Community workshops and existing city and regional plans identified 14 priority projects that could help build a just, thriving, and fossil-fuel-free Richmond economy.
These projects are practical building blocks for the future residents have described: good jobs, community ownership, healthy neighborhoods, affordable housing, clean energy, and opportunities for people who have historically been excluded.
Project plans will continue to change as community needs, partnerships, funding, and conditions evolve. For the latest information about a project's status and funding needs, follow its "Current Status & Funding" link to its profile on Blueprint.
How were these projects chosen?
Setting priorities for Richmond's future economy means bringing together four essential elements:
- What residents and workers need now
- Residents' dreams and aspirations for Richmond's future economy
- What capacity already exists to plan and support projects
- What additional resources, partnerships, and expertise are needed to carry them out
No single group holds all of this knowledge, expertise, and lived experience. Residents most affected by pollution, displacement, discrimination, low wages, and other failures of the current economy understand the community's needs best. Many Richmond adults and elders also carry important knowledge about previous eras in the city's history, including city programs and initiatives that did respond to residents' needs.
Planning projects is only one part of transforming Richmond's economy. Carrying them out requires people who understand the systems that make projects possible — planners in government, community organizations, and businesses who bring knowledge of policies, funding, governance, land use, and coordination, alongside workers, business owners, researchers, and project partners who bring practical knowledge about what it takes to launch, operate, and sustain the work.
That is why Our Future Economy combines research, community planning, and creative activities to identify priorities. We also asked a larger question: how do we plan for an economy we have never experienced? Imagining a Richmond that is free from fossil fuels and supports the well-being of all workers and residents requires more than solving today's problems — it requires radical imagination, the ability to picture a future beyond the limits of the economy we know now.
Through visualization, participatory theater, community discussion, and examples from other places, residents explored what that future could look like and what projects could help build it. Projects that matched the priorities raised in workshops were brought back to residents for discussion, feedback, and prioritization. The result is a set of projects that connects community visions with existing plans and real opportunities for action.
A community-strengthening process: the projects presented here are not owned by Our Future Economy. Most were first imagined, planned, or advanced by other community leaders, organizations, agencies, and residents. Our role is to help bring information together, strengthen community participation, connect related efforts, and build greater support for projects that can benefit Richmond residents. This list is a snapshot of the ideas and priorities that emerged through the planning process — the projects will continue to evolve as plans are refined and community needs change.
Richmond Residents in Their Own Words
In community interviews, residents introduced themselves and named the real solutions Richmond's economy needs investment in.
Community Interview: Who I Am
Community Interview: A Real Solution That Needs Investment
14 Priority Projects
Click “Read the Full Story” on any project to learn what it is, how it helps, what’s happening now, who’s involved, and how you can get involved. The colored tab on each card shows which priority area it falls under:
Ownership & Business
4 ProjectsCooperative Grocery Stores
Community-owned grocery stores bring fresh, affordable, culturally relevant food, clean indoor air, and good local jobs to Richmond neighborhoods. Workers and residents own the stores, share in decisions and profits, and build community wealth.
Cooperative Business Incubator & Loan Program
Helps Richmond residents turn business ideas into worker-owned businesses, with training, legal and financial support, and access to grants or low-cost loans.
Creative Reuse & Maker Space
Keeps useful materials out of the landfill and turns them into furniture, art, and other products, while giving formerly incarcerated residents training and support to start green businesses.
Childcare & Café Cooperative
A worker-owned childcare center and café provide affordable childcare, food, and good local jobs in one shared space, supporting parents who work nights or changing schedules.
Housing
2 ProjectsRestoration of Abandoned Housing
Restores abandoned homes and makes them permanently affordable for Richmond residents, while local workers gain construction skills and paths to homeownership and union careers.
Green Jobs & Industry
3 ProjectsBattery Manufacturing
Brings a growing clean-energy industry to Richmond — local factories creating living-wage jobs while making batteries for electric cars, bikes, appliances, and other technologies.
All-Electric Building Retrofits
Local workers replace gas-powered appliances with electric ones and improve insulation in Richmond homes — creating good jobs, improving indoor air, and lowering energy bills.
Project Lead
Conversion of Gas to Electric Cars
Local mechanics convert gas-powered cars into electric vehicles, lowering fossil-fuel use, creating skilled local jobs, and helping lower-income residents keep and upgrade the cars they already own.
