GRANT APPLICATION 2017 Community Leadership Award
GRANT APPLICATION POGO PARK San Francisco Foundation: 2017 Community Leadership Award ABOUT OUR WORK Population Served We serve 13,224 low-income residents who live in one of the Bay Area’s most disadvantaged and underserved neighborhoods: Richmond’s Iron Triangle. Sixty percent of Iron Triangle residents are Latino; thirty percent are African-American; the remaining ten percent are a mix of Asian, Native American, and White. One-third of Iron Triangle residents live below the federal poverty line. Iron Triangle residents face a “toxic cocktail” of challenges that are common for people who live in tough, inner-city neighborhoods: high levels of violence, blighted homes, no functional green spaces, poor performing and beleaguered schools, no places to buy affordable healthy foods, lack of jobs or training opportunities, a large re-entry population, and a toxic and unhealthy physical environment (the Iron Triangle lies adjacent to the Chevron Refinery, the largest oil refinery west of the Mississippi). In 2010, the Iron Triangle was ranked the 7thmost dangerous neighborhood in the country. Many people know someone or have family members who were victims of gun violence. Residents of this community suffer from trauma because of the violence. The 3,011 children under the age of 15 living in the Iron Triangle are among the most vulnerable in the nation. A child born in the Iron Triangle neighborhood will die 11 years earlier than a child born across the bay in an affluent San Francisco neighborhood. A large percentage of Iron Triangle children are being raised by single parents. In fact, 44% of families have only one adult living at home. A significant portion of Iron Triangle residents are undocumented and live in constant fear of being deported. When children of the Iron Triangle are old enough to attend school, the public schools that await them are among the poorest performing, lowest ranked in the state. After school, children suffer from a critical lack of safe and clean public spaces. Consequently, neighborhood children are literally trapped indoors, with, in the words of local residents, “nothing to do, nowhere to go.” Iron Triangle residents are also disengaged from public works projects that improve their neighborhood. Monies flow into the Iron Triangle to make physical improvements to the neighborhood (e.g. new community center, affordable housing etc.) – but those monies typically flow to expert designers and builders who make improvements “for” the people...and then leave the community once the project is done. Consequently, many Iron Triangle renewal projects fail to take hold. Oftentimes, new community development projects are vandalized or destroyed by the very people they are meant to serve. One community resident summed up this phenomenon as, “you can’t put a mink coat on a skunk.” In other words, just by making improvements to a neighborhood’s physical environment (i.e. the bones) doesn’t translate into making improvements to the community or its people (the spirit).
Who We Are Founded in 2007, Pogo Park is a community-based nonprofit organization in Richmond, California. Our Mission: to transform lives by transforming public space. Our Work: we transform sad, broken, and little-used city parks in Richmond’s Iron Triangle–one of the Bay Area’s toughest, inner-city neighborhoods–into safe, green, and vibrant outdoor spaces for children to play and families to gather. In 2008, we hired and trained a core team of Iron Triangle residents (those who know their neighborhood best) to reclaim, redesign, and transform Elm Playlot, a neglected and abandoned .5 acre, “pocket park” in the heart of the Iron Triangle neighborhood into a beautiful, safe, and green city park. In 2010, we secured a $1.94 million California State Park grant to completely rebuild Elm Playlot in the vision of the community. We approached the rebuilding of Elm Playlot in a radically new way: instead of directing grant funds to hire professional designer experts and builders from outside the neighborhood to build a new park "for" the people, Pogo Park directed grant funds down, into the neighborhood, to hire and train a core team of Iron Triangle residents to redesign and rebuild Elm Playlot themselves. We partnered with Iron Triangle business, Scientific Art Studio (SAS), a worldfamous custom fabrication studio known for building the iconic “mitt” at the Giants ballpark and the new play area at the San Francisco Zoo. SAS created a sheltered and supportive space in their studio to train our Community Resident Team (CRT) how to create and build bespoke play elements for Elm Playlot with their own hands. While designing and building items like the “Global Village” of child-sized playhouses for Elm Playlot, the CRT team learned how to design, measure, cut wood, bend rebar, weld, build ¼” scale model etc. – and then install those items at Elm Playlot. After 10 years, the CRT has transformed Elm Playlot into a neighborhood jewel: a safe, green sanctuary for thousands of Iron Triangle children and their families. More importantly, many of the same community residents who designed and built Elm Playlot now run it. The CRT staff and clean the park each day – and make visitors feel welcome. They provide free play programming on a drop-in basis to thousands of at-risk children. They serve thousands of healthy snacks/lunches from the school district's free meal program to hungry children. They have brought Elm Playlot to life: transforming it from a city park that they once described as "dirty, dull, and dangerous" to a safe, green, and vibrant hub of community life. Today Elm Playlot is a public and visible symbol of hope and change in a neighborhood where literally every other public works project has failed. The transformation of Elm Playlot has energized and electrified the neighborhood, and a wave of positive energy and impact is rippling out into the surrounding community, transforming both the people and the place. Pogo Park’s process for rebuilding Elm Playlot – from the inside/out – is being hailed as a national model for what real, deep, and authentic community engagement looks like.
