Lydia Ghuman
Lydia Ghuman is a movement lawyer based in Miami, Florida. Her motivation to become a lawyer stems from her experiencing first-hand the negative impacts of policing for profit policies and poorly managed city budgets.
Lydia believes that when budgets help the most marginalized, they create better results for everyone. Lydia has extensive experience building budgets, litigation, and policies that ensure that funds are used to address the needs of low-income communities through various positions in city, state, and federal government, as well as non-profits.
Lydia received her JD from Harvard Law School and her B.A. from the University of Missouri.
About the Project
The South Florida Peoples’ Budget aims to build a codified participatory budgeting process in Miami, Florida (codified meaning that this process will be created through policy). A codified participatory budgeting process allows Miami constituents to have direct control over a portion of Miami-Dade County’s budget and to annually determine what local needs their tax-payer dollars should fund. This project will be enacted through a diverse coalition of South Florida organizations and individuals and will center low-income residents in the participatory budgeting process. This participatory budgeting process will be created with the goal of replicating it in other South Florida counties.