Caitlin Lewis

Executive Director Work for America

Periods of federal retrenchment have a way of revealing just how much we depend on local government to hold things together. Cities are absorbing more need with smaller budgets and, in many cases, hiring freezes that prevent them from bringing in people who could help. Work for America is working both sides of that problem. Through our Civic Match platform, we’re connecting displaced federal workers with state and local government roles where their skills translate directly. And for governments that can’t hire right now, we’re helping them use this time to rethink hiring processes and build the pipelines they’ll need when the freeze lifts. What keeps me motivated is the simple belief that how well a community weathers hard times has a lot to do with who’s actually running city agencies, health departments, and permitting offices. That work happens one hire at a time, and right now, it has never mattered more.

Betty Duong

District 2 Supervisor Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors

A healthy population powers economic growth. Healthy residents are out in their communities, enjoying entertainment, dining, shopping, recreation, open spaces, and contributing to the dynamism of civic life. This is why the current federal administration’s decision to end the 60-year social contract between the U.S. government and its citizenry regarding healthcare is ill-thought-out and inhumane. In Santa Clara County alone, the cuts to Medicaid and other federal health programs represent a loss of $1 billion in funding for Medi-Cal services and public and community health programs that serve as the primary healthcare option for one in four county residents, or almost half a million people. We are fortunate that our county voters have proven smart and forward-thinking. Last November, they approved Measure A, a sales tax increase that will generate $337 million a year. This summer, my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors and I approved the budget for fiscal year 2026–27. In it, every dollar of Measure A funds is being used for healthcare and health programs. Measure A’s passage will not entirely negate the effects of H.R. 1. The County of Santa Clara is eliminating more than 425 positions to close our budget deficit, consolidating services where appropriate, identifying new revenue sources, and doing everything possible to keep high-quality local services at our county hospitals available to our community. The lesson is clear: if the federal administration continues its current policies, individual communities will be largely on their own, and it will be up to local leaders to convince their community’s voters to invest in preserving critical services.

Lian Chang

Transit Advocate Connect Bay Area and Stronger Muni for All campaigns

Getting out there with others who love the Bay Area gives us hope and strength. I was one of the organizers of the grassroots, volunteer-led signature gathering for our regional and San Francisco transit funding ballot measures. (Read more on page 18.) These efforts have the support of a huge coalition, including small and big business, labor, and environmental, social justice, and transportation advocates. This Bay Area unity is critical at a time when our cities are under threat on so many fronts.

The Connect Bay Area and Stronger Muni for All campaigns have been powered by more than a thousand volunteers and by donations, influence, and muscle power from both labor and the business community — as well as hard work from individuals across every demographic. It’s essential that those who can and want to volunteer do so. And it’s equally essential that we deploy donated money as pay, so that more people from all backgrounds can afford to be part of the work.

Sometimes when I talk with voters about the financial crisis threatening to close BART stations, eliminate Muni routes, and reduce transit services across the region, people say, “But they would never let that happen — somebody would do something.” And I tell them: “This is somebody doing something.” This is us rising up, for this November’s election cycle, to prevent catastrophe and keep public transit serving the Bay Area.

Together, we’re building political power for transit and for the Bay Area: our grassroots effort contributed more than 86,000 signatures for the two ballot measures by having hundreds of thousands of conversations with voters in every corner of the region. This is organizing that not only wins campaigns but builds our collective resiliency and strength for future fights.

Sometimes when I talk with voters about the financial crisis threatening to close BART stations, eliminate Muni routes, and reduce transit services across the region, people say, “But they would never let that happen — somebody would do something.” And I tell them: “This is somebody doing something.” — LIAN CHANG

Rebecca Foster

CEO San Francisco Housing Accelerator Fund

The Bay Area’s resilience depends on whether the people who power our communities can afford to live here. Teachers, healthcare workers, service workers, families, and seniors should be able to build their lives in the communities they call home.

For too long, we have accepted a housing ecosystem in which projects move slowly, costs continue to rise, and promising solutions struggle to scale. If we want a more resilient region, we need an ecosystem that can adapt to changing conditions and consistently deliver results.

That means building both durable public infrastructure and innovative new tools. First, we need long-term funding structures that provide certainty and allow housing providers, communities, and governments to plan for the future. The proposed renewal and expansion of San Francisco’s Housing Trust Fund reflect that approach. Developed through a broad coalition of housing, labor, business, and community stakeholders, the measure would create a stable source of affordable housing investment for decades to come, helping San Francisco build and preserve housing at the scale the city needs.