What Sets Pogo Park Apart Deep Community Engagement: We have been successful in a neighborhood where literally every other attempt at revitalization has failed. Why? Because we build from the inside-out. We hire and train community residents to envision how parks in their neighborhood can improve – and then empower the community to use their own hands to make the changes themselves. In this way, the development of a park is a vehicle for the development of the entire community. Partnership with the City of Richmond: Over the past ten years, we have formed a deep partnership with the City of Richmond. We have a working personal relationship with every single head of the key departments in Richmond – engineering, planning, police, fire, code enforcement, public works, parks and recreation. There is no one in local government that we haven’t partnered with and who isn’t invested in our success. An investment that works: “Pogo Park is the best investment we've made in neighborhoods in a long, long time. It's the best thing I have participated in in my 40 years in Congress. It's just that simple,” says former Congressman George Miller. “For many years prior to Pogo Park, we came in and out, in and out, but we never created stability and growth. Nothing has moved me like being a small part of this project and seeing the growth that has happened in this community. It's a magnificent gift that this neighborhood gave to itself.” Transformation slowly, over time: According to the local Richmond Police Chief, “As Pogo Park staff worked on the redesign and renovation of the park, the character of the neighborhood changed significantly. The presence of responsible adults at the park made local parents feel comfortable bringing their children to the park. Pogo Park staff maintained regular communication with the Richmond Police so that residents could report suspicious activity to park workers, knowing the police would be informed. As a result, the reduction in incidents of violent crime, drug dealing, and vandalism in the immediate neighborhood of Elm Playlot has been dramatic.” A New Model for Urban Renewal: Pogo Park has directed over $1.5 million in contracts, grants and donations down into the neighborhood to hire local people and contract with local businesses, lifting up the local people in the process. Our work hinges on both the ability to work deeply within the community to set up the “bones” of the system, and by the “process” of engaging the community to come together to do the work. CA State Parks Dept. named Pogo Park’s Elm Playlot as a model of community engagement in the State–to be replicated in cities throughout CA. Pogo Park’s work is pioneering new thinking for how to reimagine and rebuild urban public spaces in ways that more deeply and authentically engage local residents. According to CA State Parks manager Viktor Patiño, “The Pogo Park model really stands out. This is a unique form of community involvement and local stimulus that's really rare to find.”
After the State of California named Pogo Park’s Elm Playlot as an example of exemplary community engagement, park advocacy group, Parks Now created a video about Pogo Park’s community engagement efforts that was distributed to cities, parks advocates, policymakers and key stakeholders all over California.
https://vimeo.com/169910129
OUT OF 987 APPLICATION, POGO PARK WAS NAMED A FINALIST FOR A PRESTIGIOUS 2017 ARTPLACE GRANT FOR THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD PROJECT. CLICK LINK BELOW TO VIEW POGO PARK’S 3MINUTE VIDEO SUBMITTED AS PART OF THE ARTPLACE LOI
https://vimeo.com/205152906
2017 Program Director Tonie Lee, mother, born and raised on the very block where Elm Playlot is located; played in this park as a child; attended Peres Elementary School; born leader, and founding member of the CDT. (9 years on the CDT) Carmen Lee, sister of Tonie, mother, born and raised on the very block where Elm Playlot is located; played in Elm Playlot as a child; attended Peres Elementary School; first original member of the CDT; knows virtually every person who walks by the park. (9 years on the CDT) Rose Gutierrez, mother; immigrated to from Mexico to the Iron Triangle; lives across the street from Elm Playlot; hard-working, caring, and compassionate person who knows virtually every Latino family who comes to Elm Playlot. (2 years on the CDT)
Doris “Mother” Mason; mother; community elder; worked as community liaison officer at Peres Elementary School for 15 years; knows virtually every family in the neighborhood. (3 years on the CDT)
Eddie Doss, father; born and raised in the Iron Triangle neighborhood; once a professional roller derby player from Richmond; watches over Elm Playlot day and night and make sure it always welcoming and clean. (3 years on the CDT)
Luciano Del Rio; born in Mexico; attended Richmond High School; Assistant Director of Richmond Youth Media; is in charge of documenting the evolution of Pogo Park; worked with Pogo Park for the past seven years. (1 year on the CDT)
CDT TEAM
Community Development Team CDT: Pogo Park's team of Iron Triangle residents who are a mix of paid staff and community volunteers.
The CDT is comprised of a diverse group of community residents who represent the different ethnic, gender, and age groups of this historic Richmond neighborhood. The core members of the CDT have worked with Pogo Park for nine years to plan, design, build and now run two “Pogo Parks” (Elm Playlot and Harbour-8 Park) that lie in the heart of Richmond's Iron Triangle neighborhood. We at Pogo Park are proud of what we consider our #1 accomplishment to date: working with and empowering local residents (those who know their neighborhood best) to transform onceabandoned city parks into safe, healthy, and vibrant hubs of community life. Jesus Vargas, father; works at Pogo Park #2 (Harbour-8 Park on the Greenway) where he cleans the park and tends to its gardens Monday-Friday. (3 years on the CDT)
Rita Cerda, mother, lives in Iron Triangle; knows virtually every neighbor; works as park host to make Pogo Park a welcoming and safe public space for entire community. (2 years on the CDT) J a m e s A n d e r s o n , f a t h e r, t h e “ g e n t l e g i a n t ” o f t h e C D T; watches over and cleans the park; lives across the street from Elm Playlot; and is a positive role model for children and youth all over the neighborhood. (2 years on the CDT) Armando Ybarra; born and raised in Richmond; attended Richmond High School; works with building coordinator to continue to design and build parks and perform all maintenance; staff artist. (3 years on the CDT)
MAY 24, 2017 RICHMOND, CALIF.—From their windows in the Iron Triangle section of Richmond, Calif. – a place synonymous with violence and urban blight – Rita Cerda and several other longtime residents watched as a crazy-seeming woman in pigtails poked around the then-deserted playground in their midst. Day after day in this heavily Latino and African-American neighborhood, she’d come to this sorry spot ridden with hypodermic needles and gin bottles, its swings shredded by pit bulls trained to improve their jaw strength by hanging from the seats.
“I’d be thinking, ‘What’s that white lady think she’s going to do in this neighborhood?” Ms. Cerda, who is Native American, recalls. “Everybody says they’re going to fix the park and nobody goes through with it.”
But as Cerda and her neighbors soon discovered, Toody Maher – the indefatigable force who helped them collectively transform that forlorn place into Pogo Park, one of the most innovative and jubilant public spaces in the United States – is definitely not everybody.
Ms. Maher, whose rubber gardening boots complement the yellow rubber bands fastened around the pigtails she still wears in her mid-50s, is an urban visionary – a playground-whisperer who stubbornly believes that the most beautiful and enlightened public spaces, especially playgrounds, not only belong in the most disadvantaged communities but also can be designed, built, managed, and programmed by the people who live there.
