In class today we presented our Neighborhood Age-Friendly Assessment, in which I did mine on my hometown, North Fontana. My family moved to Fontana around 1995 as it served as an attractive home for new families, offering affordable housing. I have since lived here, in the same exact house, since I was five months old. Fontana is all I know, but I actually didn’t know a whole lot on the development of it, its future plans and goals, and how, in particular, it would support the aging population, such as my grandparents. When I had first completed my project, I was so excited and happy with my city for including an aging plan to allow the citizens who were attracted in the 80’s and 90’s to age in place. Some things I found were questionable as there was no movement or growth in the plan even though this master plan for change was written in 2015, but I gave them the biggest benefit of the doubt. Still, I learned that Central and South Fontana played an essentially important role in supporting the senior community in Fontana with having a train station, a community recreation center designed specifically for senior events, but still, no green spaces. In North Fontana there were plenty of green spaces, the buildings and sidewalks were designed to be wide enough for both strollers and walkers to go through them, so I thought wow, what a beautiful place for them to age. There are healthy and lively parks and intergenerational opportunities for them to engage in in North Fontana. And though the transportation wasn’t super flexible since they only came once an hour and are spaced far apart, I still had hope for growth that was inclusive of our older adults. But while going through the WHO checklist to measure truly how “age-friendly” my town is, I found that there was no affordable housing, hospitals, or public healthcare in North Fontana. However, at the time I presented my project, I had obtained advanced knowledge on who my mayor, Aquanetta Warren, is and her actual goals for my city. I learned that 60% of our funding was going towards supporting Fontana PD and that she vocalized acknowledging North Fontana as “the rich area” and South Fontana the “poor area”, though all the aging resources are in South Fontana. I began figuring out that this growth and boom specifically in North Fontana was intentional and it was really disappointing. Although, as a small city with 200k residents, many of my friends and others began to speak out about the injustices occurring in our own city. And though we’re focused heavily on the racial inequities we face as a predominantly Black and Brown community, I hope to eventually voice my concerns for the age gaps and disparities.
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sophia jara Archives
June 2020
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