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Communities for a Better Environment Organizing

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Communities for a Better Environment Organizing

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Issue Description & Potential Solution

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CBE ADVOCATES FOR A JUST TRANSITION FROM FOSSIL FUELS TO BUILDING A NEW HEALTHIER AND THRIVING ECONOMY

CBE has worked to build a healthy Richmond for over 20 years. Richmond is a working class community, predominantly people of color, and it's been impacted by decades of environmental blight and economic divestment. Richmond is home to the 3,000 acre Chevron Oil refinery - the largest polluter in the area and the top greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in the state.

Refinery pollution contributes to high rates of asthma, cancer, and heart disease among Richmond residents. CBE's Richmond Health Survey identified the chemical exposures eating away at the public health of this community.

The Chevron refinery has compiled a long record of safety and pollution violations. The latest major incident occurred on August 6 th, 2012 where an explosion sent 15,000 residents and 19 workers to the hospital. Federal and state investigators discovered the root causes: processing of heavier (dirty) crude oil and management failures in refinery safety and maintenance. CBE was the first responder fighting for worker and community health and safety ( news archive of this event here).

Chevron has incessantly flexed its financial muscle, attempting to expand its Richmond refinery. The expansion would allow processing of dirtier crude oil, which would mean even more pollution and a refinery more prone to accidents.

CBE lawsuits in 2009 and 2014 (still pending) successfully protected Richmond from almost 1 million additional tons of GHGs and other toxins from being released.

In the face of Chevron's pollution, CBE and residents are creating a healthier Richmond by working towards a greener and more democratic local economy powered by renewable energy.

On July 10 th, 2014, CBE and allies won key conditions ensuring the expansion project doesn't expand threats to the health and safety of Richmond. The Richmond Planning Commission approved a plan to reduce pollution from the refinery, comprehensively replace aging pipes, which will dramatically increase safety, and calls on Chevron to invest in green jobs and clean energy projects for the Richmond and San Pablo areas.

Energy and Climate Action Plan

Despite the presence of the Chevron refinery-the largest greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter California-Richmond is still one of the first cities in the U.S. to include an Energy and Climate Change Element in its General Plan update. In 2009, the City of Richmond completed its first ever greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Based on the City of Richmond's analysis of greenhouse gases inventory, we noticed that the city did not address reducing industrial and commercial sources of emissions, which comprised over 80% of the City's total GHG emissions. CBE is still working on Chevron accountability to reduce emissions and invest in clean energy at the refinery and will reduce local pollution.
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Community Choice Energy

In 2011, a Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) motion was introduced by City Councilmember Tom Butt to conduct a feasibility study with Marin Energy Authority and City of Richmond consultants. CBE participated in the first community meetings on CCA and spoke at the Richmond City Council. CCA would build local renewable energy, local jobs, and strong energy efficient measures.
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CBE has worked to build a healthy Richmond for over 20 years. Richmond is a working class community, predominantly people of color, and it's been impacted by decades of environmental blight and economic divestment. Richmond is home to the 3,000 acre Chevron Oil refinery - the largest polluter in the area and the top greenhouse gas (GHG) emitter in the state.

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Issue Consequences Read page 4 Environmental Justice key findings. Optional: skim Ch. 4 for additional background & information

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Hundreds of Toxic Sites in California Could Flood Because of Sea Level Rise By 2100

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Hundreds of Toxic Sites in California Could Flood Because of Sea Level Rise By 2100

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Issue Consequences

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A new California mapping project reveals another example of how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.

The Toxic Tides project, unveiled during a virtual workshop Tuesday, maps more than 400 hazardous sites like power plants, refineries and toxic waste dumps that could flood if sea levels rise by more than three feet, which they are projected to do by the end of 2100 if little is done to resolve the climate crisis. This is a major environmental justice issue, because these sites are disproportionately located in low income communities of color.

"We know from past flood events that the wealthy communities are not the ones that suffer the greatest impacts," University of California (UC), Los Angeles environmental health scientist Lara Cushing told the Los Angeles Times. "The vulnerabilities of environmental justice communities to sea level rise have not been front and center in the conversation in a way that it should be."

Cushing is one of the scientists working to change that through the Toxic Tides project. Along with Rachel Morello-Frosch of UC Berkeley, environmental advocate Lucas Zucker and community groups, she worked to create an online tool that will for the first time map which toxic sites are most likely to flood and impact vulnerable communities along the entire Californai coast.

The research found that disadvantaged communities are more than five times more likely to live within a kilometer of one or more facilities that could flood by 2050, according to a project fact sheet. By 2100, these communities are more than six times more likely to live near an at-risk location. This flooding is a problem because it could expose nearby residents to harmful chemicals and polluted water, the Los Angeles Times explained.

In many cases, the communities in question already face risks from living near these facilities. Richmond, California, for example, has been an oil refinery town since 1901 and became an industrial hub for the Bay Area during the 20th century, according to a case study document. Since the 1970s, its low prices have also drawn a significant number of refugees and immigrants, particularly from the Laotian community. It now has more than 350 toxic facilities and one of the highest pollution burdens in the state. This may already be putting residents at greater risk from asthma, cancer and other ailments. Residents, therefore, are already fighting for their lives.

"Poor people who are affected by the crisis of pollution from the refinery need to fight for ourselves," Saeng and Lipo Chantanasak, members of the Laotian community in Richmond, were quoted as saying in a summary of Toxic Tides case studies. "Rich people don't care about us, that we have bad health from the pollution. If we don't fight, nobody else is going to fight for us. We want the next generation - our children and grandchildren - to have clean air so that they don't get sick and die like us now."

If nothing is done about the climate crisis by 2100, the situation in Richmond could get even worse, according to the city case study. The city will then have 21 sites at risk for at least one yearly flooding event, and these sites are located in areas with higher poverty rates and lower high-school graduation rates than other low-elevation parts of California. One fossil-fuel port located near more than 4,000 people is projected to have more than 100 yearly flooding events by 2100.

The project hopes that pinpointing these risks can help communities prepare, according to the fact sheet. Toxic Tides can help in the following ways:

1. Supporting a fair execution of state climate adaptation and resiliency programs

2. Informing efforts to plan for sea level rise

3. Informing the state's definition of "vulnerable communities"

4. Bolstering the ability of communities to advocate on their own behalf

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Hundreds of Toxic Sites in California Could Flood Because of Sea Level Rise By 2100 - EcoWatch

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A new California mapping project reveals another example of how the climate crisis disproportionately impacts vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. The Toxic Tides project, unveiled during a virtual workshop Tuesday, maps more than 400 hazardous sites like power plants, refineries and toxic waste dumps that could flood if sea levels rise...

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At their meeting on May 19, 2021, the Rent Board adopted Regulation 609, establishing the 2021 Annual General Adjustment (AGA) rent increase for Controlled Rental Units in the amount of 1.6%. Rent increases for the 2021 Annual General Adjustment may not take effect prior to September 1, 2021.

The 2021 AGA may only be applied to tenancies in effect prior to September 1, 2020.

In addition, while keeping in mind the above information, to apply the 2021 Annual General Adjustment rent increase of up to 1.6%, Landlords must comply with State law requirements and file a notice of rent increase with the Rent Board within ten (10) business days after service on the Tenant in accordance with Regulation 603.

​What's the Annual General Adjustment?
​

The Annual General Adjustment (AGA) is an annual rent increase for Controlled Rental Units permitted by the Richmond Fair Rent, Just Cause for Evictions, and Homeowner Protection Ordinance. The Annual General Adjustment is calculated based on the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index of the Bay Area, which includes San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.

FILE A NOTICE OF RENT INCREASE WITH THE RENT BOARD

Maximum Allowable Rent Calculator and Rent Increase Template

The Maximum Allowable Rent Calculator is a resource for Tenants and Landlords to determine the Maximum Allowable Rent for a Controlled Rental Unit in the City of Richmond. For assistance, please contact the Rent Program office, located on the second floor of 440 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA 94804, or call (510) 234-RENT (7368) to speak with a Rent Program Services Analyst.

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At their meeting on May 19, 2021, the Rent Board adopted Regulation 609, establishing the 2021 Annual General Adjustment (AGA) rent increase for Controlled Rental Units in the amount of 1.6%. Rent increases for the 2021 Annual General Adjustment may not take effect prior to September 1, 2021.

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Residents of Richmond Public Housing Live in Fear, Demand Action to Address Poor Conditions

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Residents of Richmond Public Housing Live in Fear, Demand Action to Address Poor Conditions

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Forty-eight-year-old Tonia Davis couldn't breathe. She started having an asthma attack as she was visiting her elderly mother at Richmond's Nevin Plaza housing development last week. Then she went into cardiac arrest.

Family members ran down the hallway, screaming for help before they dialed 911.

But when paramedics reached the seven-story affordable housing development, they found its elevators malfunctioning yet again.

In fact, the elevators at this federally funded housing development had not been working for one week, residents say, and they often break down. The building houses some of the city's most vulnerable residents - low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

As Davis struggled to breathe, paramedics were forced to run up the stairs to the fifth floor to reach her. Then they had to carry her back down the stairwell to the ambulance that rushed her to the hospital.

There, after two days on life support, Tonia Davis died.

It isn't clear that the paramedics would have reached Davis sooner had the elevators been working.

But to the housing development's frail and disabled residents, her fatal asthma attack on a high floor inaccessible by elevator represents the culmination of their worst fears. Many need wheelchairs to move around. They call so often for emergency help that ambulances are a fixture outside the building - paramedics have responded to nearly 400 calls for help at the building during the past three years, according to the Richmond Fire Department.

Carlotta Davis believes her daughter Tonia would not have died if the elevators in the building had been working.

"It happened so fast," she said, crying as she sat in a wheelchair outside her building. "I couldn't do nothing for her."

Steve Hill, the public information officer for Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, cautioned against a rush to judgment on the effect of the broken elevators. He said paramedics are trained to respond to emergencies in buildings without elevators and they routinely do.

Lack of elevator access typically does not impede the emergency response, Hill said, although he declined to comment on specific incidents because of patient privacy laws.

But what is clear is that residents of Nevin Plaza have for years complained to the Richmond City Council about the 142-unit building. According to by the Center for Investigative Reporting, Nevin Plaza has long been plagued by insect infestation, plumbing issues, and maintenance breakdowns.

On the Tuesday after Tonia Davis died, residents spoke out yet again during public comment at the city council meeting. They complained of broken elevators, flooded apartments, and unresponsive management.

"This ain't no health hazard," resident Phylicia Bailey said in an interview back at the development. "This is a death hazard."

Ed Cabrera, regional public affairs manager in San Francisco for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, said its primary role was to provide funding. Local housing authorities and their boards of commission "are responsible for day-to-day operations," he said.

But he added: "No public housing resident deserves to live in substandard conditions or unsanitary conditions."

The Richmond Housing Authority, which is in charge of managing the housing development, along with four others in the city, did not respond to requests for comment. The authority has previously come under fire for financial mismanagement .

Richmond is currently operating its public housing without a permanent housing authority director. Vice Mayor Melvin Willis said the city has had to take on additional responsibilities to maintain public housing operations.

"I didn't know the issues got that bad," said Willis. "Personally, I thought it was being taken care of."

Willis says he plans to hold Richmond's housing staff accountable for fixing the problems at Nevin Plaza and "supporting residents so they're not in those terrible conditions."

Immediately after Tuesday's council meeting, Fire Chief Adrian Sheppard walked across the street to Nevin Plaza, a half block down from city hall.

After touring the property, Sheppard said he was disturbed by the building's "lack of maintenance, lack of attention, and lack of care."

By Thursday, Sheppard said the city had worked to address some of the problems: one elevator was working and hot water was once again running.

But many residents wondered why the changes hadn't happened sooner.

"It took for a woman to die," said Larian Thomas.

Many residents of Nevin Plaza said they live in constant fear of what might happen if they get stuck in an elevator during a health emergency. The elevators break down so frequently that some people have come to avoid using them at all.

Princess Crockett, who suffers from asthma and is recovering from a recent heart attack, said she was forced to use the stairs during the elevator's latest breakdown. Climbing the stairs scared her because she constantly ran out of breath.

"Get it fixed, or find me another place to stay," Crockett said in an interview.

Many of the housing project's residents live with chronic health problems and struggle to get around.

Thomas, who needs regular dialysis treatments to survive, says he has missed five appointments because of the broken elevators.

Another resident, MaryAnn McCullough, says she recently got stuck in the elevator while being transported to the hospital for chronic respiratory problems. She's taken the ambulance to the hospital at least seven times this year.

When we visited the building Wednesday, one elevator was still not working at all and the other was operating slowly and intermittently. This meant many frail residents were camped outside the on-again-off-again elevator, uncertain whether it was going to arrive.

"I got to do my laundry," said Rochelle Willis, who has a bad back and weakness on her left side, as she reclined on a metal chair facing the elevator, waiting.

For residents like Willis, the elevators are the only way to leave their floors to run errands, socialize in the community room and get some fresh air.

When the doors finally opened, she found the elevator was occupied by a paramedic clutching the handlebars of an empty stretcher. He was looking for a resident who had called for medical attention.

"Wrong floor, huh?" he asked, describing the elevators in the building as "notoriously slow."

Without functioning elevators, many here are frequently confined to their rooms.

When Carlotta Davis does leave her room, she carries her medications with her at all times because she doesn't know when she'll have trouble getting back upstairs.

As she sat in her wheelchair outside Nevin Plaza a few days after her daughter's death, Davis watched as paramedics carried another resident on a stretcher into an ambulance. Her phone rang again and again with calls from family members who were trying to arrange for her to leave the apartment building until repairs were made.

"They really need to get this building together," she said.

Then Bailey, a resident who was pushing Davis' wheelchair, interjected.

"They don't need to get it together," she said. "They need to shut it down."

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Residents of Richmond public housing live in fear, demand action to address poor conditions

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Her family dialed 911. But when paramedics reached the seven-story affordable housing development, they found its elevators malfunctioning yet again. In fact, the elevators at this federally funded housing development had not been working for one week, residents say, and they often break down.

