In 2016, everyday people are coming together with real grassroots solutions to our City’s housing crisis. Last year, our neighborhood coalitions made up or residents, workers, parents, teachers, youth and elders demanded action from our City leaders. Join us on January 20, 2016 to prioritize how to invest $50 million in preserving and creating more affordable housing in the Mission District.
Updates
Bonjour Paris! PODER at COP21
Bonjour, Paris!
PODER’s very own Tere Almaguer is on her way to COP21 (Conference of the Parties on Climate Change).
She is joining hundreds of front line community and indigenous leaders who are redefining climate leadership! If California wants to continue to lead on climate, impacts in Environmental Justice communities need to be addressed. Tere will be in the good company of allies from California Environmental Justice Alliance, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, and Climate Justice Alliance. And together clamoring for the rejection of false solutions like cap and trade, fracking, nuclear power, dirty energy, and forest offsets.
Let em hear you Tere!
For updates be sure to follow us on facebook and twitter. And at It Takes Roots website.
#COP21 #ItTakesRoots #JustTransition #NoWarNoWarming #KeepItInTheGround #NoREDD
Save The Mission: Yes on Proposition I
A couple weeks back PODER and our partners at San Francisco Rising Alliance were proud to introduce our voter guide for the upcoming November 3rd San Francisco elections. Click to get your copy.
Voter guides come in handy, but winning an election takes everyday people volunteering, making calls, knocking on doors, and talking to their family and friends about the issues that matter to San Francisco working families. And this election the affordable housing crises is heavy on the hearts, minds, and pocket books of tens of thousands of San Franciscan’s. That’s why PODER is mobilizing our community to do our part to win PROPOSITION I.
Prop I- the San Francisco Mission District Luxury Housing Moratorium Initiative will place a pause on luxury market rate development for 18 months and create a Neighborhood Stabilization Plan.
Precinct Walks
Saturday Oct 17 & 24, 10AM-2PM
Plaza Adelante, 2301 Mission Street, 1st floor.
Sunday Streets Voter Education
Sunday, October 18, 11AM – 3PM
546 Valencia St, near 16th St.
Phone Banking in Spanish & English
Tuesday’s & Thursday’s, 5:30PM-8:30PM
Plaza Adelante, 2nd floor
Environmental Justice wins in Sacramento!
Among the environmental justice bills signed into law by Governor Brown in the 2015 session included priority bills by the California Environmental Justice Alliance.
These include:
- AB 693 by Assemblymember Susan Eggman will bring local solar power to low-income communities who are often last to benefit from green technologies, in addition to promoting renewable energy and cleaner air for the state. It would create a new program that will finance solar installations on multifamily affordable housing projects. The bill also allows tenants to reduce utility costs by directly crediting their bills for the solar energy used and generated.
- AB 1288 by Speaker Toni Atkins and Senator Fran Pavley will ensure that the California Air Resources Board performs more equitably and responds more effectively to issues in communities overburdened by pollution. The bill adds two representatives who work directly with low-income communities and communities of color overburdened by pollution to the California Air Resources Board (ARB).
- AB 1071 by Speaker of the Assembly Toni Atkins and Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia helps ensure that communities most impacted by environmental violations see direct benefits. The bill requires statewide environmental enforcement agencies to create a policy that allows a percentage of penalty fines from environmental violations to be directed into projects that benefit environmental justice communities.
- SB 350 by Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León and Senator Leno will advance our clean energy economy and create jobs by increasing renewable energy in California to 50% by 2030 and doubling energy efficiency in buildings.
The California Environmental Justice Alliance is a statewide coalition of grassroots, environmental justice organizations building a movement among low-income communities and communities of color most impacted by environmental issues to demand change. We unite the powerful local organizing of our members in the communities most impacted by environmental hazards – low-income communities and communities of color to create comprehensive opportunities for change at a statewide level. We build the power of communities across California to create policies that will alleviate poverty and pollution.
All together, we represent over 20,000 Latino, Asian Pacific American, and African American residents. Our members and partners are:
- Asian Pacific Environmental Network
- Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice
- Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment
- Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy
- Communities for a Better Environment
- Environmental Health Coalition
- Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
- Pacoima Beautiful
- People Organizing to Demand Environmental and Economic Rights
- Physicians for Social Responsibility, Los Angeles
Member Profiles: Marilyn Duran
Marilyn Duran joined PODER at the age of 14. As a member of the Common Roots Youth Organizer Program, Marilyn learned about the environmental injustices low-income communities of color face and displacement crisis that has afflicted the Mission. Her own family has avoided eviction because of Marilyn becoming informed, active and supported as an emerging young leader. Marilyn has taken on numerous leadership roles within PODER. As Marilyn states, “PODER constantly widens my perspective on issues and solutions for our communities.”
In 2006, Marilyn was a Grassroots Global Justice Alliance delegate to the World Social Forum in Nairobi, Kenya. And in 2009, Marilyn was PODER’s representative on the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice’s Youth Leadership Campaign. In this role, she trained other youth to organize and build a movement for environmental justice throughout the southwest and northern Mexico.
This summer Marilyn served as PODER’s Climate Justice Alliance (CJA) Just Transition Fellow. In this role, Marilyn represented PODER in its California Environmental Justice Alliance legislative and advocacy work. She took on various leadership roles in facilitating local trainings to prepare members for legislative visits at the CEJA Congreso in August, and co-facilitating Co-op Academy sessions for the Urban Campesinos youth leaders.
According to Marilyn, “As a Just Transition Fellow, I learned even more about what PODER does for not only the San Francisco community, but as an example for others nationwide.” She continued, “The solutions of cooperatives in our communities, specifically the farm with the Urban Campesinos and Bicis del Pueblo have inspired others in different cities to do similar projects. It was eye-opening to see how much influence PODER has on so many people.”
For more than a decade PODER has supported Marilyn’s transformation into a valuable community leader.
The Peoples Summit A Huge Success
Thank you to our neighbors, youth and families that participated in this year’s Peoples Summit. Over a one hundred District 11-based community members took part in the half day summit, participating in various learning and visioning sessions held at the Excelsior located Muslim Community Center.
This historical and inspirational gathering had community members breaking bread, sharing concerns, and coming up with ideas on how to build People Power in San Francisco’s District 11. Visioning sessions were held in four different languages, and ages ranged from teenagers to retired seniors.
The Excelsior District and surrounding neighborhoods is home to a large and diverse concentration of low-income immigrants, including Latinos, Filipinos, and Chinese, as well as a sizable African American population. The focus of the summit was to engage community members in efforts to build a popularly-based political and social justice agenda to launch community campaigns, while holding elected officials accountable to the needs of the areas working families.
The summit comes on the heels of a an extensive door-to-door and phone survey conducted during the Spring and Summer which engaged hundreds of District 11 residents and voters on affordability and economic development issues. This year’s summit focused on affordable housing, immigrant rights, economic justice, and youth power.
