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Bay Area Air Quality Management District Community Focus is the regional coordinator for the now Bay Area wide commuter challenge, The Great Race for Clean Air. Community Focus manages the engagement aspect of the Great Race, distributing outreach fliers and participatory certificates and trophies, as well as organizing the celebration lunches and trophy presentations in front of local Boards of Supervisors. Bay Area Air Quality Management District The Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s Spare the Air Employer Program is a network of local employers who are interested in maintaining healthy local air quality. Community Focus manages the database and orchestrates events and newsletters to educate members and link them to resources that facilitate greening their places of work. Hope Through Housing Hope Through Housing is a nonprofit organization that works in partnership with National Community Renaissance—an affordable housing developer—to provide quality, relevant social services on-site in decent and safe affordable housing communities. Community Focus worked with Hope Through Housing (HTH) to develop a model for HTH activities in other developments around the country. Community Focus worked in partnership with City of Fairfield staff and HTH to develop a community collaborative to assess social services needs in the community, and engaged local service providers to bring much needed social services into the community of South PACE in the City of Fairfield. California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley Community Focus was part of the California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley, addressing air quality in environmental justice communities. The project was a two-pronged approach to improving local air quality. We worked to engage local communities on specific programs designed to reduce air pollution; “Clean Green Yard Machines” and “Burn Cleaner.” We also worked with local governments to incorporate green and sustainable practices into their operations. Community Focus' role was to prepare the cities to move forward on specific air quality related projects by connecting them to available resources and facilitating collaboration between three environmental justice communities. Community Focus hosted workshops and developed a blog site which included information gathered at the workshops, and dozens of resources including webpage links, funding sources and contacts that can be shared with other San Joaquin Valley cities. National Policy Consensus Center California Solutions, a partnership between Community Focus and the National Policy Consensus Center, was a demonstration/testing of a collaborative problem-solving process piloted in Oregon. The California Solutions process focuses on city-level community engagement on a single issue for a relatively brief (6-8 month) period. Community Focus selected the community of Los Altos as a pilot site for California Solutions. The process in Los Altos, convened by the city's mayor, focused on finding a more permanent location for the local day worker center.
Partnering with the Alliance for Regional Stewardship, Community Focus is facilitating a panel of national experts to explore options for improving economic and tax policy in the St. Louis, Missouri region. The panel is being convened by the Metropolitan Forum, a coordinated effort among government, business and civic leaders dedicated to helping the St. Louis region compete and thrive. Community Focus assisted the City of Menlo Park, California with the development and implementation of a community engagement process which gave all the residents of Menlo Park the opportunity to participate in balancing the city’s budget. Through a detailed survey and community workshops, residents communicated their funding priorities for city services and budget-balancing strategies. Rooted in the principles of deliberative democracy, key elements of this process included broad, informed citizen participation; opportunity for deliberation; and methodological strength provided through a random sample survey. Community Focus provided expertise in group process, navigating political challenges, building support, community engagement, outreach, and translation of the city budget into a community-accessible format. Environmental Justice and Air Quality (2002-2010) Community Focus is assisting the Bay Area Air Quality Management District in partnering with environmental activists and community residents around issues of environmental justice related to air quality. Projects include forming resource teams to do community-based projects and facilitating a process to improve the Air District complaint procedures.
Partnering with the American Lung Association of California, Community Focus is working with county health departments around the state to develop community-based coalitions of nonprofit organizations and local residents to pass and enforce tobacco-free policies. Community Focus conducts trainings and provides technical assistance to the coalitions in strategy development and community organizing.
Community Focus facilitates air quality resource teams (comprised
of civic, environmental and business leaders) in each San Francisco
Bay Area county. For over 15 years, these resource teams have
been working as the Air District’s partners to disseminate
the clean air message directly to communities, creating a “clean
air ethic.” The resource teams also provide contributions
(money, expertise and in-kind support) to the campaign.
The Beacon Initiative is a public-private partnership that promotes youth and family centers in San Francisco public schools. Community Focus provided technical assistance to the Beacon Centers to strengthen their community involvement and connection to the neighborhoods in which they are located and helped create a set of best practices for community engagement.
