ST EOBHCSunset 072321 - Flipbook - Page 24
Improving the material
conditions for residents
in East Oakland
During these years, TCE’s CEO Dr. Bob
Ross took a sabbatical to listen to
community voices in the various regions
of California. He emerged from this
sabbatical with a renewed, bold, and
unapologetic commitment to center racial
equity and its adverse impact, particularly
on men and boys of color. This was way
before the Black Lives Matter movement,
and certainly as one of the richest
philanthropies in the country, TCE began to
lead the way in making clear that the lives
of Black people and other people of color were important. TCE then declared it would invest $100
million over ten years to invest in what it called its “Sons and Brothers” campaign.
Sons and Brothers was an internal TCE brand. Externally, this resulted in massive investments in and
attention on boys and men of color. Oakland was one of three communities in the state that received
additional funding to support this new line of work.
With support from TCE and building off of the longstanding work of EOBHC member groups,
several organizing groups in Oakland formed the Justice Reinvestment Coalition of Alameda County
(JRCAC) to create a fair and just public safety system that invests in communities and eliminates
criminalization. Since 2015 some of their accomplishments have included: 7
• Securing 50% of AB109 realignment funding for CBOs that provide full-spectrum re-entry services;
• Securing $1.7 million for Pre-trial Release and $1 million for ‘For Us By Us’ services for
organizations with at least 50% staffing of formerly incarcerated individuals;
• Securing a unanimous vote from the Alameda County Board of Supervisors to endorse and
implement the 1,400 Jobs for Freedom Initiative, dedicated to hiring members of the re-entry
community into a significant number of permanent, living-wage, fully-benefited County jobs;
• Reducing the maximum probation term from five to three years in Alameda County; and
• Eliminating certain fines and fees imposed upon adults involved with Alameda County criminal
courts and supervised by the Probation Department.
JRCAC members include Oakland Rising, Faith in Action East Bay (formerly OCO), Legal Services for
Prisoners with Children, All of Us or None, Urban Strategies Council, Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), East Bay Community Law Center,
Just Cities, Causa Justa:Just Cause, and Urban Peace Movement.
7
Please see Appendix 2 for a complete list of policy wins
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FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK EAST OAKLAND: EOBHC Sunset Report