Toward a more equitable future
A core component of planning for the Central Coast Regional Equity Study (CCRES) was a series of community consultations. The purpose of these consultations was to engage regional stakeholders and community leaders in identifying key topics for the Equity Study and to begin a conversation about how inequities are experienced and perceived by people who live, work, learn, and participate in civic life in the Central Coast—and how the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic had exacerbated or otherwise brought existing inequities into sharp relief. The community consultations were also a space for participants and facilitators to imagine change, informed by data, and create shared ideas about how to move toward a more equitable future.
These community consultations provided broad and nuanced insight into systems of inequity in the Central Coast. With the help of several FUND interns, the community consultation co-facilitators took extensive concurrent notes. The references to community consultations throughout the CCRES are based on these notes and represent syntheses of responses from multiple community consultation participants rather than direct quotes. While these community consultations were not designed to be a representative sample of the Central Coast, they nevertheless provided the CCRES with valuable guidance in its early stages and will provide the basis for ongoing community engagement and organizing in the ongoing Central Coast Regional Equity Initiative.
The following report summarizes the community consultations conducted in the leadup to the December 2021 release of the CCRES.