Congratulations to our youth leader, Briana Guerrero, representing her perspective as a young person being raised in Potrero Hill public housing. She traveled to Dallas, TX as the only young person in a convening of over 100 national leaders who are re-imagining public housing and the economic well-being of low-income people. Through her involvement with the HOPE SF initiative, she has influenced the perspective of SF City Hall representatives, Dept of Public Health staff, SFUSD/Healthy 5 directors, and stood true to the lived experience of her immigrant families. She collaborates with three other youth from the HOPE SF Youth Leadership Project.
In Briana’s words:
We deserve better living conditions and being apart of this program helps me realize that public housing doesn’t define me or what my future is going to be. I can do something for myself and family to influence positive things to happen.
I’ve stayed involved with this program for the past two years because I want to do something positive. I also want to influence neighbors and everyone in my community. I have people that come up to me and congratulate me for going to college at Chico State this Fall.
By looking at health equity issues in HOPE SF sites, we’re learning about issues that we face and that other people across the world also face. As someone who grew up with an immigrant first generation family that has been living in public housing for ten years in Potrero Hill, I want to change how people think about the families and people that live in public housing.
The median income in SF is now around $79,000, while families living in SF public housing units average around $11,000 annually. SF has lost about half of its Black population over the last 30 years with only 6% of Black residents remaining. Additionally, the most impacted communities of color experiencing the highest health disparities across the city are Black and Samoan folks living within racially and economically segregated public housing units in the Southeast (Bayview) corridor.
Thank you Briana for shedding light to the social issues that occur in light of the extreme racial and economic separations in San Francisco. Thanks for representing the youth of the HOPE SF initiative at the Living Cities convening in Dallas!
THIS IS HOME: Youth Leadership Institute from Kay Cuajunco on Vimeo.