Empathy, Social Justice and Housing Action with John Bauters
Episode Details
Transcript
John Bauters sees a huge part of his Emeryville mayoral responsibility as humanizing the homeless, and reflecting empathy in a way that pushes all of his constituents to see the full community benefits of affordable housing. In this first part of our 2-part conversation, we learn how his own backstory drives his approach and how social justice intersects with pollution and climate change. And we discuss how all of this impacted his thoughts on COP27. From city leaders to residents interested in climate impact, John’s reflections will help you dig deeper.
Speaker 1
00:00
The best public servants or empathetic people, we joke about studying bus seats, right? There's the same thing for The Human Condition. I don't need to study whether or not it is right to help an undocumented person. I think there's too much overthinking and there's a lot of people with power who want to analyze and study everything including the Human Condition and you study The Human Condition by working with humans. I am .
Speaker 2
00:28
Andrea learnin and welcome to living change a podcast, exploring unconventional, climate leadership. I talk to people who have converted their personal values into business and policy decisions in a load of different sectors. I believe that the more were visible about these changes. The more, we chart the way for other leaders, wanting to create new social norms today, I am speaking with Emeryville California, mayor. John, Boehner's. Hey.
Speaker 1
00:52
John. Hi. How are you, good? How are you? We had.
Speaker 2
00:56
Such a great conversation that were released Icing it in two parts. You may notice a pattern with many of my guests. I first connected with John on Twitter, as a fellow biker, I enjoyed watching him. Document rides throughout the city. I loved his photos of his pup and I enthusiastically followed as he tweeted about his Emeryville city council work, and then he went on to be elected Mayor. John sees climate impact at the intersection of most of his policy priorities. He's a vocal advocate for the intersection of housing, affordability, and climate. Most people don't realize how linked homelessness and climate change are. But in fact, the homeless population are the first to experience the climate crisis, acutely think about it. Their most vulnerable when a natural disaster strikes from hurricanes to heat waves, and they have nowhere to turn for us, but they're also disproportionately suffering from systemically rising temperatures from more frequent exposure to air pollution, and Wildfire smoke to longer exposure, to disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks. It's a vicious. Vicious cycle, making the plate of the unhoused even more dangerous. But in the midst of this Bleak, trajectory Emeryville is actually, one of the few cities in the Bay Area region that has reduced homelessness. So we jumped right.
Speaker 1
02:12
In, it's a team effort to make it happen in my city, that's inclusive of the council and the staff in the city of Emeryville. And in our region we have been hit really hard by homelessness. But homelessness is an issue. That's very deeply personal to me and also a place where I have had a lot of professional. Experience. So I came out as lgbtq to my family in the midwest. In the 90s, I went through a lot of challenges with my family's acceptance of that situation and that led to a period of housing instability in my life, just over 20 years ago now and in that period of time, I, you know, face various different types, of housing scenarios first place, that was actually my own was a room in a boarding house in Southern California, and I worked professionally from that space to be a homeless Outreach worker. Ended up going to law school and becoming an attorney. For people who are homeless through a HUD Grant, I was a legal aid, eviction defense attorney for people who are in public housing in Chicago, came out to California to do policy work on housing and it's guided everything that I do, and it's integral to who I am and from that space. A lot of the things that we have been doing in Emeryville, whether that be production of housing, affordability, and housing preservation of housing or protections for people as well as homeless Outreach Services. Those are all informed by my own lived experience in my profession Ernie on housing, Justice.
Speaker 2
03:30
Well, that is so interesting. I don't know that I have ever picked up on that and following you on Twitter, maybe I wasn't paying attention, but thank you for sharing that. And now I am curious how has that story or the understanding of that really helped you connect with your constituents or two forward some of these policies that you're moving forward. I am just I can't wait to hear.
