Oakland City Challenge Names Community Winners!
Oakland, CA- The people have spoken! This summer, Oaklanders voted in support of community-proposed solutions to homelessness, violent crime, and illegal dumping. Experts, students, and city officials reviewed the top proposals, and the results are in: six winning proposals will proceed to a coaching program, where the teams will work with experts, city officials, and mentors to bring their proposals to fruition in the form of a pilot design.
The winning proposals represent a diverse array of solutions, including the further development of existing tiny home communities around Oakland, teach-ins to build conflict resolution skills, and programming to enhance urban beautification efforts. Each proposal represents ideas with massive potential to influence positive change in Oakland’s communities. Full information about all winning proposals is available here.
The winners of the Oakland City Challenge, along with City officials, will participate in a coaching and mentoring program to design a pilot of the proposed idea and develop project plans, budgets, and implementation strategies.
The Oakland City Challenge is a one-year project run in partnership with the City of Oakland, Oakland Fund for Public Innovation (OFPI), Mills College, The Burnes Center for Social Change at Northeastern University, and The GovLab. The Oakland City Challenge is a public engagement project in which city officials work with residents of Oakland to identify and implement resident-designed solutions to some of the city’s most pressing problems. This City Challenge builds the capacity of local civil servants and residents to collaborate, identify and co-design potential solutions that tackle urban challenges and improve the livability of Oakland. This City Challenge will specifically focus on the following three challenge areas:
1. Urban Blight (abandoned vehicles and illegal dumping)
2. Homelessness and Housing Insecurity
3. Violent Crime
The Oakland City Challenge received solution proposals from 237 Oaklanders, which were then voted on by 860 members of the community. Solutions were voted on 2361 times, with the average voter upvoting 2.75 ideas. The top twenty proposals for each category were reviewed by a panel of 18 reviewers, made up of community leaders and city staff, students, and experts in the Oakland City Challenge issue areas.
Best regards,
The City Challenge Team
City of Oakland
Oakland Fund for Public Innovation
Mills College
The Burnes Center For Social Change
The Governance Lab