At the same time, we must modernize how housing is financed and delivered. The Housing Accelerator Fund focuses on developing financing tools that help affordable housing providers move faster, reduce costs, and scale successful models. Through the Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund, we are providing flexible capital to projects that use innovative construction, design, and financing approaches to deliver housing more efficiently. Through the Industrialized Construction Catalyst Fund, we are helping developers overcome one of the biggest barriers to factory-built housing by financing the upfront costs needed to bring these projects to life.

Resilience is not simply about weathering challenges; it’s about building systems that perform better over time. As we confront a housing crisis alongside broader economic uncertainty, the Bay Area’s future will depend on our willingness to invest in both the long-term institutions and the innovative solutions that can deliver more housing, more quickly, and at lower cost.

David Sprague

Fire Chief Berkeley Fire Department

Local resilience is at the heart of our department’s work in the Berkeley Hills, where wildfire is a long-term challenge and funding sources can change from year to year. The most effective response is to focus on actions that remain within our control, namely Zone Zero practices — removing flammable landscaping, firewood, and outdoor furniture within five feet of homes. Through education, outreach, and technical support, we are helping residents understand how to reduce wildfire risk around their homes and contribute to the safety of their neighborhoods. Berkeley is asking not whether California has a wildfire problem but whether we have a cultural problem in how we think about wildfire. The lesson we have learned is that individual actions can produce meaningful collective results. Every property owner who creates and maintains defensible space helps protect not only their own home but also the homes and safety of their neighbors and first responders. When enough residents take those steps, the cumulative effect can significantly improve our ability to withstand and respond to wildfire. In the Berkeley Hills, residents have stepped forward as early adopters of the Zone Zero concept. Their engagement demonstrates that community resilience cannot be achieved solely through government programs or grant funding. It is built through partnership, shared responsibility, and sustained local action. External funding has helped accelerate this work, and we remain grateful for that support. But the long-term success of Zone Zero depends on something even more durable: residents who understand the risk, take ownership of the solution, and work together to make Berkeley safer and more resilient by turning fear into community cohesion.

Rafael Reyes

Senior Director of Energy Programs WestLight Energy

WestLight Energy is one of seven not-for-profit energy providers, or Community Choice Aggregators, in the Bay Area. We are public agencies created by our communities to serve our local communities. And that gives us a practical role in empowering residents to take concrete steps to reduce their monthly energy bills while also fostering healthier homes and lowering pollution. (Read more on page 21.) At WestLight, one of the clearest examples of this is our work to support the adoption of clean and efficient heat pump water heaters and space-conditioning systems. State and regional policies help set the direction, but lasting progress depends on local institutions that can translate those goals into practical programs, trusted partnerships, and support for residents.

To help people transition their homes to clean electric energy, we reinvest local funds in customer technical assistance, incentives, finance, and contractor partnerships to simplify community action. That means meeting residents where they are, with support and options, whether that’s detailed guidance or end-to-end install support. WestLight provides community members with the support to move forward in ways that work for them, including selecting their own products and providers. Our sustained local programs enable us to make clean appliances an affordable and convenient choice. In a moment when federal resources are in flux, local institutions cannot wait to act. By investing in local customer support systems that enable electrification, we can help communities continue moving forward with the clean energy transition even as broader funding landscapes shift.

Nicole Taylor

President and CEO Silicon Valley Community Foundation

The past few years have brought uncertainty and challenges for so many, with growing pressures on the nonprofit sector and the vital services our communities depend on. Yet even in difficult moments, I remain hopeful. Every day, I see the resilience, generosity, and determination of people coming together to support one another. Through efforts like our Community Lifeline Fund, launched in late 2025, we are supporting local nonprofits that provide essential services, including food, healthcare, legal assistance, and housing. By responding to growing community needs as federal funding recedes, we are strengthening the long-term stability of our region’s safety net. This is what community foundations do best: bringing people and resources together, moving quickly when needs arise, and investing strategically in a more equitable, vibrant future for everyone in our region.

Shina Robinson

Resilience Projects Director Asian Pacific Environmental Network

At APEN, we believe that resilient communities are organized communities. We should be able to count on our public resources when we need them most — but decades of disinvestment, worsened by federal funding cuts, have left our communities under-resourced and underprepared for disaster. Working-class communities often are told that preparedness means spending hundreds of dollars on air purifiers or thousands on solar panels. These individual approaches deepen the divide between those who can afford equipment and those who can’t. Building community resilience means developing collective responses to disaster. That’s why we’re working with community organizations, local governments, and funders to invest in community-serving institutions that strengthen the social and economic fabric of our communities and offer resources in times of crisis.

