In agriculture and business, the byword these days is sustainability. But for towns and communities, a new local non-profit, Transition US, is urging an emphasis on the parallel strategy they term "resilience."

 The process of creating these new Transitions begins with just a few people, explains Carolyne Stayton, and grows from there.

Carolyne Stayton (right) is the interim Executive Director of Transition US. She is adept at aligning community activities towards unified goals, a skill honed from over thirty years of working with nonprofit organizations and educational institutions. She has successfully galvanized communities around various social issues and has particular expertise in program development, participative leadership and "learning" organizations. Her background includes serving as Director of New College's North Bay Campus for Sustainable Living, an innovative educational institution that promoted advanced studies in leadership, community-building and developed the nation's first "green" MBA program. Carolyne has a master's degree in Nonprofit Administration, resides in Sebastopol, California and is passionate about stewardship and protection of the natural world.

Creating transitional communities is a fairly new idea, Stayton says, with a correspondingly short history.

  There's a more detailed history here:

 

Using a new technique, this year's census of the homeless in Sonoma County found far more of them than prior surveys. But improved methodology is being cited as the reason for the higher count, rather than a surge in the homeless population.

 

In the 2007 Homeless Census, explains Jenny Helbraun Abramson, the process depended on inviting homeless people into community centers to be counted. This time, the outreach was more direct and more comprehensive.

Read the full report here: 

 Or go here for a history of the homeless counts in Sonoma County.

Residential foreclosures can pose an opportunity for local government and agencies to increase the amount of affordable housing in their communities.

The federal government's one-size-fits-all approach to the mortgage meltdown will not work everywhere in the country, says Erik Sten (right), a former City Commissioner in Portland, Oregon. He believes a more diversified strategy will be required.

 Erik Sten was in Santa Rosa to speak at the Leadership Breakfast for the Sonoma County Housing Coalition, the kick-off event for their Affordable Housing Week . The Coalition has a full schedule of events planned throughSaturday, May 16.

Erik Sten's new enterprise is Further Development LLC, a start-up that is now gathering capital for a demonstration project to intercede and help overextended homeowners avoid foreclosure.

 

 

As the US economy struggles to climb out of the current downturn, there's a new emphasis on creating "green-collar" jobs which could be especially beneficial to California.

 

Ian Kim (left) works at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights as Director of the Green-Collar Jobs Campaign. He advocates for policies in the city of Oakland and statewide in California to create "green-collar" jobs (quality, career-track, manual labor jobs in industries like renewable energy, water and energy efficiency, and green building), especially for low-income young adults and those with barriers to employment.  Ian holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management. He will be one of the keynote speakers at this year's Sustainable Enterprise Conference May 8 at Sonoma Mountain Village in Rohnert Park. 

 

Tickets are still available for event, using this  downloadable registration form.

The availability of funding for green jobs is a tremendous opportunity, says Ian Kim, but with that comes a new set of challenges.

 

The Oakland-based  Ella Baker Center for Human Rights runs cutting-edge, solutions-driven campaigns for justice, peace and opportunity in our cities. The nationally-renowned Green-Collar Jobs Campaign works to leverage the explosive growth of the new green economy to create meaningful career opportunities for poor people and people of color.  Statewide, the Campaign advocates for green-collar policy solutions for California, in partnership with major labor, environmental, business, and education institutions, that can create many thousands of good jobs as well as a strong infrastructure for green workforce development.

Nationally, the Campaign played a central role in the passage of the federal Green Jobs Act of 2007, which authorizes 5 million annually for green job training, with million specifically allocated to "pathways out of poverty" programs.

 

The North Bay is finally on its way to getting passenger rail service rolling again. But what if it used solar and hydrogen fuel cell technology to be non-polluting and carbon-free?

 

This artist's conception of a future Sun Train was drawn by David Vasquez, who used it as the cover illustration for his book, Mr. Swan's Big Idea, which details and sets out a case for this forward-looking  update of passeger rail travel. He notes that building a new rail system is an expensive undertaking, but Vasquez urges putting the costs into perspective by comparing them highway construction.

America has a proud history of rail service reaching back more than a century, notes David Vasquez (right), but much of that has been forgotten as other modes of transportation took precedence.

 

Mr. Swan's Big Idea  is built on the concepts developed by architect and rail advocate Christopher Swann (left) , whose on recent book, Electric Water, concentrates on his vision of a future hydrogen-based economy.

  David Vasquez will present a multi-media slideshow about the Sun Train concept at Aqus Cafe in Petaluma , on Wednesday, April 22, 6:30 - 8:30 pm.