Vanessa Moses is a powerful Black leader in the Bay Area and our new Executive Director. She was previously Co-Director of Programs at CJJC for 12 years.  Vanessa has a long track record of building the power & leadership of working-class communities.  She trained as an organizer at the National School for Strategic Organizing with the Labor/Community Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union in Los Angeles. She has served as co-chair of San Francisco Rising, and in 2016 Vanessa’s leadership led to the formation of Bay Rising, a regional alliance of community-led organizations working to address the crisis of inequality throughout the Bay Area and statewide. Vanessa was also one of the co-creators of Bay Resistance, a multi-sector rapid response network of over 50 organizations.

Aspen is a queer mama of two incredible kids and an artist who loves mixed media, photography and painting. She also jumps at any chance to dance cumbia or bachata, especially with her wife Karla! She joined Causa Justa as a part of the merger with POWER in 2015 and brings a wealth of knowledge and movement experience to our organization. Her backstory: she joined POWER’s staff in January 2005 as the Development Director. Her prior experience included fundraising, leadership development and grassroots organizing work with youth and community organizations around welfare rights in Atlanta, Georgia. Aspen has worked in Oaxaca, Mexico with EDUCA, a grassroots organization dedicated to sustainable community development and the struggle for self-determination in indigenous communities. She served as the Board Treasurer of the DataCenter for three years and is excited to help make CJJC financially strong for the long haul!

Kate holds decades of grassroots organizing experience. She has participated in national organizations that have directly impacted social change. She contributed base–building expertise to not-for-profit organizations like ACT UP Philadelphia, and Queer Nation LA. She helped to found the Philadelphia, Up Against the Law legal collective. Kate has worked as a lead organizer in several nurses unions and was the program director and grant writer for STOP AIDS Project in San Francisco. She raised funds for Health Initiatives for Youth as the Development Manager. Kate served with a Board of hot shot Directors that helped to pull Lyon-Martin Health Services clinic from the ashes like a beautiful Phoenix. Woo!

Before starting at CJJC, Lorraine studied Anthropology and Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. After graduating Lorraine worked as Development Coordinator for the Coalition on Homelessness and South of Market Community Action Network in San Francisco. Lorraine believes grassroots fundraising can be a critical tool in sustaining radical social justice movements. Lorraine currently organizes with Babae SF, a grassroots and volunteer-based organization of Filipina women in San Francisco dedicated to supporting and empowering Pinays through critical education, leadership development, and community building.

Rose leads our organization’s communications work. She’s originally from Los Angeles. Her family roots are in El Paso, Texas and Northern Mexico. She is Chicana and Tarahumara. She has worked in both  mainstream and community media.

As a Causa Justa member and a long-time St. Peter’s Housing Committee member before our merger, Araceli has showed up everywhere from our local city hall to the U.S. Social Forums do the work of the movement. Now as a staff at CJJC, she’s advising fellow tenants and supporting the tenant clinic’s work.

Mai-Stella has been a member of Causa Justa::Just Cause since 2008 (as part of Just Cause Oakland). She began volunteering for Just Cause Oakland at their 2007 annual event and immediately appreciated their political line. She liked their dedication to member and staff leadership development through high engagement and study; organizational discipline and warmth. Throughout the years Mai-Stella has participated not only as a member leader in the Steering Committee, but also as a volunteer, contractor, and Liberation Ink Program Assistance. She has recently joined the staff full-time as one of the Administrative Coordinators- focusing on Finance and HR- and is eager to contribute her decade plus of administrative experience to building a stronger, more effective and efficient organization and movement for social and economic justice.

I was born and raised in Oakland and identify with many of the issues residents are experiencing — everything from housing, to early education, to the public service systems. I’m a graduate of UC Berkeley with a degree in Legal Studies and have known since high school that I wanted to help make a difference. The injustices and inequities I’ve witnessed and been a part of led me to want to see change in our community. It moved me into a life of advocacy and fighting for a quality and equitable life for impoverished communities. Currently I’m Board Chair for Parent Voices Oakland – a statewide grassroots organization that advocates for early childhood education and quality, accessible, and affordable education. I’m also Co-Chair of the Alameda County Early Childhood Policy Committee (ACECPC) – which address policies and systems within Alameda County impacting families with children up to 8 years old.  I have used my own voice and testimony at events such as the Human Impact Budget Hearing held by the Alameda County Supervisors, testifying at legislative hearing in Sacramento and leading parent groups at legislative visits. I am a mother of two bi-racial girls — black and brown unity at its finest..! and I love spending time with my family. I’ve also traveled quite a bit and still enjoy when I have the opportunity.