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Overview of Gun Violence Prevention & Intervention in Richmond

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Overview of Gun Violence Prevention & Intervention in Richmond

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READ THIS FIRST

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Potential Solutions

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Torm Nompraseurt didn't intend to become an environmental justice leader. When a fledgling organization called Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) approached him in 1995 about advocating for the Laotian community in Richmond, California, he sent them a list of 20 candidates to consider for the job. A few weeks later, APEN returned. They told him that every one of those people had insisted he was the one to hire.

Nompraseurt believes he was the first Laotian refugee to arrive in Richmond in 1975, after fleeing the Vietnam War. Since then, he's dedicated himself to helping his fellow refugees-a community that APEN leaders estimate encompasses some 10,000 Laotians in western Contra Costa County, with most residing in the city of Richmond. When APEN asked him again to join their team, he recalls, "I decided I wanted to fight for my community."

APEN and Nompraseurt, now APEN's senior Richmond community organizer, faced a steep challenge. Located 17 miles north of San Francisco, across the Bay, Richmond is a small, working-class city where residents-predominantly people of color-live surrounded by heavy industry: More than 350 refineries and other fossil fuel companies are based here. Together, they contribute to more than 100 hazardous waste sites within its boundaries.

The sprawling, 2,900-acre Chevron refinery is one of the largest and oldest on the West Coast, having set up shop in 1902 as Standard Oil. Pollution from the refinery has taken a toll on the health of the community and on the surrounding waters, with many dangerous incidents occurring throughout the years. Among the most notorious in its recent history, a 2012 explosion sent 15,000 people to seek medical attention in respiratory distress. And just this past February, an oil leak spilled nearly 600 gallons into the Bay. Meanwhile, Richmond's rate of childhood asthma is 17 percent, more than double the national average. The city also has high rates of cancer, respiratory illnesses, autoimmune disorders, and other ailments.

"People thought it was a good idea at the time to have all this heavy industry," says Gayle McLaughlin, former mayor and current city councilwoman of Richmond. "It was a hallmark of the 20th century. But now we're paying the price."

Building a Grassroots Movement

In March 1999, an explosion at the Chevron refinery spewed smoke across the county. The city's emergency telephone service sent out shelter-in-place warnings-but only in English. For the Laotian refugee community, many of whom had limited understanding of English, these warnings were insufficient. Several people went outside to investigate, breathing in the noxious fumes. In all, more than 2,500 Richmond residents ended up in the hospital.

APEN recognized the need for a multilingual warning system, specifically in Mien, Khmu, and Lao. But first, organizers realized, they'd need to address something even more fundamental: multilayers of trauma.

"Back in Laos, if you say something or complain, you can get your head chopped off, or go to jail forever," explains Nompraseurt. As refugees, the Laotians had experienced oppression, war, refugee camps, and multiple displacements. During a postcard-writing campaign meant to encourage local officials to support the initiative to create the multilingual system, it became clear that many community members were reluctant to advocate for themselves. "When they asked where we were sending them to, and we said the county, they got really scared, saying, 'Oh, no no no! They will take my SSI [supplemental security income] benefit!' But I assured them. I told them, it will give your SSI more power-community power."

Because Nompraseurt and others at APEN were trusted leaders, the residents eventually agreed to not only sign the postcards but also provide in-person testimony. They were prepped and given translators. Still, some visibly shook in front of the county supervisory board. When the board approved the multilingual warning system and the team posed for a victory photo outside, one participant, nearly 70 years old, whispered into Nompraseurt's ear: "You know? I almost peed in my pants back in there." Then she grinned. "But now? My face is bigger than the moon!"

Since then, the Laotian community, through APEN, has become an organizing force, and they've been instrumental in passing a series of bills to mitigate pollution. When Chevron wanted to expand its refinery in 2005, APEN, along with a coalition of other organizations like Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), packed the public hearings. When that didn't sway the city council, the coalition filed a lawsuit in 2008-and won. And in May 2018, Chevron agreed to a $5 million settlement for the catastrophic explosion of 2012.

In the process, APEN learned a critical lesson. "For many years, Chevron has been polluting not just the air, the environment, and people's bodies," says Vivian Yi Huang, deputy director of APEN. "It's been polluting democracy."

Community v. Refinery

Chevron is Richmond's largest source of tax income. But even that benefit comes laced with inequity. Decades ago, a Chevron-backed city council wrote a clause into the utility user tax ordinance radically limiting the city's authority to tax the refinery. "Essentially, it said that the largest rate payer in the city gets to establish its own tax rate," says Andrés Soto, the Richmond community organizer for CBE. Instead of paying the standard percentage rate that other utilities paid, Chevron could afford to choose the "maximum tax" alternative, which basically amounted to a flat fee. And Chevron paid this set amount from the 1980s well into the new millennium.

Local organizers rallied to change this. "We're talking about fair taxation," says McLaughlin. "Not just in terms of Chevron's huge profits-we want to hold them accountable for the risks they present to our community." In 2008, the coalition was able to get a large manufacturers' tax onto the ballot-and it passed. Chevron contested it and a judge struck it down, but in 2010, after further efforts from the city and local organizers, the company agreed to a settlement that included $114 million.

The coalition celebrated the progress but kept its eyes on the bigger picture: To effect deeper change, they knew they'd have to transform the government. In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the coalition worked with the Richmond Progressive Alliance, as it had since 2004, to elect a slate of city council candidates who didn't accept corporate funding. Through several election cycles, Chevron spent millions to counter their effort while putting forth its own candidates.

"Chevron is a multinational, multibillion-dollar corporation," says Huang. "But the community members in Richmond have been so amazingly powerful, and they're not backing away from that-or backing down." And organizing has been at the heart of every success. APEN's slogan as it got out the vote was " When we organize, we win." And they did. Every one of the candidates APEN Action supported now sits on the city council.

Looking ahead, Richmond organizations are focused on a just transition away from fossil fuels. "We're pushing for decommissioning of the refinery," says Soto, "but we want to ensure that when Chevron shuts down, it cleans up the contamination left behind."

In the toxic tours that he sometimes leads, Soto takes people down to what he calls the "Dirtiest Street in Richmond" to point out the concentration of polluters on just a single block: the CEMEX cement plant, the Levin-Richmond coal and petcoke terminal (which organizers succeeded in banning in 2020), and the Sims Metal recycling plant (which caught fire in 2018; NRDC and others filed a brief in January calling for stronger oversight statewide).

The tour continues to the AstraZeneca waste dump, which Soto calls "one of the most toxic stews in the state of California." And yet, the previous city council voted to clear the way for a 4,000-unit housing project on the site. Soto and his fellow advocates are working with the new council to ensure a thorough cleanup takes priority.

There's also the issue of the economic impact of decommissioning. "These companies can't refine forever," McLaughlin points out. "There's limited oil in the ground, and one day, if they just decide to close up, that's going to leave a big hole in the city's general fund." Organizers are pushing the city to hold the polluters accountable for future remediation and transition. Meanwhile, McLaughlin notes, there's a parallel need for more business development, especially in the clean energy sector. The city has made some progress already on this front. In 2014, in an agreement with the city and local clean electricity provider MCE, Chevron provided 60 acres for a 10.5-megawatt solar farm on its remediated brownfield, which serves some 3,900 MCE customers and is the largest municipal solar field in the Bay Area. And more sustainable local businesses are cropping up too-like Rich City Rides, "a bike shop with a mission" that promotes cycling through events and programs, and Urban Tilth, which hires and trains community members to build sustainable urban farms.

Passing the Torch

Despite the dominance of industry and increasing private interests, residents are dedicated to realizing their vision of a just, livable, healthier Richmond-for both themselves and future generations. With many Laotian elders retiring, Denny Khamphanthong, APEN's Richmond community organizer, is engaging working-age activists to carry on the advocacy, not just for holding the polluters accountable but also for driving action on climate resiliency, stable housing, and sustainable jobs. "It's a process, teaching people about the power dynamics in the city and helping them understand a system we were never meant to understand," he says. "We are reclaiming what it means to feel 'safe' in our own city." That includes organizing and supporting youth leadership: In 2018, APEN worked closely with community group RYSE and other Richmond organizations in passing Measure H, which establishes funding for a Richmond Kids First initiative that seeks to address the structural and environmental conditions that drive harmful behavior in children.

For local families, the new Unity Park, with its playgrounds, basketball courts, and bike paths is a step toward that goal. Designed with community input and led by the work of Urban Tilth and more than 20 other organizations, the 7.5-acre park, completed in 2018, embodies what Richmond's better future could look like. In addition to its recreational spaces, it also features a plethora of gardens-for growing vegetables and fruits, attracting pollinators, and capturing runoff.

Soto ends his toxic tours at Unity Park and reflects on how far the city has come since its environmental justice movement first took hold. "Richmond has a long history now of resistance and resilience," he says. "It's why I call my tours the Toxics & Resilience Tour."
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An Oil Giant Is No Match for Resistance and Resilience in Richmond, California

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Torm Nompraseurt didn't intend to become an environmental justice leader. When a fledgling organization called Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) approached him in 1995 about advocating for the Laotian community in Richmond, California, he sent them a list of 20 candidates to consider for the job. A few weeks later, APEN returned.

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Contra Costa Systems of Care for Unhoused

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Contra Costa Systems of Care for Unhoused

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2020

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Explanation of Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Program

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Explanation of Safe Organized Spaces (SOS) Program

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Read through key findings for: Full Service and Safe Communities, Residential and Built Environment, & Environmental Health and Justice and Ch.3 (pg.57) for more about Residential/Built Environment

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Population in 2019: 110,567 (100% urban, 0% rural).
Population change since 2000: +11.4%

Males: 55,446

(50.1%)

Females: 55,121

(49.9%)

Zip codes: 94850.

Estimated median household income in 2019: $72,130 (it was $44,210 in 2000)

Estimated per capita income in 2019: $32,059 (it was $19,788 in 2000)

Richmond city income, earnings, and wages data

Estimated median house or condo value in 2019: $572,400 (it was $170,700 in 2000)
Mean prices in 2019: all housing units: $534,032; detached houses: $548,354; townhouses or other attached units: $473,898; in 2-unit structures: $374,514; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $445,370; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $577,424; occupied boats, rvs, vans, etc.: $218,249

Median gross rent in 2019: $1,679.

March 2019 cost of living index in Richmond: 150.2 (very high, U.S. average is 100)

Richmond, CA residents, houses, and apartments details

Percentage of residents living in poverty in 2019: 13.4%
(8.8%for White Non-Hispanic residents, 16.0% for Black residents, 15.3% for Hispanic or Latino residents, 2.5% for American Indian residents, 24.8% for Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander residents, 19.6% for other race residents, 14.7% for two or more races residents)

Detailed information about poverty and poor residents in Richmond, CA

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According to our research of California and other state lists, there were 211 registered sex offenders living in Richmond, California as of April 10, 2022.
The ratio of all residents to sex offenders in Richmond is 520 to 1.

The City-Data.com crime index weighs serious crimes and violent crimes more heavily. Higher means more crime, U.S. average is 270.6. It adjusts for the number of visitors and daily workers commuting into cities.
- means the value is smaller than the state average.
- means the value is about the same as the state average.
- means the value is bigger than the state average.
- means the value is much bigger than the state average.

Crime rate in Richmond detailed stats: murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, arson

Full-time law enforcement employees in 2019, including police officers: 227 (163 officers).

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Ancestries: European (1.8%), Irish (1.1%), Brazilian (1.0%), German (1.0%).

Current Local Time: PST time zone

Elevation: 50 feet

Land area: 30.0 square miles.

Population density: 3,688 people per square mile (average).

39,463 residents are foreign born (22.9% Latin America, 7.8% Asia).

Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with mortgages in 2019: $6,139 (1.1%)
Median real estate property taxes paid for housing units with no mortgage in 2019: $4,403 (0.8%)

Nearest city with pop. 200,000+: West Contra Costa, CA (1.7 miles , pop. 236,008).

Nearest city with pop. 1,000,000+: Los Angeles, CA (346.6 miles , pop. 3,694,820).

Nearest cities:

Latitude: 37.94 N, Longitude: 122.34 W

Daytime population change due to commuting: -8,235 (-7.4%)
Workers who live and work in this city: 12,135 (22.6%)

Area code: 510

Richmond tourist attractions:

Richmond, California accommodation & food services, waste management - Economy and Business Data

Unemployment in November 2020:

Population change in the 1990s: +12,706 (+14.7%).

Average climate in Richmond, California
Based on data reported by over 4,000 weather stations

Earthquake activity:
Richmond-area historical earthquake activity is significantly above California state average. It is 7498% greater than the overall U.S. average.

On 4/18/1906 at 13:12:21, a magnitude 7.9 (7.9 UK, Class: Major, Intensity: VIII - XII) earthquake occurred 36.1 miles away from the city center, causing $524,000,000 total damage
On 10/18/1989 at 00:04:15, a magnitude 7.1 (6.5 MB, 7.1 MS, 6.9 MW, 7.0 ML) earthquake occurred 65.2 miles away from the city center, causing 62 deaths (62 shaking deaths) and 3757 injuries, causing $1,305,032,704 total damage
On 11/4/1927 at 13:51:53, a magnitude 7.5 (7.5 UK) earthquake occurred 221.4 miles away from the city center
On 7/21/1952 at 11:52:14, a magnitude 7.7 (7.7 UK) earthquake occurred 275.3 miles away from the city center, causing $50,000,000 total damage
On 1/31/1922 at 13:17:28, a magnitude 7.6 (7.6 UK) earthquake occurred 257.0 miles away from Richmond center
On 4/25/1992 at 18:06:04, a magnitude 7.2 (6.3 MB, 7.1 MS, 7.2 MW, 7.1 MW, Depth: 9.4 mi) earthquake occurred 190.9 miles away from the city center, causing $75,000,000 total damage
Magnitude types: body-wave magnitude (MB), local magnitude (ML), surface-wave magnitude (MS), moment magnitude (MW)

Natural disasters:
The number of natural disasters in Contra Costa County (18) is near the US average (15).
Major Disasters (Presidential) Declared: 11
Emergencies Declared: 3

Causes of natural disasters: Floods: 13, Storms: 7, Winter Storms: 7, Mudslides: 5, Landslides: 4, Drought: 1, Earthquake: 1, Hurricane: 1, Tornado: 1, Wind: 1, Other: 1 (Note: some incidents may be assigned to more than one category).

