In this session, we’re pulling back the curtain on the ways traditional community engagement fails us—why it often feels extractive, performative, or just straight-up inaccessible. We’ll unpack how the language of land use and housing policy is designed to exclude, and how the very processes meant to serve communities often replicate harm instead, especially for people whose identities have been systematically pushed to the margins. From zoning jargon that keeps people out of decision-making to the outright hostility of public meetings, we’ll name the violence baked into the system and ask: What does it actually look like to engage people in a way that leads to justice?