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No matter where you start, success in life starts at home for all ages and all people. When we have safe, secure places to live – whether you rent or own – parents earn more, kids learn better, health and well-being improve, and our communities are strengthened. To build this future, we need to bring the Bay Area’s capacity for innovation and problem-solving to the challenge of preserving our pre-existing affordable housing. The constant loss of affordable units to the speculative market is accelerating the
displacement of working class and poor families - shedding our region of its diversity, vibrancy, and equity of opportunity.
In response to the Trump Administration’s memorandum to remove undocumented immigrants from the 2020 Census apportionment count, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) and Philanthropy California issued the following statement:
The places we call home, their streets, smells, sounds, and sights, shape our opportunity for a fair shot at a long and healthy life. I grew up in the shadows of greatness, in the city of pride and purpose, Richmond, California. During WWII, it was a busy port between San Francisco and Sacramento, home to the Kaiser shipyards.
California’s Central San Joaquin Valley is a vast region with 8 counties. It is home to rural, agricultural, poor and working-class communities of color and contains the majority of the state’s prisons. Despite its rich history of organizing and the undeniable impacts of the state’s investment in carceral infrastructure, the Central Valley is overlooked by philanthropy. This region receives the least amount of philanthropic resources for community organizing in the state.
The California Criminal Justice Funders Group (CCJFG) is an established network of funders and donors that invest in a wide range of system change. We firmly believe that efforts to transform this country’s response to safety, justice, and accountability must be led by those individuals who have been directly impacted by systems of punishment themselves.
First, let’s get honest about the historical context we are operating in. Philanthropy exists as a result of capitalism and was formed through centuries of slavery, colonization, and displacement. The systems are designed to extract resources, privatize wealth, and centralize power and control of said resources. The systems are successfully doing exactly what they have been designed to do.
If we have learned anything about effective community-based response to the health and economic consequences from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that coordination between governments, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations is critical to addressing the needs of people with the fewest resources who bear the greatest impact of the pandemic.