California

PolicyLink is engaged in a wide variety of policy campaigns, partnerships, and research projects throughout the state of California. From the San Francisco Bay Area to unincorporated regions in the San Joaquin Valley to the state policy arena in Sacramento, PolicyLink is committed to Lifting Up What Works® in California, connecting local communities to the policymaking process, and promoting economic and social equity statewide.

Economic Recovery:

• The California Green Stimulus Coalition includes dozens of California's most influential and respected environmental, economic and social justice, organized labor and workforce development organizations. Collectively these groups work to ensure that California’s recovery program advances the Coalition’s guiding principles: 1) invest in a green future, 2) invest in people and communities, 3) invest in long term gain, 4) invest in justice, and 5) invest in open.
  
  PolicyLink provides leadership to the Coalition in a variety of ways:
  • Working to ensure that the Coalition’s principles effectively address the needs of California’s low-income and communities of color most impacted by the economic crisis. 
  • Serving as the team leader for the Green Workforce Development and Education working group, regularly convening Coalition members to develop a coordinated strategy to impact how workforce development resources are allocated.
  • In collaboration with coalition partners, PolicyLink provides recommendations to members of the California legislature, the Governor’s staff, the California Energy Commission, the California Department of Community Services and Development, the Green Collar Jobs Council and to a variety of other public agencies engaged in recovery work.

The PolicyLink Center for Health and Place:

• Works with Richmond city officials, Contra Costa County Health Services, and other stakeholders to examine environmental and physical conditions affecting residents’ health and to create a General Plan to address those conditions. Read more on our Land Use and Community Health page.
• Provides technical assistance and training in policy, advocacy, and communications to Community Action to Fight Asthma -- 12 local coalitions drawn from northern, southern, and central California that are participating in this statewide initiative to fight childhood asthma.
• Serves as program directors for the Healthy Eating Active Living Convergence Partnership, which supports regional efforts around the country to improve healthy eating active living environments. The California Convergence is a comprehensive, place-based program focused on changing nutrition and physical activity environments.
• Provides policy advice to Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAC) coalitions in Baldwin Park (Los Angeles County), Chula Vista (San Diego County), Oakland (Alameda County), Santa Ana (Orange County), South LA (Los Angeles County), South Shasta (South Shasta County). HEAC’s aim is to create momentum for widespread changes in policies and practices that contribute to the rising rates of childhood obesity.
• Collaborates with partners to develop a plan for the expansion and sustainability of the San Joaquin River Parkway; the plan will focus on increasing access to green space and infrastructure equity principles. Read more on our Parks and Urban Greening page.

PolicyLink Center for Infrastructure Equity:

• Partners with the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation to synthesize key learnings regarding San Diego’s Market Creek Plaza development; and to educate funders, practitioners, and policymakers about the policy implications of the project -- one of the nation's first real estate development projects to be designed, built, and ultimately owned by community residents.
• Provides policy recommendations to organizations working to improve the conditions in San Joaquin Valley’s unincorporated communities. PolicyLink and the Community Equity Initiative supports Senate Bill 194, which would increase the allocation of resources for unincorporated communities and the accountability of county governments toward these communities.
• Advocates for strengthening and expanding workforce-training capacity in California’s community colleges, so that the state’s under-skilled workers can benefit from employment in the infrastructure, green jobs, and other high-growth sectors. Read more on our Workforce Development and Community Colleges page.
• Focuses on developing equitable principles to link land use, housing, and transit-oriented development in Richmond, San Diego, and Oakland through the Development without Displacement project. PolicyLink serves as technical advisor with Berkeley’s Center for Community Innovation. Read more on our Transit Oriented Development page.