Instagram story viewer> @poder.austin> Posts

PODER

@poder.austin

4.7K

followers

176

following

✊🏽 Indigenous- and Latina-led grassroots social and environmental justice organization
🌱 Founded in 1991
📍 East Austin, Texas

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

¡ES TU PODER!: On May 1, 2026, PODER celebrated its 35th anniversary. By year’s end, we may shut our doors.

Funding cuts, which have grown in the wake of the Trump administration, now threaten PODER’s future. Today, we battle multibillion-dollar companies and a council determined to sell out every inch of land in town, insensitive to our city’s most critical challenges of affordability and environmental health.

Our organizers are in need of resources to continue this work, so all October, PODER is raising $100,000 to keep the team afloat as we apply for grant funding.

Please give what you can and share widely: bit.ly/nuestropoder (link in bio).

Your generosity is greatly appreciated and will ultimately be felt by the communities we serve. Help sustain PODER and the movement for environmental justice in East Austin. by @poder.austin

116

0

16 days ago

JANUARY–MARCH RECAP 🌱 PODER kept busy these last three months! Just some of the things we were up to:

📋 Conducted 100+ surveys to develop SAGE — Seniors Advocating for Generational Equity — our new project aiming to bring a senior meal and activity program to Montopolis
💚 Joined @dscejnola and @bullardcenter for their 11th Annual HBCU Climate Change Conference in NOLA, where Susana was honored alongside many of the movement’s visionaries — Dr. Beverly Wright, Dr. Robert Bullard, José T. Bravo, Dr. Ben F. Chavis Jr., Tom Goldtooth, Charles Lee, Dr. Mildred McClain, Vernice Miller-Travis, Dr. Paul Mohai, Richard Moore, and Donele Wilkins!
🔎 Brought our Young Scholars for Justice into two projects co-created with researchers from UT’s Environmental Science Institute (on water quality and neighborhood resilience) and the Department of Mexican American and Latino/a/x Studies (on youth safety)
🗣️ Testified alongside @communitypoweredatx, @anc_atx, Community Not Commodity, and community members across Austin to prevent upzoning in Montopolis
☀️ Advocated for bringing solar into the public housing redevelopment at Santa Rita Courts
✊ Co-sponsored @psl.atx’s ICE Out protest and film screenings of Earth’s Greatest Enemy
🌳 Planted trees at Oak Springs Preserve with @treefolks
🗳️ Signed youth up to vote at our all-day registration marathon
🤝 As always, community workshops, lotería, tabling…

Much more to come this spring 🌷 by @poder.austin

39

1

7 months ago

VICTORY FOR MONTOPOLIS: Today, Austin City Council voted against rezoning properties along Caddie St., Fairway St., and Montopolis Dr. to build a mixed-use development on lots that have been preserved for single-family housing since the Neighborhood Plan was adopted in 2001.

The development would have included no true affordability component — “affordable” units were promised to families of four with an up-to-80% yearly Median Family Income (MFI), which is $90,000. The MFI for families in Montopolis is 40%, less than $50,000; we need deeply affordable housing now, and we need housing for longtime residents who fight to remain in Montopolis across generations.

Thank you to all who spoke against Items 40 & 41, signed up, contacted their councilmembers, and amplified this case.

We continue to say NO TO SPECULATIVE DEVELOPMENT AND NO TO DISPLACEMENT! by @poder.austin

478

20

7 months ago

On #ChildrensEnvironmentalHealthDay, we want all our kids to breathe clean air. But half of U.S. kids are living with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and communities of color have almost 8 times higher childhood asthma rates.

That’s why we’re holding US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) @epagov accountable, and why we #DARETOBREATHE! Join us: Tell the EPA to stop rolling back life-saving clean air protections. Take action: bit.ly/daretobreathepetition

Data sources: @lungassociation, @gwpublichealth

#CleanAir #EnvironmentalJustice by @poder.austin

28

0

9 days ago

🎬Thurs 10.08 @ 7PM • STEAMROLLED: How Billionaires Remade Austin Texas in 9 Weeks is a 29 minute Austin Free Press Special Report that documents the city’s frantic annexation of 2,600 acres and the 45 year multi-billion dollar tax-payer financing scheme engineered by the city council, the developers and Amazon to make it happen.

Directed by Steve Mims

STEAMROLLED
Free Premiere + Panel
Thurs, Oct 8, 7pm

Galaxy Theatres
6700 Middle Fiskville Rd
Austin, TX 78752 by @poder.austin

604

20

14 days ago

Not registered to vote yet? Now’s the time!

Join @poder.austin for their Voter Registration Drive on Monday, October 5th! This is the LAST DAY to get registered for the upcoming elections!

So bring a friend, get registered, get ready, and GO VOTE!

📅 Early Voting: Monday, October 19 - Friday, October 30
🗳️ Election Day: Tuesday, November 3rd taken in Austin, Texas by @poder.austin

44

3

17 days ago

We had the brightest Sun Day!! Thank you to all the brilliant and sunny people who came out to celebrate sol-full energy!