Lynn Vidal was born in Pasadena, CA when about 6% of California was made up of native Californians. She was a professional musician, music producer and sound engineer for over 30 years. She was raised by parents who taught their children to get up off their ass and protest! She was 12 when she marched for Bobby Kennedy and Wilson Riles.  She’s still marching & protesting.

Kitzia comes from a movement family and began their involvement in community organizing in San Francisco during high school. They were a youth organizer with PODER in their year-long Common Roots program. Latter they supported POWER’s women workers project as part of the SOUL summer school program. Kitzia also participated along with their mom in the “No papers No Fear Journey for Justice,” this past summer.  They came back to the Bay Area  in 2013 after attending college at UC Santa Barbara and spending two years doing multiracial organizing with the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union and Labor Community Strategy Center. Kitzia has spend the last several years building the member/ leadership development work of the Immigrant Rights campaign and providing space for people from the base to be part of building vibrant Immigrant Justice and Racial Justice coalitions in SF and Alameda County. They have been the Regional Lead organizer for the Immigrant Rights campaign  at CJJC since July of 2016. Kitzia recently became the Co-director of the Community Rights campaign which aims to build Black and Blown unity along the issues of criminalization and state violence against Black and Latinx Bay Area residents.

Leticia Arce aka Lety, was born in Portland, Oregon but grew up in the Central Valley in Fresno, California where her parents were farmworkers. She says they always pushed her to get a higher education “so that you won’t work under the sun and the heat for pennies.” She attended San Francisco State University where she graduated in Raza Studies and Race & Resistance Studies. During that time she was introduced to various student and community organizations including MEChA, La Raza Centro Legal, and Clinica Martin-Baro. In her spare time she has volunteered at Clinica Martin-Baro, a free SFSU-UCSF student-run general health clinic which respectfully serves the most under-served population in the Mission district. It’s based on the Cuban medical health care perspective  —  a preventative health care model.

Born and raised in the Bay Area, Molly first became politicized through queer, feminist and global justice organizing in the 1990s. Molly joined the CJJC staff in 2007 and loves the movement-building aspect of their role coordinating volunteers. In addition to working at CJJC, Molly has spent the last decade doing anti-racist organizing with Catalyst Project and is an affiliate trainer with Race Forward.  Molly enjoys imagining a world post-capitalism, reading speculative fiction, and hanging out with their two ridiculously awesome kids.

Chris Durazo is a Land Use Organizer and Cultural Worker. She has over 20 years of experience fighting for housing justice, including working as an affordable housing developer, a grassroots community planner, anti-displacement policy advocate and tenant organizer. Chris has previously worked at the South of Market Community Action Network (SOMCAN), Asian Neighborhood Design (AND), Veterans Equity Center, Japantown Task Force, and Chinatown Community Development Center. She is Japanese and Mexican, and has lived in Oakland for the past 15 years.

Camilo is a 1st generation, transgender Nicoya immigrant with roots in San Francisco, where he was raised. He first began doing community work in the Mission District by providing outreach and direct services to immigrant youth in middle and high schools while at Good Samaritan Family Resource Center, and Mission Neighborhood Center. While doing this work he saw many youth and their families experience major housing problems that impacted the youth and their families tremendously. Armed with a spirit to fight for stronger housing rights for both Black and Latino communities, Camilo joined Causa Justa in 2009 and was trained as a transformative organizer and started our first Tenant Rights Clinic in Oakland. Since then Camilo has gone on to lead organizational basebuilding, and civic engagement work, including leading the Measure JJ campaign in Oakland in 2016 that won at the ballot and saw the largest advancement of eviction protections for tenants since 2002, and most recently leading the Measure Y campaign, which won and expanded eviction protection to vulnerable tenants living in owner-occupied duplexes and triplexes. Camilo currently sits on the board at the Right to the City Alliance, as well as the Steering Committee for the Regional Tenant Organizing (RTO) Network. He resides in Oakland, is a proud District 2 resident, and has love for both the SF Giants and Oakland A’s.