Main business address for: NEUROBIOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGIES INC /CA/ ( BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS (NO DIAGNOSTIC SUBSTANCES)), DICON FIBEROPTICS INC ( OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS & LENSES), QRS CORP ( SERVICES-COMPUTER PROCESSING & DATA PREPARATION), SANGAMO BIOSCIENCES INC ( BIOLOGICAL PRODUCTS (NO DIAGNOSTIC SUBSTANCES)).

Hospitals and medical centers in Richmond:

Amtrak station:

RICHMOND (16TH ST. & MACDONALD AVE.) . Services: fully wheelchair accessible, enclosed waiting area, public restrooms, public payphones, free short-term parking, call for taxi service, public transit connection.

Colleges/universities with over 2000 students nearest to Richmond:

Public high schools in Richmond:

Private high schools in Richmond:

Biggest public elementary/middle schools in Richmond:

Private elementary/middle schools in Richmond:
See full list of schools located in Richmond

Library in Richmond:

RICHMOND PUBLIC LIBRARY (Operating income: $6,419,248; Location: 325 CIVIC CENTER PLAZA; 199,109 books; 10 e-books; 4,690 audio materials; 11,240 video materials; 66 other licensed databases; 304 print serial subscriptions)

User-submitted facts and corrections:

add to private elementary schools: Crestmont School

richmond is the birthplace of Willie McGee, professional baseball player (Cardinals, Yankees, A's, Giants) birthplace of Benny Barnes, professional football player (Cowboys)

The Rotary Club of Richmond meets at Nooon every Friday at the Mira Vista Golf and Country Club. http://www.richmondcarotary.org

Points of interest:

Click to draw/clear city borders

Notable locations in Richmond: Camp Herms (A), Richmond Yard (B), Channel Marina (C), Richmond Reserve Shipyard (D), Richmond Golf Club (E), West Side Branch Richmond Public Library (F), West County Detention Facility (G), Veterans Memorial Building (H), Shields-Reid Community Center (I), Richmond Womens Club (J), Richmond Public Library (K), Richmond Memorial Youth Center (L), Richmond Memorial Convention Center (M), Richmond City Hall (N), Richmond Art Center (O), Point Richmond Historical Society Museum (P), Parchester Community Center (Q), Nevin Community Center (R), Hellenic Community Center (S), Golden State Model Railroad Museum (T). Display/hide their locations on the map

Shopping Center: Hilltop Mall Shopping Center (1). Display/hide its location on the map

Main business address in Richmond include: NEUROBIOLOGICAL TECHNOLOGIES INC /CA/ (A), DICON FIBEROPTICS INC (B), QRS CORP (C), SANGAMO BIOSCIENCES INC (D). Display/hide their locations on the map

Churches in Richmond include: Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church (A), West Contra Costa Christian Center (B), Unity Church of Richmond (C), The Temple of Faith (D), The Point Gospel Chapel (E), The House of Prayer (F), Temple Baptist Church (G), Smyrna Church of God in Christ (H), Saint Peters Methodist Church (I). Display/hide their locations on the map

Cemetery: Rolling Hills Memorial Park (1). Display/hide its location on the map

Reservoirs and swamps: North Reservoir (A), George Whittell Marsh (B). Display/hide their locations on the map

Creek: Wildcat Creek (A). Display/hide its location on the map

Parks in Richmond include: Alvarado Park (1), Mira Vista Park (2), Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park (3), Nicholl Park (4), Wendell Playground (5), Atchison Village Park (6), Boorman Park (7), Elm Park (8), Hilltop Lake Park (9). Display/hide their locations on the map

Beaches: Point Molate Beach (A), Kellers Beach (B). Display/hide their locations on the map

Hotels: 40 Flags Motel (1505 Carlson Boulevard) (1), Best Value Inn (1598 Carlson Blvd) (2). Display/hide their approximate locations on the map

Courts: Contra Costa County - Superior Court- Courts- Criminal- West County (100 South 37th Street) (1), Contra Costa County - Superior Court- Courts- Traffic- West County (100 South 37th Street) (2), Contra Costa County - Courts- Superior Court- Civil- West County (100 South 37th Street) (3), Contra Costa County - Courts- Superior Court- Clerk Of Court- West Co (100 South 37th Street) (4), Contra Costa County - Civil Division- Richmond Court- Superior Court- Courts- Small Cl (100 South 37th Street) (5). Display/hide their approximate locations on the map

Birthplace of: Carl Franklin - Actor, George Miller (California politician) - Politician, Les Claypool - ( born 1964), bassist of Primus, Russ Christopher - Baseball player, Jason Becker - Heavy metal guitarist, Antoine Reuben Diavola - Drummer, Dale Sveum - Baseball player and coach, Gary Holt (musician) - Heavy metal guitarist, Ken Olandt - Actor, Lamont Thompson - 2005 NFL player (Tennessee Titans, born: Jul 30, 1978).

Contra Costa County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level between 2 and 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter) - Moderate Potential

Likely homosexual households (counted as self-reported same-sex unmarried-partner households)

Lesbian couples: 0.7% of all households

Gay men: 0.5% of all households

People in group quarters in Richmond in 2010:

Banks with branches in Richmond (2011 data):

Bank of America, National Association: Rollingwood Branch, Richmond Branch, Mira Vista Branch. Info updated 2009/11/18: Bank assets: $1,451,969.3 mil, Deposits: $1,077,176.8 mil, headquarters in Charlotte, NC, positive income, 5782 total offices, Holding Company: Bank Of America Corporation

JPMorgan Chase Bank, National Association: 12121 San Pablo Ave Branch at 12121 San Pablo Ave., branch established on 1988/12/27; 3110 Hilltop Mall Road Branch at 3110 Hilltop Mall Road, branch established on 1965/05/05. Info updated 2011/11/10: Bank assets: $1,811,678.0 mil, Deposits: $1,190,738.0 mil, headquarters in Columbus, OH, positive income, International Specialization, 5577 total offices, Holding Company: Jpmorgan Chase & Co.

Mechanics Bank: at 3170 Hilltop Mall Road, branch established on 1905/01/01; Mira Vista Branch at 4100 Macdonald Avenue, branch established on 1964/12/03. Info updated 2011/03/24: Bank assets: $2,991.7 mil, Deposits: $2,573.6 mil, local headquarters, positive income, Commercial Lending Specialization, 31 total offices

Cathay Bank: Berkeley-Richmond Branch at 3288 Pierce Street, Suite D101, branch established on 1998/04/08. Info updated 2010/12/08: Bank assets: $10,628.9 mil, Deposits: $7,249.8 mil, headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, positive income, Commercial Lending Specialization, 52 total offices, Holding Company: Cathay General Bancorp

Wells Fargo Bank, National Association: Macdonald And San Pablo Branch at 4925 Macdonald Avenue, branch established on 1997/12/23. Info updated 2011/04/05: Bank assets: $1,161,490.0 mil, Deposits: $905,653.0 mil, headquarters in Sioux Falls, SD, positive income, 6395 total offices, Holding Company: Wells Fargo & Company

Citibank, National Association: Richmond Branch at 3634 Macdonald Avenue, branch established on 1987/06/30. Info updated 2012/01/10: Bank assets: $1,288,658.0 mil, Deposits: $882,541.0 mil, headquarters in Sioux Falls, SD, positive income, International Specialization, 1048 total offices, Holding Company: Citigroup Inc.

For population 15 years and over in Richmond:

Never married: 37.5%

Now married: 46.1%

Separated: 1.7%

Widowed: 3.4%

Divorced: 11.3%

For population 25 years and over in Richmond:

High school or higher: 76.3%

Bachelor's degree or higher: 31.0%

Graduate or professional degree: 11.2%

Unemployed: 7.7%

Mean travel time to work (commute): 36.0 minutes

Graphs represent county-level data. Detailed 2008 Election Results

Political contributions by individuals in Richmond, CA

Religion statistics for Richmond, CA (based on Contra Costa County data)

Religion

Adherents

Congregations

Source: Clifford Grammich, Kirk Hadaway, Richard Houseal, Dale E.Jones, Alexei Krindatch, Richie Stanley and Richard H.Taylor. 2012. 2010 U.S.Religion Census: Religious Congregations & Membership Study. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies. Jones, Dale E., et al. 2002. Congregations and Membership in the United States 2000. Nashville, TN: Glenmary Research Center. Graphs represent county-level data

Food Environment Statistics:

Health and Nutrition:

More about Health and Nutrition of Richmond, CA Residents

Local government employment and payroll (March 2018)

Function

Full-time employees

Monthly full-time payroll

Average yearly full-time wage

Part-time employees

Monthly part-time payroll

Richmond government finances - Expenditure in 2017 (per resident):

Current Operations - Police Protection: $65,828,000 ($595.37)
Central Staff Services: $35,972,000 ($325.34)

Housing and Community Development: $35,009,000 ($316.63)

Local Fire Protection: $29,667,000 ($268.32)

Regular Highways: $21,805,000 ($197.21)

Sewerage: $12,882,000 ($116.51)

Protective Inspection and Regulation - Other: $8,522,000 ($77.08)

Libraries: $5,723,000 ($51.76)

Parks and Recreation: $4,996,000 ($45.19)

General - Other: $4,349,000 ($39.33)

Sea and Inland Port Facilities: $3,510,000 ($31.75)

Financial Administration: $3,256,000 ($29.45)

Transit Utilities: $1,433,000 ($12.96)

Miscellaneous Commercial Activities - Other: $1,011,000 ($9.14)

General - Interest on Debt: $17,484,000 ($158.13)

Total Salaries and Wages: $872,000 ($7.89)

Richmond government finances - Revenue in 2017 (per resident):

Charges - Other: $36,116,000 ($326.64)
Sewerage: $22,531,000 ($203.78)

Sea and Inland Port Facilities: $10,183,000 ($92.10)

Housing and Community Development: $3,234,000 ($29.25)

Regular Highways: $2,154,000 ($19.48)

Solid Waste Management: $1,604,000 ($14.51)

Miscellaneous Commercial Activities: $1,339,000 ($12.11)

Parks and Recreation: $565,000 ($5.11)

Federal Intergovernmental - Housing and Community Development: $24,748,000 ($223.83)
Other: $1,181,000 ($10.68)

Sewerage: $803,000 ($7.26)

Local Intergovernmental - Other: $4,190,000 ($37.90)

Miscellaneous - General Revenue - Other: $11,010,000 ($99.58)
Interest Earnings: $4,086,000 ($36.95)

Fines and Forfeits: $1,049,000 ($9.49)

Rents: $840,000 ($7.60)

Special Assessments: $594,000 ($5.37)

Donations From Private Sources: $212,000 ($1.92)

Sale of Property: $181,000 ($1.64)

Revenue - Transit Utilities: $547,000 ($4.95)

Tax - Property: $64,508,000 ($583.43)
Public Utilities Sales: $45,191,000 ($408.72)

General Sales and Gross Receipts: $17,823,000 ($161.20)

Documentary and Stock Transfer: $7,453,000 ($67.41)

Other License: $6,663,000 ($60.26)

Other: $5,329,000 ($48.20)

Occupation and Business License - Other: $5,036,000 ($45.55)

Other Selective Sales: $1,294,000 ($11.70)

Richmond government finances - Debt in 2017 (per resident):

Long Term Debt - Beginning Outstanding - Unspecified Public Purpose: $598,322,000 ($5411.40)
Outstanding Unspecified Public Purpose: $577,954,000 ($5227.18)

Beginning Outstanding - Public Debt for Private Purpose: $50,539,000 ($457.09)

Outstanding Nonguaranteed - Industrial Revenue: $49,739,000 ($449.85)

Retired Unspecified Public Purpose: $33,481,000 ($302.81)

Issue, Unspecified Public Purpose: $13,112,000 ($118.59)

Retired Nonguaranteed - Public Debt for Private Purpose: $800,000 ($7.24)

Richmond government finances - Cash and Securities in 2017 (per resident):

Bond Funds - Cash and Securities: $2,882,000 ($26.07)

Other Funds - Cash and Securities: $125,091,000 ($1131.36)

Sinking Funds - Cash and Securities: $75,547,000 ($683.27)

6.39% of this county's 2016 resident taxpayers lived in other counties in 2015 ($99,017 average adjusted gross income)

0.05% of residents moved from foreign countries ($4,127 average AGI)

Top counties from which taxpayers relocated into this county between 2015 and 2016:

6.01% of this county's 2015 resident taxpayers moved to other counties in 2016 ($86,076 average adjusted gross income)

0.07% of residents moved to foreign countries ($1,145 average AGI)

Top counties to which taxpayers relocated from this county between 2015 and 2016:

Businesses in Richmond, CA

Name

Count

Name

Count

Browse common businesses in Richmond, CA

See more detailed statistics of Richmond fatal car crashes and road traffic accidents for 1975 - 2019 here

Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Aggregated Statistics For Year 2009
(Based on 15 full and 7 partial tracts)

A) FHA, FSA/RHS & VA
Home Purchase Loans

B) Conventional
Home Purchase Loans

C) Refinancings

D) Home Improvement Loans

E) Loans on Dwellings For 5+ Families

F) Non-occupant Loans on
< 5 Family Dwellings (A B C & D)

G) Loans On Manufactured
Home Dwelling (A B C & D)

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Detailed mortgage data for all 22 tracts in Richmond, CA

Private Mortgage Insurance Companies Aggregated Statistics For Year 2009
(Based on 15 full and 7 partial tracts)

A) Conventional
Home Purchase Loans

B) Refinancings

C) Non-occupant Loans on
< 5 Family Dwellings (A & B)

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

Number

Average Value

2005 - 2018 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incidents
See full National Fire Incident Reporting System statistics for Richmond, CA

Fire-safe hotels and motels in Richmond, California:

Extended Stay America - Richmond - Hilltop Mall, 3170 Garrity Way, Richmond, California 94806 , Phone: (510) 222-7383, Fax: (510) 222-7473

Americas Best Value Inn, 1598 Carlson Blvd, Richmond, California 94804 , Phone: (510) 526-2665, Fax: (510) 528-4472

All 3 fire-safe hotels and motels in Richmond, California

Most common first names in Richmond, CA among deceased individuals

Name

Count

Lived (average)

Most common last names in Richmond, CA among deceased individuals

Last name

Count

Lived (average)

Richmond compared to California state average:

Unemployed percentage below state average.

