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Achieving Equity and Inclusion in America:
Policy Principles for the Obama Administration and New Congress

The 2008 presidential election was a clarion call to restore the promise of America as a place where all can participate and prosper.

As President Obama and the new Congress develop and implement priorities, policies, and programs, the needs of our nation’s most vulnerable people and communities must be at the center of planning for the future. In these troubling times—characterized by a shaky economy, the foreclosure crisis, rapidly rising prices for everyday goods like food and gas—-it is low-income people and communities of color that are suffering the most. In this country, 37 million people live in poverty, another 50 million live below 200 percent of the poverty level, and millions more are just one layoff, one health crisis, or one family emergency from poverty’s door.

PolicyLink offers the following principles as a framework to guide federal decision-making, to maximize the return on national investment for all Americans, especially low-income people and communities of color. These principles reflect the knowledge and experience PolicyLink has developed through its decade-long partnership with local leaders working to foster economic and social inclusion in communities across America.

These principles will require the federal government to undertake policymaking in a way that reflects the interconnectedness of issues in communities. While federal programs, agencies, and funding are organized around specific categories--transportation, housing, health and human services--to maximize the benefits for communities, linkages must be forged across program and funding silos.

PolicyLink urges the New Administration and Congress to embed these principles into a new generation of federal policy to achieve equity in America:

  1. Sustain the deep levels of democratic participation and civic engagement shown during the 2008 presidential election campaign. In the midst of enormous economic challenges, Americans have demonstrated a renewed interest in civic participation. Millions of new voters were added to the rolls in this election season and have participated in the electoral process in online and offline communities across the country. Such a surge in democratic participation can be a positive force for sustained social change, but it needs committed leadership from the highest ranks of government for support and inspiration. We urge the new administration to establish an Office of Civic Engagement to lead an unprecedented and much-needed expansion of civil society.
  2. Build an economy that expands opportunity for struggling families and revitalizes distressed communities. The Obama Administration and Congress will need to develop both short- and long-term solutions to steer the nation out of the current economic crisis. All federal efforts focused on economic recovery should create pathways for lower-income people to participate in the economy and bring needed investment to distressed communities. One vehicle for expanding opportunity for individuals, while improving the places in which they live, is through targeted and equitable federal investment in the nation’s core infrastructure such as our public transit system, bridges, highways, schools, broadband lines, and more. More investment alone will not promote shared economic prosperity. The federal government must prioritize infrastructure projects that: target dollars in a manner that sparks revitalization in distressed urban and rural areas; create or retain quality jobs; and expand training opportunities for disadvantaged people to participate in construction careers.
  3. Make affordable housing available to all, recognizing its historic role as a gateway to opportunity and asset-building. The federal solution to the foreclosure crisis must focus beyond the effects on the banking industry. With the crisis still gaining steam, solutions must stabilize lower-income families and neighborhoods that have been hardest hit. Federal policy should keep families in their home by expanding efforts to restructure mortgages, imposing a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures for good faith payment efforts, and allowing renters to stay in foreclosed properties. Federal policy should also stabilize neighborhoods that have the highest concentration of foreclosures by increasing resources to states, localities, and community-serving institutions to purchase foreclosed properties and turn them into affordable ownership and rental opportunities. To ensure stability in the housing markets over the long-term, we fair and transparent regulation of all financial institutions engaged in mortgage lending are necessities.
  4. Invest in building strong, healthy neighborhoods across America. All Americans must have access to high quality health care. In addition, where you live dramatically impacts health, well-being, and shapes life chances. We urge the New Administration and Congress to enact policies that ensure that all communities—-whether urban, suburban, or rural—have good schools, healthy food retail opportunities, safe and appealing places for physical activity; and an efficient transportation options.