Yoots-Richmond Outdoors Coalition Community Needs Assessment

Yoots-Richmond Outdoors Coalition Community Needs Assessment

Clean Mobility Options Voucher Pilot Program
Community Transportation Needs Assessment

Youth Transportation Organization (Yoots) | Yoots-Richmond Outdoors Coalition Community Transportation Needs Assessment

Project Details

Yoots’ needs assessment grant term ran from February 2021 to November 2021. Through this needs assessment effort, Yoots used focus groups and resident surveys to engage youth, their parents and guardians, community members, and local CBOs. Additional efforts focused on youth, families with children without personal vehicles, women-headed households, Spanish speaking households, households with incomes under $30,000, Latinx families, and undocumented populations without driver licenses. Youth community leaders were hired to provide feedback on surveys and do outreach for surveys and focus groups in English and Spanish. Yoots created a Richmond Outdoors Coalition (ROC) transportation action team, which included participation from partner organizations. Lawrence Hall of Science served as an evaluation partner.

To learn more about project implementation, watch this video.

Project Outcomes

Final Report

Funding Details

Voucher Total: $50,000

Community Engagement Activities

3 Virtual focus groups
194 Survey responses
Individual interviews series

Community Details

The project focuses on Richmond and North Richmond. This community suffers from a critical lack of access to healthy, green, public spaces. The proximity to industries like Port of Richmond, BNSF railroad, as well as the heavy vehicle traffic on the freeways and roads, contribute to high levels of air pollution. These neighborhoods also lack adequate public infrastructure and residents have less access to public transportation networks, and have few safe bicycle and pedestrian pathways. A high percentage of the residents in the census tracts of our project area live below the poverty line and there are high levels of unemployment. This community suffers from a critical lack of access to healthy, green, public spaces. During initial conversations with local organizations that offer youth and family programming, they reported that transportation is the single biggest operational barrier they face in being able to provide a full range of program options.

California Air Resources Board