CRRA 2022 Conference & Tradeshow

Resource Conservation Manager

City of Oakland’s Housing Authority (OHA) provides subsidized housing to nearly 16,500 families. OHA serves a diverse community in neighborhoods throughout the city. OHA owns and manages over 200 scattered sites, and 6 large campuses of multifamily dwellings (MFDs) and 6 administrative buildings. The MFDs range from 4 to over 300 units. These properties are covered by local and state resource recovery mandates. How is OHA contributing to equitable access to recycling and composting in affordable housing?

As a participant in the Department of Housing & Urban Development’s (HUD) Moving to Work (MTW) Demonstration Program, OHA works with community partners and stakeholders to develop and implement innovative solutions to the persistent issues of access to quality affordable housing, and lack of opportunity in America’s very low income neighborhoods. OHA acts as one of “America’s Housing Policy Labs,” demonstrating and evaluating new solutions that can be replicated across the country; a goal of the recycling initiative. The presentation is a story of OHA’s recycling education initiative, and how it has adapted to the pandemic. OHA strives to provide equitable access to recycling and compost by providing on-going education and tools. The audience will learn and takeaway the following:

• OHA role in recycling education
• Modeling recycling behavior starting with OHA staff
• How to meet residents where they are
• Representation matters in program development and implementation
• In-person interaction vs virtual outreach
• Effective messaging resulting in maximum participation
• Why environmental education is important to marginalized communities

Principal / Consultant

Commercial technical assistance plays a key role in any successful municipal waste prevention program. This presentation will spotlight how a team of trained consultants is having success working with diverse commercial enterprises in the City of Alameda.
The speaker will discuss some of the challenges technical assistance (TA) programs face, how to craft solutions, and review the various tools that TA specialists can use as part of a successful TA campaign. Come learn some new ideas or share your own success stories with others.

Associate

Cantonese and Mandarin are among the most common non-English spoken languages in the Bay Area. Cascadia Consulting Group provides extensive zero waste engagement services to Chinese business owners across the Bay Area, particularly those who primarily serve this important demographic. Our work has included an in-person workshop in partnership with the Oakland Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, a webinar for Chinese business owners in Alameda County about SB 1383, in-store outreach in San Francisco to promote reduction of single-use food ware and checkout bags… and more! Our multilingual team provides written and verbal translation and transcreation services, in-person and virtually, to overcome unique barriers to participation. Through our projects, we’ve learned a lot and even incorporated our lessons learned into our company’s internal culture. In the last year, our experiences helped create and shape Cascadia’s Community Based Organization Relationships Subcommittee, as well as our Translation, Transcreation and Interpretation Protocol. Come hear our stories from the field and lessons learned through our service to the Chinese community in the Bay Area.