Business View Civil and Municipal | Volume 2, Issue 9

28 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 2, ISSUE 9 turned it into nine documents that spoke to the climate adaption needs in nine regions across the State. With the support of Pacific Premier Bank this year, we both launched the Resource Guide and made it available to everyone, and we also launched nine webinars with professionals talking about climate adaption with local community organizations to help them set up impactful strategies . We’ve seen a lot of interest from younger folks in climate adaption and had a lot of participation from them on our webinars. Climate is really a bigger issue for younger people, who are starting to realize that if something isn’t done, they’re going to be inheriting a much more challenging world with climate change. BVM: How will CCEDA continue to be a viable voice for Community Economic Development in California going forward? Barragán: That’s a very timely question. Right now much of what community development organizations do involves social equity and a lot of CCEDA’s focus is on social equity. There are so many African-American and Latino communities that have been forgotten, have not been served, have not been invested in for decades. And I think that people are finally realizing that this level of neglect is not good for society, not good for this State, not good for the country. We have to finally address the issue of social equity in our communities and have the uncomfortable conversation that says it’s no longer tolerable. It’s not just about writing a cheque, it’s looking at what we can do to help communities become sustainable over the long term. The State government and more local governments are looking at that now and CCEDA is striving to be part of that conversation and part of the solution making. change, including the establishment of cooling centers, as in Riverside, where the Community Action Riverside has set up a network of 60 cooling centers, so people have someplace to go for relief during the summer heat, without having the high cost of using air conditioning. Those kind of strategies are discussed in our resource guide available through the CCEDA website. In addition, the State of California had developed a climate regional assessment, identifying the challenges that we’re going to face due to climate change. We took that document and