REDI Updates
REDI Housing Town Hall Final Report
Description of the Report
The Richmond Equitable Development Initiative (REDI) prepared this report to show how the national crisis is impacting communities in Richmond, California and to emphasize the need for solutions that minimize this critical situation, especially for the city’s most vulnerable populations. Richmond has a long history of being a welcoming city where many working families can find an affordable home to buy or rent. Now, more than ever, is the opportunity to develop short and long term solutions that allow Richmond to continue to be a place for those who want to call it home.
As of 2009, more than 2,000 homes in Richmond are currently in foreclosure with a projected 3,000 more to be in foreclosure next year. This second wave of foreclosure impacts both homeowners and renters....
Housing Crisis Town Hall
THOUSANDS KICKED OUT
RICHMOND COMMUNITY HAS SOLUTIONS
Community members will present new research
and demand relief from bank and elected officials
STOP PREVENTABLE FORECLOSURES
KEEP FAMILIES IN THEIR HOMES
Richmond Planning Commission to Require a Comprehensive Cap on Chevron's Crude Oil
The Richmond Planning Commission voted to require a "comprehensive crude cap" as a part of Chevron's proposed expansion of its Richmond oil refinery. "This was a significant step fotward for environmental justice in the city of Richmond and beyond," said Dr. Henry Clark, executive director of the West County Toxics Coalition. Hundreds of community members with the Richmond Alliance for Environmental Justice, a coalition of community-based organizations, packed the hearing and urged Richmond's Planning Commission to stop Chevron from expanding the refinery's capacity to process heavier and dirtier crude oil.
A Healthy Richmond, California Endowment looks at REDI
Boom-and-bust cycles have shaped the city of Richmond’s history. Its
population quadrupled between 1940 and 1943; later, with the closing of
its World War II shipyards, the population shrank dramatically. From
1970 to 2000, it grew at only half the rate of the rest of the East
Bay. Today, Richmond remains an important industrial center for the Bay
Area, home to nearly a third of all jobs in the manufacturing,
wholesale and transportation sectors. Because of Richmond’s reliance on
industrial economies, much of the city’s land is zoned for industrial
and commercial use.
Beset by decades of economic, social and environmental challenges,
Richmond faced significant financial shortfalls. “Historically it was
unable to access its fair share of regional resources and was a city
dealing with disinvestment,” recalls Juliet Ellis, executive director
of the environmental justice organization Urban Habitat. “And for a
combination of reasons the relationship between the City Council and
community members was extremely tense, at an all-time low.”
