Community Development with Community Roots

March 2021

East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation

45 Stories for 45 Years

Contributor: Andy Madeira, CEO of EBALDC

My parents immigrated from Japan to the U.S. in the 1960s and landed in Southern California. My mom was Japanese, and my dad was a mix of Japanese, Portuguese and French. He had a 7th-grade education but secured a job as a mail clerk at a shipping company in Los Angeles. Despite his lack of education, by the time he retired from the company 35 years later, he was running their home office. My mom, who arrived in the U.S. not knowing any English, eventually enrolled in community college and learned the skills she needed to become a computer programmer at a local bank.

Theirs was a real immigrant experience. Even with limited education, they took advantage of the opportunities available to them and were successful. I grew up very conscious of how your identity, as an immigrant and a person of color, affected the opportunities available to you and that people who had access to those opportunities could take advantage of them to build a life for themselves and their families.

My first job out of law school was at a legal clinic in Philadelphia. We represented people reeling in the late 1980s from widespread urban disinvestment; people losing their homes because they went from being a steelworker to a security guard. My job was to help them retain their housing. People would wait for hours to be seen, lining up before we opened regardless of the freezing Philly winters or hot and humid Philly summers. It was important work but I soon realized that I might be addressing a narrow legal issue, but my client’s struggles were so much deeper. If we could provide more opportunities and get out in front of these issues, we could help people achieve better outcomes.

That put me on the path to affordable housing development. I’ve worked in the affordable housing and community development world for 35 years now and I have known of EBALDC for much of that time. What impresses me about EBALDC is our emphasis on outcomes – for our individual residents, for the block where they live, for the neighborhood and community. It is place-based work, using their Healthy Neighborhoods Approach and collaborating with community partners to make change. This includes housing, yes, but so much more.

It is so critical now for organizations like EBALDC, a community development corporation with long-standing roots in Chinatown and in the immigrant experience, to take the lead in developing solutions through our Healthy Neighborhoods approach, and ensuring access to opportunities for communities so disproportionately impacted by a lack of affordable housing, income inequality, COVID-19, and racist policies.

EBALDC is a leader in this work and, at a critical moment for our communities, is poised to achieve even greater impact in the years to come. As I begin my new role as CEO of EBALDC, I look forward to expanding our leadership and deepening our impact in building healthy neighborhoods across Oakland and the East Bay.

 

As EBALDC marks our 45th anniversary, we will be gathering more stories like this one from our friends, family, community members, partners and more stakeholders that have made our impact possible. We would be honored for you to join us:

  • Follow us on social media: @EBALDC

 

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