She always bounces back: Wheelchair tennis star aims for Paris

• April 3, 2023

Among the newspaper and magazine clippings, photographs and postcards, medals and ribbons, and the mementos, both fading and radiant, one document stands out for Natália Mayara.

Illustrating the hard path that has taken wheelchair tennis player from poverty and tragedy in Recife, a port city on Brazil’s northeast coast, to the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the national spotlight is a blank autopsy report with Mayara’s name on it.

On an evening in 1996, Mayara, then 2, was run over by a city bus and dragged down the block before being left for dead beneath a wheel by the vehicle’s driver as he tried to flee the scene.

“I remember that as the doctor was taking her into the surgery room, he came back out and said he would advise we have another kid,” Rosineide Maria Azevedo, Natália’s mother, recalled.

Doctors were so skeptical of Mayara’s chances of survival they prepared the form for the government agency that would list her cause of death.

“I have a document already with my name on it,” Mayara said. “(Doctors) said I had a two percent chance of survival. I don’t know. I guess I clung to those two percent.

“That’s all I had.”

In the ensuing weeks and months as their daughter underwent a double amputation and a series of follow-up surgeries, as Azevedo and her husband Carlos Costa tried to make sense of a swirl of emotions – denial, anger, despair, fear, hope, uncertainty – Azevedo found herself bound to a mother’s sense of loss for her child.

All these years later, Azevedo remembers a day nursing Natália after the final surgical procedure had been completed. She looked down at what was left of her daughter’s legs in a sense of denial, convinced she could will Natália whole again.

“I couldn’t stop staring at her legs, with that feeling that something was missing, almost as if I looked for long enough everything would be back to normal,” Azevedo said. “That’s when the bandage fell from her leg and I stiffened at the sight. I was having a panic attack but trying to be still so she wouldn’t notice and would keep breastfeeding her. But she noticed my nervousness and put her little hand on my cheek turning my face towards her, and told me that it was OK, that everything would be OK, and for me to not be nervous that God was looking after us.

“That was incredible to see, a 2-year old that had just lost her legs was actually the one comforting me and saying things that only an adult would. Even as a child, from the first moments, I knew she was a strong and blessed child because she fought a lot to survive, she never let herself down and always taught me to be strong with her.”

Rosineide would not be the last person touched by a life spent defying the odds.

Natália Costa Mayara Azevedo is convinced her existence is a “miracle” so she lives it with sense of divine purpose. She is above all else a woman whose life was forever altered by near-fatal tragedy yet refuses to view herself as a tragic figure.

“It’s just crazy,” said Mayara, 28, who lives and trains in Southern California. “It makes me want to live life like never before. Every day I really have this concept of living every day like it’s your last day. I only have a chance to do everything I want to and reach my goals and pursue the things that I love and to be happy and you only have today. You don’t know what’s about to happen tomorrow. So I feel like … I live intensely. I live, everybody who knows me, knows I’m crazy, I’m goofy. I don’t care about what people think. I’ll live my life and I’ll be happy no matter what.

“It’s just like all these little things, if you had told me when I was young, still living in Recife, I would tell you I was crazy and it’s just wild how everything has happened, and how far I was able to go with all the adversities in the way and again I’m still not done. I still want more.”

Mayara is determined to compete in the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, undeterred that she has been without funding from the Brazilian government since 2019 and presently is without a coach or regular access to practice courts.

“There’s always a mountain out there,” Mayara said. “It’s boring if you just climb one and sit on the top for the rest of your life. You always have some mountains to climb and that’s what I’m working toward: being ready for whatever mountain that comes through.”

Mayara was raised in Brasilia, the nation’s capital, but she is very much a child of Recife, a reflection of the city’s resiliency and a belief that rebirth can be found beneath the surface of tragedy if you look hard enough.

Recife’s survival depends on its resiliency. Known as the “Brazilian Venice,” the metropolis of more than 4 million sits next to a vast floodplain and is defined by a series of waterways and the Capibaribe and Beberibe rivers as they flow into the Atlantic Ocean. This, along with torrential rains, makes Recife vulnerable to severe flooding.

During part of the 2014 World Cup, much of the city was under several feet of water. Many in the city, especially in Recife’s poorer sections, find themselves in this cycle of flooding and rebuilding. But the Capibaribe and Beberibe have also the rich, black soil ideal for growing sugar cane, which has made the region for five centuries one of the world’s top sugar producers.

Another daughter of Recife, late Brazilian author Clarice Lispector, whose life like Mayara’s was shaped by tragedy, wrote in her novel, “The Passion According to G.H.”: “The mystery of human destiny is that we are fated, but that we have the freedom to fulfill or not fulfill our fate: realization of our fated destiny depends on us.”

Even from a young age, Mayara has had an innate sense that her fate rested with her, bound not to a sense of loss or the poison of bitterness, but focused on the opportunities still ahead of her, no matter the obstacles in between.

A REAL LIFE ROLE MODEL

For her second ascent of Mount Olympus, the pursuit of a second Paralympics, Mayara is determined to bring others along on the climb with her. Mayara works with the mentor program with “Ready, Set, Gold!”, a community health, fitness and social and emotional learning program that promotes healthy and active lifestyles to children in Southern California schools and is a public-private partnership between the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, the Foundation for Global Sports Development, and several local public school districts.

In Mayara, students have found inspiration.

“The first time she came to the school and she talked to the entire school and she talked about her story and you could see how much it touched the staff and the students,” said Danny Shollenberger, a physical education teacher at the Banneker-Doyle Career and Transition Center, a school in the Los Angeles Unified School District that provides vocational training and instructional programs for students between 18 and 22 with moderate to severe disabilities.

“So many of them wanted to stay after and talk more, so I think … they became comfortable with her and she was able to be vulnerable with everybody and I think that made them feel comfortable and they got excited when I told them that she was coming back,” Shollenberger said.

Mayara in turn has been energized by her visits to the schools.

“Their reaction impacts me still,” she said. “Even the first time I went to the Banneker school, one of the kids came and talked to me and said, ‘Look I have autism and I have some attacks sometimes and I don’t know how to deal with them. But I don’t want to give up and I wanted to ask you what I could do to not give up.’ And I was so touched by, that she trusted me to help her with that. There was a kid who told me that I motivated him to keep going. There was a kid who came to me and said I was thinking about giving up but after yesterday listening to your story, I’m never going to give up. There was a kid who asked me what was my motivation for keeping going every day because he is trying to find his.

