Recently, our Mayor delivered his annual State of the City address. But I have been asked, what is the State of Black Pasadena? What has happened to our community, and where do we stand today, amidst all our challenges? First and foremost, we have a dwindling population. Back in 1980, Census data showed African-Americans constituted 20% of Pasadena’s population – one out of every five people. Since 1980, the Black population in Pasadena has decreased, and with each passing decade, at an accelerating rate. The 2020 Census shows that our population has shrunk down to 9% -- less than one out of 10 people in Pasadena – of a City whose overall population grew slightly. But despite that population decline, we have three African-American members of the City Council, more than we’ve ever had in our City’s history. And we have African-American elected representatives on our Unified School Board, on the Community College Board, and on our State Assemblymember. So while our population is shrinking, our political voice is growing. However, maintaining that political voice requires collaboration and working with other groups to create a rising tide of opportunity for all. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed racial disparities in access to health care and in health risks. George Floyd’s murder laid bare troubling and deeply rooted inequities on a national scale that also fester right here in Pasadena. But we have made progress. We now have, thanks to my leadership, our Community Police Oversight Commission. That will, I hope, be a powerful tool to help the entire City transform our police force into one of greater professionalism, greater compassion and empathy, and one that can both earn the trust and respect of the community while also tamping down the gang and gun violence that plagues our neighborhoods. One of the key reasons so many Black families have left Pasadena, and so few are moving into the City, is the cost of housing. In response, I am calling for the building of 3,000 additional units of housing over the next 4 years, distributed throughout the City, with 15% of those units reserved for “Extremely Low Income” families. We are already making progress on that front. We will soon break ground on building 69 new senior apartments, reserved for the formerly homeless, with on site, wrap-around social services. We have already broken ground on building 180 units of workforce housing on Oakland Ave.,
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