#buildCOMMUNITIES™

#buildCOMMUNITIES™ means investing in:

• The well-being of our communities to address ill health exacerbated by systemic racism, poverty, discrimination, criminalization, and gentrification.

• Safe, stable, and dignified housing as a human right for all.

• Programs that support people to achieve economic independence and stability, especially for the people who have been most excluded from opportunities to generate income and build wealth.

• Education and schools as spaces for students, families, and the broader community to access education for success and for liberation, to connect to the resources they need, and as places where transformative and restorative justice is taught and practiced.

• Supporting and expanding resources that all residents can access in their communities to relax, learn, thrive, and lead.

• Supporting communities to manage conflict so that it does not escalate to harm, and when harm has happened, to intervene with models that focus on restoration rather than punishment.

Our #buildCOMMUNITIES™platform was built out of a collaboration of directly impacted people and communities, as well as partner organizations and advisors in New York. The platform was intended as a roadmap to make a bold shift from the status quo, by acknowledging the vast resources that decades of mass incarceration have extracted from marginalized communities.

Now, our vision for #buildCOMMUNITIES™means uplifting the work and expertise of directly impacted people nationally, to build well-resourced communities across the country.