In Oakland Chinatown, elders in older apartment buildings face serious dangers on hot, smoky days. When the power goes out, seniors may be unable to leave without elevators, preserve refrigerated medicines, or reach loved ones. We’re partnering with Friends of Lincoln Square Park and the City of Oakland to renovate the Lincoln Recreation Center into a resilience hub where the community can access power, stay cool, and get vital information before, during, and after disasters. (Read more on page 27.)

In Richmond, we’re partnering with RYSE — a youth justice organization with deep local roots — to embed youth-led climate resilience into RYSE Commons, a 45,000-square-foot hub for art, healing, and community transformation. A community solar and storage system will provide relief from refinery pollution, wildfire smoke, and heat waves.

At our Richmond office, we recently broke ground on a community garden giving immigrant and refugee members a space to grow food, learn skills, celebrate culture, and deepen connections to each other and the land — collective, locally rooted resilience in action.

Len Materman

Chief Executive Officer OneShoreline (San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District)

Climate change continues to increase wildfire and flood risk across California, driving up home insurance costs. In an all-too-familiar story, in San Mateo County, enrollment in the insurer of “last resort” — the California FAIR Plan — grew more than 700% between 2020 and 2025. A private insurance market that is inaccessible and unaffordable doesn’t serve homeowners, insurers, and local governments that depend on a stable housing market to finance risk resilience efforts.

The San Mateo County Flood and Sea Level Rise Resiliency District, also known as OneShoreline, is the first independent regional government agency established by state law (in 2020) to plan for and build climate resilience, including the economic resilience of local families. In line with this mission and recognizing the severity of the insurance crisis, OneShoreline launched the Home Protection and Insurability Initiative in 2025 in partnership with the nonprofit Insurance for Good. The initiative works with insurance companies to design wildfire and flood risk reduction actions at the individual property and community scales, increasing access to private insurance priced to reflect those actions.

The first pilot for this initiative is the Flood Protection Supplies Program in San Bruno’s Belle Air neighborhood, near the flood-prone San Bruno Creek. As OneShoreline designs its large-scale San Bruno Creek Resilience Project, residents are seeking near-term protection for today’s climate-fueled atmospheric rivers. In late 2025, in partnership with community-based organizations and Stanford University researchers, OneShoreline provided more than two dozen households with funding for eligible flood protection supplies tailored to their needs. OneShoreline and its partners are reviewing data and feedback to refine and expand this pilot project with flood mitigation actions, potentially in partnership with a major flood insurance carrier.

Trent Rhorer

Executive Director San Francisco Human Services Agency

As federal support for our programs erodes, local resilience has shifted from concept to necessity. In San Francisco, we are meeting this moment through strong partnerships, rapid adaptation, and new technologies.

The federal changes under H.R. 1, 2025’s sweeping federal tax and spending law, represent a profound threat to the stability of tens of thousands of San Franciscans who rely on Medi-Cal and CalFresh for basic health and nutrition. These reductions risk pushing as many as 50,000 of our neighbors into deeper hardship — not by eliminating benefits outright, but by making them harder to keep. We are working to lower the barriers created by H.R. 1 by developing tools and resources that make it easier for clients to find information, connect to services, and stay enrolled in the benefits for which they are legally entitled. We are piloting technologies that streamline reporting, reduce paperwork, and help clients avoid losing coverage, while modernizing our internal workflows so staff can focus on higher-impact work.

When last November’s federal shutdown threatened SNAP payments, more than 80,000 San Francisco households were left in uncertainty. The city responded immediately with the CalFresh Emergency Grocery Card initiative. In just two weeks, this public-private partnership moved from concept to execution, placing prepaid grocery cards ranging from $200 to $500 based on household size in the hands of affected families so they could continue buying food while federal benefits remained delayed. That rapid rollout demonstrated something important: when traditional safety net systems are upended, we can move fast.

Local resilience looks like strong partnerships, smarter systems, and an unwavering commitment to keeping essential services accessible, efficient, and responsive. When federal systems falter, San Francisco will not leave its communities behind. We will adapt, we will innovate, and we will ensure that every San Franciscan continues to have the support they need.

Local resilience looks like strong partnerships, smarter systems, and an unwavering commitment to keeping essential services accessible, efficient, and responsive. When federal systems falter, San Francisco will not leave its communities behind. — TRENT RHORER