“It’s so impactful for me that that’s literally what I love to do the most. When I’m there with them and share my experiences with them, it just makes me so happy. This is helping me so much in changing my life and the fact that I’m being able to change other people’s lives too is massive for me.”

On a recent afternoon, Mayara was at Banneker-Doyle, climbing out of her wheelchair to lead the students through a series of exercises at workout stations spread out through the school’s P.E. area.

Through the sit-ups and push-ups, Mayara’s message was clear.

“Believe in yourself,” said Francisco Estrada, a student at Benneker. “Yeah, never give up.”

Jazmin Flores said Mayara encouraged her “to do a good job and step outside of your comfort zone.

“And I did,” Flores continued. “I did push-ups, sit-ups without being embarrassed.”

After commiserating with Mayara about Brazil’s quarterfinal exit from the World Cup, Banneker principal Christopher Eaton talked about Mayara’s impact on the school.

“For me, the huge benefit for our students is to see someone who has a physical disability who has risen above the challenges and has been incredibly successful in the realm of athletics and in life in general and I think, we have students in the moderate to severe special ed eligibility range,” Eaton said. “In that student population, we have students who have cognitive delays but also physical disabilities and I know that they have been incredibly inspired by her story and I think it helps them to see what’s possible for themselves. That for me in a nutshell is the absolute beauty of having Natália here.

“For (students) it sparks imagination and it plants that seed to be able to see a real life role model. It plants that seed in their minds that they really are capable of anything they set their minds to and that the real limitations are the ones that they place on themselves.

“So much of the work we do here is about instilling in them the belief in themselves, and research shows that our students make incredible employees once they get their foot in the door and it’s that thing of convincing employers. And I think when you get your foot in the door, you have to go in with the mindset that you’re not going to be limited. When you see yourself as limited, so do other people.

“It is a universal message.”

Everyone, Shollenberger said, “is going to be inspired by her story.”

A TERRIBLE NIGHT

It was about 6 p.m. on Sept. 26, 1996, when Carlos Costa received a telephone call at the Coral paint plant where he worked as a security guard. A local hospital was calling. His daughter had been run over by a city bus.

“At that moment, I went crazy and desperate,” Costa said.

The accident had happened an hour earlier right in front of the hospital. Costa’s wife and daughter had just left the Hospital da Restauracao where Mayara was examined by a pediatrician for an allergy on her feet. Mayara had been on her mother’s lap at the bus stop before Azevedo put her daughter down briefly to retrieve a ticket out of her backpack.

“That’s when I felt a very strong wind gust with noise,” Azevedo said, “then I saw the bus had lost control and hit her and taken her meters away from me.”

The bus had come to the bus stop at too high of speed and the driver lost control as he tried to stop. The bus jumped the curb striking Mayara and then dragging her another 200 meters as the driver tried to race away. Passengers finally forced the driver to stop only to have him flee the scene, running off down the street with the bus on top of Mayara.

“I ran screaming for her,” Azevedo said. “I went into shock and then I just remember she was trapped under the wheels trying to get out and crying a lot, calling for me.”

Somehow the passengers were able to lift the bus off Mayara’s legs and one of them scooped the small child up and ran with her to the hospital.

Costa arrived at the hospital to find Mayara in the emergency room.

“When I saw my daughter in that situation, I ran through the hospital corridors looking for support to get my daughter out of general admission and take her to an ICU with better conditions for survival treatments,” Costa said.

A doctor at the hospital pulled Costa aside. If it were his daughter, the doctor told Costa, he would move her to another hospital. Hospital da Restauracao was not equipped to perform the procedure Mayara needed.

“If she had undergone her surgery at that hospital, she wouldn’t make it out alive,” Azevedo recalled the doctor telling her husband.

Costa scrambled frantically to get his daughter admitted into a better-equipped hospital. She was transferred, still hooked up to a blood transfusion, later that night to Real Hospital Portugues, a sprawling private facility. Just past midnight, Mayara underwent surgery to amputate both her legs near the knees.

“It was a terrible night for all of us,” Costa said.

The family’s ordeal, however, was just beginning. After 35 days at Portugues, Mayara still needed five more surgeries and extensive rehabilitation. Costa called a friend in Coral’s human resources office, pleading for assistance in getting Mayara admitted to Sarah Kubitschek Hospital, a rehabilitation facility known for treating persons with physical and motor problems located in Brasilia.

The treatment, however, was expensive. So was the cost of traveling back and forth to Brasilia, a 2½ hour flight or 29-hour drive from Recife.

“It was a constant struggle because I no longer had the financial conditions for anything and so I resorted to air transport companies, hotel chains, etc., always asking for help to carry out my daughter’s treatment, because the hospital did the necessary treatments,” Costa said. “It was a constant, relentless struggle.”

Costa and Azevedo also knew, given Brazil’s record of treating the disabled, especially disabled children, the struggle for them and their daughter was just beginning.

“Too often children with disabilities end up in Brazil’s institutions because families struggle to take care of them without resources and adequate community services,” Carlos Ríos-Espinosa, a senior disability rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, wrote in a 2018 report, ‘They Stay until They Die’: A Lifetime of Isolation and Neglect in Institutions for People with Disabilities in Brazil.”

“All children have the right to grow up in a family, and government resources should support families and children, not tear them apart.”

Among the report’s findings was that low-income children with disabilities were often placed into institutions at young ages and remained institutionalized for their entire lives. In these institutions, which the report compared to detention centers, individuals were routinely denied adequate food and hygiene as well as educational and personal development opportunities. Patients were not able to marry or have children. Some residents are tied to their beds and given sedatives to control them, the report stated.

Azevedo said she was worried about her daughter’s “development in general, including social inclusion in society, and her psychological development.”

“At that time I was a young poor girl from the country,” Azevedo said. “I never had any experience with people with disability and in my mind, I was very scared about how I was going to be able to help her through life.”

Costa shared her concerns. Financially, physically and emotionally drained from commuting between Recifice and Brasilia, he decided to move the family to the capital city.

“We were pretty poor and we didn’t have any money at all,” Mayara said. “So my dad basically decided to move me to one of the hospitals in Brasilia and sell everything they had. They sold the bed, the fridge, the TV, everything to pay for that bill.”

Even so, Costa felt he had no choice.

