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Community Building in Public Housing
Ties That Bind People and Their Communities, continued

April 1997

II. Community-Building Steps for Public Housing Authorities
Preparing a Mission Statement
Naming a Community-Building Facilitator
Creating a Representative Community Organization
Assuring that Management Is Connected and Responsive to Residents Modifying the Physical Setting

III. Community-Building Strategies: Some Examples
Engaging in Community
Setting Community Standards
Increasing Access to Opportunities

IV. Community Building Through Partnerships: Some Examples
Building Bridges to Resources and Real Opportunities
Addressing Health Problems
Combating Substance Abuse
Helping Families Acquire Survival Skills
Addressing Teens' Physical and Emotional Health
Helping Residents Acquire Education and Skills to Succeed
Opening a Wide Range of Opportunities

Part II Community-Building Steps for Public Housing Authorities

Community building is an approach to fighting poverty that operates by building social and human capital. The relationships fostered among individual residents and families by cooperative endeavors become a kind of invisible infrastructure of mutual trust and loyalty that makes other advances possible. It is these networks that enhance resident participation and allow residents to incorporate their own values, insights, and needs into the process.

As these points suggest, PHAs do not so much themselves carry out community-building activities as work in partnership to facilitate and support residents' efforts. The key is not just putting in place appropriate structures and programs, but also encouraging processes and associations that transmit values and influence behavior. The housing manager's primary job is to craft the institutional structures that will foster community building. Appropriate steps include:

These steps are best taken in a collaborative manner, working with residents and community partners. Some of the steps, such as preparing a mission statement or creating a resident organization, may be accomplished relatively quickly. Others, such as making management reforms and changes to the physical setting, may require a long-term effort.

Adopting a mission statement declares that the PHA and residents consider community building a top priority and indicates the PHA's commitment to support resident efforts in several specific areas. Such a statement must be developed in a collaborative manner: A cross-section of the PHA's stakeholders, from board members to staff to resident representatives, should draft it. If the commitment of the municipality in which the PHA is located is also necessary to assure full support for such an initiative, the city or county, as appropriate, should also be a party to the statement.

Drafting a mission statement requires the PHA to answer some basic questions about itself:

Figure 2

A Sample Mission Statement

The Housing Authority of Beauville, USA, exists through the enactment of State legislation based on the State's desire to provide housing and services to its low-income residents through Federal funding programs. The Authority is in the business of providing housing and supportive services to residents of Beauville whose income is less than 50 percent of the city's average income, poor elderly city residents, and special-needs citizens who cannot otherwise support their own needs for housing and services.

We, the commissioners, staff, and resident representatives of the housing authority, and city management, agree that the housing authority shall adopt community-building principles to assist people in moving permanently out of poverty. These principles include: involving residents in goals and strategies, emphasizing assets rather than problems, involving communities of manageable size, tailoring strategies unique to the neighborhood, being holistic in outlook and integrative in charader, reinforcing community values while building social and human capital, and developing creative partnerships to link residents to resources and opportunities. The community-building initiative shall have as its mission the following:

The Authority shall use its financial, political, and human resources to provide its residents with opportunities to take full part in community life and governance, to participate in establishing standards of acceptable behavior in their communities, and to access a wide range of personal, educational, economic, and housing opportunities. The Authority will provide the conducive physical environment and appropriate management necessary to facilitate community-building strategies.

Figure 3

Community-Building Facilitator

A Sample Job Description

This position is accountable for the implementation of the housing authority's (or resident organization's) community-building process, including:

Managing the process through which residents choose, develop, and carry out community-oriented projects.
Organizing and running meetings of residents and others involved in the community-building process, including service providers, financial institutions, employers, and city partners.
Identifying, locating, and managing sodal resources that residents can use to further their goals.
Developing partnerships with public housing managers.
Linking residents with stakeholders outside of the public housing community.

Qualifications:

The successful candidate must embody the principles of community building and must demonstrate full knowledge of these principles. The candidate will be responsible for enabling residents to take leadership positions, experience empowerment, and take ownership of their community-building process.

