California’s communities do not lack vision, leadership, or solutions. Too often, they have lacked the sustained investment and decision-making power needed to turn that knowledge into public policy. LIVE FREE California is working to change that equation.
Led by organizers including Teresa Gonzalez, LIVE FREE California brings faith leaders, impacted families, grassroots organizations, and community partners together around a shared goal: a healed, equitable, just, and liberated California. The work connects community violence intervention, leadership development, civic participation, economic mobility, storytelling, and justice advocacy because lasting safety depends on all of them.
Community Knowledge Becomes Public Power
Gonzalez represents the kind of leadership at the center of the LIVE FREE model—leadership grounded in community experience and focused on public accountability. In Berkeley, she has spoken on behalf of LIVE FREE California and the city’s Gun Violence Intervention and Prevention Program, emphasizing the importance of jobs, oversight, housing, and accountable public leadership. Her advocacy reflects a basic truth: violence prevention cannot be separated from the conditions in which people live.
That belief shapes LIVE FREE California’s statewide strategy. The organization develops leaders, supports community-based organizations, and helps residents engage institutions that control funding and policy. Its work includes the State Faith Leaders Table, The California Underground, the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation & Truth, the Community Economic Mobilization Initiative, and community violence intervention efforts.
Each initiative addresses a different part of the same challenge. Community violence intervention responds to immediate harm through trusted, community-rooted relationships. Leadership development equips residents and faith leaders to organize beyond a single crisis. Civic participation gives communities a stronger voice in the decisions that affect their neighborhoods. Economic mobilization connects safety to jobs, housing, ownership, and opportunity.
Changing the Story and Moving Resources
LIVE FREE California also understands that narrative is a form of power. When Black and Brown communities are discussed only through statistics about violence or incarceration, their leadership and solutions disappear from view. By elevating authentic stories of organizing, healing, and achievement, the organization helps communities define themselves and the future they are building.
This state work is part of a wider national record. Across the LIVE FREE network, organizing has helped move more than $67 million into community safety and housing initiatives, generated more than 19,000 advocacy actions, and expanded leadership capacity across the country. California has been central to demonstrating that prevention can grow from a promising idea into a durable public commitment.
The power of LIVE FREE California is not measured by one meeting or one campaign. It is visible in the network of people who know one another, understand the systems they are trying to change, and are prepared to act together. It is visible when a resident speaks at a city meeting with the backing of an organized community. It is visible when faith institutions become bases for public leadership and when resources move toward people doing lifesaving work.
Teresa Gonzalez and LIVE FREE California are helping build that kind of power—patiently, publicly, and with a clear vision of safety rooted in healing, opportunity, accountability, and care.