Her unusual first name – a childhood mispronunciation of “Susie” by her brother – seems fitting for a 6-foot-tall former businesswoman-turned-urban renegade who likens the process of creating a richly detailed park to cooking a slow and delectable soup. Pogo Park has been years in the making – it’s still simmering – and each tiny flourish, from hand-carved redwood benches to the cascading water that flows over rocks to mimic a mountain stream, profoundly reflects the spirit and place of its makers.
“You can’t microwave a park,” Maher observes of the time it takes to get it right. “Children’s play is a canary in a coal mine. If you want to see how a community is doing, look at its playgrounds.”
Citizen participation in playground design isn’t new. But the reimagining of Elm Playlot and a new sister park by a “team” of residents – with Maher as coach and provocateur in chief – has considerably upped the ante. Together, after seven years of meetings and learning how to weld, bend rebar, pour cement, and cajole local politicians, they have forged a dazzling oasis of calm and possibility in a neighborhood in which youngsters are frequently awakened by gunshots and more than a third of them live in poverty. The team’s motto? “Think it; do it.”
Named for three sets of historical railroad tracks that form its border, the Iron Triangle has struggled since the end of World War II, when Richmond’s mighty Kaiser Shipyards – home to thousands of “Rosie the Riveters” – closed down, leaving nearly half the population out of work, particularly African-Americans who had moved west to join the war effort.
Today, a cornucopia of industrial pollutants buffets the neighborhood, creating unusually high asthma rates. And exposure to violence or the fear of it pervades the lives of children, plunging many into a constant state of stress.
Jason Corburn, a professor of planning and public health at the University of California, Berkeley, is beginning a study for the state of California to measure the effect of Pogo Park on the surrounding neighborhood. “Toody is not just about parks – she is a community builder,” Dr. Corburn observes. “Pogo Park is a heart that pumps life into the hardest-hit area of Richmond.”
The park has benefited from city policies that put health front and center in government decisionmaking, especially in land-use planning. It’s a recognition that there are steps a city can take to positively influence health, whether it’s planting more trees or installing streetlights to make neighborhoods safer.
Maher moved about a mile from the park with her partner in 2007. She was astonished to learn that although most kids in the Iron Triangle were stuck indoors, nearly a quarter of city-owned land was parks. “That’s a tremendous asset,” she observes. “But if you look at it from a business point of view, it was underperforming.”
She visited all 56 parks. But her evolution from an entrepreneur heralded by Forbes and Inc. to a crusader bringing a Jardin du Luxembourg sensibility to the Iron Triangle wasn’t exactly a foregone conclusion. Yet her approach remains the same. “My blessing and my curse is that I can’t stand when things aren’t done right,” she says.
Her out-of-the-box mind-set was nurtured early on: Her British parents, whose green thumb she inherited, did not believe in television, preferring storytelling followed by a nightcap of charades. Her
father’s job at a Brazilian airline allowed the family to travel the world. “Everyone else was watching ‘Adam-12’ and ‘The Waltons,’ but our parents gave everything to our experiences,” she says.
Raised in Montreal near the magnificent park on Mount Royal, and then outside Los Angeles, young Toody was teased relentlessly for a terrible stutter, sparking a deep sense of empathy for others in similar situations. But she was also a natural athlete with a persistent (some might say willful) streak; at age 12, she pushed to become the first girl on the boys’ Little League team. “My sister is the kind of person who works through three root canals,” observes her older brother, Adrian Maher.
In the 1980s they became brother-sister entrepreneurs, securing the Western distribution rights for Swatch watches before launching a company that produced a clear telephone with lights.
Ms. Maher’s plan was to accrue enough wealth to pursue her Frederick Law Olmsted-ish fantasy of building a great park. Her partner, Julie Roemer, a writer and teacher, finally asked: “What are you waiting for?” Maher was itching to upend the mass-produced, creativity-zapping play equipment that she calls “the tyranny of unrelenting sameness.”
Earning the community’s trust took years. “She was looking for some yokel-locals to help with the project,” recalls Carmen Lee, a revered neighborhood figure who was the first to come on board. “You know your community best,” Maher told them. “I’m a bridge with the Man,” as she calls the business establishment. “Let’s partner up.”
It was a modest start: a pop-up park consisting of a Home Depot fence, a cheap slide from Amazon, and a free shipping container. Maher savvily wired the park with free internet, bridging the digital divide and knitting wary neighbors together.
A core team of about a dozen residents went door to door soliciting ideas for the park, especially from children. No. 1 on the wish list was a zip line (done!). “The only thing we couldn’t deliver was a chocolate fountain,” says Tonie Lee, an original team member. Residents make full-scale mock-ups of their ideas, experimenting until it feels right.
Fortuitously, a company down the street, Scientific Art Studio, is a professional fabrication wizard that created the 26-foot-tall baseball glove at the San Francisco Giants ballpark. The studio has taken the team under its artful wing, helping craft igloo-shaped hide-outs and other never-before-seen play elements.
Maher may be happiest when pruning or going to the arborist to pick up mulch, but her business acumen has served Pogo Park well, including a recent $6.2 million grant from the state. She sets the bar high, bringing in innovative thinkers like Dan Burden, a widely respected street designer who is helping residents transform a bleak and dangerous thoroughfare into a lush, pedestrian-friendly “yellow brick road� linking schools and parks.
Maher has an eye for perfection – for perfect trees planted with perfect acorns – that members of the core team have inherited. They receive a salary to watch over the park, keep it spiffy, and organize daily activities, from hula hoop play to rock-balancing. The park also serves meals and snacks free of charge to children as an official distribution point for the school district (most kids qualify for free or reduced-price lunches). “Some are really hungry, sorry to say,” Carmen Lee says.
Flower memorials to youngsters killed in gun violence – two worked at the park – are reminders of the considerable challenges that remain in the Iron Triangle.
