This group of well-respected and experienced leaders is a coalition that represents a broad range of public interests, including traditional environmental, public health, labor, environmental & social justice, climate, transportation, housing, and other constituencies working to promote integrated multi-benefit projects in their respective fields. The Coalition aims to make meaningful changes to institutional policies and programs and educate community members about the opportunity to maximize the investment of public funds to address structural disinvestment in poor communities by achieving multiple objectives for water, housing, parks and transit investments that result in transformative improvements for the region.

The mission of the Coalition is to advance adopted policies which promote infrastructure justice in Los Angeles County, encompassing multiple benefits broadly in the areas of water, housing, and equitable access to parks and transit.

LA County voters approved four infrastructure funding measures that together generate nearly $1.6 billion annually for: stormwater projects (Measure W), homelessness services (Measure H), parks (Measure A), and transportation (Measure M). Infrastructure funding also comes from many state and federal sources, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2022 and state-level investments aimed at improving infrastructure. The Coalition is promoting integrated planning as a mechanism to ensure that, regardless of funding source, multi-benefit projects are a priority. 

The Coalition leverages the experience and expertise of its member organizations to connect and collaborate with decision-makers in Los Angeles County. This approach is intended to create an environment that encourages integrated, multi-benefit infrastructure projects.  

By identifying opportunities to use these investment dollars to fund multi-benefit projects, the Coalition aims to drive LA County agencies to address environmental, climate, and public health concerns in a coordinated way while creating jobs and improving community wellbeing. 

Active SGV, Climate Resolve, Conservation Corps of Long Beach, Holos Communities, LA Neighborhood Land Trust, LA Waterkeeper, Pacoima Beautiful, Promesa Boyle Heights, and Trust for Public Land.

The Coalition works in several different arenas to advocate for better integrated planning and more multi-benefit projects. The Coalition has used its expertise to develop recommendations to better integrate LA County Measures W, H, A, and M, along with state and federal infrastructure funds, and identify the policy changes required to make the measures and other funds accessible to community-based design projects. The Coalition also meets with decisionmakers to identify components of existing systems that are working well and where there might be synergy for integration. Finally, the Coalition is identifying a list of exemplar multi-benefit projects through data analysis and interviews with project proponents to demonstrate how the multi-benefit approach works in action. 

The Coalition works on projects and in communities across Los Angeles County.

The Coalition has both short- and long-term goals. Shorter term goals like making Measures W, H, A, and M more accessible for community-based design projects are likely to be completed within a year or two, while longer term goals like the construction of multi-benefit projects have a longer time horizon on the order of 5 to10 years.

The Coalition is looking to identify a set of exemplar projects that are currently in development to demonstrate how different agencies with specific areas of expertise can work together and leverage distinct funding streams to plan and implement multi-benefit projects. This list of exemplar projects will be created by examining projects in the works in LA County that maximize benefits in the areas of focus: water, housing, parks, and transit. Further, by using various data sets, the Coalition is also identifying potential “gap” areas where there is an opportunity for integration of multiple infrastructure improvement goals. By elevating exemplar projects, the Coalition hopes to encourage agencies, municipalities, and NGOs to think critically about how their current and future projects could address multiple community needs. 

The Coalition is supported through a grant from Accelerate Resilience LA (ARLA). Additional support for the legal analysis was provided by Resources Legacy Fund (RLF) and the Liberty Hill Foundation.

The concept was largely identified by members of the Coalition who were originally engaged in the development of each of the four local funding measures: W, H, A, and M.  There was an almost immediate recognition that there was a tremendous opportunity to leverage funding from these four measures to address long standing community needs, particularly for underserved communities. This group of individuals worked with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to develop and pass a motion which led to the formation of the WHAM Task Force. The County’s WHAM Task Force was a good concept; however, it was designed to be driven by internal agency staff, and ultimately it lacked the synergy to make substantive progress. Therefore, the idea of an external coalition which could partner with, and promote a multi-benefit approach, was identified as a critical component to the success of the infrastructure justice concept. Several academic papers and independent funder reports bolstered this concept, which was also supported by the local philanthropic community. 

Infrastructure projects traditionally include such things as roads, bridges, transit, and other transportation projects; highway and pedestrian safety; broadband; water management and safety; power and power grids; and pollution prevention and abatement. Infrastructure justice expands this definition to account for issues of public health, equity, and social and community justice.