Author: Rudy Espinoza
Executive Director, Inclusive Action for the City
CNM Board Member
Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 972, a major piece of legislation that ‘modernizes’ the CA Retail Food Code so that street food vendors can participate in our public health systems. The CA Street Vendor Campaign, and the vendor leaders who made this happen, are thrilled. But we are also looking ahead to the implementation of this policy. For me, it’s affirming the need for the mission-driven sector to build its capacity to effectively collaborate with public, private, and nonprofit institutions to advance change. We must be good at building coalitions to create new laws that support our communities, but we must also build thoughtful coalitions that focus on the programmatic aspects of implementing those laws. The best program implementation centers on constructive communication, effective evaluation, and most importantly the voices of those who are directly impacted.
About the Author
Rudy leads Inclusive Action for the City, a community development organization designing innovations to responsibly revitalize low-income, urban areas. He leads advocacy efforts in support of the working poor and their micro-finance programs that support micro-entrepreneurs. Rudy specializes in designing economic development initiatives in low-income communities, researching the informal economy, building private/nonprofit partnerships, and training the working poor to participate in the socio-economic neighborhood revitalization. He holds a master’s degree in Urban Planning from UCLA and a B.S. in Business Administration from UC Riverside.