But on a warm afternoon in the dappled light under sycamores, the park’s role in the lives of neighborhood children was set off in bas-relief. Teens ate snacks on disc swings while a young girl waded barefoot in the pebbled stream. Perhaps the biggest gift Pogo Park offers children is the ability to put the world on hold for a time, to get lost in a daydream while skipping a stone in a brook.
“I’m glad we built this park,” Ms. Lee observes. “It wasn’t Toody opening a book. It came from the community – for the people, by the people, however you want to put it. It’s one place kids can come where it’s safe and they feel loved.”
• For more, visit pogopark.org.
May 25, 2014
By any measure, the neighborhood had problems. When Toody Maher moved in, she already knew about Richmond and its notorious Iron Triangle or, as one law enforcement officer called it, Triage Triangle. But Maher had some ideas on improvements and the energy to make them happen. During World War II, Richmond had briefly flourished as a shipbuilding center. But when those jobs set sail, unemployment rose, families were broken, and crime rates soared to among the highest in the nation. Thus, the view from outside Richmond is often clouded by these grim social conditions. Nevertheless, Maher had been charmed by the neighborhood, with its comfortable homes, broad avenues, plentiful parks and affordability. Where others saw mayhem and danger, residents saw people stronger for what they had endured.
Maher already had learned a bit herself about endurance and making things work. After graduating from UC Berkeley, she played professional volleyball in Europe, pioneered the launch of Swatch watches on the West Coast and designed Fortune magazine's 1990 Product of the Year, the world's first clear phone with lights. That same year she was named Inc Magazine's entrepreneur of the year. She set about realizing the Richmond parks' potential by organizing the greatest assets of the community: the people around her and the land where they lived. "Every day I'd walk through the Elm Playlot and see these great trees, but no kids. The parks were close to the elementary schools and thousands of kids' homes. It made sense for everyone to try to improve them," she said. Now, Pogo Park consists of the Elm Playlot, Harbour-8 Park and Unity Park (the latter two part of the Richmond Greenway), all in different stages of development. What Maher and her neighbors are doing provides a model for how people anywhere can improve their communities. Her plan was simple, direct and labor intensive, starting with the hard work of building coalitions and finding ways to access resources. Everyone had a role and saw how everyone could benefit. The outcomes were tangible. Elm Playlot today is a half acre full of energy and activity, with workers constructing tricycle paths, play structures, disc swings, a ball wall, picnic and barbecue grills and a multiuse area for performances or tai chi. Above are a zip line and lights in the trees. When completed, the park's community garden will help supply a healthy-food kitchen and classes in growing and preparing nutritious food. Last summer, more than 9,000 meals were served at the park. Elm Playlot workers, recruited mainly from the neighborhood, are trained to create high-quality play opportunities that contribute to children's development. Nearby, Pogo Park has combined with the Trust for Public Land to help Richmond and other community agencies plan the Richmond Greenway, an abandoned right of way that will be converted to gardens and recreation.
The greenway winds through the city, linking residents to community services and leading to the next phase - Harbour-8 Park, a new play area surrounded by green gardens, comfortable seating and public art. The success of Pogo Park can be measured by its physical accomplishments. But the testimony of its users and movers shows a more wide-ranging potential impact. As park user and staff member Carmen Lee says: "Our new parks have showed us how we can act to make our lives better." Model for success Here is the formula Toody Maher and her community used to reimagine and improve their community parks: Define the problem: The parks, especially Elm Playlot, where she started, were underutilized and in a state of disrepair.
Assess the resources available: Neighbors had knowledge, experience and ideas. But it would take both public and private financial resources to use these assets. Mobilize these resources: Maher began this journey by walking the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and founding a nonprofit organization - Pogo Park. She recruited an advisory board and staff. She also sought out experts in the field, those who had worked on other parks or with experience in children's play and development. Secure financing: Maher took her plan to the Richmond Redevelopment Agency. If she could raise $30,000 in a week or so, they would match that amount to begin the planning process. Inc Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year exceeded that, secured the match and moved on to win a series of small grants from Kaiser Foundation Health Care, Children's Hospital Oakland and other private foundations. Be strong and resilient in the face of adversity: The Richmond Redevelopment Agency had pledged $400,000 to help pay for landscape architects, construction and equipment. But the financially strapped state of California wiped out the city's redevelopment agency. Undaunted, Maher went back to the private foundations and public agencies and helped the city of Richmond win $2 million in Proposition 84 bond funds to rebuild parks for the critically underserved. Build (and maintain!) it and they will come: Using local help and expertise as much as possible, implement your ideas. - Michael Berkowitz Michael Berkowitz is a past senior manager of the San Francisco Planning Department and a former planning commissioner for the city of Berkeley. To comment, please submit your letter to the editor atwww.sfgate.com/submissions/#1
Interview with Toody Maher on Co-Designing Parks with the Community 07/21/2016 Jared Green
Toody Maher is the founder and executive director of Pogo Park. She is an artist, inventor, and entrepreneur and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.
In the Iron Triangle in Richmond, California, which is one of the poorest and most violent neighborhoods in the country, you’ve created an exciting model, which combines community development, child development, play, and parks. What are the essential elements of a Pogo Park? Any public space can be transformed into a Pogo Park. In essence, a Pogo Park is an amazing place, a magical place for children to play. There are five key elements. First of all, a Pogo Park must be staffed. You need someone there who clean the park, welcome folks as they come in, and make it a safe and welcoming gathering place for the community. Second, there needs to be an office there. The third is a rich play environment. We have to get away from plastic, static play equipment. Experts on play talk about how kids need loose parts and environments they can manipulate, so they can build their own things and explore. The key feature of a Pogo Park is a super-rich play environment. The fourth element is just basic amenities — a place to sit in the shade, a bathroom, and running water. And the last is to make it a hub of the community. We have the book mobile, farmer’s market, and visits from the National Park Service who want to show the kids a ranger tour. We’re just the place. We are the community hub. If you’re knowledgeable about Christopher Alexander’s book, A Pattern Language, that’s the Bible for us. There’s certain things that you can do that are essential, but you can do it 500 or 5,000 ways.