Black race population percentage significantly above state average.

#2 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the highest number of auto thefts per 100,000 residents, excludes tourist destinations and others with a lot of outsiders visiting based on city industries data (population 50,000+)"

#10 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (population 50,000+)"

#10 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: transportation occupations (population 50,000+)"

#11 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: community and social service occupations (population 50,000+)"

#11 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the highest ratio of murders to rapes between 2002 and 2012 (population 50,000+)"

#12 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in occupations: construction and extraction occupations (population 50,000+)"

#18 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in industries: construction (population 50,000+)"

#19 on the list of "Top 100 most racially diverse cities (pop. 50,000+)"

#26 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of females in occupations: sales and related occupations (population 50,000+)"

#27 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of people in institutions for the blind (population 1,000+)"

#30 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest city-data.com crime index per police officer (population 50,000+)"

#31 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the highest city-data.com crime index, excludes tourist destinations and others with a lot of outsiders visiting based on city industries data (population 50,000+)"

#33 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of likely lesbian couples (counted as self-reported female-female unmarried-partner households) (population 50,000+)"

#35 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the highest maximum monthly sunshine amount (population 50,000+)"

#36 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest percentage of people in crews of maritime vessels (population 1,000+)"

#37 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the highest number of murders per 100,000 residents, excludes tourist destinations and others with a lot of outsiders visiting based on city industries data (population 50,000+)"

#39 on the list of "Top 101 cities with largest percentage of males in occupations: healthcare support occupations (population 50,000+)"

#40 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest differences between morning and afternoon humidity (population 50,000+)"

#41 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the largest humidity differences during a year (population 50,000+)"

#45 on the list of "Top 101 cities with the smallest temperature differences during a year (population 50,000+)"

#10 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the largest increase in the number of infant deaths per 1000 residents 2000-2006 to 2007-2013 (pop. 50,000+)"

#15 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the lowest Sulfur Oxides Annual air pollution readings in 2012 (µg/m³)"

#17 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the highest Nitrogen Dioxide air pollution readings in 2012 (ppm)"

#31 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the highest percentage of residents that drank alcohol in the past 30 days"

#34 on the list of "Top 101 counties with the highest surface withdrawal of fresh water for public supply (pop. 50,000+)"

There are 47 pilots and 84 other airmen in this city.

Fyodor Urnov (41)

John M. Rosenbaum (33)

Michael C. Holmes (26)

Dan Xie (26)

Jeffrey C. Miller (26)

Allen Yang Yang (22)

Huping Luo (21)

Philip D. Gregory (20)

Howard S. Lacheen (19)

Shuwu Yang (19)

Total of 995 patent applications in 2008-2022.

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Submit your own pictures of this city and show them to the world OSM Map General Map Google Map MSN Map Current weather forecast for Richmond, CA Population in 2019: 110,567 (100% urban, 0% rural). Population change since 2000: +11.4% Males: 55,446 (50.1%) Females: 55,121 (49.9%) Zip codes: 94850.

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Potential Solutions

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The decisions that shape access to healthy, dignified homes and neighborhoods often are cloaked in complicated jargon and made in exclusive spaces. The structures and systems that result from these actions are frequently unseen and yet they deeply impact our lives. During the foreclosure crisis, for instance, many of us learned about securitization and subprime loans only after the damage had been done. Many decisions made about what kind of development can happen and where it can happen often move through administrative channels that are not easily accessible. Housing policy is most effective when it addresses these structural forces, advancing structural inclusion. From a policy perspective, structural inclusion means that social, legal, and economic structures are designed to provide everyone access to resources essential for a full sense of belonging and well-being.

In analyzing and developing ideas for policy, the Haas Institute uses a framework we call targeted universalism. "Universalism" refers to the idea that there should be a universal goal that will be achieved-for instance, making housing affordable for all residents. But for all to reach that universal goal, the policy must also be "targeted," meaning it must include strategies specific to the particular barriers that some people face and others do not. For example, ensuring that the goal of affordable housing is achieved for seniors on a fixed income will require different strategies than reaching the goal for middle class homeowners. Richmond's Health in All Policies ordinance reflects a targeted universalism framework:

Health equity entails focused societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities by equalizing the conditions for health for all groups, especially for those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantage or historical injustices.

Often, the benefits of a targeted strategy also reach beyond the targeted population, such as how affordable housing for seniors creates stronger intergenerational communities and lessens medical costs.
The universal goals for housing policy must recognize that housing is about much more than just shelter. The home that you live in ties you to place, and this has a profound effect on your access to safe and healthy environments, economic opportunity, education, essential social networks, and other resources. These neighborhood environments can have substantial long-term economic and health effects. 92,93

In the US, owning a home is the primary way most working class families build wealth, which can protect them from a temporary loss of income or major expense like surgery or college tuition.

There is growing consensus that a comprehensive approach to housing issues must include strategies that cover "the four Ps":

Protection: protecting tenants and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents

Production: developing appropriate additional housing

Preservation: preserving existing affordable housing

Power: strengthening the power of residents to ensure responsive and equitable housing decisions

Protection policies ensure that residents who are most impacted by housing issues like homelessness, discrimination, or unsafe housing have the rights and support they need. Existing Richmond housing policies that expand protection include rent control, just cause for eviction, and the fair chance housing ordinance. A new policy that advances protection and is discussed in the following section is the ordinance to prevent source of income discrimination. This policy would protect residents with Section 8 vouchers and other subsidized incomes from being discriminated against by landlords. Another policy that could expand protection is a reusable tenant screening report -a measure that provides tenants with an accurate and affordable report that they can reuse with multiple landlords. This saves tenants the money that each landlord typically collects for credit reports and background checks, and also protects tenants from having inappropriate and inaccurate information shared with landlords.

Housing policies that advance production lead to the development of additional housing units to meet the needs of existing residents, a growing population, and any mismatches in the affordability of housing produced. For instance, a housing linkage fee generates additional funds for affordable housing by charging a fee to new commercial, market-rate housing, or other development projects in the city. An affordable housing bond also expands production by using revenue from an increase in property taxes to fund the construction or preservation of affordable housing. A public lands policy can expand production by directing the city to lease or sell its surplus public land in ways that facilitate development of affordable housing and other community goods. Investments in transitional and supportive housing expand housing for residents who would often otherwise be homeless.

Preservation policies support the stability and quality of existing affordable and public housing. Preservation policies can fund needed rehabilitation of dilapidated affordable housing, and change ownership structures or contracts to ensure that affordable housing does not get converted to market-rate housing. The affordable housing bond can help preserve affordable housing by generating funds for rehabilitation of units that are in disrepair. The ordinance to prevent source of income discrimination can also advance preservation by making it easier for Section 8 voucher holders to secure housing on the private market. When voucher holders are discriminated against and cannot find a landlord to accept their voucher, they may lose the voucher, and unused vouchers often lead to the housing authority receiving less funding for affordable housing.

Housing policies that further the power of residents create new pathways and platforms for residents' voices to be heard and shape housing decisions. For example, the creation of a Community-owned Development Enterprise (CDE) would put residents in the driver's seat of designing and carrying out housing development projects. A housing anti-speculation tax curbs and deters speculative investment, increasing the power of moderate-income home buyers and tenants in the housing market. The process itself can build the power of residents when they participate in developing, advocating for, and passing policy.

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The decisions that shape access to healthy, dignified homes and neighborhoods often are cloaked in complicated jargon and made in exclusive spaces. The structures and systems that result from these actions are frequently unseen and yet they deeply impact our lives.

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Gun Violence Prevention & Intervention Slides

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Gun Violence Prevention & Intervention Slides

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City of Richmond Community Health & Wellness Plan

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City of Richmond Community Health & Wellness Plan

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Potential Solutions

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The Foundations of Richmond Housing Crisis

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The Foundations of Richmond Housing Crisis

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https://belonging.berkeley.edu/foundations-housing-crisis

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In Richmond, home appreciation is greater in neighborhoods that were previously segregated white, which were less densely zoned and have fewer exposures to environmental toxins. 3

Prior to the foreclosure crisis, Black and Latino homebuyers were over three times more likely to receive risky loans than white borrowers, even with similar credit scores and income. 4

Between 2000 and 2013, the Bay Area gained 94,408 low-income households and simultaneously lost 106,000 naturally-occurring affordable housing units. 5

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Richmond Realtors' Association refused the entry of Black realtors. 3

Black and Latino residents, who make up the majority of Richmond residents, have the least access to high opportunity jobs in the region. 6

In 2017, 63 percent of Richmond's General Fund budget was allocated to public safety, the largest single category. 7

Until a protest campaign in 1959, school district boundaries required Black high school students to travel out of their neighborhood to a Black school. Elementary schools were already segregated because the neighborhoods they were placed in were segregated. 8

Black residents who challenged housing segregation met violence and little protection from police. When the Gary family moved to a white subdivision called Rollingwood in 1952, they were met by the local KKK and white mobs. An interracial local organizing campaign came together to protect the family. 9

Black residents began to move to southside Richmond through blockbusting-where realtors stoked the racial fears of white homeowners by convincing them the block was "changing," getting them to sell their homes quickly, and then turning around the homes and selling them at higher prices to Black people with fewer housing options. 3

In 1953, Ford moved its plant to Milpitas and white workers followed, able to purchase homes in the surrounding area using federal subsidies and loan programs. Black union workers, like white workers, had guaranteed job rights, but could not buy homes in these new subdivisions. 10

Between 2009 and 2013, the Bay Area added the vast majority of its jobs in high wage (above $50/hr) and low wage (below $15/hr) positions. 11

As unincorporated county land, North Richmond, and its majority Black residents had limited direct political representation. 3

During WWII, around 80 percent of the Black community lived in temporary war housing that was then demolished in 1953 through "Urban Renewal" programs. Restrictive covenants forced them into segregated and underresourced neighborhoods, into predatory housing schemes (blockbusting) or directly into violent attacks from white residents. 10

Due to racially restrictive covenants as early as 1909 (and some as late as 1963), it was extremely difficult for Black residents to purchase homes outside of North Richmond. These lots were zoned at 25 ft. wide and banks would not lend there, forcing people to construct homes from makeshift materials. By contrast, exclusively white Atchison Village, constructed with federal funds in 1941, had 20 ft. distances between homes. 10

Even at the height of the war, at Standard Oil (now Chevron), only 5 percent of employees were Black. 10

Despite employment in the Kaiser shipyards and the Ford assembly plants, Black workers were excluded from many unions in Richmond and were often given low level positions. 10

Police harassment of the Black community in North Richmond was common enough that in 1954 both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Conference of Christians and Jews operated defense programs. 10

During the war, Black people stopped by the police who could not show proof of employment were subject to arrest. 10

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In Richmond, home appreciation is greater in neighborhoods that were previously segregated white, which were less densely zoned and have fewer exposures to environmental toxins. 3 Prior to the foreclosure crisis, Black and Latino homebuyers were over three times more likely to receive risky loans than white borrowers, even with similar credit scores and income.

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At their meeting on May 19, 2021, the Rent Board adopted Regulation 609, establishing the 2021 Annual General Adjustment (AGA) rent increase for Controlled Rental Units in the amount of 1.6%. Rent increases for the 2021 Annual General Adjustment may not take effect prior to September 1, 2021.

The 2021 AGA may only be applied to tenancies in effect prior to September 1, 2020.

In addition, while keeping in mind the above information, to apply the 2021 Annual General Adjustment rent increase of up to 1.6%, Landlords must comply with State law requirements and file a notice of rent increase with the Rent Board within ten (10) business days after service on the Tenant in accordance with Regulation 603.

​What's the Annual General Adjustment?
​

The Annual General Adjustment (AGA) is an annual rent increase for Controlled Rental Units permitted by the Richmond Fair Rent, Just Cause for Evictions, and Homeowner Protection Ordinance. The Annual General Adjustment is calculated based on the percentage change in the Consumer Price Index of the Bay Area, which includes San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose.

FILE A NOTICE OF RENT INCREASE WITH THE RENT BOARD

Maximum Allowable Rent Calculator and Rent Increase Template

The Maximum Allowable Rent Calculator is a resource for Tenants and Landlords to determine the Maximum Allowable Rent for a Controlled Rental Unit in the City of Richmond. For assistance, please contact the Rent Program office, located on the second floor of 440 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond, CA 94804, or call (510) 234-RENT (7368) to speak with a Rent Program Services Analyst.

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At their meeting on May 19, 2021, the Rent Board adopted Regulation 609, establishing the 2021 Annual General Adjustment (AGA) rent increase for Controlled Rental Units in the amount of 1.6%. Rent increases for the 2021 Annual General Adjustment may not take effect prior to September 1, 2021.

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Equitable Development as a Tool to Advance Racial Equity

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Equitable Development as a Tool to Advance Racial Equity

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"A Framework for Advancing Equitable Development" is most useful

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Equitable Development as a Tool to Advance Racial Equity | Othering & Belonging Institute

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When we achieve equitable development, we increase the capacity of people of color to strengthen their communities and determine their own future and that of their neighborhoods. We distribute the benefits and burdens of growth equitably among people of all races, ethnic backgrounds, incomes, and ge…

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The decisions that shape access to healthy, dignified homes and neighborhoods often are cloaked in complicated jargon and made in exclusive spaces. The structures and systems that result from these actions are frequently unseen and yet they deeply impact our lives. During the foreclosure crisis, for instance, many of us learned about securitization and subprime loans only after the damage had been done. Many decisions made about what kind of development can happen and where it can happen often move through administrative channels that are not easily accessible. Housing policy is most effective when it addresses these structural forces, advancing structural inclusion. From a policy perspective, structural inclusion means that social, legal, and economic structures are designed to provide everyone access to resources essential for a full sense of belonging and well-being.

