Title VI: Environmental Justice, Health & Transportation |
PRRAC has worked to support environmental justice advocacy, with a focus on strong national and local partnership strategies. Harmful and inequitable environmental hazard siting, enforcement disparities, and other EJ issues have often been closely connected to residential segregation and concentrated poverty, as well as racial bias and disparities in access to power structures. Our work to improve these conditions is an important complement to other strategies that serve as immediate interventions to improve health (in particular that of young children), such as voucher mobility and strong standards for where subsidized housing is sited. The key legal tool to address environmental injustice is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Much of our current work is in support of the Title VI Alliance, a coalition that brings together advocates, attorneys, and community members working at the intersection of civil rights and environmental, climate, housing, transportation, and disaster justice. Alliance members collaborate on federal, state, and local action to dismantle persistent barriers to civil rights enforcement and advance environmental and climate justice protections for frontline communities. The Title VI Alliance was founded in 2011 by Vincent Martin, Omega and Brenda Wilson, Vernice Miller-Travis, Steve Fischbach, Brent Newell, Marc Brenman, and others, following the National EPA Environmental Justice Conference in Detroit. To get in touch with the Alliance, please email TitleVIAlliance@gmail.com. |
Recent Advocacy from the Title VI Alliance
- Environmental Justice And Civil Rights Advocates’ Response To Petition For Rulemaking To Rescind EPA’s Title VI Disparate Impact Regulations (September 2024)
- Final Comments to EPA on Technical Guidance for Assessing Environmental Justice in Regulatory Analysis (Title VI Alliance, January 2024)
- Final Letter to EPA and DOJ on Environmental Justice and Civil Rights (Title VI Alliance, October 2023)
- Environmental Justice Comments on the Proposed Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Rule (April 2023)
- Comments on the EPA “Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grant Program” (Title VI Alliance April 2023)
- Letter to HUD re Civil Rights in CDBG Disaster Recovery Administration (Title VI Alliance, February 2023)
- RE: Comments on EPA’s Civil Rights Obligations in Designing and Implementing the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (Title VI Alliance, December 2022)
- ECRCO Affirmative Compliance Selection Review (Title VI Alliance, February 2022)
- On Proposed NEPA Implementing Regulations Revisions (Title VI Alliance, December 2022) (NAACP LDF, PRRAC, et al, November 2021)
- EPA Strategic Plan (Title VI Alliance, November 2021)
- On New Federal Strategy to Reduce Childhood Lead Exposures (Title VI Alliance, November 2017)
- To USCCR on Environmental Justice Enforcement at the EPA (Title VI Alliance, August 2017)
- Revised AFFH PHA Tool (PRRAC et al, October 2016)
- On the Department of Interior Environmental Justice Plan (Title VI Alliance, May 2016)
- EPA-HUD AFFH Coordination (Title VI Alliance, March 2016)
Publications
- Strategies for Health Justice: Lessons from the Field (Edited by Megan Haberle & Heidi Kurniawan, November 2018)
- The Call for Environmental Justice Legislation: An Annotated Bibliography (Jennifer Bisgaier & Jennifer Pollan, July 2018)
- Deconstructing Segregation in Syracuse? The Fate of I-81 and the Future of One of New York State’s Highest Poverty Communities (Anthony Armstrong & Make Communities, May 2018)
- Fair Housing and Environmental Justice: New Strategies and Challenges (Megan Haberle, January 2018)
- Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: A Platform for Public Health Advocates (Philip Tegeler & Brian Smedley, June 2016)
- Comments on Federal Transit Administration Proposed Rule on Transit Oriented Development (March 2012)
- Organizing to Address Minority Health Disparities: A Directory of State and Local Initiatives (Health Policy Institute, Joint Center for Political & Economic Studies, PRRAC, the Opportunity Agenda, and Alliance for Healthy Homes, July 2008).