The community were co-designers of E lm Playlot and Harbor-8 Park. How did this work? To give you some background: Elm Playlot was an existing park for 70 years, but it failed. The city has renovated it three times, and the latest in 2009 cost $300,000. We begged the city not to do it, but they went ahead because they had a grant. Within a week, somebody tried to burn it down. Pogo Park started with a core team of eight: the Elm Playlot Action Committee (EPAC). The first person I met was Carmen Lee, who lives right next door to the park. I just went around knocking on doors and meeting folks. There were people who wouldn’t open the door. I would show up each day and they wouldn’t even say hello. From 2009 to 2016 the composition of EPAC has changed. It went from eight to six to ten to twelve to fourteen to seven. All of the members have deep ties to the Iron Triangle: they were born there, they live there. But the members of the same core team who started at the beginning have been through all seven years of the project. What’s great is the power of incremental change. We avoided the usual process: the park fails, then you helicopter in, and, in one week’s time, there’s a new park, and then the mayor comes, and you cut the ribbon, and the moment that everyone leaves — the moment the 76-piece marching back leaves — the whole thing goes back to what it was, so nothing is really transformed. As some residents say, you can’t put a mink coat on a skunk. By coming in and putting this thing down, it doesn’t mean lives are going to change. Transformation needs to be deeper. EPAC started working with the residents to reclaim the park. Before we got our $2 million state park grant to redo the park, I told the team about Burning Man in the Nevada desert, how folks build this mini city in a week. I said: “let’s do Burning Man in the Iron Triangle!” We went to Home Depot and bought a $2,000 3-foot fence and
built a fence around Elm Playlot to claim the boundary. We came in each day and cleaned the park, so it was super clean. We brought in a shipping container we got from the Port of Richmond and built a little office inside the shipping container we could open each day. We put out our play materials and made our enriched play space. We rented a porta potty, which we covered in beautiful plants and artwork. And if somebody needed to go to the bathroom, they’d come up to somebody on our staff and we would let them in. Folks would come just to go to the bathroom, because the porta potty was tricked out. We bought the house next to the park for $50,000. And got a $300 fridge off Craigslist and became an official distribution point for the school free summer lunches. We served 9,000 meals one summer. We got into the space and claimed it. Going back to how to involve the community: Elm Playlot came alive because people from the neighborhood went and worked there each day. They cleaned it, built things, or served as staff. As folks drive by, they could see something was changing. Everybody started to come by because they were like, “What you all doing next? Oh, this so great.” One thing I learned: If the community makes the changes themselves, then the change is deeper and felt more widely. It wasn’t just like there was a one-week charrette. We did a five year one! As the great park designer, Susan Goltsman, FASLA, with MIG in Berkeley, said: “Great playgrounds are in a constant state of change.” They can’t just be static. To be alive, parks need to evolve. Pogo Park has been a living charrette. How did the process of 3-D prototyping the park design work? And why do you think it was better than the typical approach with charrettes, maps, renderings? The real language needed to communicate design is the opposite of what you need to understand a landscape architecture plan on paper. With a 3-D model, you get to see
what’s coming in life size. You’re actually experiencing it. If we want to put a tree somewhere, we’ll just go out and buy a tree in a five gallon bucket and put it there, so people can actually say, “Oh, a tree’s there.” They can walk around and see spaces. I’ve noticed that when I’m dealing with some landscape architects and designers, they come out with the dimensions of what something should be right away. They’ll say, “Oh, well, why don’t we put the door at three feet and this at two feet.” And they work all by numbers. But our approach is: “Do not impose a number.” First of all, mark it, and when it feels right, measure. That is the measurement that goes on the paper. So many times when design is done on paper, it looks good on paper, because it’s all math. But when you build it, there’s so many little things that were off. The spacing is usually off. The only way you can really get spacing is to do it. Pogo Park involved the community in the actual construction of the park, paying neighbors of the park to build it. How did the process of co-developing the park with the community work? We have put over $1 million in wages and contracts into the Iron Triangle. Everyone expects people who are poor and have no job to come in and volunteer. Everywhere I went, people said: “Oh, Toody, you and your volunteers.” No. Everyone was paid for their contribution. We were also blessed to partner with Scientific Art Studio, which happens to have a 2-acre fabrication studio six blocks from our park in the Iron Triangle, to build the park. The guy who runs it — Ron Holthuysen — is a world famous designer of children’s play spaces. He’s the bomb. He just did a $3.5 million new playground for the San Francisco Zoo. His belief is that children must be free to run wild and to explore.