Workforce & Youth
2 ProjectsRichmond YouthWorks
Gives young people paid work experience at local businesses, nonprofits, and public agencies. Expanding the program would let more youth work longer, explore green careers, and find permanent jobs.
Paid Work Program for Adults
Gives Richmond residents six months of paid experience at local businesses, nonprofits, or public agencies, focused on adults who face barriers to employment, including people returning from incarceration.
Health & Wellness
2 ProjectsBlack Wellness Center
A safe, Black-led space for mental, physical, emotional, and financial well-being, where Black residents guide the services, partnerships, and use of resources.
Veggies as Medicine
VeggieRx provides free or low-cost fresh produce, cooking support, and nutrition education to Richmond residents, while creating paid community jobs and buying food from local farmers.
Transportation
1 Project
Project Lead
Free Public Transportation
Lets Richmond residents ride buses or local shuttles without paying a fare — saving families money, speeding up trips, and reducing car use and air pollution.
Community-owned grocery stores are opening in Richmond neighborhoods that need better access to healthy food. These stores sell fresh, affordable, and culturally familiar foods while creating good local jobs.
Workers, shoppers, or both own the stores and help make important decisions. Cooperation Richmond is developing a 3,100-square-foot cooperative grocery store in North Richmond, and residents have called for more stores in other parts of Richmond.
Project partners are planning the store, studying what local shoppers need, and designing how community ownership will work. They are also hiring an operations manager, securing the store site, raising money for construction and equipment, preparing a paid worker-owner training program, and planning the store's food and product selection.
More funding to cover construction, equipment, food inventory, training, and fair wages. Partners also need to complete agreements, strengthen coordination, and purchase refrigeration and clean-air equipment.
Spread the word about the store and upcoming fundraising efforts. Residents can also ask local and regional leaders to provide public funding for the project.
The Cooperative Business Incubator helps Richmond residents start worker-owned businesses. It gives entrepreneurs training and support with business plans, legal paperwork, finances, and daily operations.
Cooperation Richmond plans to work with five Richmond entrepreneurs or small businesses that want to become cooperatives. A related loan program could offer grants and low-interest loans, and could also create ways for Richmond residents to invest in local businesses.
Project partners are recruiting the first group of five entrepreneurs and creating the training program. The current plan includes basic cooperative training, help with business plans and legal registration, and access to funding for new business launches.
About $200,000 for training, legal costs, technical help, and payments for participants. The project also needs mentors, a final focus for the first group of businesses, and a clear application process.
Help identify Richmond entrepreneurs and small-business owners who may want to join the program. Residents can also support policies that give local worker-owned businesses a better chance to win city contracts.
This project repairs abandoned public and private homes across Richmond and makes them permanently affordable. Future residents, including people who have experienced homelessness or incarceration, could help renovate the homes and earn credit toward ownership. The project would give priority to people who were displaced from the property or from Richmond.
Richmond LAND is planning to restore 12 homes at the former Las Deltas public housing site in North Richmond. The Richmond Community Foundation also runs a program that repairs abandoned homes for moderate-income, first-time Richmond homebuyers.
Richmond LAND controls the North Richmond properties and is raising money to begin environmental cleanup, construction training, and early renovation work. The Richmond Housing Renovation Program has already repaired 26 homes.
The North Richmond project needs about $300,000 for worker payments, instructors, equipment, and early construction work. The homes may also need lead, asbestos, and other environmental cleanup before renovation can begin. Partners need stronger agreements with building trade unions so trainees can move directly into apprenticeships.
Support funding for abandoned-home restoration and paid construction training. Community groups can also help recruit young people, returning residents, and others who face barriers to construction careers.
Social housing provides permanently affordable apartments for people with low and moderate incomes. Rent is based on what residents can afford — a person does not lose their home just because their income increases.
The housing can serve families, elders, people with disabilities, teachers, nonprofit workers, survivors of abuse, former foster youth, people returning from incarceration, and residents who have experienced homelessness, and can connect residents with case managers, life-skills programs, health support, and help during unemployment.
California is developing a statewide social housing program that may create new funding and support. The West Contra Costa Unified School District is studying possible uses for extra public land, including housing for teachers and other workers. City and community leaders are also discussing a social housing pilot in Richmond.
