About

Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates, established in 1994, is a grassroots organization founded, governed, and operated by long-term members of the vulnerable Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood in San Francisco. Our programs combine community organizing with education, advocacy, and direct services. We seek to build the neighborhood’s capacity as a self-determining, fully autonomous force for social change in today’s San Francisco.

The Advocates’ work has always connected residents with environmental justice issues in our neighborhood, seeking to increase community participation in environmental decision-making and to build skills in the community to support a cleaner environmental future.

The longstanding history of broken promises in Bayview Hunters Point underscores the need for an organized, unified community voice to shape important public issues. Our organization’s primary areas of focus are the adverse health impacts experienced by neighborhood residents due to poor air, soil, and water quality; crisis-level displacement pressures; and under-employment.

We aim to help Black people and immigrants remain and thrive in Bayview Hunters Point by taking strategic action to slow and reverse the rapid displacement of diverse working class populations from San Francisco. Through environmental advocacy as well as workforce and economic development, we hope to preserve the diversity of our historic neighborhood.

We have launched several programs in recent years in the following areas:

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

  • Southeast Community Council: The Southeast Community Council, composed of residents from diverse local neighborhoods who are paid a stipend for their participation, is designed to train and empower residents to take on significant roles in a safer and healthier community. The ultimate goal of the initiative is to build knowledge and power in Bayview Hunters Point regarding environmental, land use, and economic development decisions, which have historically increased inequality and cultural disruption.
  • Community Toxic Index: Community Toxic Index trains and supports Bayview-Hunters Point residents in document and data collection, analysis and mapping; ethnographies; and community empowerment. It is the neighborhood’s own effort to document and map environmental exposures, engage historical populations of residents and workers in Bayview Hunters Point, and build an accessible library of local environmental racism and potential mitigation measures.
  • Community Emissions Reduction Plan (CERP):
    • BVHPCA is a core leader in Southeast SF’s fight for a serious reduction in air pollution in our neighborhoods. In 2017, California State Assembly Member Cristina Garcia authored Assembly Bill 617 (AB 617) to address air pollution impacts in environmental justice communities. This program requires Regional Air Districts and the California Air Resources Board to support environmental justice communities in creating community led plans to reduce exposure to emissions. 
    • BVHPCA now organizes Southeast SF’s Community Steering Committee, with the purpose of engaging, educating and mobilizing Southeast SF residents into environmental advocacy!
  • Climate Equity Hub: San Francisco Office of the Environment, in partnership with BVHPCA,  has launched a Climate Equity Hub to help ensure SF’s most economically-impacted neighborhoods are resourced during upcoming housing and business electrification efforts. BVHPCA provides outreach support to District 10 constituents for SFE programs, beginning with the No Cost Direct Install Water Heater Program.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY

  • Food Pharmacy Program
    • Food as Medicine Collaborative has partnered with BVHPCA for over two years to deliver high-quality, local, and organic produce to chronically ill, low-income medical patients in San Francisco. Patients receive a weekly variety bag or box including fruit, vegetables, and dried goods to support their long-term health goals.
  • Healthy Retail
    • Healthy Retail Program partnered with four local corner stores to bring healthy, seasonal and popular fruits and vegetables to the neighborhood. Each corner store provided data and feedback about buying habits, further developing a cost-effective wholesale fruits and veggies pipeline to a fresh food-impacted neighborhood.
  • Bayview Community Cooperative (Bayview Coop)
    • Bayview Community Co-op sources high-quality, local and organic produce for wholesale CSA-box weekly distribution to Bayview-Hunters Point residents. The Co-op box features 10-15 lbs of produce, eggs, and local tortillas. A key feature of the Co-op box is price accessibility – EBT customers could purchase the box at store partner Save-Mor, while all customers benefited from sliding-scale purchasing options for only $19-$29 per box, no questions asked (program currently on hiatus).

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

  • Unhoused Outreach
    • Our homelessness outreach workers regularly canvass encampments, vehicular housing, tents, and other unhoused individuals in Bayview Hunters Point — assessing community needs, connecting individuals to services, and collaborating on projects developed by the Advocates and the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing. Additionally, BVHPCA has provided ready-to-eat grocery bags for unhoused residents in District 10.
  • Public Health Outreach
    • BVHPCA played an early, major role in the fight against Covid-19 in Bayview-Hunters Point. We recruited, trained, and led cohorts of residents, youth, and volunteers to reach marginalized communities and vulnerable populations for education, testing, vaccination, and connection to treatment. Our efforts focused on labor-intensive work in under-resourced and underserved communities, where there have been gaps in COVID-19 awareness and vaccinations.

ADDITIONAL WORK

Bayview Hunters Point Community Advocates Collection: An online library of documents related to Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, a toxic waste site, in partnership with UCSF.

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