LOS ANGELES - The Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department, also known as LA Civil Rights, began accepting ideas from the public today for the City’s first-ever participatory budgeting program. Anyone over the age of five who lives, works, worships, or studies in one of three Los Angeles communities, called REPAIR Zones, can submit ideas for how to spend over $3 million in city funds through the Department’s L.A. REPAIR Participatory Budgeting Program. Winning proposals will be selected through a community-wide vote early next year.
“LA REPAIR puts investing power directly into the hands of the people who have been most disenfranchised and oppressed,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “I am proud of this program and all it will accomplish through empowering the people who should have the largest say in creating the change they want to see in their communities.”
“L.A. REPAIR Participatory Budgeting offers an historic opportunity to make people-powered change in Los Angeles,” said LA Civil Rights Executive Director Capri Maddox. “For the first time, folks in underserved communities will be able to directly decide how city dollars are spent. If you have an idea to improve your community, we want to hear from you.”
The REPAIR Zones involved in the first round of the program are Boyle Heights, Mission Hills-Panorama City-North Hills, and Southeast LA. Members of these three Zones can submit program or service-based ideas through an online portal at repair.lacity.org now through mid-October of 2022. Throughout that time, virtual and in-person outreach led by LA Civil Rights, members of the L.A. REPAIR Advisory Committees, and local community-based organizations will include tabling, canvassing, community meetings, and more.
Following idea collection, nonprofits and other community-based organizations will have the opportunity to respond to submitted ideas by proposing programs and service-based projects. The community will be invited to vote for their favorite ideas in early 2023, and the ideas with the most votes will be funded by the city and implemented by a local community organization.
Six more REPAIR Zones will start the participatory budgeting process in 2023, including Arleta-Pacoima, Skid Row, South Los Angeles, West Adams-Baldwin Village-Leimert Park, Westlake, and Wilmington-Harbor Gateway. Click here to learn more about the REPAIR Zones and the program timeline.
L.A. REPAIR, which stands for Los Angeles Reforms for Equity and Public Acknowledgment of Institutional Racism, was established through Mayor Garcetti’s Justice Budget in 2021. The $8.5 million L.A. REPAIR Participatory Budgeting program aims to address institutional racism and historic inequities by giving decision-making power over public funding directly to the residents and stakeholders of historically excluded communities.
REPAIR Zones were selected by a number of factors to determine the LA communities most impacted by structural and historic racism. These factors include employment and poverty data, home access to Internet, COVID-19 case rates, the CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index, the CalEnviroScreen environmental index, and historically “redlined” neighborhoods, among others.
According to an L.A. City Council report, all nine REPAIR zones are composed of at least 87% people of color, and represent more than half of all Angelenos living in poverty.
Click here to learn more about L.A. REPAIR Participatory Budgeting and submit an idea.