Speaker 1
03:51
Yeah. So there's a couple ways that happens. One of the most powerful ways that I found that it's really benefited me and the work I do in my community is it offers me the opportunity to show people what's possible and it also changes the narrative. So I do a rotating Town Hall in town and I haven't Town Hall in 2018, where's January? And there were about 130 people who came to that town hall was at a residential complex on our Peninsula. And one of the residents, got up to speak, and she was very upset, and she said, Mr. Mayor, there's a homeless man, and he's living under the pile Street overpass. He has 40 to 50 bags of trash and I don't feel safe walking into the overpass to the Trader. Joe's to get my groceries anymore. And what are you doing to get rid of him? A lot of had started nodding and I said, ma'am. Do you know what his name is? Yeah. It's she didn't. And I said, does anybody here know what his name is? And nobody did. My said his name is Jim, and At that moment, I have already communicated to everybody that I know more about this person than they do. And I told them Jim story, 67 year, old man. Man, who was renting an apartment just across our border in West Oakland and was paying his rent was Social Security along with a few hundred dollars, a month, he made by Recycling and there was a recycling center right across our border on Peralta Street. And is that neighborhood continued to get built up with new housing, residents, began complaining to the city council that they hated hearing shopping carts, rattling with cans and bottles at six in the morning and the city council voted to close that recycling center down. And with it, they closed down. Jim supplemental, income. And after he lost Few hundred dollars a month to help cover his rent. He was behind on rent, in a housing crisis in the Bay Area. He was evicted from his home. And he spent a couple weeks on the streets of West Oakland with the few possessions, he had from the eviction and there were gunshots, and he didn't feel safe. So he came to our city, because he felt safe and those 40 bags weren't trashed, those were recyclables from our own community that he was picking up, and he was taking to recycling centers, because he wanted to get his own money to pay for his own deposit for his own new place to stay. And most people just didn't know that because Buddy bothered to stop to talk to him, they hadn't humanized him. And I said, we have a contract in place that goes and picks him up for a few hundred dollars, some a week or a month. We pick him up, and we take them to a different recycling center with all those recyclables. So he can receive cash and do what he wants with it and said we offer him housing and shelter. We have a Housing Shelter program with the county North Hub and I said that he has declined it and I said I am not mad at him for declining and I said, somebody knocked on my car window, and 2002 and offered me a place to stay and I said no, because It's extremely humiliating to have some person who you don't know, offer you something that you so desperately need and want, but you can't provide it to yourself and I said the goal of government should be to help people and it should be such that. He feels, he can trust us and if I in the city staff, create a space where he realizes, we're not here to take his things right here, to harm him or move him along, but he can trust us. My Hope Is that in that partnership, Jim will realize that it's not a bad thing for him to accept shelter services from our city. And I said, so that's what we're going to do. And I hope At every day, when you walk to the Trader Joe's, you say good morning Jim to and because then he realizes that he's not threatened in the place, he is and it makes it easier for him to recognize that he's welcome here. And I said, does anybody here have a problem with what we're doing for Jim and not a single hand went up. Wow. And I said Thank you. Thank you. Next question. And I came back two months later, and the first thing that happened when I walked in the room, I got run over by about 10 old. Ladies, who said Jim is missing, Jim is gone. And I said, well, we will talk about that in a second, and we started the meeting and I said, sounds like you all want to know about Jim. And they said, As I said, he accepted shelter Services last week.
Speaker 2
07:32
This is the power of Storytelling. It gets to the heart of what I am mining for. As I talk to change makers, we're all responding to the story of one human being. Honestly, just listening to, this was devastating, John was able to connect the Emeryville Community to Jim's humanity and it really reaches them. John did this inherent understanding come from having lived? The experience.
