Seven LA-based organizations will receive funding to advocate for parks, mobility, and food security to support healthy childhood development.

Prevention Institute is excited to announce the inaugural cohort of the Built Environment Policy Advocacy Fund (BEPAF), an initiative funded by First 5 LA and managed by PI. Following a highly competitive application process, seven organizations were selected to receive grants to support resident leaders and coalitions in shaping neighborhood conditions for children 0-5 and their families in Los Angeles County. BEPAF grantees will advocate for policies and procedures to increase access to parks and open space, safe walking and biking routes, public transit options, healthy food, and resources and opportunities for children and families living in communities that have experienced historical disinvestment. This initiative is part of First 5 LA’s mission to ensure that all children in Los Angeles County enter Kindergarten ready to succeed.
 
Kicking off a new policy advocacy initiative during a global pandemic presents challenges, but this extraordinary time also brings new opportunities and new urgency to the work. The COVID-19 pandemic has magnified the need for equitable systems, healthy and safe environments, strong partner networks, and secure families. Through the Built Environment Policy Advocacy Fund, grantees will be able to support their communities’ immediate needs while also changing the ways they collaborate and advocate so that families have the policies, systems, and environments that support their health and wellbeing.
 
The BEPAF grantees are:

• Alliance for Community Transit – Los Angeles, in partnership with East LA Community Corporation and Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, will lead a new LA County-wide campaign for transit justice that builds the power of low-income residents to shape policies and funding decisions. The coalition will organize parents and residents in East LA and Koreatown, developing their skills to become effective leaders and spokespeople in the transit justice campaign.
   
• Community Coalition will apply its renowned model of community organizing and power-building to the issue of park equity. Community Coalition will cultivate knowledge, agency, and leadership among low-income African American and Latino residents of South LA to influence public policies—including tax and fiscal reform—to improve parks, open space, and recreation areas in their neighborhoods.
   
• Investing in Place, in partnership with East Side Riders Bike Club, Los Angeles Walks, and South Central LAMP, will advance the Moms and Mobility project in South Central LA, Watts, and other South LA neighborhoods. Recognizing that women and their young children face access and safety barriers as they travel to school, work, medical providers, grocery stores, parks, and other destinations, Moms and Mobility will combine new data and new voices from women to influence policy and public investments for a more equitable transportation system.
   
• Just Environment Long Beach will organize and build power among Long Beach residents to develop a community-led “Green Zones” strategy. These Green Zones will transform areas overburdened by pollution, disinvestment, and unhealthy land uses into healthy, thriving, stabilized neighborhoods, with parks, open space, and safe mobility as key priorities.
   
• Promesa Boyle Heights, in partnership with Pacoima Beautiful, From Lot 2 Spot, Advancement Project California, The Wilderness Society, and other Park Equity Alliance partners, will organize residents in neighborhoods across East LA, the Northeast San Fernando Valley, and Southeast LA County, to engage in policy- and systems-change advocacy for parks and open space, and strengthening community-led oversight of Measure A implementation.
   
• Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles will engage communities across East LA, South LA, and Southeast LA County to take on the intersectional issues of increasing access to parks and open space while protecting children and their families from toxic exposures. The TIERRA project will produce a policy agenda and related tools to facilitate proactive contamination remediation as an essential element of community-driven efforts to increase safe access to parks and other green space.
   
• United Parents and Students will increase equitable food access in low-income communities by improving the quality of existing grocery stores, enabling and equipping entrepreneurs to focus on healthy and affordable food, and increasing the number of large-scale, high-quality grocery stores that locate in neighborhoods across South LA, East LA, and Southeast LA County. 

PI is honored to work with these grantees and First 5 LA to support early childhood development through advocacy for healthy, safe, and equitable communities. We look forward to keeping you updated as the BEPAF initiative unfolds, and as our partners make change in their communities.

*Photo credit: First 5 LA.