City of San Diego Promise Zone

The City of San Diego, in partnership with several nonprofit organizations, established a place-based initiative in June 2016. This initiative was created to address the challenges of areas with deep and persistent poverty, while recognizing and leveraging the many assets already in place within the community. Today, the neighborhood you grow up in impacts your odds of graduating high school, whether you are likely to face chronic disease, and your lifelong economic opportunities. The goal of this effort is to ensure that everyone has equal access to opportunity, and that the place you are born does not determine your destiny. The place-based initiative comprises four distinct neighborhoods and includes 19 contiguous census tracts with 77,241 residents and a poverty rate of 39.06%. The area also has a high unemployment rate at 16%, with an even higher youth unemployment rate of 40.1%, compared to the City’s city-wide 2016 rate of 7.5% and 20.5% respectively. On the plus side, the initiative has many partners, a diverse community base, and enjoys close proximity to downtown San Diego. Please join us as we break the cycle of poverty and revitalize these San Diego neighborhoods.