Richmond needs funding for a local pilot project because state and federal funding is not yet enough. The project also needs public land owned by the city, school district, or another public agency.
Support the use of public land for permanently affordable housing. Residents can also ask city and state leaders to fund a Richmond social housing pilot.
Battery manufacturing businesses make batteries for electric cars, e-bikes, appliances, energy storage, and other clean technologies. Richmond could use its industrial land, port, and skilled workforce to grow this industry, with local hiring agreements and job-training programs helping residents qualify for the new jobs.
Strong safety rules would protect workers, nearby neighborhoods, the air, and the water from pollution and harmful waste.
The UC Berkeley Labor Center is studying how battery manufacturing could grow and create good union jobs in Contra Costa County. The Green Empowerment Zone may also help support this industry in West Contra Costa County. Bay Area Jobs First selected BAM Consulting to lead a regional battery manufacturing plan and build partnerships across the industry.
Clear local leadership, more funding, and stronger agreements about the roles of the city, employers, and workforce programs. More information is also needed about the types of jobs, required training, safety protections, and investments Richmond should make.
Residents can support strong local-hiring, union, health, and environmental standards for any battery business that comes to Richmond.
Local workers replace gas water heaters, furnaces, stoves, and other appliances with electric models. They also add insulation and make other improvements that help homes use less energy — helping Richmond homes move away from fossil fuels, improve indoor air, and lower energy use.
Strong protections are needed so low-income residents do not face higher energy bills after the upgrades.
Richmond BUILD provides training for residents who want to enter related construction and energy careers. Richmond Rising runs a smaller home-upgrade program in the Iron Triangle, Santa Fe, and Coronado neighborhoods. The current program serves about 10 people each year and could be expanded.
More funding is needed to serve additional households and neighborhoods. The program also needs protections that keep electricity costs affordable for low-income residents.
Ask the Richmond City Council and regional agencies to expand funding for home electrification, insulation, and paid local job training.
A creative reuse and maker space collects wood, furniture, tools, and other useful materials before they are sent to the landfill. Residents use the materials for woodworking, repairs, art, furniture, and new products.
The space also offers business planning, mentorship, and skills classes for formerly incarcerated residents and others who want to start a small business.
The project is still an idea and does not yet have a full plan or lead organization. RecycleMore has started Fix-it Clinics where residents can learn to repair and reuse items — these clinics could help test parts of the project.
A group of community champions to lead the planning. Partners also need to study similar programs, build a business plan, identify a site, and find funding.
Help connect the project with local reentry organizations, artists, builders, repair workers, and residents interested in reuse. Community members can also help find a lead organization and learn from similar projects in other cities.
Richmond YouthWorks places residents ages 16 to 21 in paid jobs at local businesses, nonprofits, and public agencies. Young people gain real work experience, learn job skills, and explore possible careers.
An expanded program would serve more youth, offer more paid hours, focus more on green jobs, and help participants move into permanent work.
YouthWorks is already operating in Richmond. The program could grow to serve more young people, provide more hours, and build stronger pathways into green industries and permanent jobs.
More funding so it can employ more youth for longer periods. It also needs stronger partnerships with green employers and more support for permanent job placement.
Ask city and regional leaders to expand funding for YouthWorks. Local businesses and organizations can also become work sites or help young people find permanent jobs.
This project expands Richmond's paid work-experience model to adults, especially people returning from incarceration and others who face barriers to employment. Participants work at a local business, nonprofit, or public agency and receive wages while building skills and a recent work history.
The program would last at least six months, or about 1,040 work hours, for each participant.
Richmond already runs a paid work program for youth. This project would expand the model to adults, and could also focus on green industries and jobs that support Richmond's transition away from fossil fuels.
Funding for participant wages, training, staff, and support services. It also needs local employers willing to host workers and help them move into permanent jobs.
Support city funding for an adult paid-work program. Local businesses and organizations can also offer work placements and long-term job opportunities.
This project combines a worker-owned childcare center with a worker-owned café. The childcare center offers affordable care, including hours that work for parents with night shifts and changing schedules. The café serves food and drinks and could also prepare meals for children in the childcare program.
Staff receive training to care for children with disabilities and children who are neurodivergent. YouthWorks internships could also give young adults experience in childcare and food service.
The project is in the early planning stage. Partners need to study current childcare services, identify gaps, and develop a detailed plan for the site, staffing, schedule, and cooperative ownership.
