Building a Los Angeles for Everyone
Who we are
Community Power Collective (CPC) is an independent organization made up of community members, organizers and artivists - the majority of them LA born & raised - who work to build power with our most marginalized community members in east LA.
Our Mission is to build power with tenants, street vendors & transit riders in communities of color to create a solidarity economy, win community control of land & housing, and form dignified public systems that facilitate a culture of radical care in Boyle Heights, East LA and the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area.
Our History
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![A group of people at a protest, with several wearing "Community Power Collective" shirts. One person speaks into a microphone, while another holds a sign that reads "Debt Free Recovery." The protest takes place on a street with a blue sky in the background.]()
New Beginnings
CPC was established in 2020 as a response to other institutional non-profits sunsetting organizing programs due to the pandemic amidst dire & exacerbating needs in the Eastside Community.
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![Group of people holding signs advocating for housing rights, including slogans like 'Keep LA Housed,' 'Housing is a Human Right,' and 'Land Back.']()
Housing is a Human Right!
In our first year, we helped establish and lead coalitions that carried the work of establishing pandemic-era emergency protections for renters, including Healthy LA and Keep LA Housed.
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![A group of people holding signs that read "I Support Street Vendors #SB972." Several people are wearing masks and shirts with logos supporting community and immigrant rights.]()
¡Que Viva la Venta Ambulante!
We helped establish and lead coalitions that continue to build power for visionary and transformative projects as we transition out of a pandemic emergency, including the CA Street Vendor Coalition and Social Housing for LA Coalitions.
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![Large group of people posing outside a building, raising their fists, wearing shirts that say 'Colectivo Poder Comunitario.']()
Building Working Class Power!
In 4 years, our staff has grown from 6 to 17, expanding our capacity to build power with working-class tenants, transit riders, and street vendors. We also finalized our first 3-year strategic plan in 2024!
Meet the Team
Street Vending
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Organizer
ana@cpcollective.orgAna Laura Cruz was born in Oaxaca, México. She is a DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipient and has now lived in the United States for more than two decades, where she has formed a family. Together, they’ve lived through difficult moments. At one point she remembers them being on the verge of separation, but then they found street vending. Through street vending, they gained some financial stability and agency. At the same time, they faced unjust and discriminatory treatment from law enforcement for vending in Hollywood - one of the City’s formerly designated ‘No Vending’ zones.
Her lived experience as a vendor is what led Ana to get involved with the LA Street Vending campaign. She wanted to be able to change the conditions that were harming her and her fellow vendors. Today, as a Street Vending Organizer with CPC, she is committed to continuing to fight so that all street vendors can work with dignity and without fear of being criminalized.
In her free time, Ana likes to spend time with her family - especially at the beach!
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Senior Organizer
lyzzeth@cpcollective.orgLyzzeth Mendoza is one of four children born in the Inland Empire (IE) to two immigrant parents who were once street vendors in Guanajuato, Mexico. Her parents’ story of struggle and survival has inspired her to lend her talents to social movements in Southern CA.
She holds a BA in American Studies and Public Relations from California State University of Fullerton (CSUF), but for the last 14 years, Lyzzeth has learned and worked in community organizing, community engagement and policy advocacy with a variety of organizations. Now with CPC, Lyzzeth leads vendor organizing efforts throughout Los Angeles. She believes that policy and community engagement are essential parts of our civic duty to help create a world where people can move beyond surviving to living.
In her free time, Lyzzeth enjoys spending time with her friends and family, listening to music on long road trips, and exploring nature and all kinds of markets.
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Senior Organizer
sergio@cpcollective.org
Sergio Jimenez was born in Tenochtitlan-Ciudad de Mexico and raised in West Los through migration. His political education was nourished while working at the Midnight Special Bookstore, a critical independent bookstore in Santa Monica with ties to the Anti-Vietnam War resistance and radical left-wing communist parties. Sergio started out organizing In-Home Health and Nursing Home workers in the labor movement, and today leads local & state-wide organizing and advocacy strategy for street vendor justice.In addition to winning major updates to state and local law on street vending, his work has also helped develop self-governance structures among vending communities across Los Angeles that are vital to building vendor power and leadership.
Becoming a father of two proud chican@s influenced him to return to school more than 20 years after dropping out while obtaining an AA. Now an alumni of CSULA’s Latin American Studies program, he holds a B.A and M.A with an emphasis on social movements and mesoamerican studies.
