New Voices Meet the Mayor

Earlier in the year, our New Voices Are Rising students wrote letters to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf asking for action on the issue of gentrification. Our students want to live in a clean and green Oakland, and also a city where residents aren’t displaced by development and rising rent prices. New Voices students asked to meet with Mayor Schaaf, and she agreed to meet with them in August. Mayor Schaaf and our students had a lively discussion about the factors that contribute to rising housing prices in the Bay Area. At a time when many young Americans feel skeptical about the government, the Rose Foundation believes it’s essential to help our students learn their power to affect policy change. New Voices Peer Leader Marlen Escobedo said that through the program,”I was able to learn more about the environment and my community…New Voices motivated me to want to major in political science at Wesleyan University!” We offer a big thanks to Mayor Schaaf for hearing our students’ voices!