About $1,295,000. It also needs a detailed childcare study, a location, a business plan, trained staff, and a clear ownership structure.
Families can share information about the childcare hours, services, and prices they need. Residents can also support funding for affordable childcare and worker-owned businesses.
The Black Wellness Center is a safe, Black-led place where Black residents and their loved ones come together for support, healing, and community. The center focuses on mental, physical, and emotional health, and also provides education and support related to money, housing, work, justice, and other issues that affect well-being.
The center connects residents with trusted services and supports people displaced from Richmond, people returning from incarceration, elders, and residents who need help paying for medicine.
Contra Costa County awarded $1 million to 13 Black-led organizations for mobile and pop-up wellness services in East and West County. The next step is to build lasting funding and identify Black-led organizations with the capacity to lead a larger, permanent project. Partners also need to study Black residents' past and current experiences with health and social services.
Long-term county and local funding. It also needs a strong Black-led organization or group of organizations to lead the center, assess community needs, and coordinate services.
Black residents can share their experiences and ideas about the services the center should offer. Community members can also support stable public funding for Black-led wellness programs.
VeggieRx treats fresh produce as a tool for preventing illness and improving health. Participants receive produce, recipes, cooking classes, and vouchers for fresh fruits and vegetables. The program connects nutrition education with the food traditions and cultures of Richmond residents.
VeggieRx currently serves the Iron Triangle, Santa Fe, and Coronado neighborhoods. The goal is to expand it across Richmond.
VeggieRx operates in three Richmond neighborhoods. The program offers cooking lessons in English and Spanish and works with local clinics and food partners. Paid Community Ambassador positions are also planned for young adults ages 18 to 24.
Ongoing funding to expand beyond the Iron Triangle, Santa Fe, and Coronado neighborhoods. More partnerships with clinics, Meals on Wheels, gyms, and cooking programs could also help the program reach more residents.
Spread the word about VeggieRx and paid Community Ambassador jobs. Residents can also support funding to make the program available across Richmond.
Richmond creates a no-fee transportation zone through a partnership with AC Transit or an expansion of Richmond Moves. Residents ride buses or local shuttles without paying. Free service makes it easier for people with low incomes to reach jobs, schools, stores, health care, and other important places.
No current public plan clearly calls for fare-free transit in Richmond. Several plans support better public transportation, safer walking and biking, and lower fossil-fuel use — these plans could provide a starting point for a free-transit program.
A lead organization has not yet been identified. Possible partners include the City of Richmond, AC Transit, Richmond Moves, transportation advocates, and community organizations.
A lead group, a detailed plan, and a stable source of funding. Partners also need to decide which routes and riders would be included and how the program would work with AC Transit or Richmond Moves.
Residents can share where free transportation is most needed and support a pilot program. Community groups can also ask city and transit leaders to study the cost and benefits of fare-free service.
Local mechanics remove gas engines from existing cars and replace them with electric motors and batteries. A public subsidy would help low-income residents afford the conversion. The program would also train local mechanics, help shops purchase parts at lower prices, and connect residents with trusted conversion services.
Because the work must be done locally, it can support lasting jobs and small businesses in the region.
The project is still in the idea stage and has not been directly included in a public plan. Several Richmond and regional plans support transportation electrification and clean-energy jobs. Electric car conversion businesses are growing in other places, and at least one online training course is available.
A lead organization has not yet been identified. Possible partners include local mechanics, auto shops, workforce programs, clean-transportation groups, the City of Richmond, and regional funding agencies.
A lead organization, a business plan, training partners, and funding for low-income residents. Partners also need to study safety rules, insurance, vehicle standards, parts supply, and the cost of each conversion.
Local mechanics can help shape the training and business model. Residents can also support funding for a pilot program that makes conversions affordable for lower-income drivers.
These points came up across the community workshops and should be built into every project from the start:
Ban-the-Box Hiring · Full Disability Access · Plain-Language Forms · Support Service Connections · Transportation & Childcare Access · Public Accountability
Social Housing
Creates permanently affordable homes for people with low and moderate incomes — rent stays connected to what residents can afford, and people can stay even if their income rises.
Supported by: Richmond General Plan, Public Benefits Development Authority Proposal, Contra Costa Refinery Transition Partnership, North Richmond Quality of Life Plan, Richmond Rising, Health in All Policies