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A time of transition is at hand for Mindy Romero, the board chair of Mutual Housing California. For one thing, she is stepping away from the board after 10 years of her leadership and participation. At the same time, she is moving the California Civic Engagement Project that she founded to a new host. Since 2010, she has operated it out of her alma mater of UC Davis. Beginning in July, she will move it to the University of Southern California, where it will be housed at the Sol Price School of Public Policy in Sacramento and remain active on the local level and in the Capitol.<\/i><\/p>\n
Romero, who earned her Ph.D. in sociology from UC Davis has been one of California’s leading experts on political behavior and on the intersection between race and ethnicity and our political process. She also is a proud former resident of Mutual Housing’s Tremont Green community in Davis, where she lived for 12 while achieving her degrees. Her years in Tremont Green left her with a lifelong understanding and appreciation of the value of affordable housing and its importance in helping residents not only survive amid the crush of their personal circumstances, but also in becoming leaders in the greater community.<\/i><\/p>\n
Mindy took some time before her second-to-last Mutual Housing board meeting in June to discuss her career, her transition, and the role that affordable housing plays in empowering its residents. The following question and answer session with Romero was conducted and edited by Mutual Housing California’s communication consultant Andy Furillo.<\/p>\n
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What was the importance to your life of having lived in Tremont Green?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> I raised my children in affordable housing. I got through school and graduate school in affordable housing, while working and taking care of my children. I have long said I wouldn’t be where I am today, and my children wouldn’t be where they are today – and they’re all doing great – if it hadn’t been for Mutual Housing. That’s why I served on the board, and I’m very proud of the fact I was only the second resident board chair. It’s only been a few years since I stopped being a resident, but obviously that perspective is still important to who I am. It has informed everything that I do in my leadership with the board.<\/p>\n
How has being a former resident informed and shaped you?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> At Mutual, every question is first and foremost addressed from the resident perspective. There is nothing like having been a resident yourself and having that perspective and literally putting yourself in the shoes of other residents. I think that’s why this organization and the board was structured in the way it was structured – where we have a majority of residents and resident voices. They are loud, and valued, and critical. We wouldn’t be where we are today, and we wouldn’t be serving as many people if we didn’t have the resident perspective. Bringing that to the board chair elevates it that much further.<\/p>\n
What were your life circumstances when you moved into Tremont?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> I was going through a divorce, and I needed an affordable place to live, and we were low income. As a single mom you need a place that you can raise your children that is safe and healthy. For us, we were already in Davis, and my children were established here, and I really didn’t want to move them out of their community. So much was changing in their lives, and I didn’t want to also change their friends and their hometown and their schools. Based on what I could afford at the time, the whole city of Davis was out of our price range. Tremont Green was just coming onto the market. I’d heard about Tremont Green, and I was so excited about it because it was so beautiful and nice, and I got on the wait list, and I got a call, and in just the nick of time before we had to move. But we got to stay, and not only did we get to stay in something that was affordable, but also something that was just a great place to live, that was a nice, wonderful community, and that was in my opinion one of the best apartment complexes in Davis. All the myths of affordable housing went out the window. My kids were proud to live there. The townhouses were well built, and environmentally efficient, and clean and new, and we had this wonderful, great community with other single moms with other families and we were all raising our kids, and we were going to school. That’s really what affordable housing, what Mutual Housing, is all about. It’s not just affordable, which is huge, but it’s about this community that you gain, and all the other types of services that are available. It was a beautiful, wonderful experience, at a time of my life when I really needed the assistance. It changed the course of my life, of my family’s life. I know that feeling of being vulnerable to paying the rent. Being vulnerable doesn’t just mean you move. It means you disrupt your children, and your own trajectory.<\/p>\n
Your experience at Tremont Green – getting the Ph.D – sort of defies the stereotype of the affordable housing resident, doesn’t it?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> It maybe defies the stereotype, but it’s not an exception to the reality. In affordable housing, everybody is doing something. If you look more closely, certainly where I grew up and in our other communities across Sacramento and Yolo County, it may not be getting your Ph.D, but people are going back to school for something, or they’re starting a new business, or they’ve just gotten out of a bad marriage and they’re starting over. Or there are other challenges they’re overcoming. Maybe it’s illness or disability, or kids that just need extra care, or whatever it might be. Everybody’s got a story, and it’s all pretty incredible. It is society’s loss when we apply stereotypes, because we see some pretty incredible people in affordable housing. In my little community, in Tremont Green, another single mom was going to school getting her certification as a special needs teacher. She got a master’s degree. Another was getting her degree in social work. Another mom was getting her degree to be a lawyer, and specifically to be a child advocate, and she did that. They all did it. And we all helped each other out. We all were away from family. We created a new family.<\/p>\n
