Executive Director's column

In 2006, Race, Poverty & the Environment co-published a special issue of the journal entitled “Getting Ready for Change: Green Economics and Climate Justice” with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. People like Van Jones and Majora Carter had just begun to talk of “green jobs” and to develop an inspiring vision of the green economy as a vehicle for achieving greater social equity.

Since then, many organizations have formed to advance this work. Legislation has passed at all levels, such as the federal Green Jobs Act, California’s landmark climate change bills (AB32 and SB375), and green building ordinances in local jurisdictions all over the country.

The current climate change landscape strongly resembles the state of transportation advocacy when I joined Urban Habitat in 2001. I remember being surprised then by the absence of organizations that represented those most impacted by poor transit policy and funding decisions—low-income communities and the transit dependent. Urban Habitat developed its transportation justice project to address this lack.

By Juliet Ellis, Executive Director

While the current recession has trapped countless people under the weight of a foreclosed home, unexpected loss of employment, or the evaporation of a life’s savings, those who were struggling before this economic meltdown to meet their basic needs are more vulnerable than ever. This is certainly the case in Richmond, California where the housing crisis has resulted in more than 2,000 foreclosed properties, most of them in the city’s poorest neighborhoods.

Simultaneously, cutbacks in public transit services, fare increases, and the related dependence on automobiles, oil, and freeways are increasing the isolation of poor communities. At Urban Habitat, while continuing our long-term commitment to land use issues, equitable development, and regionalism, we have also been working hard to win basic rights in the two key arenas of housing and transportation.

As a founding member of the Richmond Equitable Development Initiative (REDI), a diverse coalition committed to ensuring that the city’s low-income people and communities of color benefit from development policies and financial investments, Urban Habitat has been advocating the right to affordable housing for Richmond residents for over four years.

By Juliet Ellis, Executive Director

When Urban Habitat was founded in 1989, we were one of the only regionally-based environmental justice organizations in the country. We worked regionally because it provided a frame of reference to more effectively deal with the systemic causes of many of the issues facing local communities. What we experienced was that decisions on transportation, land use, or siting of industry usually took place in arenas far larger than a particular neighborhood. We saw that poor air quality from idling diesel trucks did not stop at the border of West Oakland but traveled across neighborhoods, cities, and counties. More importantly we discovered that local organizing wasn’t “big” enough to challenge the sources of these sorts of problems.

Over time an intentional “movement” for regional equity has taken hold. There are now many organizations that experience the benefits of framing their work within a regional equity framework. Groups that may previously have been operating in geographic, sector, or issue silos now look for opportunities to link their work across these boundaries. For example, through the work of the Social Equity Caucus, a regional coalition of 75 Bay Area organizations coordinated by Urban Habitat, groups are uniting across nonprofit, public, and private sectors to develop a shared regional agenda for environmental, economic, and social justice. Organizations working on issues such as tenant right’s in Marin are able to connect with groups doing similar work in Oakland and San Francisco. “Going regional” is not always easy especially when local day-to-day work requires an immediate response. But as this issue of Race, Poverty, and the Environment demonstrates, there is a growing number of organizations using this model as both a theory and a practice.

Juliet Ellis

The Spring 2008 issue of Race, Poverty, and the Environment—Who Owns Our Cities—is particularly close to my heart. While not a professionally trained planner, I am a planning enthusiast and see land use and planning processes as important levers for change. Too often land use and planning are seen as irrelevant exercises designed for participation by the elite. But this should not be the case. It is time for low-income communities of color to take back their communities, one plan at a time.
Urban centers, made up mostly of low-income communities of color, have been subject to systematic and far-reaching disinvestment for decades. The result is reflected in the community’s housing stock, employment rates, school quality, infrastructure, transportation systems, crime rates, open space, and amenities.