In analyzing and developing ideas for policy, the Haas Institute uses a framework we call targeted universalism. "Universalism" refers to the idea that there should be a universal goal that will be achieved-for instance, making housing affordable for all residents. But for all to reach that universal goal, the policy must also be "targeted," meaning it must include strategies specific to the particular barriers that some people face and others do not. For example, ensuring that the goal of affordable housing is achieved for seniors on a fixed income will require different strategies than reaching the goal for middle class homeowners. Richmond's Health in All Policies ordinance reflects a targeted universalism framework:

Health equity entails focused societal efforts to address avoidable inequalities by equalizing the conditions for health for all groups, especially for those who have experienced socioeconomic disadvantage or historical injustices.

Often, the benefits of a targeted strategy also reach beyond the targeted population, such as how affordable housing for seniors creates stronger intergenerational communities and lessens medical costs.
The universal goals for housing policy must recognize that housing is about much more than just shelter. The home that you live in ties you to place, and this has a profound effect on your access to safe and healthy environments, economic opportunity, education, essential social networks, and other resources. These neighborhood environments can have substantial long-term economic and health effects. 92,93

In the US, owning a home is the primary way most working class families build wealth, which can protect them from a temporary loss of income or major expense like surgery or college tuition.

There is growing consensus that a comprehensive approach to housing issues must include strategies that cover "the four Ps":

Protection: protecting tenants and socioeconomically disadvantaged residents

Production: developing appropriate additional housing

Preservation: preserving existing affordable housing

Power: strengthening the power of residents to ensure responsive and equitable housing decisions

Protection policies ensure that residents who are most impacted by housing issues like homelessness, discrimination, or unsafe housing have the rights and support they need. Existing Richmond housing policies that expand protection include rent control, just cause for eviction, and the fair chance housing ordinance. A new policy that advances protection and is discussed in the following section is the ordinance to prevent source of income discrimination. This policy would protect residents with Section 8 vouchers and other subsidized incomes from being discriminated against by landlords. Another policy that could expand protection is a reusable tenant screening report -a measure that provides tenants with an accurate and affordable report that they can reuse with multiple landlords. This saves tenants the money that each landlord typically collects for credit reports and background checks, and also protects tenants from having inappropriate and inaccurate information shared with landlords.

Housing policies that advance production lead to the development of additional housing units to meet the needs of existing residents, a growing population, and any mismatches in the affordability of housing produced. For instance, a housing linkage fee generates additional funds for affordable housing by charging a fee to new commercial, market-rate housing, or other development projects in the city. An affordable housing bond also expands production by using revenue from an increase in property taxes to fund the construction or preservation of affordable housing. A public lands policy can expand production by directing the city to lease or sell its surplus public land in ways that facilitate development of affordable housing and other community goods. Investments in transitional and supportive housing expand housing for residents who would often otherwise be homeless.

Preservation policies support the stability and quality of existing affordable and public housing. Preservation policies can fund needed rehabilitation of dilapidated affordable housing, and change ownership structures or contracts to ensure that affordable housing does not get converted to market-rate housing. The affordable housing bond can help preserve affordable housing by generating funds for rehabilitation of units that are in disrepair. The ordinance to prevent source of income discrimination can also advance preservation by making it easier for Section 8 voucher holders to secure housing on the private market. When voucher holders are discriminated against and cannot find a landlord to accept their voucher, they may lose the voucher, and unused vouchers often lead to the housing authority receiving less funding for affordable housing.

Housing policies that further the power of residents create new pathways and platforms for residents' voices to be heard and shape housing decisions. For example, the creation of a Community-owned Development Enterprise (CDE) would put residents in the driver's seat of designing and carrying out housing development projects. A housing anti-speculation tax curbs and deters speculative investment, increasing the power of moderate-income home buyers and tenants in the housing market. The process itself can build the power of residents when they participate in developing, advocating for, and passing policy.

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The decisions that shape access to healthy, dignified homes and neighborhoods often are cloaked in complicated jargon and made in exclusive spaces. The structures and systems that result from these actions are frequently unseen and yet they deeply impact our lives.

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Start at 27:55 for Richmond ONS Program! Ends at 34:17

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VICE | 'Raised in the System' Season 6 Premiere | Full Episode | HBO

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Don't get hungry in Richmond, you might need to wander through a "food desert."

That's how the U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies low-income communities that are more than a mile away from a major grocery store. About one-third of Richmond residents fall into that category.

The East Bay city with more than 100,000 people has just three full-service grocery stores within its city limits, Mitzi Mock of Richmond Confidential reports. But two of them are heavily used by neighboring El Cerito residents, so there's basically just one "Richmond" grocery store: Foods Co. on Macdonald Avenue.

"It turns out matching a grocery store to a retail location has many of the complexities and frustrations of matchmaking blind dates," Mock writes.

Economics, retail space, parking, demographics and picky checklists are all factors. Shallow city blocks also make it difficult for grocery stores to set up shop.

Whole Foods once told the city its checklist starts with the number of college graduates living within a certain radius. A Safeway even ditched Richmond for a new location in the more upscale El Cerrito.

Some stores such as Mi Pueblo and Fresh and Easy are actually interested in coming to town. The only thing stopping them is they can't find a location they like. Grocery Outlet even made an offer to lease an old building at San Pablo and Macdonald Avenue, but the property owner wanted more money.

"I'm coming from the perspective of a resident that is feeling frustrated, disrespected," Janet Johnson said.

Some concerned residents and officials are tired of waiting for the grocery stores to come. They formed a food policy council this month to start planning for other food options such as farmer's markets and gardens.

Until then, Richmond still has plenty of fast food and liquor stores.

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Don't get hungry in Richmond, you might need to wander through a "food desert." That's how the U.S. Department of Agriculture classifies low-income communities that are more than a mile away from a major grocery store. About one-third of Richmond residents fall into that category.

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Community Groups in Richmond file Lawsuit against State for Inadequate Toxic Waste Cleanup

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Community Groups in Richmond file Lawsuit against State for Inadequate Toxic Waste Cleanup

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Potential Solution

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City
Community groups in Richmond file lawsuit against state for inadequate toxic waste cleanup

Community and environmental justice groups filed suit against California agencies over proposed housing units to be built on the site of AstraZeneca's former chemical manufacturing plant in south Richmond.

The groups feel that the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, should not have allowed developers HRP Campus Bay Property LLC to build 4,000 housing units on the toxic waste site.

They noted that the agencies did not adequately evaluate the impacts of sea-level rise and toxicity of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical found in substantial amounts at the site, according to Richmond Shoreline Alliance co-chair Pam Stello.

"It's a crazy proposal, who in this day and age would propose putting housing on top of a remediated toxic waste site," said Robert Cheasty, a lawyer representing several groups involved. "Consequently, the people in the community are up in arms about it."

The site was operated for almost 100 years, and AstraZeneca and Stauffer Chemical Company dumped numerous toxic, volatile chemicals that are still there, Cheasty alleged.

The current proposal is to remove 2% of chemicals there and place a large concrete cap on it, according to Stello.

"As the sea level rises, and as the waters in the bay rise, the groundwater level will also rise accordingly," said Stuart Flashman, environmental and land use attorney. "So what that means is that the toxins are not going to be above the groundwater level very long, by maybe 2030, certainly by 2050, that groundwater is going to be coming in, hitting and mobilizing those toxins."

The toxins will then move into the bay and the surrounding properties, causing further contamination, Flashman alleged.

The TCE at the site is highly toxic and carcinogenic, to the degree where it causes cancers and can move through concrete by vapor intrusion, meaning the barrier will not be enough, according to Flashman.

"The state of California, their own scientific projections are that sea levels could rise seven and a half feet by the end of the century, and groundwater will also be rising as a result," said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. "This is reckless and endangers people's health and endangers the San Francisco ecosystem."

The community groups want the site cleaned up to the highest level instead of what is currently being done, Cheasty noted, rather than opposing the housing project.

In 2018, community groups thought they had achieved that goal, with Richmond's City Council supporting a level 6 cleanup, said Andres Soto, co-chair of Richmond Shoreline Alliance.

However, the City Council struck a deal in 2019 with realty investor Shopoff to change the cleanup standard in exchange for building the 4,000 housing units, Soto alleged.

"In San Francisco, at the Hunters Point Shipyard Superfund site, the city, county, state and federal agencies admit they have not considered the latest sea level projections, yet plan on leaving atomic bomb residue buried at sea level," Angel alleged. "It is insanity, and it's a site where thousands of luxury homes are proposed."

This is not just a Richmond problem, Angel said.

The community groups are planning a demonstration Aug. 30 with several other communities around the state who believe DTSC does not sufficiently protect the communities it serves, Soto added.
Contact Ryan Teoh at [email protected] , and follow him on Twitter at @RyanTeoh001.
In a statement, DTSC noted that they engaged with communities prior to making a decision on the cleanup standards at the site. The statement adds that the decision minimizes "adverse impacts on public health and safety" when compared to other strategies.

HRP Campus Bay Property LLC, which is related to Shopoff, declined a request for comment as of press time.

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Community groups file lawsuit for inadequate toxic waste cleanup

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City Community and environmental justice groups filed suit against California agencies over proposed housing units to be built on the site of AstraZeneca's former chemical manufacturing plant in south Richmond. The groups feel that the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Toxic Substances Control, or DTSC, should not have allowed developers HRP Campus Bay Property LLC to build 4,000 housing units on the toxic waste site.

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Issue Consequences. Read through key findings on: Economic Security and Education, Residential and Built Environment, Quality and Accessible Health and Social Services, & Health Behaviors

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Food Justice & Community Health in Richmond

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Food Justice & Community Health in Richmond

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This report is the culmination of more than three years of work in Richmond in partnership with local community leaders and organizations. It outlines strategies that can facilitate more engaged partnerships between UC Berkeley and surrounding Richmond community in order to realize transformational food system change. With the announcements of the Berkeley Global Campus (BGC) in Richmond and Global Food Initiative (GFI) from the UC Office of the President, there is great promise to align those initiatives' values of sustainability, equity, and global inclusion with the aspirations of local community in Richmond. The report, authored by Nadia Barhoum, provides a general overview of food systems and community health, followed by a description of the current landscape of existing food challenges and food equity efforts in Richmond and food-related work at UC Berkeley and within the Global Food Initiative.
Download the report.
Foreward: An Opportunity Not To Be Missed

There lies in front of us the exciting potential to phenomenally transform the food system in Richmond, California, and present a model of real food justice for urban communities everywhere. The Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay, along with the UC Global Food Initiative, have an historic opportunity to partner with the Richmond community to achieve food equity, sustainability, and adaptability.

The City of Richmond and our community have been on the forefront of policy innovation for over a decade. Our General Plan was adopted in 2012 after several years in the making, and includes a cutting-edge Health and Wellness Element and an Energy and Climate Change Element-all part of our vision for a healthy Richmond. In order to implement such a vision, innovative structures like the Richmond Food Policy Council have emerged and good policies like the Urban Agriculture Ordinance and the Health in All Policies Ordinance have been enacted. We've also seen the rise of incredible community organizations like Urban Tilth and other groups that have developed a community garden and urban farm movement in Richmond, offering enriching opportunities for our residents to learn and enjoy growing their own food.

We are proud that our work thus far in Richmond has showcased us as a leading progressive city with a commitment to overcoming social ills that plague not only our city but urban communities throughout our nation and the world. Yet the problems of health and food justice are persistent ones, and cities like Richmond with a low-income population continue to feel the impact of systemic injustices. The community is tired of seeing institutions and project partners come and go. There is a need for strategic planning and visioning to create longstanding partnerships that center the needs of the community.

By investing in food system change, UC Berkeley will be investing in the prosperity and future of generations to come. Over the eight years that I served as Richmond's Mayor, in addition to my work today as a Richmond City Councilmember, I have seen the health challenges that exist in our community from not having access to whole and healthy foods. These challenges have burdened our community for too long. We need to reverse this situation by addressing their root cause-an unjust food system.

Food sustainability and food justice are pressing issues around the globe. Richmond can be home to a new global campus and simultaneously experience a shift in the well-being of our community. This can be done by building community-campus partnerships for a healthier, more equitable food system. The Berkeley Global Campus, working side by side with the Richmond community, can be a global leader in creating community-driven alternatives to the current, broken food system. I applaud the work of the Haas Institute and all its partners in providing such an excellent report to advance this effort.

Gayle McLaughlin Councilmember and former Mayor, City of Richmond, California

"There is a need for strategic planning and visioning to create longstanding partnerships that center the needs of the community."

Introduction

"The Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay represents more than a development project - it is an opportunity to leverage the largest public investment in the Richmond community since World War II to serve the broader community goals. Building the power and capacity of marginalized communities to engage in transforming these structures is the most sustainable and effective way to create inclusive opportunity and equitable community health and expand opportunity for all." - john a. powell, Director of the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society" 1

THE FOOD WE EAT AND THE FOOD SYSTEMS around us have a profound effect on our communities' health and wellbeing. Richmond, California, like many low-income communities and communities of color, has a food system that is contributing to health problems among its residents by producing insufficiently healthy, sustainable, and equitable food access. For example, more than half of Richmond's youth and adults are considered overweight or obese. Simultaneously, over 30,000 Richmond residents live in food deserts or "critical food access areas." 2 In order to address these and other issues, many communities have begun to localize their food systems. A local food system incorporates "a collaborative network that integrates sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste management in order to enhance the environmental, economic, and social health of a particular area." Richmond community leaders and local government have launched innovative efforts to transform the local food system through the Richmond Food Policy Council, the city's General Plan, and other efforts. The development of a new anchor institution, the Berkeley Global Campus, is a rare opportunity to bolster these efforts by leveraging the purchasing, research, education, and other capacities of the university to shape a more sustainable and equitable local food system.

The Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay (BGC) and the University of California Global Food Initiative (GFI) are promising new developments within the University of California (UC) that have great potential for work that aligns their values of sustainability, equity, and global inclusion with the aspirations of the local community in Richmond. The city of Richmond is on the forefront of policy innovation with food justice initiatives that have improved the overall quality of life for residents and provided a powerful model of civic engagement. From this lens, Richmond could be seen as a microcosm of the broader vision that the BGC and GFI both hope to advance in their planned work. Furthermore, Richmond has the potential to be the ultimate partner in bridging the gap between research and practice. By developing research strategies that inform and elevate equitable policies to ensure access to a sustainable food system, the UC can help provide local, healthy, and nutritious foods to communities, particularly low-income communities and communities of color, on a local and regional scale.

This report is the culmination of more than three years of work in Richmond in partnership with local community leaders and organizations. The Haas Institute has been working alongside community partners to develop anchor institution policies and practices that would achieve the community's vision of increasing economic inclusion and community health. Throughout this process, local leaders have called for a legally binding community benefits agreement (CBA) between UC Berkeley and Richmond around the issues of housing, jobs and training, procurement, and education. A report published by the Haas Institute in October 2014, Anchor Richmond, addresses the important role of anchor institutions in facilitating greater opportunity within local communities: "Universities, hospitals, and other 'anchors' are embedded within the community and uniquely positioned to have far-reaching impact on the local and regional economy. Their promise can be realized by connecting the core mission of the institution to the aspirations of the community." 3 The report also provides key strategies to leverage the anchor on behalf of the community and best practices that have been implemented by other anchor institutions across the country.

There is great hope that the forthcoming community benefits agreement with UC Berkeley will enhance opportunities within Richmond and strengthen partnerships between UC Berkeley and the communities surrounding the Berkeley Global Campus. Given that food was not an explicit area outlined in the recommendations for the CBA, the Haas Institute decided to pursue this research around food policy and community-campus partnerships in hopes of creating a path toward strategic partnerships between UC Berkeley, the new Berkeley Global Campus, and Richmond that will achieve positive changes in the local food system. To this end, the Haas Institute organized meetings over the last year with relevant stakeholders at UC Berkeley, the Global Food Initiative, Richmond City Government, the Richmond Food Policy Council, and other Richmond-based community organizations to survey existing initiatives, resources, and needs. A draft of this research was circulated in October at a Food Policy Convening in Richmond where local leaders and others spoke about the potential for collaboration between UC Berkeley and Richmond. This was followed by a rich discussion that included Richmond community members, Richmond city government officials, and UC Berkeley staff, faculty, and students about the paper and its recommendations. The feedback and insights gained from this convening and subsequent meetings have been incorporated into this edition of the report.

This paper provides a general overview of food systems and community health, followed by a description of the current landscape of existing food challenges and food equity efforts in Richmond and food-related work at UC Berkeley and within the Global Food Initiative. The final section presents strategy recommendations that can bridge these broad-based initiatives housed within community, city government, and academia in a way that includes and centers the needs and contributions of marginalized communities. In so doing, these efforts can be better aligned to optimize meaningful collaborative work that can enhance opportunity structures within the food system in Richmond and UC Berkeley. Lastly, this paper aims to bring discussions around food and the local food system to the BGC planning table so that existing work in food justice, procurement, public health, and environmental sustainability can be incorporated within the new plans for the BGC.
Food Systems and Community Health
Food systems today are more complex than ever as they have become increasingly globalized and consolidated within the hands of a few multinational corporations. 4 As a result, farmers and consumers alike have less leverage, agency, and choice when growing, distributing, purchasing, and selling food commodities. Moreover, as urban populations continue to grow, the need for localized, sustainable food systems becomes more urgent. To put this in context, in half a century, urban populations have expanded from 34 percent in 1960 to over 50 percent of the world's population today. 5 The current food system is contributing significantly to our carbon footprint and exacerbation of climate change. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that cities with 10 million people must import 6,000 tons of food every day. 6 Additionally, the average meal in America travels an estimated 1,500 miles from farm to plate. 7

Although the US produces enough food to feed its population, there are 49 million Americans who are food insecure, meaning that they do not have "consistent, dependable access to enough food for active, healthy living". 8 The impact of food insecurity falls disproportionately on communities of color and single women-as of 2014, 26.1 percent of Black households, 22. 4 percent of Latino households, and 35.3 percent of households headed by single women faced food insecurity; in contrast, white households faced food insecurity at a rate of 10.5 percent. 9 Visions of local and sustainable food systems point to how challenges related to food security, access, and equity can be alleviated and eventually eliminated altogether.

In order to shift the food system so that those who are growing and buying food have more power, many communities have begun to localize their food systems. A local food system incorporates "a collaborative network that integrates sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste management in order to enhance the environmental, economic, and social health of a particular area." 10 Local food systems attempt to shorten supply and distribution chains by decreasing transportation distances between farms and consumers, connecting farmers more directly to consumers, and supporting a more sustainable local economy. In the US, and especially in California, there have been groundbreaking efforts to localize food systems to increase support for local farmers and farms, improve food equity, access, and health in both rural and urban communities, improve local economies and job creation, and offset many of the environmental damages associated with modern industrial agriculture and food systems. 11

Producing and processing food locally can reduce energy consumption, increase access to whole and healthy foods, and improve the local economy by creating local jobs and revenue, all of which positively contribute to community health and equity. Moreover, as climate change advances, there is a pressing need for alternatives as much of the current food system is carbon-intensive. Agricultural inputs such as synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, petroleum-powered farm equipment, and transportation of food commodities from farm to table, are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Much work needs to be done to better equip the current and future generations with the tools and skills needed to sustainably inhabit the planet. The BGC has the potential to be a hub and catalyst for researching and implementing more sustainable alternatives to the current food system.
In order to shift the food system so that those who are growing and buying food have more power, many communities have begun to localize their food systems.
Richmond Context and Initiatives
Food Deserts and Health Challenges in Richmond
Richmond's low-income communities and communities of color face health challenges that mirror many of the structural challenges facing similar communities in the US. For example, more than 50 percent of Richmond's youth are overweight or obese, and approximately 58 percent of Richmond adults are considered overweight or obese. 12 There are higher rates of obesity among youth of color in Richmond, with obesity at 34 percent among African American youth, 33 percent among Latino youth, 25 percent among Asian youth, and 13 percent among white youth. 13 Such high rates of obesity have been linked to chronic diseases including diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke. 14 The prevalence and targeted marketing of processed, high-fat, and high-sugar foods and drinks to youth from marginalized communities has only exacerbated these health issues. 15 While food and nutrition play an important role in health, other environmental and social stresses cannot be ignored as they also factor into individual and collective well-being.

Part of the problem with the current food system is that it simply does not serve much of the Richmond community. Many parts of Richmond are considered food deserts. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food deserts are:

. . . urban neighborhoods and rural towns without ready access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food. Instead of supermarkets and grocery stores, these communities may have no food access or are served only by fast food restaurants and convenience stores that offer few healthy, affordable food options. The lack of access contributes to a poor diet and can lead to higher levels of obesity and other diet-related diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. 16

A recent study analyzing access to food in Richmond found that about 32,000 people (34 percent of the study area population) in Richmond reside in "critical food access areas," or "areas considered underserved when compared to the study area as a whole." 17 These areas include North Richmond, the Iron Triangle neighborhood, and South Richmond. On average, Richmond residents must travel almost a mile to reach a full service grocer, though some residents must travel even further to access food. Given that approximately 10 percent of households in Richmond do not have a vehicle, these distances to food retailers have a significant impact on accessibility to whole and healthy foods. 18 According to the same study, these food challenges, and resulting health complications, disproportionately impact Richmond's low-income residents and communities of color. 19 A recent study found that "for every supermarket or farmer's market located in Richmond, there are at least six fast food restaurants and convenience stores." 20 Furthermore, Richmond faces a poverty rate double that of Contra Costa County.

In addition, Richmond still faces extreme underenrollment in California's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), CalFresh. According to the Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services, approximately 40 percent of Contra Costa County residents who are eligible for federal food assistance programs are not enrolled. No data was available for underenrollment percentages in the city of Richmond, but it is possible that this percentage is higher than 40 percent for Richmond residents. This is despite the fact that enrollment in Contra Costa County's CalFresh program has increased 410% from 2006 to 2014. Currently, there are about 6,000 Richmond households (approximately 15,000 individuals) enrolled in CalFresh, out of a total population of 107,571. 21 There are many factors that can contribute to these gaps in enrollment, including: language barriers, fear that enrollment will impact immigration status, stigmas tied to federal assistance programs, misinformation about eligibility and benefits, administrative churning, and individuals thinking the benefits are too low to go through the hassle of enrollment. Finally, there is also the added barrier that the most recent 2014 Farm Bill has prohibited the use of federal funds toward advertising for SNAP or CalFresh programs. 22
Richmond's Food Initiatives and Resources
Richmond's local government has implemented substantial planning and policy measures to address many of its food and health challenges, guided by a Community Health and Wellness Element in its General Plan that "targets the social, economic, physical, and environmental causes of health inequities and poor health outcomes." 23 In addition, the City of Richmond is one of the first cities to incorporate an Energy and Climate Action element into its General Plan. The Climate Action Element is a roadmap for how the city can reduce greenhouse emissions and prepare for the impact of climate change on public health, infrastructure, and ecosystems. 24 This element also incorporates urban agriculture into its assessment, stating that urban agriculture "has the potential to supplement the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in the community, provide economic opportunities to Richmond residents, lower food costs, reduce overall energy consumption and build social cohesion." 25

The City of Richmond has also started working with the Department of City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley to identify key climate action areas to include in the General Plan. A collaboration between the BGC, City of Richmond, and community partners could be developed to advance policy changes and innovative projects geared toward food system transformation and climate adaptability. These partnerships would provide the technical expertise needed for the next generations to develop and implement sustainable solutions that would minimize the current food system impacts and alleviate future environmental and soil degradation.

The new campus could also partner with the City of Richmond and local organizations to plan for the inevitable changes in the climate that will likely impact the Bay Area and beyond. The BGC could set itself ahead of the curve by designing and planning urban infrastructure that centers the needs and priorities of marginalized communities, especially since the burden of these climatic changes falls most heavily on these populations. 26 Moreover, these partnerships and the outcomes from the collaborative work could hopefully be applied elsewhere around the globe, vis-à-vis the partnerships that the BGC hopes to establish with other universities from around the world.

The BGC, as it's located in Richmond, is a key site where this work can happen in a more deeply engaged fashion. Several UCB faculty have already conducted related community-based research projects in Richmond, including Rachel Morello-Frosch, Malo Huston, Jason Corburn, Khalid Kadir, Meredith Minkler, and john a. powell. The BGC can take advantage of the innovative work already happening in Richmond to fulfill its own mission while at the same time supporting the surrounding community. Richmond is particularly well-situated to succeed in this type of collaboration as a vibrant food movement already exists in the city. The Richmond Food Policy Council, the Richmond City government, and organizations like Urban Tilth, Ma'at Youth Academy, the Contra Costa Food Bank, Playndirt, EcoVillage Farm, and others have made positive steps toward transforming the local food system, both independently and in collaboration with one another.

The Richmond Food Policy Council was formed in December 2011 to "create a local, equitable, and sustainable food system based on regional agriculture that fosters the local economy and provides healthy affordable food for all people living in Richmond." 27 Their policy development and advocacy have shaped local policy in coordination with the local city government and school district. Most recently, the City of Richmond has been actively working with the Richmond Food Policy Council on an Urban Agriculture Ordinance that aims to support local agricultural initiatives by simplifying the process for submitting paperwork to the city, lowering permitting fees, eliminating certain zoning requirements, and promoting community gardens as a space for social and educational activities. 28 The West Contra Costa Unified School District recently established two salad bars at Richmond elementary schools after the Food Policy Council highlighted the need for more fresh and healthy food in local schools.

Urban Tilth is the sponsoring organization of the Richmond Food Policy Council and anchors much of the food equity and urban agriculture work in Richmond. Established in 2005, Urban Tilth describes its mission as working to "help our community grow our own food; train and employ our own young people as 'home grown experts;' teach our local residents about the relationships among food, health, poverty, and justice; foster public foraging programs; and forge partnerships with local small farmers to increase demand for their produce." 29 They have 13 school and community gardens and urban farms that it uses as sites for their above-mentioned work. Their work has been a catalyst for progressive policy initiatives within Richmond.

A focal point of food equity and community health work in Richmond is Unity Park, a newly formed park on the Richmond Greenway - a 1.5 mile-long area that was previously railroad property. The Richmond Greenway is a project that came about as a result of a grassroots mobilization in 2006 that eventually led to its adoption as a public park in 2011 by the City of Richmond. This initiative reclaimed the abandoned railroad running through South Richmond as a green space for community residents that has been restored and maintained by hundreds of neighborhood volunteers. 30 The Contra Costa County Food Bank has also been doing tremendous work in Richmond over the last 40 years. The Food Bank has a mobile food pantry with seven sites in Richmond and North Richmond, as well as a number of other programs targeting seniors, children, and youth. The Food Bank serves one in eight people in Contra Costa and Solano Counties and distributed 20 million pounds of food last year. 31 In addition to these above-mentioned efforts, there are many other organizations in Richmond that are actively working toward sustainability and transformation in the food system and green spaces in Richmond, which are included in Appendix A.