The successful candidate will exhibit the ability to communicate clearly to groups and individuals, in writing and in person, with constituents of various socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds and education levels. The community building facilitator must be skilled at obtaining consensus among various groups working on community-building issues, experienced in making presentations to local govemment and other agencies, and comfortable speaking in front of resident groups. In addition, the fadlitator should be able to encourage local residents to assume these tasks, too.
A bachelor's degree or equivalent is desirable. However, it is more important that the candidate have strong communication, interpersonal, planning, and organizational skills and be familiar with the community.

It is also important to make clear where the facilitator fits in organizationally and to whom the facilitator reports. For example, a community-building facilitator hired by a PHA will report directly to the executive director, to ensure having the ear of the PEIA's top manager and board of directors. Only this level of access to management will reassure community partners and residents that the PHA takes the facilitator seriously. The PHA should locate the facilitator's office in the community to encourage resident participation in community-building efforts. Locating the facilitator's office at a distant headquarters facility sends a different message: that the residents must travel there, rather than have community building take place in their community.

A community-building facilitator working for a resident organization has much the same job description. In this case, the facilitator might report to the resident organization's board of directors and locate his or her office at or near the resident organization's office. Community-building facilitators need to be fairly compensated for the work they perform. Local community development organizations or other agencies that have community organizers or similar staff positions can provide information on pay scales. The hiring organization also needs to consider renting, purchasing, or sharing such office equipment as computers, copiers, fax machines, telephones, desks, chairs, and file cabinets. Putting together a complete budget, including salary, benefits, taxes, equipment, and supplies will help resolve some of these operational questions.

Teacher, listener, convener, organizer, facilitator, consensus-builder: The community-building facilitator is all of these things. With the support of strong leadership the facilitator can deliver on commitments made, build trust among community partners, and help residents achieve their goals.

To begin to build community in public housing, a necessary step is to create a representative community organization along the principles of community building. Public housing residents form the core of this group, but it may also include nonpublic housing residents and other stakeholders from the surrounding neighborhoods who are empowered to develop, implement, and oversee the community agenda. In some communities this step has been implemented through a village development process. As the Cleveland Foundation Commission on Poverty commented on this process: It is in the neighborhoods where they live, among familiar faces and relatively accessible institutions, that people most easily become involved and stand the best chance of regaining some measure of control over their own destinies.[13]

The specific agenda will take different forms in different places, but regardless of the projects that they choose to work on, the role of the residents' organization is a serious one. The residents' organization is a key community institution through which residents can address neighborhood needs, direct their own energies, and pull together resources that support movement toward individual goals. As residents gain experience and skills and the organization strengthens, it becomes an ongoing center for the knitting of community ties that can support individuals as they strive for independence. The residents' organization may not be the only locus of community-building energy in the development, but it does create a formal, designated structure for mutual discussion, negotiation, and joint planning among residents, the PHA, and the community.

There is no single right way to structure such an organization or group of organizations. Action should be left to the residents, but various options might be presented during the preliminary stage of dialogue involving residents and management. The organization may wish to apply for 501(c)3 tax-exempt, nonprofit organization status with the Internal Revenue Service to carry out its agenda. It may evolve in time into a community development corporation (CDC) that undertakes physical development projects of its own, or it may take other forms. The important thing is that the organization and its leadership have the trust and confidence of the residents and not be perceived as a creation of management.

Some communities may prefer to organize work groups around specific interests or shared goals into something like the chapters described in Part 1, which might then send representatives to an umbrella resident organization that would address the community's larger agenda.

Whatever exact organization the residents choose, the idea is to establish a dialogue between residents and management and among the residents themselves. These initial stages involve a great deal of listening. As some PHAs that have embarked on such a process have discovered, such an exchange can be the source of a tremendous amount of useful information. Nobody knows the daily challenges and problems of a public housing development better than its residents. Getting them to talk frankly about what they know and see is the biggest challenge, but it can also be the key to real progress if management is willing to listen respectfully and take what is said to heart.