What is the role of affordable housing in civic engagement?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> It’s huge. It’s easier to be involved in your community when you don’t have to worry about housing. It’s difficult to be involved in your community, in whatever way, if you are working two or three jobs and the extra time you have left over should be left with your kids. When people are surviving, it’s more difficult for them. I think a lot of people who have gone through that are even more motivated to go participate and make a difference in their community. They’ve struggled. They’ve been frustrated by some elements of the system. Maybe their kids have been in schools that aren’t performing as they should. And they want to see if they can improve their community. There are lots of barriers to engagement. What Mutual Housing does through leadership development, we give people the tools to be engaged: where to start, how to start, some backup in terms of helping you think through topics, and getting information, and figuring out how to take action on things you care about. That’s really huge. Feeling like you have a voice in your community. Feeling like you can make a change. Feeling like you can stand up for yourself, and for your family – that is incredibly empowering. Myself, I started off on the resident council at my community, and became president of the resident council, and then joined the board. Every step of the way I gained skills.<\/p>\n
What does civic engagement mean to you, beyond just the meaning of those two words?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> I define it pretty broadly: any action a group or individual that is taken to improve the quality of life in their community. It is up to the individual to define the action. It’s taking action essentially on what you care about, in trying to make a difference, in positive action.<\/p>\n
What about the political, is that part of it?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> Of course. Whether it’s in a big “p” way, or in a partisan way, it’s just encouraging people to be engaged, period. My work is nonpartisan. But, if people are taking action on an issue they care about, they should absolutely not only make sure that they’re informed and know what they want to see happen, but they should then figure out who are the political players, including elected officials, who can help them get something done, and then they should decide who they want to support. That’s exactly the way our democracy is supposed to work.<\/p>\n
Do you see Mutual Housing residents reaching beyond just this community, these buildings, these apartments? Do you see them stretching out?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> Oh yeah. I see people being very involved in their greater community. No person is an island, no community is an island, and certainly if you’re serious about your community, whether it be about crime or the schools, whatever it might be, you work at your local and immediate level with your residents and fellow residents and family, and you also work in the greater community, and sometimes the issues will be immediately apparent and relevant. It could be a state issue a national issue, whatever.<\/p>\n
Do you see Mutual Housing as a center of civic engagement?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> Yes. We embrace it. We promote it, and we think it is central to who we are. The fact that we have community organizers on staff shows our commitment. Community organizers are about developing leadership skills, urging people to have a voice, encouraging people to participate. This is for the greater community as well, to get more residents involved in the greater community. But yeah, it’s something that definitely is core to who we are, and it is a unique part of who we are. We recognize that civic engagement is important for people’s empowerment, to transform their lives. If you don’t feel you have a voice to speak up in your own community, to talk to your manager, to make choices in how your community is run, to what resources that are available to you, then how are you going to speak up to the City Council? How are you going to follow the news and demand a change in the law, or an improvement in your kids’ schools, if you can’t do it where you’re living? And I think it’s even more important for low income communities to develop those skills. Oftentimes people that are low income, they get marginalized. They aren’t used to their voices being listened to. They’re subjected to prejudice, based on their income and assumptions about who they are, they’re lifestyles, how they raise their kids, whether they’re informed, whether they even give a damn, that sort of thing. Almost all of that is wrong, and it serves to suppress people even further. But if you develop leadership skills and speak up for yourself, you can push back and gain confidence. Gaining confidence makes you want to participate. It makes you want to gain greater skill sets. It makes you want to go back to school. It makes you want to be a lawyer. It makes you want to be an educator. That is empowering, and it’s transforming, in all aspects of a person.<\/p>\n
The leadership aspect, the people who get those skills, they are basically carrying the message to the greater community, right?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> Yeah. If you look at myself, I literally created a research center called the California Civic Engagement Project. But all those other moms that I mentioned in my immediate community, they all went on to have incredible impact in their community, and they are still having it every day. They would not be able to do that if they did not have a place to live that allowed them to get that education. On top of that, being in this environment encourages them to have a voice, to try and make a change, and it tells them they have the power to do that.<\/p>\n
So, there is a nexus between Mutual Housing and civic engagement?<\/b><\/p>\n
Romero:<\/b> Absolutely. That is part of our design and who we are. It’s a critical part of our design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A time of transition is at hand for Mindy Romero, the board chair of Mutual Housing California. For one thing, she is stepping away from the board after 10 years of her leadership and participation. At the same time, she is moving the California Civic Engagement Project that she founded to a new host. Since… <\/p>\n