Selene Chala is a queer woman of color passionate about social justice and identity politics.  She was born in Quito, Ecuador but grew up in Los Angeles. Being an AB 540 student through community college pushed her to become active pushing the Dreamers act and learning more about human rights and equality. Once in UC Berkeley, Selene worked in multiple queer spaces including the Queer and Ally Resource Center, Queer womyn of Berkeley, and Gen Eq. After graduating, Selene merged her work in immigrant rights with gender equality through working with Immigrant women and families. Selene comes into Cause Justa:: Just Cause with case management, program coordination and project management experience.

Hunter brings to CJJC a deep commitment to internationalism, working-class solidarity against capitalism, and dismantling white supremacy. They first became politicized through organizing to support Palestinian Liberation while at Smith College and moved to Oakland after a year working with unions in Sri Lanka to document labor exploitation in the globalized IT industry. At CJJC and as a prison abolitionist, Hunter is dedicated to combating the forces, whether racialized displacement, deportation, or the prison industrial complex, that, through physical removal, attempt to prevent communities from organizing collectively for transformation and self-determination. Starting as a tenant rights clinic volunteer, Hunter joined CJJC as staff in 2016 and strives to resource and amplify the incredible voices and visions of CJJC’s members.

I grew up in San Francisco’s low-income neighborhoods; primarily
the Tenderloin and Bayview Hunters Point. My journey on becoming an organizer stems from 12 years plus experience as service provider in Bayview Hunters Point.
My background has been in workforce development and truancy prevention,
advocating for those who continues to get marginalized out of opportunities to
strive. While growing up in San Francisco, I never had stable housing, mostly homeless, grew accustomed to juvenile detention centers, grew accustomed to being kicked out of schools, and a high school dropout. My personal experience of hardships, achievements, and education has prepared me to my next chapter of life as the Black
Priorities Project (BPP) Organizer

Sanyika Bryant is the oldest of his parents’ six children and was raised in the city of Los Angeles. Sanyika was trained by the Labor/Community Strategy Center where he worked on the Bus Riders Union and Frontlines Press projects. He is also a graduate of the Strategy Center’s National School for Strategic Organizing, class of 2003. Sanyika’s ideology is rooted in Pan-Africanism, anti-imperialism and internationalism. He is also an artist and an author, and currently spends any free time he has away from his organizing duties working on his novel.

Becki was introduced to organizing and social justice during an internship with Just Cause Oakland (now CJJC) in the summer of 2007. She continued to expand her understanding of the social justice movement by working with organizations in New York City and SOMCAN (South of Market Community Action Network) in San Francisco. Throughout her years working with other organizations, she has stayed connected with CJJC. After becoming a stronger, more confident organizer working with UNITE-HERE in New Haven, CT and Las Vegas, she retuned to CJJC.  As the Outreach Coordinator, Becki is excited to be a part of reaching out to residents to let them know of their rights and how to get involved with our work.

Alma first joined Causa Justa as a member in 2008 where she continued her involvement as a volunteer  throughout the years and becoming a staff member in 2011. Alma, who graduated with a BS in Biological Sciences from UC Irvine, discovered that science did not feed her soul as much as working with community members in the fight for social justice. In her role as a housing rights organizer she advocates strongly for the rights of tenants who are learning to use their own voices, as well as building up the leadership of our member base. Alma has traveled to Tunsia with the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance representing CJJC as a delegate at the World Social Forum. Says Alma, “I learned that no matter where you go in the world there are people fighting in their communities against injustices and for fundamental human rights — housing, food, land, clean air and water.” She adds, “This organization transformed me.”

Kenia migrated to the U.S. when she was 7 years old with her mother from Mexico to Oxnard, California. She attended San Francisco State University and received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication Studies with  a minor in Race and Resistance. Through her time higher education journey she became politicized. After graduation, she joined Center for Third World Organizing in their Movement  Activist Apprenticeship Program, a 8 week long program giving folks the tools to develop as organizers. She spent 6 weeks in New York City working at a union. She is also involved with the Indigenous Peoples Power Project (IP3). Kenia has a deep love and commitment to movement work in all the shapes it takes, from organizing to direct action. “Let the world change you and you can change the world”-Ernesto Che Guevara.