Sacramento leaders must prioritize funding to fix up community centers like Lanare’s

The San Joaquin Valley is home to some of the poorest air quality in California, extreme and deadly heat, and extreme drought. It was repeatedly a hot spot over the last year in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations — and it is unfortunately in the same position again.

The Valley is also home to grassroots communities that have come together over the last few years to provide food to families in need, launch campaigns for safe drinking water and clean energy, and ensure widespread access to vaccines in rural communities.

We need long-term investment to help communities remain resilient in the face of the urgent climate crisis before us.

One powerful solution that will simultaneously address these challenges, while building on the strengths of the region, is investment in community resilience centers. Community centers, when planned and run by community members who understand local challenges and needs, can provide critical shelter and emergency services in the parts of the city and county that need them most, provide cooling in times of life-threatening heat, and provide resources during public health crises.

During non-emergencies, they will serve as important places for community members to gather and organize, access important programs and services including economic development programs, and create stronger, healthier communities.

Locally, we were not prepared to respond to the disastrous impact of COVID-19. We were not prepared for last year’s choking wildfire smoke. And we are not prepared for the current and growing threats of climate change. We must learn from our experience to protect the health and well-being of communities that are both vulnerable to and the strongest advocates to prevent the most severe impacts of climate change.

As a prime example, the Lanare Community Center shows a potential path forward for Fresno and the rest of the state. The center currently serves as a hub for several rural communities in southwest Fresno County. It is used to supply food to nearly 300 families three times per month through food distribution programs. It provides a space for local leaders, like Community United in Lanare, to meet and address community priorities. The center served as a COVID mobile testing site, and as an information hub about worker and tenant protections during the pandemic. Then, it served as the site for vaccine clinics, with shots in almost 1,000 farmworkers’ arms in just a few weeks.

Unfortunately, all of this had to happen in a dilapidated building with no cooling and no heating. Investment in centers like Lanare’s is investment in permanent public health infrastructure.

The Lanare Community Center has the potential for so much more in a critical region of our state. With adequate investment, facilities like the one in Lanare can continue to be a hub to provide food to families, serve as an emergency and climate response center, provide relief during water outages, support small business development with investment in a community kitchen, distribute PPE during poor air quality days and wildfires, house health providers and other public health resources, and of course serve as a cooling and heating center.

It also has the potential to be a workforce development center for farmworkers and underemployed workers to receive training and support for upward financial mobility and opportunity.

State leaders must understand the urgency and opportunity of this moment and commit to making the investments needed to build stronger, resilient communities. As legislators return to the Capitol for the end of session negotiations, we urge an investment of $350 million over three years for climate resilience centers.