PolicyLink is a national research and action institute dedicated to advancing economic and social equity. It focuses on policies affecting low-income communities and communities of color. [1] It is a nonprofit organization based in Oakland, California, [2] [3] with branch offices in New York City; Washington, DC; and Los Angeles. [4]
Founded in 1999 by Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink aims to create sustainable communities by improving communities' access to quality jobs, affordable housing, good schools, transportation, and other prerequisites for healthy neighborhoods. [5] Taking an approach that emphasizes localism, it pursues its mission by facilitating local organizations and grassroots organizers. The group shares its findings and analyses through its website, publications and blog; it also convenes national summits, and holds briefings with national and local policymakers. [5] PolicyLink is staffed by attorneys and public policy experts in California, Washington, D.C., and New York. [6]
As of 2021, PolicyLink holds a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator, based on an overall score of 95.45 out of 100. [7]
Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink CEO, wrote in The Washington Post that "Congress must start thinking of health beyond health care .... We can no longer afford to have a 'sickness-driven' view of our health. We must create healthier communities—places with easy access to fresh food, parks, safe streets, and clean air—to help all Americans live healthier, longer lives and reduce health-care costs while we're at it." [8] This focus on health policy has led to the group’s collaborations with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity and The Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership.
PolicyLink manages the Bay Area Equity Atlas with the USC Equity Research Institute and the San Francisco Foundation. [9] Research conducted by the Bay Area Equity Atlas is used to lobby the state legislature. [9]
As of 2021, PolicyLink's board of directors includes: [10]
Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay Area and the eighth most populated city in California. With a population of 440,646 as of 2020, it serves as a trade center: the Port of Oakland is the busiest port in Northern California, and the fifth busiest in the United States of America. An act to incorporate the city was passed on May 4, 1852, and incorporation was later approved on March 25, 1854. Oakland is a charter city.
The National Civic League is an American nonpartisan, non-profit organization founded in 1894 with a mission to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. The League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good. It also promotes professional management of local government through publication of "model charters" for both city and county governments.
East Oakland is a geographical region of Oakland, California, United States, that stretches between Lake Merritt in the northwest and San Leandro in the southeast. As the southeastern portion of the city, East Oakland takes up the largest portion of the city's land area.
Eden Township is a former township of Alameda County, California in the San Francisco Bay Area region, which includes the present-day cities of Hayward and San Leandro, as well as the unincorporated census-designated areas of Ashland, Castro Valley, Cherryland, Fairview, and San Lorenzo. It was created from a group of Mexican land grants that were added to Alameda County when the county was established in 1853. Today there are several public and private agencies serving the region.
McClymonds High School is a public high school in the West Oakland neighborhood of Oakland, California, United States.
Castlemont High School is a public high school in Oakland, California, United States, originally known as East Oakland High School. It is part of the Oakland Unified School District. The Castlemont name was selected by a vote of the students.
West Oakland is a neighborhood situated in the northwestern corner of Oakland, California, United States, situated west of Downtown Oakland, south of Emeryville, and north of Alameda. The neighborhood is located along the waterfront at the Port of Oakland and at the eastern end of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. It lies at an elevation of 13 feet.
The Masquers Playhouse is an 89-seat community theatre in Point Richmond in Contra Costa County, California.
A food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food. In contrast, an area with greater access to supermarkets and vegetable shops with fresh foods may be called a food oasis. The designation considers the type and the quality of food available to the population, in addition to the accessibility of the food through the size and the proximity of the food stores.
Healthy San Francisco is a health access program launched in 2007 to subsidize medical care for uninsured residents of San Francisco, California. The program's stated objective is to bring universal health care to the city. Healthy San Francisco is not a true insurance program, as it does not cover services such as dental and vision care, and only covers services received in the city and county of San Francisco. The program itself acknowledges its limitations, and has stated that "insurance is always a better choice." Healthy San Francisco represents the first time a local government has attempted to provide health insurance for all of its constituents. The program is open to low-income city residents over the age of 18 who do not qualify for other public coverage, and who have had no insurance for at least 90 days. Eligibility is not conditional on citizenship, immigration, employment or health status. The program covers a range of services, but only pays providers within San Francisco. By July 2010, almost 90% of the uninsured adults in San Francisco — over 50,000 people — had enrolled in Healthy San Francisco.
Alameda Health System (AHS), formerly Alameda County Medical Center (ACMC), is an integrated public health care system organized as a public hospital authority.
