Update on Project Activities
We began the week with an all-team check-in with Daniela from Brightline and Katie from Clarity on Monday morning, and since then, we’ve made considerable progress on our tasks, submitting a first draft of the “Basics of Air Quality” section of the introduction booklet and final drafts of the educational campaign flyers. Introduction Booklet During Monday’s meeting with Daniela, Maya was able to run through her outline for the booklet and confirm that it was in line with Brightline’s vision. Bringing together Meiling’s class presentation as well as the team’s newfound knowledge from informational interviews (which she also compiled into one document), Maya completed a draft of the “Basics of Air Quality” which she sent to Eddie and Daniela on Friday evening. She intends to finish the sections detailing the scope of the project as well as actionable steps that community members can take this weekend, so that next week the team can solicit feedback from SRO tenants and discuss formatting. Flyer / Social Media After our meeting with Pratibha last week, Tori and Dani have applied the final edits to the CCSROC flyers that will be hung up in store windows around SoMa and the Tenderloin. Designed to highlight Brightline’s air quality monitoring program, the changes to the flyer better call attention to the main takeaways about the program.After incorporating Pratibha’s feedback, the flyers are a lot less text-heavy and instead rely on visual design and bullet points to convey the information. They provide quick information about the air quality monitors and feature a large QR code to lead tenants to the air quality map of AQI data from the Clarity sensors. Data Template Thus far, analysis of the data has been somewhat consistent with previous observations, though with a few new developments and shifts in where peaks are -- higher AQI peaks and averages around the Tenderloin District, though still with wider, more drastic ranges seen in Chinatown. As elaborated upon in the following, looking into emissions sources to cross-reference this data will be highly informative. In addition to evaluating the AQI data from the Clarity sensors, Katie suggested that we also compile a list of emission sources in the area to cross-analyze with the data. To do this, Patricia and Dani have started and will continue to add to a list of busy traffic intersections, known diesel generators, and large construction sites across SoMa and the Tenderloin. Using this information, we will better be able to understand the data and draw conclusions about why there may be a spike in AQI in certain parts of the city or during certain parts of the day, such as during rush hour. Surveys As we look to next week, some of our next focuses will be on redesigning the surveys for SRO tenant leaders. Using the insights we received from the SRO tenant meeting, we will begin to make edits to these surveys. We hope to make them more eye catching and intriguing to residents and to place more of a focus on their current air quality situation (the previous survey focused more on the impact of the wildfires on air quality). By making these adjustments we hope to increase resident participation in these surveys and to collect responses that adequately meet and address the current problems and needs of residents. As we plan to have more media coverage about the work Brightline is doing, another thing we plan to include in the survey is what media outlets (newspapers, radio stations, TV, social media pages, etc) community members engage with the most. Patricia was thinking it would be meaningful for the community see their stories reflected in the media they care the most about. Informational Interviews This week we made more progress on our informational interviews, during which each of us compiled questions tailored to our interviewees and posed questions to learn about these individuals’ experience and knowledge on air quality and environmental justice related areas. From our interviews, we collected information that expanded our knowledge on air quality and EJ so that we can better carry out our work for Brightline. We compiled the notes from our informational interviews into one document that we will deliver to Brightline at the end of the quarter as an additional deliverable. Hopefully, these interviews will facilitate connections between Brightline Defense and Stanford researchers that persist beyond this quarter. What We Observed and Learned The deliverables have really come together this week as we approach the end of the quarter; as we continue to work on them, our team has observed the synthesis of the private sector (Clarity), the non-profit sector (Brightline), academia (the professors we’ve interviewed), and community groups (CCSROC and CYC). We believe this collaboration has powerful implications for how we can collectively move towards environmental justice, and are honored to be a part of this work. Critical Analysis/Moving Forward While our project with Brightline isn’t necessarily directly related to housing, it has been interesting to see how the history of housing in the Bay Area has shaped Brightline’s work with SRO tenants today. Past zoning decisions to place low-cost SRO hotels adjacent to busy highways is directly tied to the unique air quality concerns that residents face in SoMa and the Tenderloin, and thus, it was these very housing decisions which gave rise to Brightline’s environmental justice efforts in the area. On top of this, SRO hotels haven’t necessarily been maintained or updated since their construction following the 1906 earthquake, so the lack of air filtration systems in these buildings often means that residents have to keep their windows open despite unhealthy air conditions outside. This means putting themselves at additional risk of respiratory disease and other health concerns. Similar to the case of Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis, these conditions only underscore the importance of actually maintaining affordable housing rather than just constructing it and leaving it be. These realities made our group reflect on the importance of revitalizing the existing housing stock in the city, as Preston and Joyce touched on during their presentation on Wednesday. In the next week, we look forward to making further progress on our deliverables and hope to solicit feedback from SRO tenant leaders. We are also in the process of scheduling a meeting with Ka Yi and Sharon of CYC, which should provide further context on the needs of the community. Comments are closed.
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