- CERD Health Report: Unequal Health Outcomes in the United States (January 2008)
- Rebuilding a Healthy New Orleans : Final Conference Report of the New Orleans Health Disparities Initiative (PRRAC, Alliance for Healthy Homes, the Center for Social Inclusion, & the Health Policy Institute, May 2007)
- There is No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster: Race, Class, and Hurricane Katrina (Edited by Gregory Squires & Chester Hartman, 2006)
- The Interstates and the Cities: Highways, Housing, and the Freeway Revolt, by Raymond Mohl (2002)
Policy Briefs
- Equity Considerations in Climate Adaptation Plans: A Call for Advocacy (Peter Kye, October 2017)
- Moving to Healthier Neighborhoods: Options for Local Advocacy (Meghan Hottel, Philip Tegeler, and Megan Haberle, May 2014)
- Two Simple Changes to Improve Health Outcomes In the Section 8 Voucher Program (April 2011)
- Prescription for a New Neighborhood? Housing Vouchers as a Public Health Intervention (Kami Kruckenberg & Philip Tegeler, July 2010)
Other PRRAC Advocacy
- Advancing Health, Environmental, and Housing Justice Together: Recommendations for HUD (NAACP LDF, PRRAC, et al, June 2021)
- Support for the Equity and Inclusion Enforcement Act, H.R. 2574 (PRRAC et al, September 2020)
- Revised Assessment of Fair Housing Tool – Local Jurisdictions (PRRAC et al, September 2016)
- Incorporating the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Obligation into EPA’s 2020 Environmental Justice Action Agenda (PRRAC et al, July 2016)
- Fair Housing Comments on the Capital Magnet Fund Interim Rule (PRRAC et al, May 2016)
- HUD’s Responsibility to Residents of Flint, Michigan (PRRAC & LCCUL, March 2016)
- Shriver Center/Loyola Petition for Rulemaking on Lead-Based Paint Protocols (PRRAC et al, February 2016)
- DOT Proposed Rule on Statewide Metropolitan Transportation Planning (PRRAC, October 2014)
- EPA Draft Title VI Policy Papers (Title VI Alliance, March 2013)
- Transportation Equity Caucus on FTA New Starts Guidance (PRRAC et al, March 2013)
- Comments on Federal Transit Administration proposed rule on transit oriented development (March 2012)
- EPA Draft Report, “Creating Equitable, Healthy, and Sustainable Communities” (PRRAC et al, March 2012)
- Fair Housing Comments on HUD EJ Strategy (PRRAC et al, November 2011)
- Transit-Oriented Affordable Housing in High Opportunity Communities (May 2011)
- Comment letter to Dept. of Transportation on Discretionary Grants NOFA (June 1, 2009)
- Letter to Secretaries Donovan and LaHood on smart growth and fair housing (April 6, 2009)
Related Poverty & Race Journal Articles
- Field Report: Deconstructing Segregation in Syracuse? (May 2018)
- “Racial and Ethnic Residential Segregation as a Root Social Determinant of Public Health and Health Inequity: A Persistent Public Health Challenge in the United States” by Robert A. Hahn (April-June 2017)
- Major Title VI Agreement Reached in Corpus Christi by Joseph D. Rich (April-June 2016)
- Stealth Capture: The Civil Rights Movement and the Implementation of Medicare by David Barton Smith (April-June 2016)
- Equitable Transit Oriented Development (March 2015)
- “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act at 50: An Unfulfilled Promise at EPA” by Marianne Engelman Lado (July/August 2014)
- Walk a Mile in My Shoes: Los Angeles Celebrates Anniversaries of the Civil Rights Movement by Robert Garcia (July/August 2014)
- “Disadvantaged Communities Teach Regional Planners a Lesson in Equitable and Sustainable Development,” by Richard A. Marcantonio & Alex Karner (January 2014)
- Mossville, Louisiana: A Community’s Fight for the Human Right to a Healthy Environment by Michelle Robert (May/June 2011)
- The “Housing + Transportation Index” and Fair Housing (July 2010)
- Fair Housing and Transportation Principles (March 2009)
- Health Care and Indigenous People in the United States by Michael Yellow Bird (November/December 2008)
- Towards a Fair Health Movement: a special Poverty & Race Forum issue (September/October 2005)
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