Local coalition maps neighborhood equity issues

By Merry Mackinnon

The Bee, Jan 30, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

“Coalition For A Livable Future” Co-Director Jill Fuglister (shown here with daughter Devon) lives in Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood. The coalition’s other co-director, Ron Carley, lives just southwest of Fuglister in Westmoreland. The Portland-based coalition recently produced the “Regional Equity Atlas”.

Merry MacKinnon / THE BEE

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Founded over a decade ago, the “Coalition For A Livable Future” embraces an ambitious regional advocacy role — one that covers affordable housing, public transportation, living wage jobs, clean water, open spaces, wildlife habitat, and farmland protection. The nonprofit also seeks to end hunger in the community.

So it wasn't surprising when, last year, Director Jill Fuglister, feeling swamped by her daily agenda, asked the coalition’s board to hire a Co-Director. Now Fuglister, who lives in the Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood, shares her job with Sellwood-Moreland resident Ron Carley, who previously oversaw a storm water management grants program for Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services.

Together, the two head a small nonprofit that is having a big impact on issues.

Reflecting the priorities of its diverse organizations, such as “1000 Friends of Oregon” and the Urban League, Fuglister and Carley, along with two other staff, coordinate the coalition. Most policy work is carried out by its ninety member organizations.

Recently, the coalition published an atlas which is contributing to the understanding of growth, and how it has affected different populations in the region.

By providing area maps and neighborhood listings, the atlas is a tool that often-ignored groups can use to influence local government decision-making and, perhaps, to get more of those resources, like parks, for their neighborhoods.

The “Regional Equity Atlas” (www.equityatlas.org) tracks economic disparities developing as the region grows. With help from researchers at Portland State University, who compiled census data that focused on mostly disenfranchised populations, the 138-page atlas depicts geographic distribution of people juxtaposed by income, child poverty rates, and other indicators of economic and social equity.

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