Ron helped us figure out how to work with a playground safety inspector. We were building custom-made, artisanal play elements. Every step of the way we made sure we conformed with the safety regulations. He set up a studio for us in his studio where he acted as our training wheels, empowering local people to do it for themselves. It was this holy trinity. First, we had community residents. Second, we had the city of Richmond, which is very entrepreneurial and forward thinking. They gave us the green light to do this radical thing: to try and build a park with the community by hand. And, third, we had Ron from Scientific Arts. However, the residents were the most powerful force. All we did was create a system where someone could think up an idea and then just do it. Residents started getting into it, saying things like: “Well, we should put a bench there.” So then we would just go to Ron’s shop and build a bench and bring it back. Residents started gaining a lot of confidence by thinking, doing. The numbers who have been employed with Pogo Park over the past decade is around 110-120 community residents. We’ve had probably another 250 who come and work for two weeks. But we primarily pour our money into our core staff. We have 10 people on the community resident team now that work between 15 hours a week and full-time. And they’re paid between $16 and $22 an hour. Those working full-time have full health, dental, and vision benefits. All of these people have never had insurance before. Pogo Park has definitely helped transform the lives of the key folks on our team. And we now have $1.5 million in contracts to design and build more parks in Richmond, too. About 25 percent of our team does cleaning and maintenance. It’s a lot of work, because you’re cleaning not only the park, but also the streets around the park. When people come into our block, they can just feel it, because the streets are all clean, and there’s all these trees planted. I mean we clean up. Last year, we had 15,000 kids sign in at our sites. And these kids play hard, so things get broken. You have to
replace the wooden planks and other things. When things break things, we take them to a work shop where we have a team. Our maintenance team can also build things. About 50 percent are employed in running the park. We have a park host who comes in somebody who comes into the office every day. They put out all the play stuff and open up the bathrooms. They’re the ones scheduling all the programs Monday through Saturday. The other 25 percent does outreach and design for The Yellow Brick Road, plants trees, plant trees, and individual and group skills training. They train community members on how to use email, resolve conflicts, speak in public, etc. How do you generate deep community buy in and involvement where others have failed? We just show up every day and keep showing up. Most folks come into a community for a year or two and then leave. And then things go back to what they were. So the community doesn’t trust new initiatives, because they too will leave. It’s taken us nine years of work in this neighborhood, showing up Monday through Friday and not leaving, to gain that trust. Some 7,500 neighborhood kids use Elm Playlot and Harbor-8 Parks annually. What do these places try to do about works and what doesn’t in terms of play? And, specifically, what’s needed to create a safe, welcoming playground in a neighborhood that has a lot of crime? If you go into any of these neighborhoods, the first thing is you have got to staff the park. What makes it safe is there’s someone who’s there watching out to make sure the park is clean, safe, and welcoming. Second, parks must be “bespoke,” custom made for the particular neighborhood, so they can then be woven into the fabric of the
neighborhood. The park has got to have soul. Most of these new plastic playgrounds that are plopped in from a catalogue just don’t have soul. The design of the playground has to be generated from the inside out. The community has to be involved and figure out how it’s going to weave into the neighborhood. Children’s play is very complicated. It’s the mother’s breast milk of healthy development. Parks departments typically put in static play equipment that’s only good for physical play. You go up a ladder and slide down the slide and then go on the swing. But there’s all kinds of play: cognitive play, linguistic play, and imaginative, creative play. We have to create playgrounds that meet all the play needs of kids, not just physical needs. That’s why we say Pogo Park is an enriched play environment. How have the new parks helped resolve community conflict and build inter-community trust? And what do you think still needs to happen? Parks provide a community space for every human being on the planet. We’re social beings and gravitate toward public spaces where we can be with other people. Just claiming and holding this space, it becomes a sacred watering hole for the community. That has helped build the trust of the community, because it’s a place where people can actually connect in a real way with other residents and families. You can’t just put the bones of the park down. You can’t just come into a neighborhood like the Iron Triangle and just plop something down and leave. You have bones but you also have to spirit. The spirit is programming, which makes the park come to life.
Now you’re rethinking another form of community space, streets. A project now in the works is the Yellow Brick Road, a “safe, green and clean” route for walking and biking that connects neighborhood schools, parks, transportation, shopping. Pogo Park organized another preview of a full scale 3-D prototype for the community to try out. What is your approach for designing, building, and maintaining this Yellow Brick Road? We used the same 3-D modeling language we used for the parks, but translated it into the streets. We had to slow down traffic on the corners of the park, as we had some 15,000 people sign into the park last year, including thousands of kids. We worked with some of the top transportation engineers to design a new roundabout. We figured out what the dimensions needed to be and then mocked up a 3-D roundabout model. In the middle of the roundabout there is a hand-carved, eight-foot-tall totem pole the Pogo Park community team carved. Over two days, we let the neighborhood, police, and fire fighters actually drive through it. We’ve spoken to others who have done 3-D models out of the street, but they never opened theirs to actual traffic. Neighbors could see what is going to be built rather than see it on a piece of paper. They could then add their thoughts right away. The community team, who are people the neighborhood knows, facilitated. Many neighbors, police, and fire fighters came up and thanked us so much for this. The 3-D models really got the community and city involved in a new way. We received a grant from the California department of transportation, and the Yellow Brick Road opened in January.
OUTLOOK URBAN HEALTH AND WELL-BEING
Nancy Ybarra is one of the caretakers of Pogo Park — a community project in Richmond, California.
ST RESS
The privilege of health BY AMY MAXMEN
C
hildren play on foam mats bathed in late afternoon light as a few staff at Pogo Park hang Christmas lights. Kids squeal as they slide along a zip wire, and a few teenage boys bounce a basketball against concrete painted in pastel designs. It’s hard to believe that this is the Iron Triangle — the most deadly part of Richmond, California, one of the most dangerous cities in the United States. One of the park’s caretakers, Nancy Ybarra, now 26, played in the park as a child when it was a dirt patch with two tire swings. Men rolled dice under the trees by day, drank beer and took drugs at night. Ybarra remembers days when police tape surrounded the park after shootings. But the park is safe now. It looks like “a park that could be in a white neighbourhood,” Ybarra says. As we walk along the path that encircles it, Ybarra describes how the park is more than just well designed. It was built, and is now staffed, by people from the neighbourhood, and it serves a variety of functions, ranging from employment and childcare to empowerment. These might seem like social issues, but the
park has been justified as a physical-health intervention. In Richmond, as in poor cities around the world, high rates of heart disease, asthma, diabetes and infant mortality correlate with certain social and economic traits. In 2010, unemployment in Richmond was 20%, 38% of the children were living in poverty and the city had the sixth highest crime rate in the United States. Statistics such as these correlate with negative health outcomes in cities around the world. More than 25% of Richmond’s children have asthma, compared with a Californian average of 15%. About 40% of the city’s children (and 62% of adults) are overweight or obese, compared with the state’s average of 30% for kids. A child born in Richmond is expected to die 11 years earlier than one in the richer city of San Francisco just across the bay. For these reasons, says Jason Corburn, an urban planner and epidemiologist at the University of California, Berkeley, “zip code matters as much as genetic code in understanding a person’s susceptibility to disease and premature mortality.” Corburn focuses on how to improve the health of city residents. He argues that
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cities must transform their physical and social environments — everything from their parks and housing, to the way that community members participate in their city’s governance — to improve the health of citizens. Richmond is a short drive from Corburn’s office at Berkeley, and the city council has been receptive to his ideas. One of the council’s earliest moves was to support local entrepreneur Toody Maher to build Pogo Park. And in 2014, the city enacted a ‘Health in All Policies’ ordinance. This policy strategy required all municipal decisions to take into account both the physical aspects of health, such as safety and food availability, and socialhealth issues such as stress.
