Southwest Fresno POWER (Partnership for Opportunity, Wellness, Equity, and Restoration) is a collaboration among stakeholding organizations and community members that represents a crucial investment in one of Fresno’s critical neighborhoods. Southwest Fresno (SWF) is a part of the city that represents the extremities of Fresno’s systemic historical problems, but also retains a vibrant advocacy landscape that ENP is proud to work within. In 2025, ENP specifically supported SW POWER by helping to organize focus groups, collecting community input, and spearheading a series of ‘Walk n’ Roll’ audits along key transportation corridors in SWF. Undergirding this work is a broader strategy to assess the lived realities of residents and workers in SWF when compared to the goals of the City of Fresno’s watershed planning document, the Southwest Fresno Specific Plan of 2017. In this document, the city outlines a new land use paradigm that envisions Fresno’s historic Southwest as a hub for revitalization efforts: new transportation infrastructure, businesses, educational facilities, and green space. In order to see this vision become reality, SWF POWER and ENP are committed to maintaining a presence in SW, one school site, apartment complex, and street at a time.
SW POWER collaborated actively with ENP’s Community Land Use Academy (CLUA) program by hosting the first-ever geographic-specific CLUA cohort in Southwest Fresno. As a means of directly applying their learning from the cohort’s sessions, participants got to participate in the Walk n’ Roll Audits and contribute valuable data for SW POWER’s efforts. The four Walk n’ Roll Audits served two functions: collecting valuable data on key transportation corridors in SWF, and also enabling residents to see firsthand the conditions of their neighborhoods and the ways that they connect to the broader fabric of the city. In addition to walking as pedestrians along sidewalks, participants could be driven in vans to various sites that represent key areas of discussion (hence walk and ‘roll’). ENP led the first two audits along Kearney Boulevard and Fresno Street in June 2025, where Karl Gurney (who leads ENP’s CLUA programs) was able to guide residents with helpful tips on what to look for and the kinds of conditions that might indicate the “health” of the urban ecosystem. Some key questions that the group asked included: does this area feel safe to walk around? What do the conditions of the properties look like? What kinds of landscaping is provided on the public easements? Are there any vacant lots or blighted properties? What kinds of services are present for people in this area?
A variety of participants joined in these audits, from neighbors in the Lincoln Elementary neighborhood to representatives of local nonprofits and even healthcare institutions. These audits were paired with SWF POWER’s Wellness on the West gatherings, where volunteers led participants in stretching, aerobics, and yoga practice at Kearney Triangle Park. Overall, the atmosphere was one of gratitude and joy in the gathering, while also holding space for sober reflection over the great amount of work that remains to be done.