In his spare time, he enjoys working on his garden and growing seasonal vegetables and rare cacti and hanging out with his 3 cats.. He’s also an LAFC hincha and attends most of the games in LA.
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Senior Organizer
rosa@cpcollective.orgRosa Maria Miranda G es originaria del estado de Hidalgo México donde creció en una familia numerosa. Actualmente es madre soltera de 3 hijos. Su historia como organizadora empezó cuando tenía 15 años y se hizo brigadista en su comunidad.
En los Estados Unidos, su formación política continuó cuando fué organizada como pasajera de autobús. Poco a poco se fue concientizando, y en el 2016 llegó a la lucha de la venta ambulante, con la cual se identificaba mucho como mujer inmigrante. Con una visión de cambiar la perspectiva sobre el trabajo informal de vendedores como parte de una economía, y como portadores de cultura y tradiciones, los organizadores y vendedores lograron cambiar la historia. Descriminalizaron a la venta ambulante (SB 946), eliminaron barreras a la venta de comida (SB 972) y también eliminaron las zonas de no venta en áreas populares de Los Ángeles.
Actualmente Rosa sigue organizando a través del condado de Los Ángeles, calle por calle, cuadra por cuadra, para poder construir una base sólida de vendedores ambulantes que luchen por cambios legislativos y que puedan crear distritos especiales con autonomía en las áreas no incorporadas de Los Ángeles.
Community Lands
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Co-Director
FCTL/Community Lands
roberto@fctl.laRoberto C. Garcia-Ceballos is a housing justice strategist with over 15 years of experience in community organizing. Born in Mexico City and raised in San Jose, CA, he holds a Master’s in Social Justice Education from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Roberto began his work in housing justice at Springfield No One Leaves, a grassroots eviction defense organization in Massachusetts. During the foreclosure crisis, he played a key role in bank accountability campaigns and bank tenant organizing, fighting to protect communities from displacement.
Since moving to Los Angeles in 2015, Roberto has focused on transferring privately and publicly owned land into community control to create permanently affordable housing. In 2018, he co-founded Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (FCTL), a community land trust dedicated to decommodifying land and housing in East LA and Boyle Heights. In 2020, in response to the housing inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, he co-founded Community Power Collective (CPC).
Through these organizations, Roberto has led efforts to integrate cultural organizing, strengthen leadership development, advance pro-tenant policies, and expand alternative housing models that challenge real estate speculation and displacement.
Outside of his organizing work, Roberto enjoys road trips with his family, collecting vinyl records, and bike riding around Los Angeles.
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Co-Director
FCTL/Community Lands vanessa@fctl.laVanessa Gonzalez’s passion for affordable housing stems from her lived experience with housing insecurity in East Los Angeles. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Chicano Latino Studies from California State University Long Beach and a Master’s in Urban and Regional Planning from UC Irvine, where she researched a Berlin campaign advocating for the expropriation of corporate landlords to address the housing crisis.
In 2019, she interned at East LA Community Corporation, contributing to the development of Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (FCTL), a community land trust. In 2020, she joined LISC LA’s Housing Initiative Program, serving as an assistant project manager at Venice Community Housing and later at WNC & Associates, she supported the underwriting of more than 20 low-income housing tax credit projects. In 2022, Vanessa returned to nonprofit affordable housing as an assistant project manager at Mercy Housing, supporting three projects while completing SCAG’s Housing Policy Leadership Academy. In 2023, after two years on FCTL’s board, she became the organization’s co-director. Her diverse experiences across multiple facets of the affordable housing sector have provided her with valuable insights and expertise.
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Organizer
Community Lands - eva@cpcollective.orgEva Garcia is from Tula, Hidalgo and has been living in Los Angeles for 23 years. She loves living in Boyle Heights as part of a community that has managed to create a strong sense of joy, resilience and interdependence while fighting displacement.
Her involvement with the fight for land and housing justice began when she was just 12 years old, organizing with leftist family and community in Mexico. She brought this fight to LA where, in 2018, tired of displacement across Los Angeles, she co-founded Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (FCTL) in an effort to help decommodify land and housing.