TOXIC STRESS
For the past 20 years, researchers have worked to solidify the links between chronic psychological stress and physical health. In 1996, Steve Cole, a genomics researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, noticed that HIV progressed faster in gay men who concealed their homosexuality than in men who were open about it1. Cole and his colleagues found that men who concealed their sexuality were
PRESTON GANNAWAY
Deprivation leads to stress, and stress to bad health. A park, and the science behind it, aims to break that chain.
PRESTON GANNAWAY
URBAN HEALTH AND WELL-BEING OUTLOOK more psychologically sensitive to social threats, and that stress correlated with increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). The basis of the body’s fight-or-flight response, the SNS kicks into action by releasing adrenaline and noradrenaline, priming the body for physical activity. Over the next decade, Cole and others described how SNS activation also shuts down proteins involved in fighting viruses, called interferons, allowing HIV to replicate without impediment. The finding tempted Cole and Greg Miller, a psychologist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to explore the connections between stress and other diseases besides HIV. They were particularly interested in subtle, chronic stress, as opposed to the panicky reaction triggered by, say, a near-death accident. Epidemiologists knew that asthma was disproportionately common in children from poor urban communities, even when family history and air quality were controlled for. To find out whether stress played a part in the asthma prevalence, Miller and his colleagues asked children about their family relationships, friends, school life, home life and neighbourhood. Children with asthma from poorer backgrounds, and in more stressful situations, tended to have higher counts of white blood cells called eosinophils2. Given the right allergic trigger, eosinophils kick off the production of molecules that constrict the airways as well as mucus production, resulting in shortness of breath. And eosinophil recruitment, the researchers found, follows SNS activation and the subsequent production of the inflammatory molecule interleukin-5. Biological connections to chronic stress have also been found in conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. People from low socioeconomic communities regularly show signs of chronic stress — levels of stressrelated hormones such as cortisol are often higher, for instance. Cole suspects that the chronic “We don’t stress associated with povhave time to erty comes from a lack of certainty about what the wait. This is future holds. “If you have urgent.” economic resources, you might develop a blind faith that you can figure out problems,” he explains. “But without those resources, there’s a baseline of uncertainty.” Stress can stem from a lack of control. In post-industrial cities in Finland, researchers have suggested that shame and low self-esteem arising from high rates of unemployment account for the heavy burden of health issues in these areas compared to the country’s wealthier cities. For Finnish men who were unemployed twice over a 3-year period, the small risk of death in the 3 years that followed was 168% greater compared with men who had been unemployed only once3. Psychological stress among the urban poor is distinct from that of those who live in rural
Pogo Park could help to improve physical health.
areas, perhaps because income disparity is not as obvious. “Cities expose you to inequality. You see what apartments in rich neighbourhoods look like, which you cannot afford, you know how much food costs at restaurants in those places,” says Eldar Shafir, a behavioural scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey. “Well-being is heavily impacted by comparisons,” Shafir adds. “It impacts your evaluation of self-worth and self-identity.”
REDUCING THE BURDEN
In poor areas of Richmond, there is no shortage of sources of stress. Violent crime makes a stroll daunting. Poverty means that people worry about where their next meal will come from. Undocumented citizens are on alert because of their precarious status. Institutional racism can lead to feelings of inadequacy and selfdefeat. With stressors such as these at play, Richmond’s policymakers have realized that medical approaches, such as access to asthma medication, alone will not improve the health of Richmond. Gabino Arredondo, Richmond’s Health and Wellness Coordinator says, “when it comes to health, people usually think about doctors and clinics, but we’re focusing on upstream interventions.” To understand what stresses residents, Corburn, Arredondo and their team combed through surveys of about 4,000 residents collected since 2007. They also spoke with community-based organizations and analysed geographical data. Areas where violence occurs, car accidents happen and supermarkets are rare were associated with stress. A wide variety of interventions were needed to address the many issues at play. As a result, Richmond has prioritized measures such as speed bumps, lead removal in houses, training to address implicit bias for police officers, and events that help residents to enrol in health insurance.
It may take a decade for Richmond’s comprehensive approach to have a demonstrable effect on disease — particularly for conditions such as cardiovascular disease that take years to develop. However, Arredondo argues that if policymakers hold out for this type of evidence before taking action, the biomedical repercussions of letting another generation grow up in stressful conditions will be costly. “We don’t have time to wait,” Arredondo says. “This is urgent.” So the city is plunging ahead. As it proceeds, the team keeps track of quantitative indicators, such as the rate of asthma in children, as well as survey data that assess residents’ opinions over time. The results have provided some glimmers of hope. For example, Corburn says that according to the 2015 surveys, people who identified themselves as belonging to a non-white group and those of a low socioeconomic status reported better perceptions of safety, greater economic and recreational opportunities, and felt more included in the city compared to 2009. He has shared these results with the World Health Organization, and hopes that Richmond’s approach will provide insight that policymakers around the world can use to improve the health of the urban poor. Maher initially pitched her dream of Pogo Park to members of Richmond’s community and to employees of the city, such as Arredondo. Collectively, they successfully made the case to the state of California that funding the park could help to ameliorate the isolation, low selfesteem and uncertainty that diminishes the health of Iron Triangle residents. Unlike previous Richmond green-space projects, which had fallen into disarray, Pogo Park was designed and constructed by residents. Today, they watch over it. Eddie Doss, a 59-year old who lives across the street, keeps an eye on the park at night: “If people come here to drink beer, I tell them no, that’s against the rules, and they say, OK Eddie.” This year, Richmond secured a US$6.2 million grant from the state to build just over 3 kilometres of safe streets that connect Pogo Park to another park in the Iron Triangle. Pogo Park’s success helped Richmond’s proposal to beat those from competitors in other cities. Residents who work and volunteer at the park could not be happier with the win — although they, more than anyone, understand that it’s just one of many components needed to reduce their burdens. “This park will not solve violence,” says Ybarra. But, she adds, “I hope that the kids I take care of here will not become that shooter, they will not become that dope dealer. I’m watching them grow up well.” ■ Amy Maxmen is a freelance science writer based in Berkeley, California. 1. Cole, S. W. et al. Psychosom. Med. 58, 219–231 (1996). 2. Chen, E. et al. J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 117, 1014–1020 (2006). 3. Martikainen, P. T. & Valkonen, T. Lancet 348, 909–912 (1996).
