Infrastructure

Vision

Low-income communities across the U.S. pay a steep price for decades of public disinvestment.  Families have watched floodwaters rise into their homes for lack of drainage. Children have grown up without sidewalks, streetlights, parks, or safe places to gather. Entire neighborhoods have lived without reliable access to clean drinking water, wastewater systems, or basic public services that most Americans take for granted.

West/Southwest IAF affiliates change that reality by rebuilding the civic foundations that allow communities to thrive. Grounded in the nation’s founding promise that all people are equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, community leaders organize to ensure that public systems serve everyone – not just a few.

From the Texas Rio Grande Valley to the Midwest and Southwest, organized residents have transformed neglect into investment. They have secured billions of dollars for drainage systems that save lives, leveraged funding for water and wastewater infrastructure in long-neglected colonias, won libraries, built an Olympic-grade skate park, improved road safety and pedestrian access, strengthened the electrical grid, and expanded access to healthy food and reliable transit.

This work is not about charity or one-time projects. It is about building durable community power so residents can shape the public decisions that affect their daily lives. When communities organize, infrastructure becomes more than concrete and pipes—it becomes a visible expression of respect, belonging, and democracy at work.

“The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.”
 — Thomas Jefferson, letter to the citizens of Washington County, MD (1809)

Impact

1. Transforming Under-Resourced Neighborhoods

   In San Antonio, COPS/Metro organized and directed over $2 billion in investments to establish life-saving drainage infrastructure, build 20+ parks, and expand public resources including 11 libraries, a grocery store, a police substation, and the city’s first Olympic-sized public pool.

   Leaders in Tucson, El Paso, Des Moines, and the Rio Grande Valley also successfully fought for libraries and parks in their communities.

2. Creating America’s Largest Skatepark in Des Moines

   Led by youth, AMOS worked with funders and local governments to create the $4.5 million Lauridsen Skatepark, the nation’s largest open-air skatepark, bringing a new, riverfront public space to downtown Des Moines.

3. Securing Water & Wastewater Infrastructure in Las Colonias

   Since 1989, EPISO/Border Interfaith, Valley Interfaith, and Texas IAF championed state legislation and secured over $1 billion for critical water and other infrastructure improvements in colonias along the Texas-Mexico border (more here, here, and here).

4. Overhauling Public Transit in Baton Rouge

   Over 1,000 Together Baton Rouge (TBR) leaders organized a Get Out the Vote campaign that secured $17 million to strengthen the Capital Area Transit System, and won greater accountability and oversight. Five years later, TBR leveraged local incentives for grocers to open in underserved neighborhoods and improved transit access to grocery stores.

5. Improving Street Safety in Arizona, California, and Texas

   Community leaders leveraged funds to pave roads, expand road connectivity, and install pedestrian and traffic street safety improvements in El Paso, Fresno, Phoenix, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley (more here and here).