to the American Diabetes Association. Chronic elevated levels of blood sugar are known to damage blood vessels. Researchers speculate over time high blood sugar levels may permanently damage tiny capillaries that supply blood to the inner ear.

Many of us had an opportunity to read from Johns Hopkins University a study released in March, 2017 showing low-income black students randomly assigned to at least one black teacher are more likely to graduate from high school and aspire to go to college. The researchers tracked high school records of all 100,000 students who entered third grade in North Carolina between 2001 and 2005. The results were especially profound in the early years.

Having just one black teacher during grades 3-5 increases “Persistently low-income” black boys’ interest in pursuing college by 29 percent and decreases their chance of dropping out of high school by 39 percent. For black girls, the effects were smaller, but still significant, regarding college aspirations.

In the Sunshine State known as Florida, Governor Rick Scott recently signed Senate Bill 1124. 1124 will ensure newborns are tested for every disease on the Federal Recommended Uniform Screening Program shortly after birth. A simple needle prick in the heel is all that’s required.

Would you like to own America’s fastest SUV? Well, neighbor Cousin Neil has good news for you. The 2018 Dodge Durango SRT was at the dealers during the forth quarter of last year, and at a starting price of only $62,995 with an additional destination charge of $1095. It has a 392-cubic-inch V8 HEMI engine capable of going from zero to 60 miles per hour in 4.4 seconds. It can complete the quarter-mile in 12.9 seconds. But can’t outrun the Channel 5 helicopter?

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Culver City Board of Education Pensioners’ Amounts per year

Name Amount per year

Patricia Jaffee 228,780

Curtis Rethmeyer 115,407

Rosalind Labriola 131,335

Eileen Carroll 130,070

Marvin Brown 121,558

Shirley Drake 117, 709

Vera Jashni 117,198

Richard Stanley 112,727

Cecelia Hale 107,732

Antoinette Fournier 106,291

Amy Levit 103,805

Judith Sanderson 103,192

Rosemary Ecker 102,108

Joel Bernstein 97,752

Nancy Goldberg 96,433

Ralph Villani 96,261

Janice Fineman 94,341

Barbara Brown 91,208

Gloria Scott 90,368

Betty Sparkman 88,205

Total pensions paid in 2016 $11,390,424 average pension for full career retirees CCUSD $66,160. To be continued………………..

It wasn’t all that long ago an article appeared in the Long Beach Press-Telegram; it seems the Queen City has 360 former employees who received pensions of $100,000 or more in 2016 which ranks it sixth among the state’s 10 most populous cities, according to a report by Transparent California. Long Beach could be in the red during the fiscal year that begins in October 2019. In 2016 Cal PERS made nearly 647,000 individual pension payments adding up to more than $20 Billion.

From the world of medicine, researchers are going to toss the needle when giving a flu shot. That’s right folks the future will bring a flu patch which a clinical trial has shown to be as effective and the benefits are no pain, easier to transport no refrigeration required and its cheaper.

What the Sam Hill is going on when our NATO ally Turkey is buying an anti-aircraft defense system from Russia for $2.5 billion.

For those who missed an article, all my commentaries can be found at http://www.culvercityobserver.com; strolling down the page and underneath Opinion look for Rubenstein.