“I worried a lot about my daughter’s future,” he said. “I didn’t want to see my daughter like many people with special needs in Brazil, who live on the streets begging and surviving on the government’s minimum wage. And in the face of this situation, I had the objective of seeing my daughter in other better conditions of life. I always ran after scholarships in the best schools of Brasília, I sent letters to the schools like La Salles, Centro de Educação Católica and others always looking for a better education for Natália.”

The family continued to struggle financially. While the bus driver was fired soon after the incident, it would be eight years before the bus company agreed to a $40,000 settlement with the family. Costa and Azevedo used the money to buy a small home in Brasilia.

Despite hard times, Azevedo and Costa continued to find strength from their daughter’s courage and resiliency as she continued to emerge through the long and painful years of rehabilitation.

Azevedo recalled the day after returning home from the hospital following an amputation surgery.

“She went to the ground and started crawling and playing with her friends as if nothing happened,” Azevedo said.

“When Natália was undergoing treatments at the Sarah Kubitschek hospital in Brasília, she already showed a lot of determination, and independence and was always smiling and determined in every way, even when she was at the end of the treatments,” Costa said.

WHERE SHE HAD FOUGHT TO GET TO

That treatment included swimming and Mayara would emerge as one of the top Paralympic Youth swimmers in South America.

“She soon started to practice sports in swimming and she always won the prizes, tournaments,” Costa said, “and it grew with each passing day and then we came to the conclusion that Natália really had a lot of personality in all senses and aspects and was always independent because we never treated Natália with pity or as an incapable person, on the contrary, always giving everyone freedom to come and go without restriction.”

“But,” Costa added, “we know that any and all developments she has are her own nature and intelligence.”

At age 11, Mayara started playing tennis as well. For a year, she juggled the two sports before deciding to focus on tennis.

“The complexity of it,” Mayara answered when asked what attracted to her to tennis. “The fact that no match, no practice, no ball is the same as the other. The fact that you have the mental game is immensely impactful in how you play and how strategic you have to be about it and all the little moving parts. A lot of technique, a lot of intensity, everything is like a very intense chess match and I fell in love with that. Because I was actually a swimmer before. I was getting pretty established as a swimmer. I went to the Junior World Cup for swimming. I won three medals there. When I got back, I decided I couldn’t do it anymore because I loved tennis much more.”

By 2011, Mayara was 17 and the No. 2-ranked girls Paralympic player in the world. Between 2013 and 2016, she won 20 tournaments, including the 2013 South American Games and the 2015 ParaPan American Games.

Mayara won her opening match at the Paralympic Games in Rio, dispatching Turkey’s Busra Un 6-1, 6-0.

“Packed stadium, everyone chanting my name, which was insane,” Mayara said. “I was very touched by it. After the game after I stepped out, people were swarming around me and wanting photos.

“After all the hard work you’ve put in with that one goal in your mind and it starts getting closer and closer, I feel like that game was one step closer to me and it felt amazing to have the support of my family and friends and my country.”

The next morning, Costa was at a newsstand when he looked up to find a large photo of his daughter on the front page of Correio Brasiliense, a national newspaper. He broke down sobbing in the newsstand, overwhelmed by the enormity of the family’s journey and the realization that the nation was seeing in his daughter what he and Azevedo has witnessed for years.

“No one knew why I was crying. It was very emotional,” he said. “Now she gets to share her strength with others.”

Mayara lost in the next round, but there was no way she and her family would consider Rio as anything but a triumph.

“That she was where she had fought to get to, just as she had fought to survive in the immediate aftermath of the accident,” Azevedo said. “And that winning or losing she was already victorious. She had gone much farther than any of us could have predicted, and all by herself, with her dedication and determination. I felt like that was what that feeling was telling me about when she had her accident, that she would be big!”

Besides, Mayara was only 22 and had every reason to think she would be a medal contender four years later at the Tokyo Paralympics.

NOW WHO AM I?

She kept winning in 2017, the Israel Open among her four tournament titles.

But Mayara and her coach, Wanderson Cavalcante, also came to believe that if she was going to reach the medal podium in Tokyo she couldn’t stay in Brazil.

“After Rio, we decided to take next step and really focus my entire life on sports and tennis,” she said. “We saw an opportunity of moving to the U.S.”

Mayara, Cavalcante and his family moved in 2018 to Orlando, where she would have access to a U.S. Tennis Association facility with more than 100 courts and additional coaching. Higher level tournaments would be more accessible to her in Florida than Brazil.

Cavalcante, Mayara said, decided “everything that I eat, when I sleep, what I’ve been doing, practicing twice a day every day with him. It was pretty intense. Preparing for Tokyo. Bigger goal behind all that.”

Then it disappeared.

Brazil found itself in a deep recession between 2014 and 2017 in which the nation’s economy shrunk by 7%. By 2018, the economy was still growing by only 1.1%. In response, the federal government began slashing funding to a wide range of state-financed programs. Among those cut was Bolsa Atleta Podium, a government program operated by the Ministry of Sport in conjunction with the Brazilian Olympic and Paralympic committees to provide funding to athletes with Olympic or Paralympic medal potential.

Mayara had used the $2,500 she received each month from Bolsa Atleta Podium to help cover food and training and traveling expenses.

“Everything,” she said.

“It was a significant amount that I couldn’t really depend on anymore,” Mayara said. “So because of that, I couldn’t have a normal life. I still have to pay rent, I still have to buy food. You have to start working and by working you basically lose the time to practice. Tennis is a sport where you have to travel a lot and I didn’t have funding for travel, I didn’t have funding for paying a coach or anything like that. So that’s basically kind of what happened. I found myself having to choose and I had to figure it out and start working.”

Returning to Brazil wasn’t an option. Her parents divorced when she was 18, Azevedo returning to Recife to be closer to her family.

“I felt helpless basically,” Mayara said. “I saw myself not be able to do anything to fix it. It’s rough because I was by myself in a country that is new to me, that I’m still learning about. The language is not my first language. I have sacrificed everything, left everything thing behind to pursue that dream. So it was hard. It definitely felt like the rug was pulled out from under me. There’s nobody to blame or anything like that. It was just the circumstances at that time. But it was rough because I dedicated my whole life to this sport. It’s like I never … the worst part is that it’s not you who chooses to stop. Like I never chose to stop. That’s what hurts the most I feel like.”

Eventually, she took a job selling toy balls at a stand at an Orlando outlet mall, working for $7 an hour, sometimes from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“Squishy balls,” she said. “Toys you throw against wall and they become square and then you pull them off and they regain shape.