Beyond her work on land and housing, Eva’s experiences as an immigrant woman working in various sectors of the service industry and as a mother have also informed a deep commitment to labor and education organizing work. She is inspired and motivated by her children, Christopher and Kimberly, who are currently in college.
Eva loves to sing, dance, and share food with others. She currently runs a small catering business that primarily provides food for various movement-related actions and events, and she has an affinity for schnauzers - especially Nuzca and Metztli!
Transit Justice
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Organizer
eddie@cpcollective.orgEddie Cruz is the Transportation Justice Organizer at Community Power Collective, where he advocates for equitable transportation solutions in Los Angeles. Born and raised in South Central and Inglewood, Eddie has a deep connection to South Los Angeles, which he considers his safe haven and the true heart of Los Angeles culture. With its vibrant street vendors, diverse neighborhoods, and rich history, South LA embodies the resilience and innovation of Black and Brown communities.
Throughout his life, Eddie has relied on public transportation, using it as a means to navigate and intimately understand the city. His experiences with the Los Angeles transit system have highlighted the stark neglect of public transportation in a car-centric city.
Eddie is passionate about addressing the safety and well-being of public transit riders, particularly in working-class communities that depend on transit for work and daily tasks. His commitment to reimagining public safety, without relying on police, drives his work to create safer, more accessible public transit experiences for all.
Eddie believes that public transit is a powerful starting point for imagining a world free of police, where safety and community thrive.
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Senior Organizer
brenda@cpcollective.orgWithout even realizing it, Brenda’s political education began young. She was raised by an Afro-Peruvian mother who immigrated from Peru, crossing many borders with only a backpack and her Angela Davis book. She was fortunate to grow up in a pro-Black and Indigenous household filled with constant reminders of her ancestral resilience.
Brenda grew up in San Fernando Valley in a low-income family where she saw first-hand the class divide between working class immigrant communities and wealthy white Americans. She received a full-ride scholarship to Occidental College and graduated with a degree in Urban and Environmental Policy and Music Production. It was during her time at Occidental that she began putting names to the systems of oppression that she always had seen at play. At the age of 18, while in school full time, she started organizing, and has since worked in arts education, tenant organizing, political campaigns and in unhoused outreach and organizing. She most recently worked as a union organizer where she had the privilege of organizing education workers for the historic LAUSD strike in the spring of 2023.
In her free time Brenda likes to crochet, garden and spend time with her friends, family and dogs.
Cultural Power & Communications
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Director of Cultural Power quetzal@cpcollective.org
Quetzal Flores is a Chican@ musician, producer and cultural strategist and organizer raised in East Los Angeles. He is the founder and musical director of the Grammy Award winning Chican@ band, Quetzal. From the experiences generated through his family, mentors and the Chican@ arts & cultural community, prison education work and lots more, he has participated in multiple moments of radical transformation locally, transnationally, and internationally.
His work with CPC & throughout our movement networks aims to reconnect us with ancestral diasporic cultural practices that facilitate interdependence and accountability, promote joyful embodiment, and contest oppressive systems.
Quetzal is deeply committed to building and nurturing strong relationships - both inside and outside of work settings - in an effort to facilitate collective transformation.
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Cultural Power Organizer
margarita@cpcollective.orgMargarita Gonzalez immigrated here from Mexico. When she came to LA, she worked as a seamstress in the garment industry for a long time, during which she raised several children and did what she could to support her parents.
She was first connected to CPC’s work as a member of Fideicomiso Comunitario Tierra Libre (FCTL). In 2021 - a time that she recalls as being especially dark - she was asked to become a fellow with CPC’s Cultural Power team. She identified with CPC based on her values, beliefs, and respect for humanity’s diversity. Her fellowship would focus on cultivating cultural power - empowering communities based on cultural traditions that help us understand our unique identities and experiences, how we fit into a larger global community, and build bridges across generations to foster interdependence and solidarity.
Today, Margarita is a full-time Cultural Power Organizer, weaving joy and resilience throughout every space she touches - whether with her powerful décimas, her stunning quiltwork, her culturally rich crafting skills or her wise and gentle command of discussion. As an individual, Margarita likes to play with creativity, always remembering her roots… she loves crafts and gelatin art, but poetry is her fountain of inspiration
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Senior Communications Organizer
agueda@cpcollective.orgAgueda Dudley-Berríos was born in Berkeley, CA, to two musicians & ethnomusicologists - her mother born and raised in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and her father in Berkeley. Agueda grew up in Seattle, WA with her younger brother in a house that was constantly full of salsa dancing and community music from all over the world.