Speaker 1
07:55
Yourself. I appreciate that question. I think it's a combination of Those things I think most people would who work with me. Would argue that? I am an extremely empathetic person. I think that the best public servants are empathetic people. You don't have to have lived experience to necessarily understand. Like I don't have to be a woman or a mother to understand what women are deal with. Yeah, whether that's harassment being underpaid, right? I have to empathize with what it must be like to try to make ends meet being paid two-thirds to three-quarters of what a man makes for the Work, right? Like I and what that might mean for me, right? And my family. So I don't think everybody has to have lived experience. I think that elevating the voices of people with lived experience is critical to getting the best decisions made, right? And my lived experience. I, you know, you noted, you don't see me talk a lot about on Twitter because I am really conscientious of the fact that I also live with white privilege, right? I am a white person who is a man? I happen to be lgbti happen. To have had my share of time. Being unemployed living through housing insecurity, living in situations. I don't really want to talk about that weren't really helpful that were traumatic for me that a younger point in my life but I also recognize that if I was a woman, and I was black, my prognosis in the likelihood that I would be able to be where I am today is far greater diminished because of all the other variables and institutional, biases that exist in society. So yes, I do think lived experience is important. I think that it's also empathy and understanding what really goes on in our community. And I, you know, I chose a path of profession that was very closely aligned with social work. So I do work with people and, you know, as a legal aid attorney, I have had thousands of clients who were low-income, most almost all my clients are people of color, almost. All of them are people who are low income and in that space, you know, while I don't have the same exact lived experiences them, I have walked with them. Through their lived experience and I have been there when they have had to make decisions that I do not envy any person making. And it is those experiences. And the lessons I have learned from over 20 years of work, in that space, that guide and give me the convictions, I have people say you're so confident and so assured, about how you're voting on some things, and we're in it. So I don't need to study it further. You joke about studying bus seats, right? Yeah. There's the same thing for The Human Condition. I don't need to study whether or not It is right to help an undocumented person, right? When I got elected the same day as Donald Trump. The first thing I did was make our city a sanctuary city as the very first thing I did. And because I don't have to be an undocumented person to understand what the plight of that person is, from the position of a person who is an ally in that movement, and that is, I think there's too much overthinking and there's a lot of people with power who want to analyze and study everything, including the Human Condition and you study The Human Condition. By working with humans.
Speaker 2
11:01
Yes. Wow. You are so articulate on this topic, and I am just feeling kind of goose bumps because I that is a wonderful way to put it and how lucky Emeryville is to have you leading you know and making these changes your story about Jim covers, the whole system of City infrastructure that needs to change housing, affordability parks and Open Spaces, Transportation Community. Safety and wellness. It's incredible. How just One story intersects with all parts of the system? And so that makes me wonder, you tell those stories in the human stories, is that is talking about it as a systems change, is that starting to resonate with your constituents and understanding that each of these pieces is all interconnected. Is that, is that helpful or do you try and go at it from Individual? Let us focus on transportation and by the way, that will help these other issues. Tell me about the whole system's View and how you use that in your?
Speaker 1
11:56
Work. Yeah, it's a good question. And it comes back to advocacy to write how to Advocates, do address these things. When your, when your leaders can't or don't, I think it depends on that the most common thing that people miss misunderstand whether there are, they're speaking from a dais, or speaking from the, the public comment is, who is the audience, right? So my answer to your question, depends on, who my audience is. Am I speaking to a group of people who are understand systems? Three-dimensional thinkers, who understand the intersectionality of these issues. Do I have to have a baseline understanding of how systems of Injustice and oppression operate today, and how people don't even wittingly understand that they benefit from the continued operation of those systems? Be that zoning be that, you know, car dominance be whatever that is right. What is continuing to exist in? Do we understand the impacts that has now and has had historically on people and it becomes it comes back to being self educating oneself about like why I am where I am like what brings in that's recognizing my privilege again? Like, why I am? Where I am. And I think that when you speak to different constituencies, there are different levels of efficacy with which people come from, right? They have different levels of knowledge. So sometimes presenting the intersectionality of these five things we're trying to solve is, is like won't talk to some people, right? Yeah. And then the effectiveness of me as a leader or spokesperson, an issue is I may feel