“It was rough because if you are almost a little embarrassed because you if have a failure, like I was a Paralympic tennis player and had all that athlete life, traveled the whole world and now I’m calling out to everyone in the outlet mall to try squishy balls. That was really rough. I remember that I saw somebody that I knew from a tennis tournament once, everybody was playing the tournament, and I remember one of them came up to the outlet and I saw them from afar and I just hid because I was too embarrassed to be seen in that situation.”

Unlike the toy balls she sold, Mayara couldn’t bounce back. For the first time in her life, she felt lost and without purpose.

“It’s tough when that happens because tennis was all I thought about,” she said. “People ask me what tennis means to me and it’s always hard to describe because tennis was my life. I didn’t do anything besides tennis. I never got to have a regular job, a regular life. Since I was 12, I was playing tennis, and I was practicing every day, traveling my whole life, never thought about anything other than that. And when it happened, it’s almost like they took your identity away. So as a Paralympic athlete people would come say, ‘Oh, who are you? What do you?’ And I was like, ‘I’m a Paralympic tennis player.’ And now who am I?

“I don’t know what I like to do besides that. I don’t know what I want to do besides that. I felt completely lost, very hard to deal with that situation. In a country completely new. Not that many people around me that I knew. So I had to deal with a little bit of depression, anxiety, crying every day, pretty much. Trying basically to find myself in a way. Trying to understand who I am now and what do I do and almost the feeling of failure. That I was working so hard toward something and I couldn’t get there and it’s hard again when it wasn’t my choice to not get there and stop. So it was really hard, so much so that I gained weight, I was not very active at all. I was in pretty rough shape and then I just basically couldn’t do it anymore.”

Instead of winning a medal in Tokyo, the Paralympic Games in 2021 went on without her.

“Honestly, I didn’t watch too much,” Mayara said. “I just, it hurt me to watch it. I tried watching it and then for the first day. Then I decided to put a little blind eye towards it because it was still hurting me a lot. There was a point in my life looking at my tennis chair would make me cry.

“And then Tokyo was the reason I was in the U.S., the reason I moved here, the reason I made all these changes and everything and see that happening through the TV first time since I started playing, it was like I was pretty hurt, so I didn’t follow it too much.”

A FIRST STEP BACK

The disappointment of missing the Tokyo Games, however, provided a wake-up call for Mayara.

She moved to Santa Monica and began coaching and training again, grabbing court time whenever and wherever she could find it.

She decided to stop hiding and feeling ashamed. She would tell her story.

“I can’t just be basically waiting for something to happen,” she said. “I’m somebody who lives intensely and I’m going to be happy no matter what and I’m going to live every day like it’s my last day. So I had to take that first step and start taking care of myself again, and find a way back, So I’ve been doing everything I can since then. Changed my diet better than even when I was playing. My workout routines are better than whenever I had it, even when I was in my top shape. My life routine is better than it’s ever been.

“I had to flip that switch and start having that hope again. I’m not just, like, ‘Sure that it will happen.’ I’m just, like, ‘If it happens, I will be ready.’”

She will find her mountain and its summit, whether it’s the Eiffel Tower and the iconic red clay courts of Roland-Garros at the Paris Games next summer or a peak just as daunting, just as majestic.

She won’t be alone on the climb.

In some of her darkest days since her name was written on an autopsy report, the first glaring underestimation of her will in a lifetime full of them, she has summoned others to join the ascent, pushing them out of the boxes life and they have put themselves in, over the obstacles, up their own mountains, a guide once again reaching up from tragedy and heartache to touch their souls, leading them forward.

“She is my light,” Azevedo said, “and has taught me everything about life through this incredibly hard journey.”

​ Orange County Register 

Newsom wins feud with oil industry – or did he?

• April 3, 2023

So, the third time was the charm for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s crusade to punish oil companies for what he described as price-gouging – sort of.

Newsom spent six months vilifying the oil industry after retail gasoline prices surged last year to as much as $2.60 a gallon over the national average, and initially proposed a tax on windfall profits.

However, that didn’t wash with enough Democrats in the Legislature to pass, since new taxes require a two-thirds vote. Newsom then exchanged the tax for penalties, but while they would have required only a simple-majority vote, legislators were also cool to deciding what profit margins would be allowed.

Finally – and almost in desperation – Newsom cut a deal that would dump the whole issue onto the California Energy Commission to gather data about refinery operations, establish a reasonable profit allowance and assess penalties for exceeding it.

“Finally, we’re in a position to look our constituents in the eye and say we now have a better understanding of why you’re being taken advantage of,” Newsom said last week as he signed the bill. “There’s a new sheriff in town in California, where we brought Big Oil to their knees. And I’m proud of this state.”

It was a characteristic bit of hyperbole on Newsom’s part. It will take months, and perhaps years, before the energy commission takes any action to set profit margins, much less enforce them.

“Nothing is going to happen in the short term,” Newsom acknowledged. “Gas prices are not going to drop immediately.”

Industry officials indicated that they would sue if they consider some of the proposed regulations too onerous, which could tie things up indefinitely.

“We need to wait and see what becomes of this,” a spokeswoman for the Western States Petroleum Association said.

Another caveat: The legislation is aimed at regulating “gross gasoline refining margins.” However, the state’s foremost expert on the subject, Severin Borenstein of UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute, told legislators at a hearing for Newsom’s second version of the crackdown that most of the sharp hikes in retail prices occurred as gasoline was being moved from wholesalers to the retail level. Thus, limiting profits on refining might not have a major effect on retail prices.

Finally, the last few passages of the legislation, which got almost no media attention, indicate that the energy commission will not only regulate refinery profits but must strive to ensure the industry’s ability to supply enough fuel over the next few decades for a “reliable, safe, equitable, and affordable transition away from petroleum fuels” to battery-powered vehicles.

That could be the trickiest aspect of the whole issue, and one with the greatest potential impact on the motoring public.

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The new law essentially transforms the refining industry into a public utility, much like the suppliers of electricity and natural gas. That means not only attempting to regulate prices but making sure the industry earns enough money to keep it in business for two or three decades, while some Californians continue to drive gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles.

Newsom has banned the sale of such vehicles after 2035, but that doesn’t mean they will suddenly disappear. Moreover, the technology to replace diesel-fueled trucks that carry freight into and out of the state is still in its infancy, and residents of other states seeking to drive into California will expect that they can fuel their cars.

How will California regulate petroleum fuel prices while simultaneously trying to both eliminate refiners and make sure they continue to produce enough fuel to meet demand indefinitely?

CalMatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more stories by Dan Walters, go to Commentary.

​ Orange County Register 

Titan Voices: CSUF’s impact starts before arrival on campus

• April 3, 2023

By Oscar O. Garcia Ortiz, contributing writer

Cal State Fullerton’s impact on my college and career development began nearly 10 years before I became a CSUF student and employee.

Throughout my time at Anaheim High School, I participated in CSUF’s Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. Established to increase high school graduation rates and encourage postsecondary education among middle or high school students in low-income communities, GEAR UP offers a variety of college prep services and support. As a student, the mentorship and skill-building opportunities I was afforded propelled me through high school with a focus on my future.

Proudly, I became a GEAR UP success story, graduating from high school and going on to UC Santa Cruz. Despite my wonderful time as a Banana Slug, my earlier experiences had played a pivotal role in shaping my educational journey and I returned home with a bachelor’s degree and invitation to work for CSUF’s GEAR UP program. As an alumnus and academic coordinator for the program, I recognized the solutions required to advance the local community in an ever-changing work environment. In this role, I coordinated services and activities that engaged students, parents, teachers, faculty and administrators while cultivating a college-going culture and equipping students for success.

While I have painted houses for the elderly, beautified poverty-stricken neighborhoods and served meals to the homeless, I feel the direct service programs offered by CSUF’s GEAR UP are far more effective in creating sustainable change by fostering positive educational experiences for local youth. My understandings of educational activism, civic engagement and ways to bridge the gap between private and public sectors through collaborative relationships stem from CSUF’s commitment to serving the underserved.

Inspiring youth on their academic endeavors only fueled my own motivation for increased public service and I enrolled in Cal State Fullerton’s Master of Public Administration program in fall 2021.

Shortly after becoming an official Titan, I was encouraged by an MPA classmate to apply for the position of senior coordinator of Parent & Family Relations at Cal State Fullerton. In this new role, I manage the delivery of services, communication, resources, scholarships and events to CSUF families so they can better participate in and support their student’s college journey. Most recently, our team raised $6,000 for scholarships that will provide three Titans with financial support this spring.

The diverse connections I’ve made with CSUF over the last decade have amplified my knowledge and empowered me to develop effective policies and programs that serve others in meaningful ways. As I strive to improve the quality of service and support I bring to CSUF students and families, it is rewarding to combine the skills I derive from my new position with the theories and models I learn in the classroom. Likewise, ongoing engagement in the Municipal Management Association of Southern California enhances my research and analytical skills and expands my leadership abilities as I prepare myself for a managerial position in public service.

The CSUF MPA program maintains deep-rooted values that foster government leaders with an emphasis on “a diverse and changing workforce and citizenry.” Inspired by this, my professional dreams continue to flourish at Cal State Fullerton. After graduation, I aspire to become an associate professor in political psychology and link my passions as an educator and administrator. If education serves as a tool for social mobility, CSUF is a guiding blueprint that plans, prepares and transforms dreams into reality. Go Titans!

Oscar O. Garcia Ortiz is a graduate student in Cal State Fullerton’s master of public administration program and serves as senior coordinator for the Parent & Family Relations team within the Department of Central Development at CSUF. He is a member of the Anaheim High School Alumni Association, Municipal Management Association of Southern California, Psi Chi honor society and the National Council for Community and Education Partnerships’ Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs Alumni Association.  

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​ Orange County Register 

Melissa Melendez: California can’t solve homelessness while ignoring key drivers of homelessness

• April 3, 2023

As part of his extended state-of-the state tour this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “new” multi-tiered plan to address the state’s homelessness crisis seems curiously like so many of his previous plans to address the issue that has dogged him throughout his more than two decades career in elected political life.

Who can forget San Francisco’s 2002 Proposition N (euphemistically titled “Care not Cash”) that turbocharged that city’s homeless industrial complex in the name of providing services, and not direct payments, to the chronically indigent? Now the governor proposes even more bureaucracy, more rhetoric and redirection away from the real issues, and more of the same misery for thousands of chronically homeless and drug-addicted Californians. Yet, if the numbers show anything, decades of cash transfers to Newsom’s public sector union allies have only witnessed an exponential rise of chronic homelessness and its sorry effects on Californians’ quality of life.

What did Prop. N, in fact, yield? A 2018 Los Angeles Times lookback at Newsom’s record in San Francisco showed marginal fluctuations in official homeless numbers between the enactment of Prop. N and the first six years of his mayorship were a result of re-housing people who were already in shelters and did little to affect the chronically homeless — essentially it was a “re-purposing of existing money.”

What about the decade plus Newsom has been in statewide office? The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness tracked an almost 30% increase in the official number of homeless people statewide between 2011 and 2020, to 161,548, a third of whom are “chronically homeless.”

It is bewildering, to say the least, that the governor now wants to double down on the same failed policies. Take for instance his proposal to amend Proposition 63 (2004), a tax increase voters approved under the guise that it would fund the state’s mental health infrastructure. A 2018 state auditor’s report noted that funds have been diverted, misspent and even unspent, amassing as county slush funds. Now Newsom wants to spend these and even more funds on “treatment beds” for mental health patients and drug addicts, adding additional bond debt for expanded homelessness programs and infrastructure. Prop. 23 and its attempts to address “mental health” infrastructure were sloppily implemented and failed to curtail the explosion of homelessness in the nearly 20 years since its enactment. What purpose is served by more spending on so-called “infrastructure” (and the associated bureaucrats), other than to contribute to the mirage the governor has any control over this crisis? Why else would Newsom double down and expand failed and poorly administered programs?

There is an important concession the governor surprisingly admits in this expensive and unworkable plan: that drug use must be addressed.

It raises the question: Why do Newsom and his allies repeatedly deemphasize the central role drug abuse and trafficking has in causing and perpetuating California’s homelessness crisis?

Instead of properly supporting existing anti-drug enforcement measures and stressing the contributions criminal courts have made in incarcerating drug traffickers, the fentanyl crisis and other lethal drugs are just an afterthought.

For decades, California prosecutors used criminal penalties to plea-bargain drug users into treatment and imprison dealers. In fact, Sacramento County estimated in 2019 that 60% of its homeless population were admitted users (although substantially fewer individuals acknowledge that substance use impacted their homeless condition), a number consistent with the San Francisco Chronicle’s 2020 report that 28% of that year’s fentanyl overdose deaths were among the unhoused.

