NEIGHBORHOOD PLANNING
Canal Alliance has supported Marin’s immigrant and Latino communities with services and programming since 1982.
Together we're making the Canal a safe, healthy, climate-resilient community. For now, and for the future.
The Canal neighborhood of San Rafael is a vibrant Latino community facing some of the greatest challenges of any community in the Bay Area: inadequate and overcrowded housing, limited green space, transportation barriers, and the highest risk of climate change and sea-level rise in the region. Flooding and high tides are already affecting daily life.
Through a community-led initiative, Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro (Our Canal, Our Future), Canal residents are driving cross-sector collaboration that centers on your voices, Canal residents, in the decisions that directly impact your lives. This effort is about more than identifying immediate solutions—it is about building a long-term, resident-driven vision for a Canal that is safe, healthy, and affordable for everyone. Residents are taking a leadership role in shaping investments and improvements, from government funding to private infrastructure projects, ensuring that the neighborhood’s strengths, needs, and dreams are reflected in every decision.
Through this initiative, Canal residents will create a Neighborhood Vision Plan, ultimately guiding the work to improve housing and green spaces, and overcome barriers to transportation, while safeguarding the community against the impacts of sea-level rise.
This initiative will ensure that the Canal remains a resilient, inclusive, and sustainable place where our families can thrive for generations to come.
Leadership & Collaborators
Marin Climate Justice Collaborative
The Climate Justice Collaborative is a new coalition that brings together community-based organizations, government, and residents in the Canal and Marin City to redesign and strengthen their communities.
Canal's Resident Advisory Committee (RAC)
Comprised of 20 resident experts, the RAC, or Consejo, is creating a Neighborhood Vision Plan that reflects the needs of the community. This body meet monthly to learn about leadership, planning and policy, share their lived experience, guide community outreach and engagement, and ensure that the needs of Canal residents are prioritized.
Canal Residents
Residents of the Canal are the most important participants in shaping this Neighborhood Vision Plan, contributing their strengths, needs, and dreams. Canal Alliance will regularly engage residents at community fairs and events, surveys, and focus groups
NUESTRO CANAL, NUESTRO FUTURO: Designing the neighborhood we deserve
TEXT “NUESTRO” TO 844-508-1276 TO PARTICIPATE
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