Vermont Corridor Organizing Project
As South LA continues to face the disproportionate impacts of the pandemic’s economic downturn, the current housing crisis, and ongoing waves of displacement, community residents call for investments in neighborhood corridors centered in economic and racial equity. To counter homelessness, economic divestment, and land speculation disproportionately impacting families of color, we will center South LA residents in a community-led visioning process that elevates community ownership of land, housing, commercial space, and essential resources as a critical strategy to build permanent power for Black and Brown South LA residents.
Vermont Avenue, with its long history of blight and chronic divestment, is identified as a corridor that can undergo a community-led transformation that transforms its built environment and strengthens its local economy, all while ensuring local residents benefit from each investment the most. To do so, Community Coalition organizes a base of residents that engages with the broader community, local small businesses, community leaders, community based organizations, and public servants to inform the transformation of our streets, land, businesses, local workforce, and ownership of our own community.
History of Land Use Work
Transforming land has been a demand of Community Coalition members since day one. Community Coalition’s first survey, with over 10,000 respondents, identified the liquor store as the number one problem impacting the quality of life of South LA residents.