San Francisco Foundation is a San Francisco Bay Area philanthropy organization. It is one of the largest community foundations in the United States.Its mission is to mobilize community leaders, nonprofits, government agencies, and donors to advance racial equity, diversity, and economic inclusion. It focuses on social justice, community building, access to affordable housing, political action, policy change, workers' rights, employment opportunity, and civic leadership. Its current CEO is Fred Blackwell Jr.
Phat Beets Produce is an American food justice collective focusing on food justice in North Oakland, California, started by Max Cadji and Bret Brenner in 2007. Their programs include weekly farmer's markets, free produce stands, youth gardens, community supported agriculture programs, food and social justice workshops, and previously, a kitchen and cafe cooperative. Cadji helps residents have access to nutritious food by coordinating between farmers, institutions, and low-income communities to utilize empty land for urban gardening.
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), previously known as Citizens for a Better Environment, is a policy focused non-profit organization started in 1971 by Marc Anderson and David Comey in Chicago, Illinois. In the late 1970s and early 1980s CBE expanded to California, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Today, CBE is active primarily in California having established itself in San Francisco in 1978 and expanded to Los Angeles in 1982. CBE, now based in Oakland, CA and Huntington Park, CA, has succeeded in affecting communities throughout California, including: Richmond, East Oakland, Vernon, Huntington Park, Boyle Heights, Pacoima, Wilmington, and SE Los Angeles. CBE was the first environmental organization to practice door-to-door canvassing by directly involving community members. In 1980 CBE won the United States Supreme Court decision Village of Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment 444 U.S. 620 protecting the 1st and 14th Amendment Rights of door-to-door activists with CBE and countless other public interest organizations. CBE's early combination of grassroots organizing with research and legal work provided the innovative edge needed to challenge large scale industries, refineries, and policies.
Mandela Partners, formerly Mandela MarketPlace, is a non-profit organization in Oakland, California, that works to aid low-income communities in improving access to food and health care resources.
The San Francisco Bay Area comprises nine northern California counties and contains four of the ten most expensive counties in the United States. Strong economic growth has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but coupled with severe restrictions on building new housing units, it has resulted in an extreme housing shortage which has driven rents to extremely high levels. The Sacramento Bee notes that large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles both attribute their recent increases in homeless people to the housing shortage, with the result that homelessness in California overall has increased by 15% from 2015 to 2017. In September 2019, the Council of Economic Advisers released a report in which they stated that deregulation of the housing markets would reduce homelessness in some of the most constrained markets by estimates of 54% in San Francisco, 40 percent in Los Angeles, and 38 percent in San Diego, because rents would fall by 55 percent, 41 percent, and 39 percent respectively. In San Francisco, a minimum wage worker would have to work approximately 4.7 full-time jobs to be able to spend less than 30% of their income on renting a two-bedroom apartment.
The Oakland Asian Cultural Center, also referred to as the OACC, is an Oakland-based nonprofit cultural center that carries out Asian and Pacific Islander American arts and culture programs. It is located in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza in Oakland Chinatown, residing three blocks away from the 12th Street Civic Center BART station on Broadway.
The Food Justice Movement is a grassroots initiative which emerged in response to food insecurity and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods. It includes more broad policy movements, such as the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations. Food justice recognizes the food system as "a racial project and problematizes the influence of race and class on the production, distribution and consumption of food". This encompasses farm labor work, land disputes, issues of status and class, environmental justice, public politics, and advocacy. Food justice is closely connected to food sovereignty, which critiques "structural barriers communities of color face to accessing local and organic foods" that are largely due to institutional racism and the effect it has on economic equality. It is argued that lack of access to good food is both a cause and a symptom of the structural inequalities that divide society. A possible solution presented for poor areas includes community gardens, fairness for food workers, and a national food policy.
Hans Davis Riemer is an American non-profit executive, political activist, author, and currently serves as an at-large member of the Montgomery County Council in Maryland. He is a term-limited council-member, whose term ends in 2022, focusing on affordable housing, environmental policy, and police reform.
Angela Glover Blackwell is an American attorney, civil rights advocate, and author. In 1999, she founded the research and advocacy nonprofit organization PolicyLink and currently serves as its Founder in Residence after twenty years as president and CEO. Blackwell regularly provides expert commentary in a variety of news media and hosts the podcast Radical Imagination.
Coordinates: 37°48′14″N122°16′5″W / 37.80389°N 122.26806°W