Two years ago, the California Housing Partnership began reflecting more intentionally about the racial equity, diversity and inclusion aspects of our work providing technical assistance and policy leadership in the nonprofit affordable and sustainable housing field, and seeking out how we can better enable the social justice outcomes we hope to see at a societal level. An internal working group has been meeting regularly throughout the year to define what equity means for our organization, establish and implement goals, and create an equity values statement, while engaging staff and leadership along the way. Today, our full team would like to share with you our statement of core equity values, developed to provide a framework for our organizational actions.
We are still learning and will improve upon these as our knowledge grows. As we thoughtfully renew the way we carry out our mission serving California’s lowest-income renters, we also thank you for your ongoing partnership in 2021 and throughout our organization’s 33-year history.
Sincerely,
Staff and Board of the California Housing Partnership
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The Partnership's Core Equity Values
The California Housing Partnership believes that equity must be a goal that is embedded in our organizational culture and day-to-day processes. We recognize that the broader social, economic, and political systems in which we operate contribute to inequity and housing injustice. We strive to understand how our role within these systems may perpetuate oppression and to address those dynamics by taking an explicitly anti-racist approach.
To hold ourselves accountable to realize equity and anti-racist principles, the Partnership has set out internal and external values that will guide our work in alignment with our mission:
- Internally, we strive to place diversity, equity, and inclusion practices at the center of our work every day and to recruit, promote and retain a diverse workforce at all levels of the organization.
- We will honor the unique perspectives and lived experiences that each person brings to advancing our mission.
- We will aim to build a work environment where everyone feels welcomed in bringing their authentic selves to work. All employees deserve to feel safe, respected and valued in our organization.
- We will offer the support, mentorship, and opportunities for growth that each employee needs.
- We will maximize participation and transparency in our decision-making processes.
- We will ensure that our internal diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are not a weight carried only by communities that have been marginalized.
- In our work, we believe that everyone has a right to a safe, affordable, sustainable and dignified home, which is a cornerstone for building equitable, inclusive communities.
- We believe that communities/individuals are the experts of their own experience.
- We will avoid laying the burden of racial and social justice reform on the communities who have not historically held the power to influence change.
- We will use our organizational position to support and elevate the mission-aligned work of nonprofits, and environmental and social justice allies, especially those that are led by Black and Indigenous people and people of color.
- We will strive to share our power and privilege with communities who have historically been excluded from the affordable housing field.