The Strong Neighborhoods Initiative is a partnership of the City of San Jose California, San Jose Redevelopment Agency and the community to build clean, safe, and attractive neighborhoods with independent and capable neighborhood organizations. Community Focus helped the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative Project Area Committee (PAC) develop a vision for the future and assisted the PAC with strategic planning.
Community Focus provided technical assistance to the Peninsula Youth Development Movement, a coalition of nonprofit organizations and local government agencies that came together to promote adult-youth partnerships to better meet the needs of adolescents in San Mateo County, California. The technical assistance included planning and facilitating Steering Committee and subcommittee meetings and advising on coalition-building strategies.
Community Focus worked with community members in two neighborhoods in San Jose, California to explore ways to provide neighborhood youth with positive alternatives to gang membership. The resource team created a plan for a community-based and community-run youth mentoring program that would use the resources of Silicon Valley businesses.
Community Focus helped create a plan to assist people in San
Francisco in meeting the transportation challenges involved in
transitioning from welfare to work. Partnering with Nelson\Nygaard
Consulting Associates, a transportation planning firm, Community
Focus conducted interviews and facilitated meetings with stakeholders,
including welfare-to-work clients, transit agencies, social service
providers, employers, and government agencies.
This project, in partnership with the Youth Leadership Institute, brought together resource teams of adolescent girls in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties. The Millennium Girls developed projects to promote healthy behaviors among their peers and younger girls.
Community Focus assisted the City of Sunnyvale California with facilitating a community involvement process to create a vital downtown center. This process included neighborhood and “town hall” meetings to get input from residents, business owners, employees and current and potential “customers” of the downtown area.
Community Focus founded the California Lavender Smokefree Project, a statewide coalition to counteract tobacco industry advertising in the lesbian and gay community. Community Focus facilitated resource teams in San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento, Los Angeles, and San Diego that created and implemented projects to promote a smokefree lifestyle and make people aware of tobacco advertising and promotion strategies in their communities. Community Focus also coordinated a statewide advertising and media campaign and a special outreach effort involving lesbian and gay youth.
Community Focus facilitated an eight-month process that engaged city officials, local business leaders and community activists in South San Francisco, California in a city-wide discussion to identify problems and develop a plan to work together to create solutions.
Community Focus facilitated meetings of community members to plan and implement a process to solicit input on a plaza in the Centerville neighborhood in Fremont, California.
Community Focus coordinated a project with the San Diego Air Pollution Control District and Chula Vista Junior High School. The project involved developing hands-on environmental curricula and activities for students, including working with students and parents to coordinate school carpools. Community Focus coordinated a grassroots coalition comprised of representatives from the Asian/Pacific Islander, African-American, Latino, and lesbian/gay communities. The coalition, through an extensive education and media campaign, developed and garnered support for tobacco-free “model ordinances”, which led to passage of legislation against smoking in public places and the drafting of legislation to limit youth access to tobacco products.
Community Focus facilitated the formation meetings of the South Bay Coalition, a group of public agency and business representatives in southern San Diego County, to plan strategies for reducing car trips and improve air quality
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional San Francisco Bay Area agency responsible for transportation planning, overhauled its Regional Transportation Plan, a long-range transportation blueprint for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. Community Focus set up and facilitated community meetings to gather input on the Plan and to generally broaden public participation in the transportation planning process. Community Focus helped the City of San Jose and the City of Fremont obtain input from the community on each city’s upcoming garbage collection and recycling services plan. In each city, Community Focus set up and facilitated a series of community meetings, recorded and analyzed comments from the public, and presented a summary report to the respective city councils. In Fremont, Community Focus also developed a public opinion survey to obtain quantitative information from the residents.
Community Focus helped create and then coordinated the San Francisco Transitional Housing Fund, a project that united donors and developers to build transitional housing for the homeless in San Francisco. The Transitional Housing Fund allowed individuals to deposit money in a 5-year CD at 2% interest for the purpose of supporting nonprofit transitional housing development.
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| Copyright © 2006 Community Focus, a project of the Tides Center |