Whether due to his ideological commitments or to cover for his poor record and sheer incompetence on this issue, the governor continues to emphasize more bureaucracy, less criminal enforcement and offers only passing acknowledgements of the drug crisis.

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California will never resolve its homelessness scandal so long as its leaders ignore its core contributing factors.

Unfortunately, Gov. Newsom’s “new” plans are more of the same failed plans he has championed for 20 years: increased bureaucracy, further spending, and, consequently, ongoing misery. The difference in 2023 is we now have evidence that what once sounded so bold and cutting edge has proved an ineffective cover for cynically raising taxes and redirecting funds to his political allies.

And so the blocks of tent cities, “safe” injection sites and homeless encampments that were formerly contained to San Francisco, Skid Ro, and certain urban cores — encampments more fitting for the shanty towns of developing nations than the world’s fifth-largest economy – will continue to be commonplace and multiply throughout the state.

Melissa Melendez previously served as a California state senator and assemblymember. She is now president of the Golden State Policy Council.

​ Orange County Register 

UFC, WWE combine to form $21.4 billion sports entertainment company

• April 3, 2023

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN | AP Business Writer

WWE and the company that runs Ultimate Fighting Championship will combine to create a $21.4 billion sports entertainment company.

A new publicly traded company will house the UFC and World Wrestling Entertainment brands, with Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. taking a 51% controlling interest in the new company. Existing WWE shareholders will hold a 49% stake.

The companies put the enterprise value of UFC at $12.1 billion and WWE’s value at $9.3 billion.

The new business, which does not yet have a name, will be lead by Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel. Vince McMahon, executive chairman at WWE, will serve in the same role at the new company. Dana White will continue as president of UFC and Nick Khan will be president at WWE.

“Together, we will be a $21+ billion live sports and entertainment powerhouse with a collective fanbase of more than a billion people and an exciting growth opportunity,” McMahon said in a prepared statement Monday.

He also provided some idea of where the focus of the new company will be, saying that it will look to maximize the value of combined media rights, enhance sponsorship monetization, develop new forms of content and pursue other strategic mergers and acquisitions to further bolster their brands.

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Ties already exists talent wise between WWE and UFC, with stars such as Brock Lesnar and Ronda Rousey crossing over between the two businesses.

The deal between Endeavor and WWE catapults WWE into a new era, after functioning as a family-run business for decades. McMahon purchased Capitol Wrestling from his father in 1982, and took the regional wrestling business to a national audience with the likes of wrestling stars such as Andre the Giant, Hulk Hogan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. The company, which changed its name to World Wrestling Federation and later World Wrestling Entertainment, hosted its first WrestleMania in 1985.

McMahon, in an interview with CNBC, addressed the notion that there was doubt among some WWE fans and industry experts that he would ever make a deal for the business. “It’s the right time to do the right thing. And it’s the next evolution of WWE,” he said.

The announcement of the WWE sale arrives after McMahon, the founder and majority shareholder of WWE, returned to the company in January and said that it could be up for sale.

Rumors swirled about who would possibly be interested in buying WWE, with Endeavor, Disney, Fox, Comcast, Amazon and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund all in the mix.

McMahon acknowledged to CNBC that there were several suitors for WWE, but that combining with Endeavor is the right move.

“It makes all the sense in the world for all these synergies that we have to extract all of the value that we can out of the marketplace,” he explained.

Media industry analysts viewed WWE as an attractive target given its global reach and loyal fanbase, which includes everyone from minors to seniors and a wide range of incomes.

The company held its marquee event, WrestleMania, over the weekend. Last year, WWE booked revenue of $1.3 billion.

The company is also a social media powerhouse. It surpassed 16 billion social video views in the final quarter of last year. It has nearly 94 million YouTube subscribers and has more than 20 million followers on TikTok. Its female wrestlers comprise five out of the top 15 most followed female athletes in the world, across Facebook, Twitter & Instagram, led by Ronda Rousey with 36.1 million followers.

WWE had more than 7.5 billion digital and social media views in January and February of this year, up 15% from the same time frame a year ago.

The new company plans to trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the “TKO” ticker symbol. Its board will have 11 members, with six being appointed by Endeavor and five being appointed by WWE.

“We like the assets of UFC and also WWE in a world where linear TV is losing market share to streaming, thus live sport content is in high demand,” wrote Jeffries analyst Randal Konik said in a note to clients.

The transaction, which was approved by the boards of Endeavor and WWE, is targeted to close in the second half of the year. It still needs regulatory approval.

Shares of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., based in Stamford, Connecticut, are up 33% this year, but fell 5% at the opening bell Monday. Shares of Endeavor, based in Beverly Hills, California, slipped less than 1%.

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​ Orange County Register 

As Gov. Newsom transforms San Quentin, he cannot ignore the problem of solitary confinement

• April 3, 2023

They say good things come to those who wait. When you are in solitary confinement, all you have is time to wait and the hope that things can get better. I know this through my own experiences in isolation, and as an advocate to end the use of solitary confinement in our state and country. As Gov. Gavin Newsom announces a historic transformation of San Quentin and the pursuit of rehabilitation, survivors of solitary confinement are waiting when the governor will decide to end this cruel practice and instead support humane  alternatives.

I spent years in solitary confinement throughout my incarceration. Sometimes it was months and sometimes weeks. But even one day in isolation does not escape the immediate feeling of doom and  despair. I was placed in solitary instead of receiving counseling, and support for my substance use problem. This was the darkest period of my life. I was alone and isolated when I needed community, support and guidance. I would often try to escape through my memories to a different place. I survived, but the experience hurt my soul.

Like the death row ward that Gov. Newsom is now shutting down, solitary confinement is an expensive and ineffective relic of mass incarceration. It is a practice that is designed to punish and humiliate, and perpetuates systematic violence. When I was held in solitary confinement the practice was accepted as normal, with an estimated 12,000 people being held in solitary in California, many for more than a decade.

Thankfully this practice was challenged through the brave advocacy and leadership of incarcerated people, starting in 2011 when a series of hunger strikes were launched in Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (SHU), and quickly started a movement to limit the use of solitary confinement. The largest of these strikes, which took place in 2013, included the participation of 30,000 incarcerated people across the state of California, and received international attention.

In 2011 I co-founded California Families Against Solitary Confinement along with several families impacted by solitary confinement, not only because I was personally impacted by the issue, but because my son was in Pelican Bay and participated in the hunger strikes. I was invested not only as a solitary survivor, but as a mother concerned with the fate of her son.

