A Better Life for Low-Income Residents = A Better Life For Everyone Else
The current social unrest in our community, our city, our nation and our planet shows that inequalities in our society, as well as those in other countries across the globe, have not been adequately addressed. Even here at home in America’s Finest City, these issues are still as relevant today as they were in decades past. As the efforts of the Black Lives Matter protests have now gained the momentum needed to help bring about significant change, we all need to do what we can to help balance the scales, especially for people of color.
This is where Community Equity comes in.
Community Equity is about infusing the money and resources necessary to provide low-income communities with the same advantages and benefits that are afforded to higher-income communities. Community Equity is where community-based, nonprofit organizations work together with community leaders, grant giving foundations, businesses and government agencies to make investments and improvements that bring about transformative change in low-income communities.
Community Equity focuses on 6 key areas:
- Health Equity
- Education Equity
- Economic Equity
- Energy Equity
- Environmental Equity
- Technology Equity
By addressing these key areas, we can help uplift a community by:
- Decreasing barriers to advancement through home and business ownership.
- Ensuring that residents are given affordable access to energy-efficient, environmentally friendly technology that will allow them to have fair pricing for household utilities, fuel and other goods and services.
- Providing residents with comparable access to healthy food, clean water, clean air, healthcare, education and training resources, employment opportunities, and timely upgrades and repairs in community infrastructure, as afforded to those in the more affluent communities of our city.
- Transforming low-income neighborhoods into healthy, safe, affordable, pollution-free spaces where residents can experience and enjoy long, healthy and productive lives.
Not only does community equity help improve communities in our city, it helps improve our city, and our society as a whole.
According to an Entreprenuer.com article in July of 2014, the United States loses $1.3 Trillion in productivity each year due to a lack of digital technology skills. In 2018, Deloitte and the Manufacturing Institute issued a joint report, 2018 Skills Gap Study, showing that 2.4 million jobs will likely go unfilled over the next decade with a $2.5 Trillion loss in U.S. productivity from 2018 to 2028.
America is falling behind and needs something to supercharge its future. We can no longer afford to solely rely on the 60% of students from U.S. schools that in reside in middle class to affluent areas to get us over the hump. We need to invest comparable resources in STEM education for the 40% of U.S. students (25% in urban schools + 15% of in rural schools) at the lower end of the income bracket to stay competitive in the global market.
If we, as Americans, can not lift standards for all schools across the board, we will continue to fall down in the rankings of an ever-expanding digital world. Resting our fate on the 60% of our future is not going to cut it. We need to achieve parity in education and foster safe, nurturing environments where all of our young people can thrive. Building community equity in low-income communities is our best chance to propel us back into upper echelon of developed nations. It will also help us lower taxpayer funding of programs for crime prevention and punishment, drug abuse, housing, physical and mental health issues and financial safety net services.
Over the next three blogs, we will give an insider’s look at some of our programs so you can gain better insight into how Groundwork San Diego is doing our part to help improve community equity in the Chollas Creek Watershed Community. In the next blog, we will talk about our EarthLab Education Initiative and how it helps students, from ages 8-18, realize possible career paths by exposing them to STEM career professionals and climate science. The third blog in this series will show how our Community Outreach Program uses technology to teach residents about technology that can help them save money and the environment. The fourth blog will cover some of our larger infrastructure programs that help pave the way for the health and safety of future generations and give current residents the opportunity to enjoy where they live.
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Programs like the ones offered by Groundwork San Diego are vitally important to the Chollas Creek Watershed Community. These programs are made possible through the support of our funders and individuals in the community who care enough to help us further our efforts.
If you would like to help us continue these efforts by donating a charitable gift, press the “donate” button on the menu bar at the top of this webpage. For additional information about our organization and its programming, give us a call at (619) 543-0430 or email us at groundworker@groundworksandiego.org.