like I am being really smart, but it's not doing me any good, right? And I need to, then boil it down to singular topics and as a follow-up to the conversation on Jim, you know, I went back and told folks, he's accepted shelter, Services, people were very happy. I said, I am glad you're happy. I said I am running a housing bond to House people like, Jim. I would love it. If you would vote for it, and we passed that Bond three months, four months later. And so helping people see the connection between something that we're doing that. They I feel connected to their, a lot of them felt connected to him, I had the same group of residents. Some of these older folks call me about a homeless man, sleeping across the street from the building next to the fire station and the parks District had put a notice to a victim, and they were showing up to remove his stuff while he was gone out at the store or wherever he was. And old ladies were across the street, fighting the parks District officials against removing his stuff. And one of them called me about to have a heart attack on the phone asking me to show up. And I showed up on my bike, 10 minutes later and I got the parks District. I said, can you give us 48 more hours? We I like to work with him, and we moved him. 20 feet off of their District property onto the city property and it's like you can Empower people when they see that you have an understanding of an issue and that your willingness to lead them on an issue and support them in what they know is, right? That's when you actually accomplished change. And so, I welcome when my I still get constituents. We let me say, I want this on house person. He's been sleeping over here. I feel unsafe and it's scary whatever. I always right? Nice, email back that says, thank you so much for your concern for the welfare of our own house neighbor. I don't let them on the narrative. About this is a spooky person who because I don't like looking at it, and it makes me feel guilty or uncomfortable. I should therefore be rid of that, right? That's like disposing of a human being because you don't even taken the time to understand their problem, right? Right. And there's some people who say, oh, there's so many of them and people will come up with all these reasons. Well, they're addicted and you can't really help them in this and that and the truth is like, homelessness isn't something. Thing that comes in a package that is sold to everybody, or given to everybody. The same way, it's an experience that's as unique as the user, and it's a success, it's an experience that can be entered into and can be left. And people forget that like a person is not homeless as if they are a static experience, a person experiences homelessness and for the same reasons that I may have lived through housing insecurity. I left housing insecurity through my own process, right? Other people have that same and I have helped many people That process. And so, it's about helping human eyes. And there are some people who have no patience for it because they see it every day. They don't want it, they don't understand it. They think it should be the government's problem to solve the irony. Is that when you say, well, the solution is for me to build more housing, and they don't want it in their backyard. I said, so you would rather the person live across the street and attend. So you should stop calling me about that, right? But you should, that's when you start presenting the intersectionality of. Why am I building this housing, right? Because people say, oh, you're just the MB or the set, right? No, no, no. They do there. All over that. And I am like no actually part of the solution to homelessness is an abundance of housing for people of all incomes, right? And people get down, the people go down the rabbit hole of affordability and this and that was like they make it more complicated than it should be. It's like I don't again, I don't need to study that housing and homelessness. When there are more roofs, there are more places to put people. I don't need to study that. That's an answer.
Speaker 2
16:48
This is so simple and clear. I hope other local leaders. Take a page from John's book. He's helping connect his community with the humanity. E of the person on the street. His name is Jim. He was collecting cans and recycling them to supplement his income. And when the recycling center near him was shut down. He lost access to his income stream. He doesn't want a handout. He wants to support himself. It's street level advocacy, through storytelling. Before we continue with the conversation, I wanted to tell you about a podcast. I love and honorable profession brought to you by the team at New Deal. It's the go-to podcast for learning about the rising stars in American politics, past guests, include Peter, Budaj Edge. Jason kander Senator, Alex Padilla, and Mandela Barnes. These leaders share their Innovative policy ideas as well as their inspiring stories about their path into public office in a world of sound bites and at Attack ads. And honorable profession is a thoughtful conversation from the front lines of American democracy. I love finding conversations that give me hope that we can address climate change and the policy challenges of our time. Tune in to learn more and listen to an honorable profession. Everywhere podcasts are found John's work is part of the Bay Area. Air quality management. Team led him to be selected as a member of the u.s. Sub-delegation to cop, 27, the United Nations climate conference in Egypt, last fall as someone who watched the conference on full from afar, pretty much exclusively online. I was eager to hear. John's experience from how we ended up on the delegation to his big takeaways.