The organizing and advocacy led to important gains for this movement, including legal settlements designed to ensure that California prisons did not overuse solitary. However the fight continued, as the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) continued to violate the legal settlement it agreed to.

In 2022 California introduced the Mandela Act, modeled after progressive legislation passed by other states, including New York, designed to limit the use of solitary confinement to 15 days, and requiring facilities to provide safe alternatives to intense isolation. The Mandela Act received broad support from the legislature and would have made California the first state in the country to pass a bill that also included immigrants in private detention facilities.

Unfortunately the bill was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom when it reached his desk. The veto was disappointing because the governor noted that the issue was “ripe for reform” before refusing to sign the bill, and instead directing CDCR to issue regulations.

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What hurt the most was that the governor did not take the time to understand the history of this issue, to hear our stories of pain and isolation, or to truly understand what needed to be done to make progres. In the fall of 2022 solitary survivors penned an open letter to lawmakers and Governor Newsom reminding him of the rich history of our struggle, and our belief that change is possible. We received no response.

We are not asking for a lot. Our bill was modeled after standards set for by the United Nations, the so-called “Mandela Rules” and should be embraced and celebrated by the governor if he is truly interested in making California a leader.

The governor cannot have it both ways. He cannot claim to be a leader in criminal justice reform, and support efforts for reimagining institutions like San Quentin while ignoring the issue of solitary confinement.

The California Mandela Act was reintroduced in 2023 as Assembly Bill 280, and stands as an opportunity for redemption for Gov. Newsom and for our state. For those of us who have survived solitary confinement, the wait for something better has taken far too long.

Dolores Canales is co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and a member of the California Mandela Campaign. 

​ Orange County Register 

Senior living: Being ‘socially frail’ comes with health risks for older adults

• April 3, 2023

Consider three hypothetical women in their mid-70s, all living alone in identical economic circumstances with the same array of ailments: diabetes, arthritis and high blood pressure.

Ms. Green stays home most of the time and sometimes goes a week without seeing people. But she’s in frequent touch by phone with friends and relatives, and she takes a virtual class with a discussion group from a nearby college.

Ms. Smith also stays home, but rarely talks to anyone. She has lost contact with friends, stopped going to church and spends most of her time watching TV.

Ms. Johnson has a wide circle of friends and a busy schedule. She walks with neighbors regularly, volunteers at a school twice a week, goes to church and is in close touch with her children, who don’t live nearby.

Three sets of social circumstances, three levels of risk should the women experience a fall, bout of pneumonia or serious deterioration in health.

Ms. Johnson would be most likely to get a ride to the doctor or a visit in the hospital, experts suggest. Several people may check on Ms. Green and arrange assistance while she recovers.

But Ms. Smith would be unlikely to get much help and more likely than the others to fare poorly if her health became challenged. She’s what some experts would call “socially vulnerable” — or “socially frail.”

Social frailty is a corollary to physical frailty, a set of vulnerabilities (including weakness, exhaustion, unintentional weight loss, slowness and low physical activity) shown to increase the risk of falls, disability, hospitalization, poor surgical outcomes, admission to a nursing home and earlier death in older adults.

Essentially, people who are physically frail have less physiological strength and a reduced biological ability to bounce back from illness or injury.

Those who are socially frail also have fewer resources to draw upon, but for different reasons: They don’t have close relationships, can’t rely on others for help, aren’t active in community groups or religious organizations, or live in neighborhoods that feel unsafe, among other circumstances. Social frailty can also entail feeling a lack of control over one’s life or being devalued by others.

Many of these factors have been linked to poor health outcomes in later life, along with so-called social determinants of health — low socioeconomic status, poor nutrition, insecure housing and inaccessible transportation.

Social frailty assumes that each factor contributes to an older person’s vulnerability and that they interact with and build upon each other.

“It’s a more complete picture of older adults’ circumstances than any one factor alone,” said Dr. Melissa Andrew, a professor of geriatric medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who published one of the first social vulnerability indices for older adults in 2008.

This way of thinking about older adults’ social lives, and how they influence health outcomes, is getting new attention from experts in the U.S. and elsewhere. In February, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and UC San Francisco published a 10-item “social frailty index” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

“Our goal is to help clinicians identify older patients who are socially frail and to prompt problem-solving designed to help them cope with various challenges,” said Dr. Sachin Shah, a co-author of the paper and a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Using data from 8,250 adults 65 and older who participated in the national Health and Retirement Study from 2010 to 2016, the researchers found that the index helped predict an increased risk of death during the period studied in a significant number of older adults, complementing medical tools used for this purpose.

“It adds dimensions of what a clinician should know about their patients beyond current screening instruments, which are focused on physical health,” said Dr. Linda Fried, an internationally known frailty researcher and dean of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University.

Beyond the corridors of medicine, she said, “we need society to build solutions” to issues raised in the index: the ability of seniors to work, volunteer and engage with other people; and the safety and accessibility of neighborhoods in which they live; ageism and discrimination against older adults, among other issues.

A team of Chinese researchers, meanwhile, recently published a comprehensive review of social frailty in adults 60 and older, based on results from dozens of studies with about 83,900 participants in Japan, China, Korea and Europe. They determined that 24% of these older adults, assessed both in hospitals and in the community, were socially frail — a higher portion than those deemed physically frail (12%) or cognitively frail (9%) in separate studies. Most vulnerable were people 75 and older.

“If someone is socially vulnerable, perhaps they’ll need more help at home while they’re recovering from surgery,” Dr. Kenneth Covinsky, a geriatrician at UCSF and co-author of the recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences article, said about the implications. “Or maybe they’ll need someone outside their family circle to be an advocate for them in the hospital.”

Jennifer Ailshire, an associate professor of gerontology and sociology at USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, said a social fraility index would help doctors identify older adults who need extra assistance and direct them to community resources.

Geriatricians regularly screen older adults for extra needs, albeit without using a well-vetted or consistent set of measures.

“I’ll ask, ‘Who do you depend on most and how do you depend on them?’” said Dr. William Dale, the Arthur M. Coppola Family Chair in Supportive Care Medicine at City of Hope, a comprehensive cancer center in Duarte. “Do they bring you food? Drive you places? Come by and check on you? Give you their time and attention?”

Depending on the patients’ answers, Dale said, he will refer them to a social worker or help modify their plan of care. But, he cautioned, primary care physicians and specialists don’t routinely take the time to do this.

