Community-Led Economic Development Is the JUST Path Forward

In 2020 Just San Bernardino (JUST SB) Collaborative, a group of nine community-based organizations in the City of San Bernardino, came together with a mission to develop and build power for a new inclusive economic development model. We were motivated by San Bernardino’s long history of unplanned economic development dominated by outside logistics and real estate interests, corruption, recalls of city officials, systemic racism and rampant police violence—all of which have kept our communities, and the larger San Bernardino region, unstable and under-resourced. We believed wholeheartedly that our leaders could, and should, work harder to ensure sustained economic mobility for all of us. So, as a community, we created a roadmap to show them how to get it done.

The City of San Bernardino is the largest city in San Bernardino County with a population of 222,101. The county itself is the largest by geography in the nation, and together with Riverside County, represents a population of 4.6 million people in the Inland Empire region of California, one of the fastest growing populations in the U.S. In 2020, during the worst of the pandemic in California, JUST SB engaged more than 4,200 people living, working, or going to school or church in San Bernardino and Riverside counties in a Participatory Action Research (PAR) project.

The aim of the effort, which included surveys, focus groups, interviews and listening sessions, was to better understand the immediate and longer term concerns of community members and residents around the educational system, local government, environmental justice, affordable housing, jobs and the local criminal justice system.

With the support of The Inland Empire Community Foundation, JUST SB Collaborative was able to come together to envision how to place San Bernardino’s historically under-resourced community members in the center of our development plan. By beginning with PAR, JUST SB intentionally shifted power into the hands of community members.

by Ness Ilene Garza

by Ness Ilene Garza

The development of the survey questions, outreach, and community engagement were all done in collaboration with residents and community members who have been living with the consequences of San Bernardino’s history of disenfranchisement. The result is The People’s Plan for Economic Inclusion (The Plan), which utilizes local, grassroots-based engagement methods and solutions to economic development that are focused on sustainable and community-owned job creation.

The Plan includes publicly funded and supported arts and culture opportunities and experiences :

Artist and creative industry worker development
Experience and exposure to impactful careers in growing industries for students
Environmental regulations to eliminate polluting industries and proactive investments to improve air and water quality.
Collectively owned land and real estate development projects. Entrepreneurship and job opportunities and housing for all.

Together, we created an actionable, achievable vision for the future that can shift development efforts from outside interests and employers, to ones that keep wealth and resources in the community.

The Plan will function as a roadmap for leaders and decision-makers, but equally as important is the community’s utilization of the plan as an organizing and policy development tool. Because developing a plan, and seeing it pass through legislatures that have been historically unaligned with the needs of its community members, are two very different things. And to realize the latter requires continued efforts to build community power and influence.

Residents in San Bernardino are continuously faced with poor air quality, health issues, and displacement from the ongoing expansion of the logistics industry, and other huge multi-use development projects. In the past decade, warehouse development has drastically grown in the Inland Empire. Currently, there are over 20 million square feet of warehouse space added every year within the region, and 80% of all warehouses in Southern California are located in zip codes where people of color predominantly live. The Plan provides community members with tools like Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) that can be used when new developments are proposed, to create opportunities for labor, affordable housing, community safety, and better health outcomes.

For example, a coalition of JUST SB members and other community groups are developing a CBA for the new downtown San Bernardino Carousel Mall development. We are advocating against the displacement of existing residents, urging the inclusion of 25% affordable housing, and providing stipulations for local hiring. The CBA comic book we created makes understanding CBAs accessible to anyone throughout the county, and our CBA toolkit can be used by any coalition or community group to help them organize their own CBA effort.

San Bernardino County is geographically large, and our residents have been excluded from the decision-making realm for so long that our democracy has eroded. Our work now, to take The Plan from paper to becoming our future, is education on the policy issues and opportunities, organizing residents and community members to build power that can influence change, and building momentum with small wins.

Like the Inland Empire Community Foundation, Philanthropic entities working in communities everywhere — especially community foundations — have a role to play. These entities know the work that frontline organizations are doing and can proactively convene local groups to support community-led collaborative action. Over longer time horizons, philanthropy can play a critical role by investing in community organizing, power building, and resource access initiatives that amplify the voices of our most under-resourced and under-represented groups.

Community-led, collaborative efforts like ours take time and aren’t always smooth sailing, but with determination and support, they will create the conditions for everyone to achieve economic mobility and moreover, will strengthen democracy.

This is the JUST path forward.

Just San Bernardino Collaborative represents a range of organizations at various capacities involved in economic mobility, grassroots organizing and power building, community development, and racial equity work in San Bernardino and the broader Inland Empire regions. Our eight organizations include Arts Connection - the Arts Council of San Bernardino, BLU Education Foundation, Congregations Organized for Prophetic Engagement (C.O.P.E.), Inland Congregations United for Change (ICUC), Inland Empire Labor Council (IELC), People’s Collective for Environmental Justice (PC4EJ), Time for Change Foundation (TFCF), Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC).

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This content was paid for by The James Irvine Foundation and created by The JUST SB Collaborative. The editorial staff at The Chronicle had no role in its preparation. Find out more about paid content.