People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights

Using a variety of different strategies, including direct action, grassroots advocacy, leadership development and civic engagement, PODER has been able to achieve important victories for Latino immigrant families and other low-income communities of color in the Mission District and in San Francisco. These accomplishments have brought about policies that protect public health as well as tangible community wins that lead to more affordable housing, open space and cleaner air in our neighborhoods.

Click the image to see our viaje/journey.

PODER was successful in 1993 in passing a comprehensive Environmental Lead Poisoning Prevention law and program for the City and County of San Francisco.

In 1993, PODER began to participate actively as a member of the Southwest Network for Environmental and Economic Justice. PODER is a Core Group member of the Southwest Network's Land Use and Community Health Action Campaign and the Youth Leadership Development Campaign.

PODER as a leader of the Youth Uprising Coalition (YUC) organized against and defeated in 1995 a youth curfew ballot measure and demanded more youth programs and services instead of incarceration.

PODER helped organize to win approval for affordable housing for low-income families and families with HIV and AIDS in the Mission. Juan Pifarré Plaza opened in 1998.

In order to create cross-racial solidarity among immigrant populations, and help foster a new generation of movement organizers and activists, in 1998 PODER and the Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) begin the Common Roots Program, a youth organizing and leadership development program for immigrant youth from the Mission and Chinatown.

At the height of the gentrification crisis, PODER helped launch the Mission Anti-displacement Coalition (MAC) to organize neighborhood opposition to market-driven, but city supported, development that caused widespread displacement.

Working with three immigrant families living at 868 Shotwell, PODER successfully organized community support to overturn their evictions in 2001

In 2002, youth from PODER and CPA’s Common Roots Youth Organizer Campaign led a campaign to defeat the granting of a permit to a Shell Gas Station that would have increased the amount of toxics in the air in the neighborhood.

After a several years of organizing, community residents celebrated in opening of the new park at an empty, contaminated lot at 23rd and Treat, Parque Niños Unidos, in 2003.

In 2004, PODER, CPA and the Environmental law and Justice Clinic at Golden Gate University launch a collaborative project, Immigrant Power for Environmental Health and Justice, focusing on Latino and Chinese communities in Southeastern neighborhoods of San Francisco facing environmental health hazards.