Speaker 1
18:33
The Alameda County Mayors conference has seats on several Regional boards. And one of them is the bay, area's Air Quality Management District, the oldest air quality District in the nation. Serves nine counties and almost eight million people. And I was elected by the my fellow Mayors and Alameda County to represent our County on that board. And I have been elected by that board. I am now in my second year, as chair of that board for the region and there're 101 cities in the Bay Area. Mine is the second smallest by land size. So it doesn't matter how big of a community or from it is matters, what you lead with. And in that role, we have a seat as a sub delegate to the US, delegation to the Climate conference, the UN cop as you noted the convening of parties and for the last two years I have attended the cop on behalf of the air district. And in that role, you know, I have gone mostly to learn and to bring back lessons from other people. I really feel that even though our district is a leader globally on a lot of issues where other countries and regions are very far behind, there's still a lot of things that others are innovating on that. Could be doing here to make air quality here in the Bay Area, better for everyone. So I go and I use that space mostly to learn but also to share, cop 26 and Scotland. I was part of a panel presentation on the role of redlining and community and how we use the lessons, we have learned on community engagement and this year we also I moderated a panel around some of the things we're doing in the Bay area that are Innovative. But this past year, I will be very candid. I had become concerned And with cop, I have become concerned with green washing and the taking over of this form by corporate interests, including oil companies, which are I believe next year going to have some people who are partly in charge of this kind of right? But I have a very, very significant concern about that. And so while I recognize and I struggled activist, and he does not want to be part of something that I think is masquerading as climate action. I also feel There are other stakeholders and partners like myself, who are there for whom I need to show up and be present. So, I went this past year to Sharm el-sheikh Egypt for the conference along with Vice chair of the board Davina hurt. And a couple members of our staff. We went together, we did a presentation at the cop, but I made an effort this year. My goal was to only attend panels and conferences that were put on by women and Indigenous people. And I did that on purpose. One indigenous people make up less than 5% of the people who, Remain in the world yet, they are responsible and oversee, the lands of 80% of our natural resources that have been untouched and are at risk by in action on climate. Similarly, women are the demographic. Most likely to be negatively impacted by a climate change, and they women in third world countries. Equatorial countries are most likely to be displaced to be resource perdant. Whether that means going further distances to retrieve water, whether that means trying to provide Resources to their families or villages with less battling changes in natural phenomenon. That will be variations in short periods of time that differ from hundreds of years, of lived experience that they have as a culture. Women will be disproportionately impacted and it's girls the ages of nine to eleven who are most likely to be climate refugees. And, so I felt that it was really important to Center my time. Again listening to humans who are actually impacted and I came back with a lot of new knowledge. I spent my time Chewing and talking to some of those folks. And I believe that if we're gonna really address the climate crisis, we need to listen to more women and more indigenous people because the commitment to science is good but science without a cultural, or human understanding of the world is not anything, but an opportunity to be bought and sold and repackaged by somebody who has a monetary interest in monetizing nature.
Speaker 2
22:36
And were you connected with other City leader? People that are sitting leaders from across the us while you were at cop. And I am kind of curious is what your sort of focusing on common or like, when you were around your peers and City leadership and I would say probably Global North, right? Or maybe us leadership. What was your experience with your peers and are they thinking the same way you are? Do you have.