Oak Street Health, a Chicago chain of 169 primary care centers for older adults in 21 states and recently purchased by CVS Health, is trying to change that in its clinics, said Dr. Ali Khan, the company’s chief medical officer of value-based care strategy.

At least three times a year, medical assistants, social workers or clinicians ask patients about loneliness and social isolation, barriers to transportation, food insecurity, financial strain, housing quality and safety, access to broadband services, and utility services.

The organization combines these findings with patient-specific medical information in a “global risk assessment” that separates seniors into four tiers of risk, from very high to very low. In turn, this informs the kinds of services provided to patients, the frequency of service delivery and individual wellness plans, which include social as well as medical priorities.

The central issue, Khan said, is “what is this patient’s ability to continue down a path of resilience in the face of a very complicated health care system?” — and what Oak Street Health can do to enhance that.

What’s left out of an approach like this, however, is something crucial to older adults: Whether their relationships with other people are positive or negative.

That isn’t typically measured, but it’s essential in considering whether their social needs are being met, said Linda Waite, the George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and director of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project.

For seniors who want to think about their own social vulnerability, consider this five-item index, developed by researchers in Japan:

Do you go out less frequently now than last year?
Do you sometimes visit your friends?
Do you feel you are helpful to friends or family?
Do you live alone?
Do you talk to someone every day?

Think about your answers. If you find your responses unsatisfactory, it might be time to reconsider your social circumstances and make a change.

Kaiser Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at Kaiser Family Foundation. KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

​ Orange County Register 

OC probation officer hits 50 states as Spider-Man, other superheroes for sick kids, homeless adults

• April 3, 2023

When Yuri Williams was 8 years old, his mother sometimes took him with her to work at the Los Angeles County’s Central Juvenile Hall when she couldn’t find a sitter. Lynda C. Hubbard worked there, with troubled children and young adults as a juvenile correctional officer, for more than three decades.

“There was this one big guy banging on the walls in his room,” Williams recalled, who is now 46 and lives in Signal Hill. “My mom walked in and asked him what was going on and he just started crying and she was holding this much bigger person in her arms.”

Williams ended up following in his mother’s footsteps, becoming a deputy juvenile correctional officer for the Orange County Probation Department. Over the years, he sought guidance from his mother, who told him how to speak with those in custody, how to help the boys and girls.

When Hubbard died from cancer in 2009, Williams fell into a deep depression for five years.

“One day I was just sitting there and tried calling her phone and just started crying,” Williams said.

But his mom’s lessons inspired him.

Yuri Williams visits people in hospitals to cheer them up. (Courtesy of Yuri Williams)

In 2017, Williams began donning the costumes of superheroes and other iconic figures to raise the spirits of others who are fighting their own battles. A year later, he launched his nonprofit, A Future Superhero and Friends, to try and cover the costs of such things as donations and his travel. If he lassos big donors, he wants to create an after-school program of some sort.

“My mom always told me when you do something, try to do it different from others,” Williams said. “I figured by wearing a costume it could be a distraction, because it was rare that people see others in costume coming out to help.”

His started off locally, visiting families and children’s hospitals in Southern California, dressed as characters such as Spider-Man, Deadpool and the Mandalorian.

In February, Williams rolled in three large bins of plush toys — Santa Clauses, unicorns and others — through the doors of the Cherese Mari Laulhere Children’s Village in the Long Beach Medical Center. Because of the coronavirus, he was in street clothes — not able to visit the children in costume as in previous years.

“Yuri has been amazing,” said Rita Goshert, director of the center’s Child Life Program. “He’s been partnering and collaborating with us for several years. He just surprises us with these donations and it just makes all the difference in the world.

“It brightens their day, makes them forget they’re in the hospital and keeps their minds busy,” she said.

Williams expected the smiles and joy from the children. What surprised him was the parents’ reactions.

“Some of these parents haven’t seen their kids smile in awhile, or they haven’t been able to provide the gifts they’d like to for their kids,” Williams said. “Sometimes, they need this just as much as their kids.”

Yuri Williams is a a deputy juvenile correctional officer for the Orange County Probation Department. Here, he stands outside Orange County Juvenile Hall in Orange on Friday, March 31, 2023. Williams dresses as up superheroes and visits sick children in hospitals. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Four years and counting, Williams has made a tradition of traveling across all 50 states in 20 days over the holiday season, using his vacation days from work, visiting the homes of ill children to bring cheer via their favorite characters and to provide gifts like new gaming systems and baby Yoda dolls.

Williams also visits homeless veterans in Los Angeles and Orange counties, providing hygiene kits, clothing, food, gift cards. He organizes art classes meant to help them cope with their struggles. And, he listens.

“The thing about me, I don’t assume or judge people, so I try to build a relationship with them first and then keep coming back … so I can gain their trust,” he said. “Once I gain your trust, I’m able to help you with your problems and get you the services that you need.”

Adults get the costume treatment, too.

“When I visited the houseless community it just made them smile,” Williams said. “One time I went out without the costume and they told me to go back home and get it. They never called me by my first name — it has always been ‘Spider-Man.’

“It brings you back to your childhood, and when I saw that smile I knew I could get to their heart and try to get them the help they need,” he said.

In October, Williams appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson surprised him, joining him on the set. Inspired by Williams’ efforts, the actor gave him a costume of Black Adam, who Johnson portrayed in a film of that name. Johnson also rented out a Regal Edwards theater in the Long Beach Towne Center so ill children, homeless people and others who are struggling could see the film.

In January, the Orange County Board of Supervisors recognized his charity by presenting him with a plaque.

Out of the menagerie of costumes he has acquired over the years, Williams said Spider-Man has remained his favorite. It prompts a memory — he recalls an action figure he picked up while at work with his mother years ago.

Maintaining his charity work has not been easy, with most of the money spent on gifts, storage and travel coming out of his own pocket, he said, leading him to doubt how long he can continue his nonprofit work. His travels have also taken a toll on Williams, spending weeks at a time away from his 14-year-old daughter, Jaedyn.

Yuri Williams and his daughter, Jaedyn. (Courtesy of Yuri Williams)

Despite that, Jaedyn has been a constant supporter of her father’s efforts, he said. Years ago, Jaedyn passed a homeless man on the street and offered him the money in her pocket.

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“She told me that that could be her someday,” Williams said.

“I told her that you always give back. … Blink of an eye, an earthquake happens, destroys your home and you could possibly become homeless.

“So it’s important that you give back, because good karma will return to you.”

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​ Orange County Register