Policy Advocacy
We represent people often referred to as “system impacted” when in fact they are “system intended.” Our work must be asset based.
Our policy advocacy is driven by our core values:
Community well-being lives at the intersection of race and gender
Women of color hold valuable roles in caring and providing for our elders and children, which anchors them to entire communities.
Women of color act as social safety nets
As women of color headed households increase, their impact on providing critical support for their networks and communities demands more attention from policymakers.
Policymaking that centers women of color will build better futures
Those who shoulder the heaviest burden of oppressive systems are uniquely positioned to create new possibilities for everyone.
Trans people of all genders and non-binary people are central to collective liberation
The dignity of transgender and nonbinary caregivers and families must be valued and prioritized.
The organization is committed to anchoring our policy work in three main goals:
- Eliminate the racial and gender wealth gap by defending against systems that perpetuate enslavement, segregation, mass incarceration, and other historical forms of dispossession and reinvest in community growth.
- Protect the stability and security of families by guaranteeing safe and affordable housing and keeping families together.
- Expand the public social safety net by preserving existing systems of social welfare and expanding socialized programs that meet basic needs.
Learn More About Our Policy Initiatives
We measure our progress on these goals through a multi-pronged community approach:
By centering race, the East Bay Community Law Center upholds its responsibility to ensure equity for our staff, students and clients.
We are committed to narrative change, utilizing our external communications to ensure our clients see themselves as and are recognized as community assets.
We provide resources for our peers pushing the field to be more progressive in their approach to racial justice.
Through our clinical teaching program, we train law students to innovate legal solutions that center women of color.
Our organization is committed to a journey of aligning individual and collective understanding of how racial justice shapes our work.
We leverage data to inform our work.
We execute a shared vision that works towards both strategic and political alignment.
As community lawyers and legal workers, we must hold the needs of individuals and the movement. Our legal victories are defined by raising the horizon, so that our clients, their families and networks benefit.
To us, civic engagement entails our clients informing and benefiting from state and local change.
We leverage a multi-pronged approach to systems change, relying on community connection, media, organizing, and political education.
We are in relationship with our accountability partners. We join coalitions, collaboratives and movements that are BIPOC led and responsible to BIPOC communities.
We aim to build and sustain reciprocal relationships with grassroots, membership-based organizations. We know that we represent one community.