Given this rich local landscape, there is a great opportunity for further collaboration to positively transform Richmond's food system through partnership with local organizations, residents, and city government, and to anchor Berkeley's shared goals in Richmond's community for the mutual benefit of all stakeholders. These efforts could ultimately serve as a model for application on a regional, national, and even global scale.
Richmond is particularly well-situated to succeed in this type of collaboration, as a vibrant food movement already exists in the city.
UC Berkeley Initiatives and Resources

Berkeley Global Campus UC Berkeley's planned campus at Richmond Bay is a historic development that will most likely transform the landscape of the city of Richmond and the Bay Area. The vision for the BGC includes partnerships with universities from around the globe, and

"will be a focal point for an international coalition of leading academic institutions and private sector and community partners. These partnerships will collaborate on research and academic initiatives addressing complex global challenges of universal relevance to academic and industrial researchers everywhere. BGC will be designed to address these challenges within an interlocking humanistic framework that involves deep trans-disciplinary efforts from humanities, social sciences, public policy, education, technology, and engineering." 32

The campus has a 40-year development plan and at build-out, will host up to 10,000 students, workers, staff, and researchers on a daily basis. There are tentative plans to create a public health partnership between the BGC and UC San Francisco's Mission Bay Campus that would potentially serve Richmond's local community. The engineering and infrastructure for the BGC has accounted for sea level rise, energy efficiency, and water conservation in its design, though the plans have not yet considered how to design spaces beyond their property line that would mitigate the impact of climate change. Many conversations have been taking place to explore different areas of research to pursue on the campus, but there is no final blueprint for these plans. This being the case, many of the strategies in this paper outline potential projects that the new campus could undertake as plans for research and programming enter its final stages.
Global Food Initiative
The UC Global Food Initiative was launched last year by the UC Office of the President (UCOP). This initiative aims to bring the 10 UC campuses together in a system-wide effort to collaboratively address the most pressing issues around food security and sustainability. The goals include the following (as stated on the UCOP website): 33

Identifying best practices and sharing widely within UC, California, the nation and the world;

Using the power of UC research and extension to help individuals and communities access safe, affordable and nutritious food while sustaining our natural resources; and

Deploying UC's research to shape, impact and drive policy discussions around food issues at the local, statewide, national and international levels.

The first phase of the initiative aims to achieve some of the following objectives: 34

Expanding experiential learning, including demonstration gardens;

Leveraging food purchasing power to encourage sustainable farming practices and to serve nutritious fare in dining halls and cafeterias;

Developing policies to better enable small growers to become suppliers; and

Integrating food issues into more undergraduate and graduate courses

Many of these goals could be integrated into the planning of the BGC, particularly with the support of UC Berkeley campus entities, such as the Berkeley Food Institute and the Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society, which are already carrying out research on structural barriers to food equity and supporting local and national initiatives that promote food sovereignty among marginalized communities. Other on-campus entities, such as the School of Public Health, College of Natural Resources, College of Engineering, College of Environmental Design, and the Haas School of Business, either have existing or potential projects within Richmond that could support and improve the local food system.

For example, the Environmental Science and Policy Management department offered a short course on Urban Agroecology in the summer of 2015 that was open to the public; more than half of the participants were from Richmond-based Urban Tilth. The course offered theoretical and technical training on agroecological methods of farming in an urban environment. Furthermore, some faculty from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering have been working with Urban Tilth and the Richmond-based Watershed Project on flood management and stormwater treatment to improve local water systems and the health of the San Francisco Bay. 35 Given the global outlook of the BGC, as well as its location in Richmond, this initiative could potentially house some of the GFI's food-related research and initiatives that are local in scope with the potential to be global in application.

Cal Dining UC Berkeley already has some of the country's most far-reaching sustainability standards in its food procurement policies. Cal Dining has set ambitious goals toward achieving local and sustainable procurement; currently, 57 percent of food in its dining halls is considered local and sustainable. 36 Cal Dining defines local and sustainable as real food that fulfills at least one of the following four categories: local and community-based; fair; ecologically sound; and humane. 37

While these food procurement goals are commendable, there is still room for improvement-not only in procurement, but also to better ensure that small to mid-sized farms have access to local markets. In addition, procurement strategies at UC Berkeley could be leveraged with other anchor institutions so that they have a broader reach and impact on the regional economy and local community. 38 Cal Dining has expressed interest in finding pathways to improving food sustainability and access at UC Berkeley. The Global Food Initiative aims to advance these issues as well. Some of the strategies mentioned in the next section might have the potential to achieve many of the goals of the GFI, BGC, and Richmond city government and community.

Food workers UC Berkeley employs 815 food workers, and the food-related services at the planned BGC have the potential to create many sustainable jobs for the local economy. 39 If the UC privately contracts out dining services, without any socially responsible contracting, they would limit the potential for creating a more sustainable local and regional economy. Cal Dining positions are career positions, most of which are unionized and all of which include a full benefits program, which adds approximately $10/hour of pay to each classification. These benefits include medical, dental, and vision plans, which all career employees receive, regardless if they are in a union. 40

Outsourcing work to subcontractors without a responsible contracting policy has an impact on the local economy and individual livelihoods by increasing economic inequality and negatively impacting the health and wellbeing of workers. By paying workers' wages at poverty rates, employers strain government-funded health and public assistance programs. In fact, a study from the University of California found that $10.1 billion of the $21.2 billion that federal and state taxpayers spent in 2002 on public assistance programs in California went to families of low-wage workers. 41 The $10.1 billion included $3.6 billion in Medicaid costs and $2.7 billion for the Earned Income Tax Credit. The $10.1 billion cost would have been reduced to $3.2 billion if employees in those families had earned a wage of at least $14.00 an hour and had received employer-provided health benefits. 42 Additionally, better pay reduces employee turnover and reduces the costs associated with this turnover. 43 As such, the new campus should plan to create career food jobs so as to advance goals of economic sustainability and stability both for the UC and its workers.

Strategy Recommendations

The BGC and UC Global Food Initiative have the potential to collaborate with Richmond partners to catalyze transformations in the food system that advance sustainability, equity and innovation. The BGC and GFI can work to further localize the food system in the region and lift up communities that disproportionately bear the burden of the current broken food system. There exist many strategies to transform local food systems that have proven effective and impactful. The following proposals briefly outline some of those strategies that could be incorporated into the BGC, along with the help and support of such partners as the Global Food Initiative, local community stakeholders in Richmond, the Richmond Food Policy Council, and UC Berkeley campus entities such as the Berkeley Food Institute and Haas Institute for a Fair and Inclusive Society.
UC Berkeley Food Policy Council
UC Berkeley has a vast network of entities, scholars, and programs working on food-related efforts. To better organize this work, UC Berkeley could form its own food policy council that would oversee and create more synergy toward food-related efforts and initiatives that are oftentimes disconnected and/or redundant. The council could provide a governing structure to guide and support projects and programs related to food and agricultural issues. A focus within this policy council on campus-community partnerships would provide a venue for increased collaboration between the university and surrounding communities, increase awareness about ongoing and past work, and allow for more meaningful change in the food system. Most importantly, such a council could develop strategic plans for campus-community work that would hold a longer-term vision so that on-campus efforts with community partners adhere to principles and initiatives whose aims prioritize transformational systemic and structural change.

Another strategy worth exploring further is a regional food hub. A food hub is "a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand." 44 Communities have organized local food hubs to build community wealth, improve health, and provide anchor institutions with more local models of procurement that support the local food supply chain. Food hubs can serve as the means to localize food systems, increase sustainability, expand opportunities for local jobs, support local farms and farmers, and improve availability and access to healthy, nutritious foods within marginalized communities.

To begin exploring the regional food hub as a strategy, UC Berkeley and the Global Food Initiative, together with local community partners in Richmond, could conduct a feasibility study in Richmond. The study would review existing food hub models that have been successful; as well as assess the local food system, relevant infrastructure in Richmond, and food value chains to determine the costs, benefits, and potential for developing a local food hub in Richmond. The food hub could be modeled on other examples such as Common Market in Philadelphia or Sprout in Springfield, Oregon, that include incubator commercial kitchens for local food entrepreneurs, refrigerated storage space for local produce, and space for educational programming and community events.

Transforming the local food supply shifts the production and distribution of food toward a healthier system that includes and lifts up marginalized communities. An exemplary case study of such an action is that of Common Market, which developed a sustainable business model that supports communities of color and, as of 2013, distributed $1.3 million of locally produced food, with a significant portion of this supply chain reaching low-income communities. 45

A food hub feasibility study would highlight the needs in Richmond's local food system and analyze the ways in which a food hub has the potential to bridge gaps in health, equity, and sustainability. The food hub could serve UC Berkeley and the planned BGC, as well as other anchor institutions such as Kaiser Hospital, the Contra Costa County School District, and local stores and businesses in Richmond.

Another way in which UC Berkeley and the GFI could engage in transformative research and community partnerships would be to provide much needed technical assistance to support community projects and programs. One area of technical assistance that could be beneficial is community-based mapping to gather and analyze data for the city's environmental, food, and health-related issues. UC Berkeley could provide the technical assistance needed for surveys, data collection, and GIS expertise in this research as well as capacity-building, such as training local residents how to use these tools. Understanding the spatial dynamics of a region is key to identifying structural barriers to opportunity. Participatory mapping provides a critical visual analysis of challenges that then allows for conversation and development of potential solutions that center community concerns and needs. Community-based mapping projects could help provide much needed data on local food and health challenges such as healthy corner stores, vacant public land that could be used for urban agriculture, contaminated land sites and potential for remediation, and existing urban agricultural projects and sites.

A similar initiative was completed in Baltimore; The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative partnered with the Johns Hopkins Center for a More Livable Future to create a food environment map and report. This partnership and research was developed "to better understand Baltimore's food environment and food deserts...and to more proactively and effectively promote equitable access to healthy food. The materials and information...provide a resource to inform decision-making in policy, planning and legislation related to healthy affordable food access, and in improving health outcomes." 46

Other possibilities for technical assistance include support in the creation and development of urban gardens and the rehabilitation of green spaces, such as agroecology trainings and soil testing of Richmond's vacant lots and public land. Providing technical assistance in agroecological methods would improve urban agricultural initiatives in Richmond by increasing their sustainability as well as building overall community knowledge. With respect to creating new urban gardens and green spaces, Richmond could benefit greatly from soil testing and support for research around soil testing, remediation technologies, and best practices for using vacant, public lands. Richmond's past and current heavy industry has generated soil contamination that can make food production unsafe, but the high cost of soil testing is often a barrier to understanding and addressing unsafe levels of contamination. As such, the City of Richmond and community organizations could benefit greatly from the expertise of UC Berkeley's scientists and environmental engineers, and their engagement in innovative research about soil remediation could potentially be applied in Richmond. Technical assistance in this area could greatly improve the built environment in Richmond and provide green pathways to renew and revitalize the urban landscape.

UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business could provide technical assistance related to financial planning and business models for small businesses, small farms, and community-based organizations working in the food and agriculture sector. The Social Sector Solutions program in the Haas School of Business already partnered with the City of Richmond and published a report entitled, The Richmond Bay Campus Report: Strategic Business Plan and Marketing Strategy Positioning Richmond for Success, 47 which outlines a strategic business plan for the new Berkeley Global Campus that focuses on best practices for procurement as well as a marketing strategy for the City of Richmond. 48 Similar efforts could be made to follow-up on this type of research and work directly with local stakeholders in Richmond's food economy to support their sustainability, impact, and growth.
Local Vendoring and Procurement
The BGC could potentially provide a wide range of opportunities for local food businesses on its new campus. One approach to this would be to incentivize locally-owned food businesses and businesses owned by members of marginalized communities to contract with and become vendors on the new campus. These contracts should include responsible contracting policies to ensure that any and all food jobs ensure worker security, equity, and health. In so doing, the campus would create local jobs and opportunities to start new businesses that help support the local economy and social sustainability. The new campus can also institute a weekly farm stand and promote Community Supported Agriculture boxes on the new campus that feature local produce from organizations like Urban Tilth and other local growers in Contra Costa County. These farm stands could also implement a "Double Up Food Bucks" program so that customers can purchase goods with their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards to improve food access for low-income individuals. "Double Up Food Bucks" is a statewide incentive program that doubles the value of CalFresh benefits when used for fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets and grocery stores. An initiative like this would create a direct pathway for local farmers to sell to local residents while also providing whole, healthy foods to students, workers, staff, and faculty at the Berkeley Global Campus. Local Vendoring and Procurement The BGC could potentially provide a wide range of opportunities for local food businesses on its new campus. One approach to this would be to incentivize locally-owned food businesses and businesses owned by members of marginalized communities to contract with and become vendors on the new campus. These contracts should include responsible contracting policies to ensure that any and all food jobs ensure worker security, equity, and health. In so doing, the campus would create local jobs and opportunities to start new businesses that help support the local economy and social sustainability. The new campus can also institute a weekly farm stand and promote Community Supported Agriculture boxes on the new campus that feature local produce from organizations like Urban Tilth and other local growers in Contra Costa County. These farm stands could also implement a "Double Up Food Bucks" program so that customers can purchase goods with their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards to improve food access for low-income individuals. "Double Up Food Bucks" is a statewide incentive program that doubles the value of CalFresh benefits when used for fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets and grocery stores. An initiative like this would create a direct pathway for local farmers to sell to local residents while also providing whole, healthy foods to students, workers, staff, and faculty at the Berkeley Global Campus. V$√¢√¢ Local Vendoring and Procurement The BGC could potentially provide a wide range of opportunities for local food businesses on its new campus. One approach to this would be to incentivize locally-owned food businesses and businesses owned by members of marginalized communities to contract with and become vendors on the new campus. These contracts should include responsible contracting policies to ensure that any and all food jobs ensure worker security, equity, and health. In so doing, the campus would create local jobs and opportunities to start new businesses that help support the local economy and social sustainability. The new campus can also institute a weekly farm stand and promote Community Supported Agriculture boxes on the new campus that feature local produce from organizations like Urban Tilth and other local growers in Contra Costa County. These farm stands could also implement a "Double Up Food Bucks" program so that customers can purchase goods with their EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards to improve food access for low-income individuals. "Double Up Food Bucks" is a statewide incentive program that doubles the value of CalFresh benefits when used for fresh, locally-grown fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets and grocery stores. An initiative like this would create a direct pathway for local farmers to sell to local residents while also providing whole, healthy foods to students, workers, staff, and faculty at the Berkeley Global Campus.

A research team from the Johns Hopkins School of Health partnered with the city of Baltimore and local community organizations in the Baltimore Healthy Stores Project. The research helped identify structural barriers to food access and health and led to the formation of a program that aims to support the transition of corner stores to supply healthier and whole foods. UCSF has already been engaged in public health work in San Francisco through its San Francisco Health Improvement Partnerships (SF HIP). SF HIP is a collaborative effort between community-based organizations, researchers, local government, and clinics that aims to positively impact public health within low-income communities and communities of color. 49

The schools of public health at UC Berkeley and UCSF can provide experiential learning programs in local schools and at the new campus that could address intersections between food and health and find solutions to alleviate the negatives outcomes of the food system. Such programming might include linked learning opportunities and educational pathways in the field of public health.

