North Richmond has long faced some of the highest pollution burdens in California, from the Chevron refinery and nearby landfill to illegal dumping, truck traffic, and limited access to fresh food, healthcare, and stable housing. And for too long, decisions about investments in this neighborhood have been made by people and institutions outside of it.

The project, North Richmond at the Table: Bringing Just Transition to Life, is working to change that.

This work is organized around three interconnected goals:

1. Improving the health and resiliency of North Richmond through community-identified projects that shift us away from the extractive economy that has harmed our neighborhood and toward a regenerative one, where clean air, local jobs, food access, and community ownership are the foundation.
2. Building resident leadership and decision-making power so that community members actively shape what happens, not just respond to it
3. Collective fundraising to move priority projects from vision to reality

This project was made possible through the generous support of our partners, performers, and community contributors: The Watershed Project, Community Housing Development Corporation, Supervisor John Gioia’s Office, Contra Costa County Sustainability Department, Richmond LAND, Corrine Sain Senior & Family Community Center, Verde Elementary, UC Berkeley, Paloma Aspe, Malikah Gordon, Ronald Glenn, Son de la Tierra, DJ Gary, Arnette Cheri, Antojitos Guatemaltecos, Raleys & Partner Driver, and Krishna and Prime Copy.

Our first initiative: Not for Us, Without Us!

Overview

In early 2026, Urban Tilth’s Just Transition program launched a community engagement process called Not for Us, Without Us! designed to ensure that North Richmond residents directly shaped decisions about investments and projects affecting their neighborhood.

Rather than presenting predetermined solutions, the process created space for residents to define priorities based on lived experience and collective knowledge.

Community Outreach and Research

The process began with a simple but important realization: multiple plans and proposals already shape North Richmond, but most residents have never had meaningful access to them or real opportunities to influence how they are implemented.

Organizers worked with researchers and community-based partners to translate dense technical planning materials (including the Richmond Parkway Plan, Pathway to Clean Air, the Healthy Contra Costa Quality of Life Plan, and city and county climate action plans) into an accessible community review process.

Projects were organized into six focus areas:

1. Active transportation
2. Economic development and green jobs
3. Air pollution and health
4. Housing
5. Climate resilience
6. Transportation and infrastructure

Rather than evaluating projects by technical metrics, residents were asked to consider: Will this improve air quality? Expand job opportunities? Strengthen housing stability? Meaningfully improve daily life?

What’s next?

Resident Leaders

One of the clearest messages from the engagement process was this: people don’t just want to vote once, they want to stay involved.

In response, the North Richmond Resiliency Coalition is launching a Resident Leaders cohort. This group will play an active role in guiding the implementation of projects, holding partners and agencies accountable, and ensuring that the community’s vision stays centered as projects move through funding, planning, and construction.

Resident Leaders will receive training and capacity-building support, learning how to engage with city and county processes, track project development, and speak up in spaces where key decisions are made.

Programming around this effort is still taking shape, and updates will be shared as they develop.
A training opportunity through CHDC is planned for May 2026.

Collective Fundraising

North Richmond has long faced overlapping threats to our health, our environment, and our economic stability, threats that were not created by us.  Yet we are determined to dismantle them together. We believe the path forward is collective. That means refusing to let systems of scarcity pit neighbor against neighbor, all of us scrambling for the same limited resources while the root causes go unaddressed.

When we apply for funding together as a coalition, we are doing something more than filling out a funding opportunity. We are saying that our power is greatest when it is shared, that our struggles are not separate but one movement with many arms. That Funders see a united front.. And we see each other as partners, not competitors.

Collective funding also means that when resources arrive, they are distributed across the full community of change we are building, not siloed in one place while others go without. A win for one of us is a win for all of us. 

We are moving these projects together, centering the priorities our community voted for. We are not waiting for someone to save us. We are building the table ourselves  and making sure everyone has a seat at it.

Coming Soon

Before the end of May, we will be creating and posting individual project pages for all 58 projects. Each project page will have its own photo, description, lead partner, cost information. It will also be updated regularly on funding efforts, timelines, and next steps.