Stockton, CA in political stalemate

This summer, I will be working with Community Partnerships for Families of San Joaquin in Stockton, CA. CPFSJ is a multi-pronged organization, tackling issues in finances, health, and education as a way of reaching their mission of ending inter-generational poverty. Much of the work they do is through partnerships they have established with various private and public institutions in Stockton; for example, the resource center partners with St. Joseph's Hospital (a private hospital in Stockton) to provide care for the low-income families that are a part of CPFSJ. They also focus on strengtening communities: the families that become financially self-sufficient, after the assistance provided by CPFSJ, act as ambassadors for new families entering the program. Most of the population CPFSJ targets are low-income, mostly immigrant families in various parts of Stockton.

I wanted to use this space to give a brief layout of the political stalemate that has taken over Stockton in the past decade or so, from an outside perspective and an inside perspective (I am a native of Stockton). In 2004, Measures Q and X were passed, stating that Stockton's Urban Growth Boundary be extended to include Southeast Stockton, ushering in a new momentum of economic opportunity via commercial and retail stores, new schools and recreation centers (http://www.smartvoter.org/2004/11/02/ca/sj/meas/X/). The progress has been slow and since 2004, very little has been done to motivate the Southeast community. Southeast Stockton houses many of Stockton's troubled communities (the biggest one being Sierra Vista Projects), breeding grounds for at-risk youth and rampant with gang violence. In the streets and casual conversation, we call the Sierra Vista Projects simply SV or the Vista. SV residents are predominantly low-income, African-American or Hispanic. Gang culture in the SV is a way of life - the public and private life of friendship and family conflate and SV residents are expected to live a life of decency and fearlessness.

A few years after Measures Q and X were passed, housing developments in Stockton sky-rocketed. From my 16 year old mind, I remember watching Stockton expand dramatically North and Northeast. I remember driving to the post-office on West Lane and what used to be an empty field was now cluttered with houses that have a small patch of grass as the front yard. Similarly, the field that used to engulf the always-busy WalMart was now paved clean with cement and houses were beautifully designed to compliment each other. What used to be North Stockton (where I lived) was now North-Central Stockton. North Stockton was where A.G. Spanos built his kingdom. KB Homes dominated the housing development industry off Highway 99, by Morada. Not long after, plazas of Targets, Lowes, restaurants, and grocery stores appeared around these areas.

In 2007, Stockton was hit tremendously hard by the foreclosure crisis (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/10/stockton-california-is-fo_n_417704.html). Most of the people in my neighborhood rented their homes, and I remember all of us needing to move away because our land-lords couldn't afford to keep their/our homes. For the Sierra Vista, this meant that much of the public housing that populated the area had plans for take over. Along with Measures Q and X, it felt like life in Stockton was officially over as we knew it. But it's been a few years and much seems to be going the same. In 2012, Stockton declared bankruptcy and the unemployment rate is currently about 17-18%. For years, we have seen candidates move in and in (they never move out) of office, never really making effective change on the ground. But in the last election, Michael Tubbs, "a true son of Stockton" was voted in (http://mdtubbs.com/). We went to high school together and the Michael I knew was so completely different than the Michael he is now. Shortly after graduating from Stanford, Michael was elected a city councilman and the stagnant motivation for improvement that has burdened Stockton for decades feels like its now starting to lift.