Dawn Phillips

Dawn has been a grassroots organizer engaged in a range of social, economic, racial and environmental justice organizations and fights in the Bay Area and nationally for over 20 years. Prior to joining RTTC, Dawn was the Program Director at Causa Justa::Just Cause (CJJC) a grassroots membership organization focused on community development, housing, and immigrant justice issues in the California Bay Area; and a founding member of the Right To The City Alliance.Additionally, Dawn has served as Executive Director of People United from a Better Oakland and as the Organizing Director for Building Opportunities for Self- Sufficiency (BOSS). Dawn has helped develop and lead local, regional, statewide and national campaigns, participated and led numerous coalitions and movement formations and authored several nationally recognized reports and articles on topics ranging from equitable development, land and housing justice, grassroots organizing, movement building and strategy. Dawn was lead author on CJJC’s report “Development Without Displacement: Resisting Gentrification in the Bay Area” which discussed the impacts of gentrification and displacement on working class communities of color and included policy recommendations for addressing these issues. Dawn is an immigrant from Singapore and a male-identified transgender person based in Oakland, California.