The Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) brings together working-class Asian immigrant and refugee communities in the Bay Area and Los Angeles to develop and fight for progressive solutions to address affordable housing, environmental justice, and economic justice.

APEN has worked for over 30 years to build the leadership of Asian immigrants and refugees, beginning with helping communities address environmental hazards in their neighborhoods in Richmond and expanding their work to fight for affordable housing preservation in a rapidly gentrifying Oakland Chinatown. Their work also includes collaborating with other organizations across the state and nation to help build a shared vision around environmental, social, and economic justice through power building strategies like civic engagement and policy advocacy. Locally, as rent skyrockets and low-income Asian families continue to struggle to find quality affordable housing in the Bay Area – in particular Vietnamese renters and Korean homeowners – APEN continues to work with community members to propose policy solutions that address the need to preserve affordable housing and create safer living conditions in working-class communities like Oakland, Chinatown, and Richmond.

For example, in 2019, APEN won a 16-year campaign to ensure a new Oakland luxury waterfront development included 465 units of on-site affordable rental housing for seniors and families making between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income. That same year, APEN also helped push forward AB 1482, housing legislation that would cap rent increases and protect people from eviction. APEN's community leaders also successfully advocated for the Healthy Homes Act (AB 1232), which includes provisions for a program to utilize existing energy efficiency funds to help renovate the homes of working class families and conduct research into whether these kinds of statewide environmental programs cause displacement. Additionally, APEN advocated for a citywide emergency moratorium on tenant evictions in Oakland in order to help protect tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as disbursing $60,000 in emergency funds for immigrant and refugee community members. More recently, APEN expanded their organizing work into communities of the South Bay area of Los Angeles.

APEN is also a key leader in environmental justice in the Bay Area and throughout California. In recent years, they have continued their decades-long fight against pollution in Richmond by building the organizing power of Asian communities and forming alliances with other organizations to end statewide policies that allow for further use of fossil fuels in frontline communities. APEN has also created pathways for local communities to secure climate resources, including by helping a senior affordable housing complex get state funding to install solar panels and assisting to secure public investments to build a resilience center in Oakland Chinatown that can keep communities safe during climate disasters like extreme heat and flooding. For more on APEN’s work, please visit their website here. Read APEN’s most recent joint report on building resilience in the most vulnerable communities to respond to climate disasters here. 

Photo credit: Asian Pacific Environmental Network