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Contact Toody Maher, Founder and Executive Director, toody@pogopark.org; 510-590-1716 Adrian Maher, Communications Director, adrian@pogopark.org; 310-922-3080 Chadrick Smalley, Capital Projects Manager–City of Richmond, Chadrick_smalley@ci.richmond.ca.us; 510-412-2067
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE –
Richmond’s Yellow Brick Road Project Wins $6.2 Million State Grant Richmond, CA, November, 2015—The city of Richmond secured a $6.2 million Active Transportation Program (ATP) grant from the California Transportation Commission (CTC) to build the first leg of the Yellow Brick Road in Richmond’s underserved Iron Triangle neighborhood. Conceived of by local youth in 2008, the Yellow Brick Road (YBR) is envisioned to be a network of brightly stenciled, yellow bike and walking routes that connect key assets (schools, parks, churches, community centers, BART, Kaiser Hospital) of the Iron Triangle community together. In a fiercely competitive statewide competition of 617 applications, the Yellow Brick Road proposal was 1 of only 86 projects selected by the CTC for funding. Richmond's $6.2 million Yellow Brick Road grant was the third largest grant awarded in the State. What set Richmond's Yellow Brick Road proposal apart was the level of participation by Iron Triangle residents to create a new transportation vision for their neighborhood. Pogo Park, a Richmond-based nonprofit that works with local residents to transform little-used city parks into vibrant play spaces for children, spearheaded the effort to write Richmond's winning ATP grant. The city of Richmond and transportation engineers Fehr & Peers helped Pogo Park assemble the key data needed to make the Yellow Brick Road grant a success. The Yellow Brick Road was conceived by a grass-roots planning effort that involved hundreds of residents working in concert with city planners, community designers, health advocates and neighborhood activists over the past eight years. The creation of the YBR is an answer to the poor and dangerous street conditions in the onesquare-mile Iron Triangle neighborhood, one of the most under-served neighborhoods in California. In comparison with other Bay Area communities, bicyclists and pedestrians in the Iron Triangle have suffered a disproportionate rate of collisions with cars. According to Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWIRTS) data, between 2008-2012 there were 50 incidents of vehicular collisions with cyclists and pedestrians in this neighborhood. Local residents and the Richmond Police Department believe the actual number is significantly higher due to many unreported incidents. Local residents often can only travel safely in the Iron Triangle by car rather than walking or biking due to the dangers of local streets.
Pogo Park, Fehr & Peers, and the city of Richmond worked closely together to complete the State’s highly detailed, 300+-page application for funding for the Yellow Brick Road. “This will have a tremendously positive impact for thousands of residents by transforming the neighborhood with a more open and inviting environment,” said Mayor Tom Butt who’s been following and supporting the project since its conception. “This project will connect disparate neighborhoods that have historically felt left behind, with innovative and critically needed transportation improvements building upon the City’s commitment to create safer, healthier communities.” The Yellow Brick Road was originally conceived by a group of Iron Triangle youth in a 2008 summer program. As a means to stitch the community together and make the streets safe, the youths suggested connecting the key neighborhood hubs through a path of bright yellow bricks that designate safe bike and walking routes through the neighborhood. “Community residents are experts about their own neighborhoods,” said Toody Maher, Executive Director of Pogo Park. “They know exactly what must be done to solve their community’s problems. The Yellow Brick Road is an example of a brilliant, bottoms-up solution to a very real problem that came directly from a group of local youth. Thank God we have a city government and other partners who listened to and elevated the voice of a group that is often unheard and invisible.” In 2014, Pogo Park organized a team of 30 Iron Triangle residents to walk every street in the neighborhood and note the dangerous barriers to walking and biking that included: broken sidewalks and missing crosswalks, wide streets that encourage speeding cars, poor lighting, vacant houses, reckless driving near schools, snarling dogs, unsafe dumping areas, and lack of signage. Using the input from Pogo Park's team of Iron Triangle residents, Fehr & Peers produced a comprehensive design for the Yellow Brick Road. The final plan includes a detailed network of cycling and pedestrian pathways with colorful wayfinding signs, painted curbs and intersections. Street improvements include narrowing streets to slow cars down and calm traffic - especially near schools. “We’ve always yearned for safe and secure streets and with the Yellow Brick Road, people will now feel compelled to get outside - to walk and get on their bikes instead of sitting inside their homes or just relying on their cars for transportation,” said Otheree Christian, President of the Iron Triangle Neighborhood Council. “Physical activity will increase, reducing the risk of obesity, asthma, diabetes and other chronic illnesses prevalent in the Iron Triangle neighborhood. This is a gamechanger – a major public health boost for our community.” Richmond’s Yellow Brick Road will increase walking and bicycling rates in a neighborhood ripe for mobile transformation. The Iron Triangle’s flat, short, and interconnected streets provide a perfect environment for a new network of pedestrian and bike paths that will connect key community assets together for decades to come. “This success is a result of strong collaboration between the City and Pogo Park,” said Mayor Tom Butt. “The Yellow Brick Road is a leading example of smart urban planning and will accelerate the positive changes in the Iron Triangle to create a safe, walkable connection between homes, schools and parks including the Richmond Greenway. This multi-million dollar award is a triumph of community-led, creative design and is a direct investment into the community.”
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