Our City 2025-26 Lineup

Lead Paint and Healthy Homes

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Lead Paint and Healthy Homes. Portions of the Historic Black Soria City neighborhood to the west and the Historic Broadmoor neighborhood to the east have severe levels of lead paint and other health hazards in the environment. The Lead Paint and Healthy Homes workshops and demonstrations will include door-to-door community engagement to share knowledge about the impacts of lead paint, especially on young children, and to invite them to the hands-on workshops. They will also include hands-on learning opportunities where we will utilize various homes in the neighborhoods to teach residents how to safely clean when there is lead present, prevention through maintenance, and more, following the EPA standards. As a takeaway, participants will be provided with a cleaning kit that includes a mop/bucket, cleaning cloths, and a vacuum with a HEPA filter, mindful of the local socioeconomic realities of many of the anticipated participants. Those who open up their homes to host the workshops will receive a fully-paid lead remediation by trained professionals.

Mitigating Particulate Matter 2.5 and Asbestos. Through community-based workshops, door-to-door community engagement, and in-community demonstrations, here we will focus on the issues of the inhalables of Particulate Matter 2.5 and Asbestos faced at a severe level in the focus area. Community-based workshops about the risks and prevalence of various types of Particulate Matter 2.5 and asbestos in local breathing air and neighborhood structures will be followed by basic education on how to mitigate it and properly remove it when possible. 

As a demonstration intervention, the project will remove the asbestos from the Broadmoor historic structure located along the Gulfport Gaslight District corridor. This asbestos-covered building has been standing vacant since Hurricane Katrina, contributing to the environmental hazards the community faces. This demonstration will link educational workshops together with practical interventions to begin the transformation of this blighted property towards a healthy, vibrant community asset and equip residents to do similar work on their properties.

Toxins in the Soil. Due to the prevalence of lead paint, unhealthy air, hazardous waste proximity, and proximity to underground tanks, Gulfport Gaslight District, Soria City and Broadmoor neighborhoods have unhealthy soil. The Toxins in the Soil workshop and demonstration will focus on understanding the risks, facilitating testing of residents’ soil, and equipping them with items for natural interventions through phytovolatilization via sunflowers and appropriate vegetation. The demonstration will include a planting day at the Broadmoor site with take-home plants to equip participants in beginning to mitigate the toxins in their soil at home, contributing to the community as a whole.

Module 2: Environmental Pollution- Neon Lights, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Arrested Mobility. “Arrested Mobility refers to systemic limitations on mobility and its resulting impacts on Black communities. Often, through discriminatory transportation and urban planning policies. The Claiborne Expressway [in New Orleans] is a prime example of how infrastructure projects can exacerbate inequalities in economic mobility, air quality, and noise pollution, especially affecting historically Black neighborhoods… It's also important to highlight other sources of pollution in underserved communities… railroads built through Black neighborhoods around the country [for an example], which are noisy, dangerous, and impede freedom of movement. You can also look at the demographics of neighborhoods near airports. The rhythmic drone of planes flying overhead is a common sound in many communities of color and low income neighborhoods [like Historic Black Soria City].” In this workshop, we will explore how ‘Arrested Mobility’ is an effective framework to understand different forms of pollution, and advocate for policy change that can lead to more equitable, healthy places. This will build on a Mobility Justice 101 Seminar hosted in Spring 2024, and look to work with the local Center of Disease Control agency, and bring in a nationally-recognized speaker for a special workshop. 

Marketing Violence In the Marketing Violence workshop, we tackle the multitude of environmental pollutants in the built environment, such as poor marketing practices, that have become the norm due, in part, to generations of poor enforcement of public law, ordinances, and zoning regulations; community malaise, cynicism, and/or despair associated with intrusive noise, nuisance light, and other environmental pollutants that plague our community. This will be provided as a ‘walk-shop,’ bringing participants to the places where these things are experienced in person couched within the larger discussion.

Module 3: Environmental Sustainability- Urban growth, resilience, and violence

Combating Flooding. This workshop and its demonstration will be focused on an issue that is an especially felt challenge for local residents - flooding due to the rise in severe storms, including hurricanes. Community-based workshops will explore interventions that are possible for residents to do on their own properties to lessen the impact and build their resiliency for storms as individual households and a community. The demonstration project will include the installation of some of these interventions at the Broadmoor including installation of permeable surfaces, landscaping, and others as advised by professional landscape architects. Those who participate in the demonstration project and workshops will be eligible for a drawing to receive a free landscape architect review of their property with a proposal for suggested interventions. 

Population Growth and Community Change. At this community engagement event, we will focus on the highly under-rated shifts happening within the context of Black communities, to a great extent due to the recent influx of new ‘non-black’ immigrant and/or transplant neighbors. As the number of displaced people across the globe is higher than ever in recorded human history, the Mississippi Gulf Coast is seeing an influx of people from nearly every continent moving into our community. Due to socioeconomic factors, many of them are moving into neighborhoods that are more affordable, which in many cases in the region, are Historic Black Neighborhoods where disinvestment and other factors have stifled economic growth. This convergence of long-established communities, often marginalized and isolated from the larger community, with a strong neighborhood culture are disrupted by these new arrivals. Those arriving often find it hard to integrate and their new geography being less than hospitable to start their new lives. However, in the cases where relationships can be built, collaborative development and opportunity can occur. The community engagement event for this project will feature cuisines from the various cultures whose people call the Mississippi Gulf Coast home today, with opportunities to build bridges of relationship and understanding towards community change together.

In response to the adverse impacts of environmental injustice on disadvantaged communities, activism the likes of this proposed project have emerged to promote equitable development and address environmental concerns. Community-based organizing will play a crucial role in addressing the consequences of racially biased policies, discriminatory practices, and faulty world-view perspectives; ultimately, advocating for community-driven solutions.  Moreover, the rise of the environmental justice movement sheds light on the disproportionate burden of environmental degradation and health risks faced by marginalized communities. A final deliverable of this project will include a trauma-informed Community Reinvestment Strategy that outlines future environmental justice interventions, addressing additional issues such as Brownfield Development, Reconnecting Communities, and others. This strategy document will serve as a roadmap for future efforts.