Conclusion
Toward a more equitable food system
The above-mentioned proposals are simply a few of many possible strategies that would support existing and future solutions to the challenges of the current food system. By engaging in these issues, the BGC would be launching a new model for development that could be scaled up and adapted around the world. Food justice is an intersectional issue that cuts across health, economy, politics, and race. Examining the food system and understanding the structures that give shape to the growing inequality in the Bay Area, nation, and world helps bring about solutions that are urgently needed to imagine alternatives to ensure equity and sustainability. The planned international partnerships with universities from around the globe could also be of great benefit to such food initiatives; partner organizations would be able to contribute their solutions and practices that have worked in other neighborhoods, cities, and regions.

The food-related health challenges in Richmond are ones that many societies around the world are facing. In fact, statistics show that these food-related health challenges are growing at alarming rates. 50 Richmond's food system could benefit greatly from targeted policies and strategies that aim to do the following:

Alleviate the health impact of unhealthy foods;

Ensure food security with access to healthy, affordable and sustainably sourced foods;

Provide resources to raise awareness about food-related health issues to transform what and how people eat; and

Assess the relationship between other opportunity structures, including housing, transportation, and schools, and access to healthy food.

The potential for meaningful impact vis-a-vis community-oriented, practice-based research is tremendous, and a more formalized process-a steering committee or policy council-for collaboration among relevant stakeholders could streamline the process to advance these strategies. The urgency of existing challenges demands innovative thinking in partnership with local stakeholders; the opportunities for the Berkeley Global and the Global Food Initiative to engage in these kinds of partnerships and research could not come at a better time.

Appendix
Appendix A: Richmond's Food and Health-related Resources Bay Area Rescue Mission
The Rescue Mission helps meet the basic needs of hurting and homeless men, women, and children in the Bay Area with food and a clean, safe place to sleep.
CalFresh Richmond
The CalFresh Program, formerly known as Food Stamps and federally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), issues monthly electronic benefits that can be used to buy most foods at many markets and food stores.
City of Richmond Department of Health
The City of Richmond Health Initiatives team works with departments on implementing actions identified in the Community Health and Wellness Element of the Richmond General Plan 2030 and promotes systems and policy changes that support the development of healthy neighborhoods. The team aims to build the City and community's capacity to improve health outcomes and promote health equity. The team is comprised of staff from various City departments and works with key partners to reduce health disparities in Richmond.
City of Richmond Department of Planning
The Planning Division provides advice and technical expertise to assist public officials, public agencies, real estate professionals, business operators and residents in understanding key community issues and priorities related to land use. The Planning staff provides excellent customer service by creating public and private partnerships that foster economic vitality, environmental integrity and quality design for the City of Richmond.
City of Richmond, Mayor's Office
The Mayor's Office works with City Departments and community organizations and members to increase access to healthy, whole nutritious foods and works to increase access to green spaces in Richmond.
Communities United Restoring Mother Earth (CURME)
CURME is an urban gardening project, dedicated to facilitating the creation of an agricultural economy independent of the agribusiness commodities market, serving individuals, families, schools and organizations, training them to grow their own food and medicine in a way that restores the health of the land, the water, the people, and the community.
Earth Team (Richmond High School)
EarthTeam was formed in 2000 by a coalition of educational, environmental, and governmental representatives who saw a need to provide community-based, curriculum connected environmental programs for overwhelmed high school and middle school teachers who lacked the time or resources to create such programs. Many secondary school students and teachers felt disconnected from others of similar interest and discouraged by the lack of interest in environmental issues among the general student body. EarthTeam was created to support these teachers and students in connecting with each other, increasing knowledge of pressing environmental issues, and participating in hands-on educational projects.
EcoVillage Farm
EcoVillage Farm is a model for growing healthy youth and healthy communities. People are an important part of the environment and EcoVillage works to broaden the range of people involved in environmental and social justice work to include urban residents and people of various cultural backgrounds.
Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano Counties
Started in 1975, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano stores and distributes donated and purchased perishable and nonperishable food items. We distribute food directly to low-income people at community sites and make food available for other nonprofit organizations serving the ill, needy and children. The Food Bank works to reduce food waste, feed hungry people and raise public awareness of issues related to food and hunger.
Friends of the Richmond Greenway
Friends of the Richmond Greenway serves as a collaborative of local organizations and community members working together to transform the Richmond Greenway into a beautiful and healthy space that meets the needs of our community.
Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP)
GRIP is a diverse and inclusive coalition dedicated to helping those of our community in need to transition to self-sufficiency. GRIP has its Souper Center, which provides free, nutritious hot lunches to all hungry individuals and families, and provides shelter residents with three meals a day.
Groundwork Richmond
The mission of Groundwork Richmond is to bring about the sustained regeneration, improvement and management of the physical environment by developing community-based partnerships which empower people, businesses and organizations to promote environmental, economic and social well-being.
Ma'at Youth Academy
Ma'at Youth Academy is dedicated to providing environmental, economic and social justice strategies to urban and low-income communities by developing the leadership skills of its young people through education and participation in the process of producing meaningful change.
Planting Justice (PJ)
PJ works to address the structural inequalities inherent within the production, distribution, and consumption of industrial foods, specifically recognizing the issues of race, class, privilege, and oppression. PJ currently has a five acre farm in El Sobrante that will produce organic fresh food to be shared and sold off-site through retail outlets, farmers' market stands, restaurants, and though a neighborhood CSA box delivered directly to the adjacent community residents at various drop-off points.
Playndirt CropSwap and Garden
Playndirt provides the SW Outer Annex, a food desert in Richmond, with locally gleaned and grown produce for its residents.
Pogo Park
Pogo Park reclaims and transforms broken, underused parks in inner-city neighborhoods into safe, healthy, and vibrant outdoor spaces for children to play. These parks promote healthy child development and healthy community development.
Rich City Rides
Rich City RIDES formed in August 2012 to use cycling as a method to increase healthy activity, community skill building, build businesses, and create opportunities for the most vulnerable members of marginalized communities.
Richmond Emergency Food Pantry
The Richmond Emergency Food Pantry was established in 1971 and provides emergency food packages to those in need.
Richmond Food Policy Council
The Richmond Food Policy Council works to create a local, equitable, and sustainable food system based on regional agriculture that fosters the local economy and provides healthy affordable food for all people living in Richmond. The Richmond Food Policy Council is a ratified member of the California Food Policy Council.
Richmond Grows Seed Lending Library
Richmond Grows is a non-profit seed lending library located in the public library that provides free classes on organic gardening and seed saving.
Self-Sustaining Communities (SSC)
Self-Sustaining Communities works with low-income residents and community members to create wide-scale, environmentally sustainable local food production in distressed neighborhoods. An entirely volunteer organization, SSC has helped launch three urban farms in low income, high crime areas of Richmond since 2010. These projects have engaged a wide spectrum of the community, from the mayor to recently released offenders, in a "from-the-ground-up process" to reclaim and rejuvenate abandoned and blighted parcels and make them hubs of productivity.
Sunnyside Organic Seedlings
Sunnyside Organic Seedlings is a certified organic, wholesale nursery supplying the greater Bay Area with beautiful flats of high quality vegetable, herb and flower starts at excellent prices.
Urban Tilth (UT)
Urban Tilth cultivates agriculture in West Contra Costa County to help the community build a more sustainable, healthy, and just food system. UT hires and trains residents to work with schools, community-based organizations, government agencies, businesses, and individuals to develop the capacity to produce 5% of their food supply.
The Watershed Project
The Watershed Project is committed to inspiring Bay Area communities to understand, appreciate and protect local watersheds. The project works to restore and preserve the unique ecosystems that make up the San Francisco Bay and brings a watershed perspective to the urban environment, promoting green design and supporting natural cycles.
West Contra Costa County Unified School District Food Services Department
The West Contra Costa Unified School District Food Services Department is committed to providing healthy school meals and snacks to the students of the West Contra Costa School District. The team of dedicated food and nutrition professionals supports student academic success and promotes healthful eating habits that lead to lifelong positive nutrition practices.
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Richmond
WIC is a federally-funded health and nutrition program that helps pregnant and postpartum women, infants and children under 5 years old to eat healthy foods and live a healthy, active life.
Appendix B: UC Berkeley's Food-Related Resources Atkins Center for Weight and Health
The Atkins Center for Weight and Health (CWH) works with community groups to develop and evaluate programs to support healthy eating and active living, with a focus on children and families in diverse communities. CWH produces reports and engages in projects that can assist community partners in dealing with nutrition standards, diverse dimensions of obesity, and other related issues.
Bear Pantry
The Bear Pantry was founded in 2009 and is a donor-driven program that provides an emergency food supply to low- income UC Berkeley families with dependent children.
Berkeley Food Institute
The Berkeley Food Institute (BFI) catalyzes and supports transformative changes in food systems to promote diversity, justice, resilience, and health-from the local to the global. BFI envisions a world in which nutritious, affordable food is available for all and is produced sustainably and fairly-ensuring healthy people and a healthy planet. Over 80 faculty members from numerous disciplines are affiliated with the Institute.
Berkeley Food Pantry
The UC Berkeley Food Pantry is an emergency relief food supply for all UC Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students. The Food Pantry serves students who need core food support and is part of the campuswide food security program.
Berkeley Student Food Collective
The Berkeley Student Food Collective is dedicated to providing fresh, local, healthy, environmentally sustainable, and ethically produced food at affordable prices to the Berkeley campus and greater community.
Cal Dining
Cal Dining is dedicated to being an environmentally friendly organization. Cal Dining earned the title as the nation's first organic certified college kitchen, with two green certified dining halls, unused food donations, compost with campus cooperative, biodegradable to-go boxes, and more.
The Center for Diversified Farming Systems
The Center for Diversified Farming Systems is a research center affiliated with BFI that is focused on the study of a set of methods and tools to produce food sustainably by leveraging ecological diversity at several scales. The Center supports research on the costs and benefits of multi-functional agriculture, and to identify and help implement scientific solutions to the many challenges facing broad adoption of diversified farming systems.
College of Environmental Design
CED stands among the nation's top environmental design schools. It is one of the world's most distinguished laboratories for experimentation, research, and intellectual synergy.
College of Natural Resources
The College of Natural Resources (CNR) addresses biological, social, and economic challenges associated with protecting natural resources and the environment. CNR is home to four departments: Agricultural and Resource Economics; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Nutritional Science and Toxicology; and Plant and Microbial Biology.
Food Labor Research Center
Through the Food Labor Research Center, UC Berkeley is the first academic institution in the country to focus on the intersection of food and labor issues.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Precision Urban Agriculture Initiative
The Precision Urban Agriculture Initiative will seek to provide low-income urban populations direct access to local, healthy, sustainably produced vegetables at or below conventional market prices. The initiative will aim to grow healthy produce in urban centers using less resources (water, fertilizer and land) than conventional agriculture and no pesticides or herbicides.
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Predictive Agriculture Initiative
Berkeley Lab's Predictive Agricultural Initiative, as part of the UC Global Food Initiative launched in late 2014, focuses on mining existing data to understand the impacts of changing climate on California agriculture. For this project, in collaboration with UC Davis, Lab scientists work to develop new scientific approaches to increase food production, while simultaneously decreasing inputs of water and fertilizers.
Student Organic Garden Association
The Student Organic Garden, UC Berkeley's student farm, was created by students in 1971. In 1999 the Student Organic Gardening Association (SOGA) was formed to establish continuity of maintenance and support for the Student Organic Garden year round in order to provide a creative space for experiential agricultural education for the UC Berkeley student community and greater surrounding community.
UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources (ANR) is a statewide network of University of California researchers and educators dedicated to the creation, development and application of knowledge in agricultural, natural and human resources.
UC Berkeley Cooperative Extension
17 UCB faculty members are Cooperative Extension specialists who do research and carry our extension projects on food and agriculture issues, providing information to farmers, consumers, and other stakeholders and community members throughout California and beyond. These extension specialists are in the fields of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Environmental Science Policy & Management, Nutritional Science and Toxicology, and Plant and Microbial Biology.
UC Berkeley Gill Tract Farm
The Gill Tract is a plot of University-owned land in Albany (approximately 15 acres) that is used for agricultural experiments, and agroecology research and education, and formerly for biological control research. Part of the land has been used in activity with community members who are involved in participatory research and other urban farming efforts.
UC Berkeley School of Public Health
The UC Berkeley School of Public Health seeks to promote health, prevent suffering, and protect lives. The School's mission is to conduct world-class research; apply it to improve human health; develop diverse leaders; and enhance the health workforce through continuing education and assistance
UC Berkeley Sustainable Foodservice Working Group
The UC Berkeley Sustainable Foodservice Working Group was formed in 2009, and it works with campus foodservice operations and the campus at large to increase sustainability of food purchases and operations. Campus vendors continue to show progress in their purchasing patterns, reporting that 28% of the food purchases are considered sustainably produced as of 2012.
UC Global Food Initiative
UC President Janet Napolitano, together with UC's 10 chancellors, launched the UC Global Food Initiative in July 2014. Building on existing efforts and creating new collaborations among UC's 10 campuses, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and UC's Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, the initiative draws on UC's leadership in the fields of agriculture, medicine, nutrition, climate science, public policy, social science, biological science, humanities, arts, and law, among others. Its focus is both external, such as how UC translates research into policy and helps communities eat more sustainably, and internal, such as how UC leverages its collective buying power and dining practices to create desirable policies and outcomes.
The Urban Bee Lab
The Urban Bee Lab has been documenting bee diversity and bee frequencies on wild California plants in several northern California sites since 1987. Annual surveys include the Urban California Native Bee Survey, the Sonoma Bee Count, and the Costa Rica Bee Project.

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Food Justice & Community Health in Richmond

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This report is the culmination of more than three years of work in Richmond in partnership with local community leaders and organizations. It outlines strategies that can facilitate more engaged partnerships between UC Berkeley and surrounding Richmond community in order to realize transformational food system change.

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City of Richmond Community Health & Wellness Plan

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City of Richmond Community Health & Wellness Plan

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Issue Description & Potential Solutions