Both of her parents had oriented her toward social justice from a young age, but in college Agueda gained access to new language and frameworks through which to process the world around her - including the intercultural power dynamics she had experienced growing up. There she developed a particular interest in how imagery informs discourse, perspective, and power.
Since then, she has worked as a case manager for young people experiencing housing instability, as a consultant on racial and cultural equity in various sectors, and as a radical communicator. Agueda sees narrative as one of the most powerful tools for moving people - toward change, and toward each other.
In addition to story-telling, Agueda loves spending time with family and friends, her two cats, and adventuring through the stunning and diverse natural landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and Southern California.
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Communications Organizer
javier@cpcollective.orgJavier Perez is a Communications Organizer at CPC/FCTL, where he plays a key role in supporting and implementing narrative and digital organizing strategy across CPC’s programs. Raised in Huntington Park, CA, Javier’s Honduran & Mexican heritage allowed him to connect to his culture since he was young.
This connection pushed Javier to learn about the various hardships communities like his have faced for decades. While pursuing his degree in journalism at California State University, Dominguez Hills, Javier was able to learn to use storytelling as a medium to give voice to these experiences.
In his free time, Javier enjoys playing soccer, hiking, and listening to music. Passionate about personal and collective transformation, he is always excited for an opportunity to connect with and learn from others in community.
Operations, Resource Development, & Organizational Strategy
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Operations Organizer
faviola@cpcollective.orgFaviola Olivais an Operations Organizer at CPC/FCTL, where she plays a key role in managing office administration, supporting programs, and helping to ensure the smooth running of operations. Based in Hawthorne, Faviola is proud of her heritage, with a father from Guatemala and a mother from El Salvador.
Her commitment to social justice and housing advocacy was sparked early in life when she experienced firsthand the devastating effects of the housing crisis, which led to her family losing their home. This experience fueled her desire to learn more about how to protect her loved ones and her community from such hardships. It also inspired her to pursue a job in community organizing, where she could make a difference.
In her free time, Faviola enjoys cooking, baking, and exploring new restaurants, as well as sightseeing and discovering new places. A lifelong learner, she is passionate about acquiring new skills and sharing that knowledge with others, enriching both her personal life and her work within the community.
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Director of Operations
candice@cpcollective.orgCandice Perez (Director of Operations) is a queer, non-binary great-great granddaughter of migrants from central Mexico who settled and laid down roots in East Los Angeles during the Mexican Revolution. She is also the daughter of an immigrant mother from East Asia.
Candice brings a decade of experience in financial and business administration for social justice driven programs. In addition, she is a mother and a healing practitioner of spiritually-centered astrology and elemental energy work.
It is her great honor to contribute to CPC and FCTL by helping to build out organizational policies, processes, and business infrastructure that strengthen our practice of our organizational values.
She believes it is beautiful and noble work– in the context of capitalist colonialism– to learn, and try, and practice working together in ways that are sustainable financially, operationally, and most of all sustainable for the well being of our staff and our members.
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Director of Organizational Strategy
carla@cpcollective.orgCarla De Paz is the daughter of an immigrant single mother from Guatemala who planted roots in Lynwood, CA. In her humble but joyful upbringing, her large extended and chosen family instilled in her a strong sense of responsibility, community, and lots of dancing.
Her passion for organizing flourished in college. After graduating with a BA in Political Science and Labor & Workplace Studies from UCLA, Carla went on to organize over 500 workers to win union representation through National Labor Board Relations elections.
Carla became more interested in land use and housing issues after her family lost their home during the foreclosure crisis. In her time at the East LA Community Corporation (ELACC), she helped secure affordable housing and green space on all Metro-owned land in Boyle Heights. She also led base-building work for the Los Angeles Street Vending Campaign.
In April of 2020, in response to a lack of investments in organizing programs amidst dire needs in the Eastside Community due to the pandemic, Carla decided to co-found the Community Power Collective (CPC). As CPC’s Director of Organizational Strategy, Carla oversees operations & strategy for campaigns, coalitions, & alliances.
Carla enjoys reading poetry about radical free love, summer day dancing to reggaeton, and Sundays by herself with her plants.