Let's Activate Western Gage Community Park!

Green space, park access, and trees

South LA

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Parks and tree canopy are essential infrastructure with significant, proven benefits to people's physical and mental health. The new Western Gage Community Park provides access to needed green space in a Severely Disadvantaged and park poor neighborhood (CA State Parks). However, ample research has documented that threats to personal safety, whether real or perceived, strongly discourage spending time in parks. Crime and unhoused people residing in parks lead to park user avoidance due to perceived or real lack of safety and unpleasant sights, sounds, and smells generated by park residents (City Parks Alliance). A proven strategy to cultivate a positive and welcoming park environment that enhances health and wellness, social connections, and recreation is to activate parks with programming and staffing (Safe Routes Partnership). The CDC recommends "partner[ing] with local organizations to bring inclusive community programs to existing parks, trails, and green spaces."

The Western Gage Park Activation Program ensures that the new Western Gage Community Park is safe and vibrant for community members--who worked for two decades to build it--by emphasizing community presence, creative enrichment opportunities, and accessible recreation. Regularly scheduled and frequent activities will take place at Western Gage Community Park and at the Western Gage Tot Lot across the street. To engage and enrich community members and deter negative use of the park, programming will include options such as: plein air painting, pottery, and crafts classes; yoga and tai chi; children's story times, music, and gardening; and senior-friendly walking and exercise groups. All programs offered will be free of charge and led by local artists, teachers, and community-based organizations (CBOs). LANI has already partnered with residents, the local Neighborhood Council, the Jackie Tatum Recreation Center, and other CBOs to learn about the needs and interests of the community and to connect with several relevant program providers, who have expressed strong interest in participating. This project will also provide a part-time park steward--a tested tactic--recruited from the local neighborhood to open and close the park daily and provide "eyes on the ground" and a consistent, welcoming presence. Through these proven strategies, this project will ensure that the new park is safe for the entire community to be used as it was intended--for health, recreation, and respite.

51% of LA County residents do not live within a 1/2-mile radius of a park, but proximity to a park significantly increases how frequently people exercise and reduces cardiovascular disease and childhood obesity rates; this impact is even greater in low-income areas. Green spaces make neighborhoods less vulnerable to climate and health risks by lowering temperatures and improving air quality. Safe access to parks encourages community building and family bonding by providing an attractive, natural space for activities and social connections. This project will ensure this sorely needed new park thrives as an active, open, green space for the community and provides services to meet the needs of residents by being a place of vibrant activity and culture instead of an avoided place of perceived or real danger. This park could make life healthier and more active for the people who fought to build it. This park could transform lives the same way it's transforming two once blighted lots.