Welcome to Urban Habitat
Urban Habitat builds power in low-income communities and communities of color by combining education, advocacy, research and coalition building to advance environmental, economic and social justice in the Bay Area.
We envision a society where all people live in economically and environmentally healthy neighborhoods. Clean air, land and water are recognized as fundamental human rights. Meaningful employment honors a worker’s right to dignity and a living wage with benefits. Effective public transportation and land-use planning connect people to the resources, opportunities and services to thrive. Affordable housing provides a healthy and safe home for all. And quality education prepares visionary leaders to strengthen our democracy with new ideas, energy and commitment. [MORE]
Program Updates
Action Alert: Support Transit Operations!
Please ask your Congressperson to co-sponsor H.R. 2746 (Rep. Carnahan – MO)
This bill would help avert service cuts and fare hikes by transit operators by restoring federal funding for transit operations in larger cities. The measure also provides incentives for states like California to restore the funding for transit operations that was recently eliminated because of state budget deficits.
Talking Points Below (Feel free to cut and paste into an email.)
REDI Victory! Just Cause Ordinance Passes in Richmond
Tenants will be protected from unfair evictions when homes are foreclosed
"It's unfair for a tenant in good standing to be thrown out of their home because of a foreclosure that they could not prevent."
-Richmond City Council member, Dr. Jeff Ritterman
"We see tenants who have moved three to four times a year, from foreclosed property to foreclosed property, losing thousands in security deposits. It goes without saying that this legislation will provide tremendous relief to many of these individuals."
-Adam Poe, Staff Attorney, Bay Area Legal Aid
Everyone Has the Right to...
When President Franklin Roosevelt addressed the United States Congress in January 1941, he called for “a world founded upon four essential freedoms”—freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and freedom from want. Popular conceptions of rights at the time moved beyond the constitution’s narrow framing of civil and political rights to include basic social and economic rights.
When Roosevelt gave this speech, the depression still lingered on. The official figure for unemployment in California was at 11.7 percent. As it happens, in March 2009, California was once again facing an unemployment rate of over 11 percent, the highest since 1941. Today, the politics of fear and the ubiquity of want have many calling for a new “New Deal.” In this issue of Race, Poverty and the Environment we take a look at the kind of organizing needed to win social and economic rights for all.
As the current recession deepens, fundamental rights to housing, employment, healthcare, and safety continue to retract. As usual, low income people and communities of color bear the brunt of the economic crisis. Foreclosure and unemployment rates in African American communities are double the national averages. The tragic murder of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day in Oakland by a transit police officer is emblematic of how even straightforward civil rights to life and liberty are in daily jeopardy.
Related items:
Action Alert: Help Stop the Wasteful Oakland Airport Connector
Give back the $70 million in Federal Stimulus funds to desperate transit operators so they can provide for our everyday transportation needs!
What: BART Board Meeting
When:Thursday May 14th, 9am
Where: BART's Board Room: 344 20th Street, 3rd floor (at corner of Webster Street) in Downtown Oakland in building w/ Longs called the: Kaiser Center Mall
Don’t waste half a billion dollars of our taxes on a project we can’t afford
At a time when AC Transit, Muni, and BART are all so broke they are talking about raising fares and cutting service to pay their bills, BART wants to build an extension to the Oakland Airport so expensive to construct that it will cost $12 on top of BART fare to get to the airport. This extension would further divide up East Oakland, without providing residents with transportation (it would only stop at BART and the Airport) or long term jobs.
Community Groups Hold AC Board to It’s Promise: Youth, Senior and Disabled Monthly Passes Will Not Be Raised
On Wednesday March 11th, dozens of East Bay bus riders, community leaders, and transit advocates waited through a four-hour AC Transit meeting to urge the Board to keep its promise to voters that the price for discounted monthly passes for youth, seniors and the disabled would stay at their current cost for at least 2 years if Measure VV passed. VV was overwhelmingly approved last November.
In spite of the Board’s pledge, AC’s staff had proposed that the AC Transit Board back-out on its promise and nearly double the youth monthly pass from $15/month to $28/month and the senior/disabled monthly pass from $20/month to $28/month to help cover AC’s growing budget shortfall.
After over an hour long debate by the Board about just how bad AC Transit’s finances are (the deficit over the next two years could be anywhere between $35 million and $60 million), the Board unanimously rejected the staff recommendation to raise the youth, senior and disabled monthly discounted passes, citing the promise they had made to voters and bus riders last Fall. They also recognized that raising these passes would create incredible hardship for the riders least able to afford any increase at this time and that it would raise very little additional revenue for AC. (And because of the budget situation, the Board did vote to raise the adult cash fare from $1.75 to $2.00 and the youth/sr/disabled cash fare from $.85 to $1.00.)