Speaker 1
23:02
Hope? Yeah, I always keep hope. I do. You have to, if you don't here's the thing. One of the very first All's I went to two years ago, was a youth panel and their entire refrain was, we have hope and if you don't then there's no hope for us. And, so I do this work mostly for young people. I always felt as a young person. I was not represented, I was invisible and I don't do public service out of a desire to serve some interest. I have I do it because I believe young people really are left off the table left away from a seat where this is their future and a bunch of people who won't be here and tend to Years are deciding the futures of people who have an entire life ahead of them. And I feel like we have a moral responsibility to Center our discussion around them, and they asked for us to have hope. So, I keep hope. And I will tell you that, my experience in Scotland was very different from my experience in Egypt. Oh, tell me. Yeah, in Scotland, I had all the, I had all the hopes and underpinnings and conversations. You spoke to I had dinner meetings with officials from Canada and the United States and parts of Europe. And I attended some of the venues, where language to the Glasgow Declaration was being debated and I got to watch how certain Western Powers opposed language and the African and Asian States United against those amendments. And it just was really interesting to see the global economic and Foreign Relations Dynamics take effect in real time and to see where people's interests were and what was really moving them. I didn't have that opportunity in Egypt because in Egypt it was the location for this event was a resort community on. A peninsula. And, you know, next to the Red Sea, and they put us all in gated Resorts every evening. So you left the car. We were in the middle of a desert, they built this venue in the middle of a desert, and they put you on a shuttle bus to your specific Resort, and you went back to it and there was no community space. There was no desire to put us in community with each other. Whereas Scotland was the opposite. Scotland was there? Were protests outside. I spent a whole day, just engaging people who are involved in civil action. There were no civil action forums that you could see. There was no Wrote us allowed Egypt and it wasn't a place where people who wanted to from the public could even get you could even get to it and stay there. You'd be in the middle of the desert. So I felt it was an extremely inhospitable place to the world voice, which is why I didn't engage anything outside of what I wanted to on the inside of the venue. Because I felt that it had already been tailored in a way that was designed to give people a very specific experience and an impression. And to me, it was contrary to what? Had experienced the year before which was very uplifting, and joyful, and optimistic. I felt very depressed about my takeaways from cop 27. Yeah.
Speaker 2
25:51
And to think cop 28 next year is in Dubai. Oh, I am skeptical. But were there any events that cop 27 that were actually focused on cities and what cities are?
Speaker 1
26:01
Doing? There were some speaking events about cities and What cities were doing it was a little show-and-tell. Yeah to me that it felt like Everybody came to just share what they were doing, which can be helpful modeling, you know, good behavior or actions that make changes is helpful. But it, you know, I can probably be labeled in patient on this issue but I feel that cities are talking a lot and not doing a lot and the time for talking is over and there's a Time for Action and it's been for a while now and I definitely think that cities could be doing more. I am really grateful to divide and administration for the amount of money that's been But out through the bipartisan infrastructure and the inflation reduction act has a lot of climate action money. I know a lot of us think, it doesn't have enough, but I will be honest. It is the single largest package of financial resources to cities and states to do these types of resiliency, and sustainability projects that we have seen before. And so I am hopeful. But if you, if you just follow the math of what science tells us about where we're headed and what we're doing, we're not doing enough and so whenever I met with, you know, proposal or responses to Puzzles. I put forth that the air District or in my own city which is this is just a lot. It's too much. I actually say this is incredibly moderate compared to what it should be. That's again, this comes back to the same thing with homelessness instead of letting people say that the person across the street is a spooky scary Boogeyman refrain reframing around compassion, right? Like, let us have compassion for that person. When the leader has compassion, everybody else has to question, why they're not exercising compassion, when you say that? Oh my gosh, you know putting in Zero nox emission. Standards for building furnaces and water. Heaters is going to be so dramatic. Well really? We should probably be doing it to everything in the building. This should really be nox emission. Everything and people find like, then you want radical, I can show you what radical is like, that's, you know, but it's still not going to be enough if we don't take action. So that's kind of how I thought. I felt like I heard a lot of things from folks, but it felt like a lot of what people were presenting was, this is what we're working on. And what I want to see is what if people accomplish what are we actually? Finishing.
Speaker 2
28:13
What are we actually finishing people go to these climate conferences and say we pledge this or that, and then they show up next year and say we have adjusted our pledge. Ah, I share John's restlessness for action and solutions-oriented impact. We had such a great conversation and it doesn't stop here. Stay tuned for part two airing next week, when we get into biking Public Safety and.
Speaker 1
28:35
Infrastructure.
Speaker 2
28:38
Identifying building and leveraging, your leadership is something, You may feel prepared to do but climate influence, can't wait. If your organization is ready to make the shift, reach out to me. I would love to help. Find me at www.learningstationmusic.com. I am also easy to find on Twitter until it is no more and Linkedin. Living changes produced by large media. That's l.a. Are J media. Until next time paddle safely.
