Who We Are

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I have been working in homeless service case management in Birmingham since 2016 in various organizations. I moved here in 2016 with my family from Oakland, CA where I taught science to young adults trying to get their high school diploma. I am interested in housing and sustainability for working families and individuals. I live in Homewood with my spouse, son and 3 dogs and am excited to be a part of the SWEET mission, especially as it pertains to creating a

model for truly affordable and sustainable housing for all.

My Name is La’Tanya Scott; you can call me LT for short. I am from Temple a small city in Carroll county Georgia. However, I now live in Birmingham Alabama with my dog Max and bearded dragon Lola. I am a graduate of Miles College with a degree in Environmental Science and now work as the Environmental Science Educator for the Cahaba River society.

From childhood, between basketball and being a student-athlete to exploring the backyard or even fishing with my family, I knew that I wanted to work in nature and to inspire people to love the outdoors as much as I do. I have always had a passion for being outdoors and helping people, and I credit my family for strengthening my passion.

Through the years, I have become a skilled outdoor educator and role model who helps strengthen CRS’s outreach and service to urban schools and youth of color. I now deliver hands-on environmental science education programs to students in the classroom and in the field through the Shane Hulsey CLEAN Program. My intense interest in nature, skills, and knowledge, and especially my boundless enthusiasm will help many additional area students understand the importance, and the wonders, of one of our major waterways the Cahaba River, water equity, and the outdoors. 

As Co-Chair of our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee of Board and staff, I will always be open and honest in my experiences and lead us forward to support us to anti-racism and water- equity work. Right now we are in the midst of planning community conversations around barriers to nature access for people of color, such as the legacy of Jim Crow and racial terror as well as racism today, and how education/recreation organizations can better promote nature as a safe and welcoming space. I am also building educational and grassroots partnerships to increase opportunities for rural Black Belt residents and students to benefit from environmental education and better recreation access, to open career and advocacy paths to steward their own natural resources.

As a cystic fibrosis patient I became involved in community service from a young age, including canvassing and fundraising for the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Foundation. After my father passed as a result of mental health issues while I was in high school, this expanded to other types of volunteer service. Around this time, growing up outside New York City, I slowly watched my friends' neighborhoods in Harlem become gentrified, and an entire neighborhood become displaced. I believe this moment in time is what led me to become passionate about community-based urban development as an adult. When I moved Birmingham and started attending UAB, I noticed a sharp decrease in my lung health. I soon came to find that Birmingham was ranked in the Top 15 for worst air particle pollution in the country. I became involved in environmental organizing while in college, and soon began to feel that to fix the issues affecting our communities we needed to address our issues systemically.
In 2013 I became the Executive Director of Magic City Agriculture Project (MCAP), anon-profit whose mission is to engage in value-based community organizing to reweave the threads of the community, develop sustainable urban agriculture as a solution to economic and food injustice, and to dismantle racism.
In 2017 I stepped down from MCAP and helped co-found SWEET Alabama. My first ever community organizing was around protecting clean drinking water, supporting clean energy, and supporting community based economies. I am proud to work for an organization that has made that their mission.

I am an Alabama based civil rights attorney, policy analyst, social worker, racial justice activist, community organizer, and relational strategist with nearly a decade of experience working at the intersection of racial equity, critical race & feminist theory, poverty, criminal justice reform, mental health, and reproductive justice. As a community organizer that wears many hats, I have a passion for finding ways that policy and legal mechanisms can support and enhance the work of people with ideas about how to transition to a more just world. All of our work intersects.