2025 Annual Report - Power Building Unit
2025 Annual Report - Power Building Unit
New Power Building Unit
DRC’s new Power Building Unit is a bold new chapter in the furthering of DRC’s mission. Growing directly out of grassroots advocacy done alongside partners like the All Peoples Health Collective against California’s disastrous Prop 36, the unit is led by Director of Power Building Carolina Valle and DRC Special Adviser Vanessa Ramos. The unit is designed to expand definitions of disability, to organize disparate communities toward common needs and demands, and to empower people through public education and connection.
Power Building seeks to de-silo work, to seriously engage with interconnected issues, to cultivate and support disability leaders, and to bring in people from all walks of life. The unit’s current initiatives include:
- Education on and the ending of poverty traps in programs that support disabled Californians
- Fighting to improve the state’s approach to Behavioral Health
- Advocating against the continued creep and existence of the CARE Court system
As the team puts it, “Disability rights is a growing and evolving community. We work with people who formally identify as disabled and with people who do not, because many are excluded from disability systems, and because poverty itself is disabling.”
Director of Power Building Carolina Valle said, “Issues like CARE Court and the civil commitment process, issues like poverty and the cost of living crisis, are not only all interconnected issues…but also core disability rights issues.”
Valle also focuses on the relational, person to person nature of the team’s work, “the importance of relationships and how centered that is across disability communities is really quite profound in this era of disconnect and online platforms and general isolation. Building trust and also building power is really understanding who it is that you’re working with in front of you and how deeply kind and inclusive people can be.”
The Power Building Unit is housed in DRC’s ISA (Investigations & Self-Advocacy Unit) and directly engages with the investigative and peer-led work of their sister teams. Through these direct connections, and new ones branching all the time, Power Building is serious about the work of community investment and coalition building.
DRC CEO Andy Imparato said, “It’s really the power of the people. Finding people that are aligned with each other, working on issues that bring people together, and in general we’ve tried to pick issues that are intersectional. A big one that’s a priority for the unit right now is guaranteed basic income, which is one that will have a big impact on people with disabilities in California.”
By the people and for the people, the Power Building Unit looks to have tremendous impact in the years to come and to continue fighting to improve the material conditions, health, dignity, wellbeing and independence of all Californians.
Read some of the Power Building Unit’s work:
- The Ballooning Crisis: Acute Services vs. Organized Care - The state continues an unbalanced and dangerous approach to mental health care
- Turning the Tide on Overdose: Can Prop 1 Deliver on Its Promise?
- Disability Poverty Traps, Part One: This Is Our Money
