Commitment for an Inclusive, Equitable and Compassionate Community – Hayward, CA

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Project Initiator: City of Hayward

In January 2017, the city of Hayward (pop. 150,000) was experiencing “heightened community concerns about human and civil rights, and about increased tensions between community members based on people’s political affiliation, economic status, place of origin, immigration status…and other physical characteristics.” In response the city set up a community task force to use an inclusive process to update Hayward’s 1992 anti-discrimination action plan.

The task force, which reflected the full diversity of the community, renamed the action plan the Commitment for an Inclusive, Equitable and Compassionate Community (the Commitment, for short), and met several times over the course of nine months, forming subcommittees to work on specific portions of the plan. In the end, the Commitment contained five sections:

• Encouraging Shared Community Values
• Fostering Accessibility
• Dismantling Illegal Forms of Discrimination
• Implementing the Hayward Sanctuary City Resolution
• Enhancing Community and Police Relations

Working with subcommittees like the Community Taskforce Dismantling Illegal Forms of Discrimination Subcommittee, the task force created dozens of specific action steps for each section. One such action step, for example, calls on the city to ensure equitable access to information, activities, etc., “particularly for underserved and most vulnerable community members” and to “make direct, intentional investments in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods.”

Implementation of the Commitment is being overseen by both the task force and an interdepartmental working team. One of the first steps in implementation was to require implicit bias training for all city workers at least once a year, and strongly encourage such training for volunteers.

For more information, please contact David Korth, Assistant to the City Manager, David.Korth@hayward-ca.gov.