Margaretta Lin

Executive Director & Public Policy Director

As the founder of racial justice institutions such as Just Cities, the Dellums Institute for Social Justice, EBCLC’s Community Economic Justice Clinic, Youth Together, and the City of Oakland’s Housing Resource Center, Margaretta has dedicated her life to racial justice and healing, and health equity.  She also serves as the Policy and Research Director of Just Cities and co-led the planning and policy design of Fair Chance Housing policies, successful budgetary campaigns for anti-displacement and homeless prevention safety net policies and funds for Alameda County and the cities of Oakland and Berkeley.  

Margaretta has extensive government and racial equity experience as the former Deputy City Administrator and founding Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Departments of Planning & Building and Housing and Community Development for the City of Oakland.  She organized public/private partnerships, including with Alameda County Public Health, to address systemic injustices and improve health conditions such as the OSNI Collaborative for East Oakland, national best practice foreclosure prevention and blight abatement policies and programs, transformation of Code Enforcement to advance public health, comprehensive anti-displacement policies, strategies and programs including the Oakland Housing Equity Roadmap and the Housing Resource Center. 

As the founding Director of Youth Together, a multiracial youth violence prevention organization working with Berkeley, Castlemont, Fremont, Richmond, and Skyline High School students, Margaretta integrated health equity principles and understanding the root causes of inter-racial violence in the core operating principles and leadership development curriculum.  As a human rights lawyer at the East Bay Community Law Center and Public Advocates, Margaretta integrated racial justice and health equity into her work with grassroots community partners including with West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project on Port of Oakland pollution, market force development displacement of low-income vulnerable populations with Causa Justa::Just Cause.