Residents may wish to draw up and propose a covenant in which the community's residents declare their collective goals for the community and pledge to honor the values, community standards, and priorities they have agreed upon. Drafting and signing such a document can be a powerful bonding experience that can forge important relationships and release tremendous energies for progress. As an idea of how inclusive such an agreement on values can be, figure 4 is an example of one adopted by the resident organization of Renaissance Village in Cleveland.

Figure 4

A Sample Covenant: Cleveland, Ohio

We, the Residents of Renaissance Village desiring to live in a secure, wholesome and dnug-free community, enter this covenant with one another, as declaration of our commitment to building a strong, viable community for ourselves.

We commit, therefore, to work together in brotherhood and sisterhood to strive for the advancement and uplifting of this community; by acquiring knowledge, understanding and skills to promote its prosperity and security; to obey its rules, ordinances, and regulations and to contribute faithfully and regularly to the support of this Community.

We also commit to maintaining family, to educating ourselves and our children, but being honest and trusfful in our relations with one another; to abstain from negative behaviors and attitudes; to abstain from the sale, use, misuse, and abuse of alcoholic beverages; to abstain from the sale and use of all illegal drugs; and to be zealous in our commitment to advancing academic excellence, ensuring a safe, secure and drug-free community for one another.

We further commit to watch over one another; to be mindful of one another in our prayers; to assist one another in times of need; to respect and hold one another in the highest esteem as evidenced by our courtesy in speech, our slowness to anger, our readiness for conciliation and mediation.

We moreover commit that, we will share with our visiting family members, friends, and acquaintances the rules and regulations of our community and that we will ask that they would abide by these rules and regulations when visiting our community.

This, our Covenant is our solemn and joyful commitment: to be Loving, Sharing and Creative; to have Patience, Discipline, Devotion and Courage; to Live as Models and Leaders, to Study, Learn and Teach; and, to Demonstrate Self-determination, Self-reliance and Provide New Hope and Diredion for Ourselves, Our Children and this Community.

Source: Renaissance Village, Cleveland, Ohio.

Conduct Routine Maintenance

Implement Systems for Managing Money

Move Quickly To Rent Vacant Units

Monitor and Encourage Staff Accountability

Articulate and Enforce Community Norms

Provide for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Training

Pursue Alternative Funding Sources

Restructure PHA Management

In larger developments such a restructuring would require that management be decentralized so that it is more responsive to the needs of residents. The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority is moving from a highly centralized management organization toward a system of regional managers overseeing about 1,200 units each. Regional managers, in turn, delegate authority to property managers, who typically live onsite with responsibility for about 250 units. Heating, maintenance, and garbage collection is still centralized, and all budgeting and spending must pass through central administration. Such practices are consistent with the way property is managed in the private sector. Another possible reform is alternative management through a private management contract.

Minimize Physical Differences

Design in Response to the Expressed Needs of Residents

Design Using the Principles of Defensible Space

Reduce Density

Much existing public housing has very high density, within both individual buildings and groups of buildings. This density is often unmanageable and tension-producing. As opportunities arise, PEIAs should create clusters of units that are small enough in size that residents can come to recognize and get to know each other. As a rule of thumb, public housing should have not much more density than the surrounding community. Building to human scale creates a sense of community and makes it easier to spot intruders. Under HOPE VI, some of the most inadequate and outmoded of these very large structures have been demolished and will be replaced by less dense townhomes or garden apartments. In other locations, PHAs have reduced density by tearing down parts of structures and remodeling the remainder.

Create Connections

By undertaking these institutional steps to encourage community building, PHAs are striving to establish a new model for the functioning of public housing and its residents-one that is better suited to the fiscal and social challenges of today. The purpose of the activities described here is to tap the self-help energy of residents to work on their goals, to create a supportive social environment that nurtures residents' efforts to better their lives, and to create structures that facilitate joint action among residents and management. In light of the changes in the policy environment facing public housing managers, nothing could be more important.