🌞🔌🎨🌱✨
#solarenergy☀️ #cleanenergy #sustainableenergy #community #environmentalism taken in Mueller Lake Park by @poder.austin

47

3

19 days ago

#ClimateWeekNYC brings political and business leaders together alongside the United Nations General Assembly to shape large-scale responses to the climate crisis.
For the environmental and climate justice movement, being in these spaces means advancing climate action grounded in justice, accountability, equity, Indigenous rights, workers’ rights, and community control, with affected communities, Indigenous peoples, workers, women, youth, and frontline and fenceline communities at the decision-making table.
We go beyond “solutions” to define what a just transition requires: locally controlled energy, democratic accountability, and resistance to fossil-fuel and extractive developmen(yes that includes data centers)
We may not be at each other’s events, but across different spaces, our EJ family is holding the line, ensuring that our voices, rights, and self-determination remain central to climate action.
#ClimateJustice #JustTransition #SelfDetermination
@losjardinesinstitute @nrdc_org @themovingforwardnetwork @ceed_justice @rise4ej @scican_ej @poder.austin @ejforum by @poder.austin

32

1

19 days ago

The movement to demand ICE OUT OF TEXAS is growing!

Check out all our endorsers as organizations from across the state say: this has to end now! We will not stand for ICE terror in our communities.

We will see you tomorrow, Sunday 9/27, at 2pm at the corner of Anderson Square and Research Blvd.

Justice for Wilber! Justice for Lorenzo and Ruben! ICE OUT OF TEXAS! by @poder.austin

2k

26

21 days ago

🌎🏭As #ClimateWeek brings people together to mobilize #ClimateAction, we must remember the real lives and communities at stake. “Power plants continue to harm our health every single day and worsen the #ClimateCrisis, with the heaviest burdens falling on low-income and communities of color that last for generations,” said Anastasia Gordon, Director of Federal Policy at WE ACT. Read more via @capitalbnews : LINK IN BIO

Trump’s @epagov continues to put polluter profits over our lives with over 30 rollbacks of hard-earned, life-saving clean air protections. These actions will hurt our health and add more harm to #EnvironmentalJustice communities on the frontline of both climate impacts and air pollution from sources like power plants.

As the Agency is attempting to deny its overall authority to regulate dangerous climate emissions from power plants, we’re pushing back and holding the line. ➡️Take action at daretobreathe.org or LINK IN BIO

Coalition members include Environmental Justice Leadership Forum @ejforum members: @drcc_org , @greendoorinitiative , @greenlatinos, @poder.austin, WE ACT, West End Revitalization Association (WERA), and @wigreenmuslims /Michigan Green Muslims. by @poder.austin

3

1

24 days ago

Sign the Petition:
https://www.change.org/GuardrailsATX

Austin is writing a new economic development policy right now. The City Manager’s office has until November 2026 to deliver it to Council. Before that document is written, the coalition asks Council and the City Manager to commit to six guardrails:
1. No incentives for defense, weapons, war, or surveillance technology public or private, research or development, including dual-use applications. Companies in otherwise incentivized sectors should forfeit their incentives if they expand into weapons or defense uses.
2. No incentives for data centers, or autonomous vehicles.
3. An open public process to define shared community values, run through city commissions, stakeholder meetings, and public comment. The resulting Community Values document should ship as part of the November policy package.
4. Adoption of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights as the evaluative framework for deciding which companies Austin incentivizes or contracts with, including their human rights and environmental records.
5. Clear accountability and check-in requirements for every company that receives a city benefit.
6. Ongoing audits to confirm that recipients have not drifted into prohibited sectors while continuing to draw public support

With Austin’s history as a hub for defense companies, the current language isn’t strong enough. There should be no loopholes. We believe that, unless explicit language prohibits it, the defense industry will benefit enormously from city incentives under the new economic development policies. These incentives include a fast-tracked development process, exclusive rights to city-owned land, tax benefits, reduced fees, and more. Specific target sectors were softened in the resolution as adopted after public pressure. That is a real win. But it does not resolve anything. The sectors can be reinserted at the staff level in November. Removing the explicit target sector list is not the same as adopting a limit against them. by @poder.austin

453

9

24 days ago

Today’s the DAY!! Tune in LIVE to watch the ‘Envisioning the Future of the Environmental Justice Movement’ LINK IN BIO!

Our first panel is a legendary lineup including WE ACT co-founders Peggy Shepard and Vernice Miller-Travis, alongside leaders and environmental justice pioneers Charles Lee, Dr Beverly Wright, Dr. Mildred McClain, Susana Almanza, Richard Moore, and Jose Bravo! These leaders shaped the modern movement, and 35 years after the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit continue to grow the essential work to fight environmental racism and ensure safe, healthy, free lives and futures for everyone.

What would you ask these legends? Tell us in the comments below!⬇️

#NYCClimateWeek #ClimateJustice #EnvironmentalJustice by @poder.austin

152

1

25 days ago