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Manuals and Guides: Community

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

April 1997

Manual Index

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

I. Community Building: Emerging as a Key Strategy for the 21st Century
What Is Community Building?
Principles of Community Building
Why the Community-Building Trend Is Emerging Now

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

V. Conclusion
Endnotes

Contents

III. Community-Building Strategies: Some Examples

Engaging in Community
Setting Community Standards
Increasing Access to Opportunities

Part III: Community Building Strategies: Some Examples

This section presents examples of promising strategies for community building gathered from public housing and other urban settings around the country that are proving helpful in bringing about positive change in the lives of individuals and communities. The strategies are grouped under three basic themes: engaging residents in the community, setting standards, and providing access to opportunity.

• Engaging residents in the community. Community-building initiatives engage residents in the life and governance of the community and give them the power to set goals and priorities and to make such arrangements as are necessary to achieve those goals. This theme is divided into two topics: the experience of governance and community service.
• Setting community standards. Community-building initiatives recognize the need of a community to establish its own standards for acceptable behavior-its own values-and to clarify the responsibilities of individuals and the community for maintaining those standards. This theme is divided into two topics: crime reduction and building strong families.
• Increasing access to opportunities. Community-building initiatives provide access to education, jobs, and a range of housing options to help residents go from dependence to independence. This theme is divided into two topics: employment strategies and housing options.

The examples presented in this section embody strategies appropriate to each of these topics, illustrating the great variety of means that can be employed to help end the isolation of the public housing community and assist residents in overcoming personal and institutional barriers to success. The strategies reflect the principles of community building presented in Part I. Lessons learned follow each of these broad topics.

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Engaging in Community

Such an experience is found at the core of many of the most promising current changes in public housing. Behind these stories of residents getting off welfare, finding gainful employment, kicking drug habits, or dramatically reducing crime in their communities, one discovers again and again people learning, in Kemmis' words, "to take responsibility for the lives and the hopes of their children," indeed, responsibility for their own hopes and aspirations.

In places as diverse as Cleveland and E1 Paso, enlightened PHAs, community organizations, and local and State governments are doing everything they can to encourage this trend and to build the capacity of public housing residents to do more for themselves. It begins with what Kemmis calls "the nurturing and rebuilding of trust, without which democracy simply disintegrates," and it involves bringing residents into a more active involvement in every aspect of their community's life, from having input into physical design and allocation of space, to participating in the coordination of social services.

Resident involvement in the coordination of human services, say observers, is in fact an important key to breaking down the traditional categorical, or uncoordinated, approach to service delivery. PHAs and other agencies need to stop seeing residents, and residents need to stop seeing themselves, merely as the recipients of these services.

Residents need to feel that all the systems are working both for them and in support of the larger goals they have for their community: their community-building plan. Empowering residents to create such a plan is therefore the first order of business in a community-building initiative. Residents must be given the opportunity and the means of doing this. Indeed, they must be enabled to experience full citizenship, with responsibilities to the community as well as rights.

The two most practical means of enhancing civic involvement are participation in governance (that is, decision making in matters that affect the life and prospects of the community) and community service.

Involve Residents in the Experience of Governance

The proposed demolition and redesign of public housing developments around the United States offer an opportunity for PHAs to actively seek resident input and involvement in these and other matters affecting their neighborhoods. Some PHAs have even instituted leadership training for residents who show the interest and potential.

Supporting Resident Organizations' Power in Governance

The active involvement of the residents, both management and residents agree, has been key to the dramatic changes at E1 Paso's Kennedy Brothers Memorial Apartments public housing complex. Residents were involved, says resident council president Lucinda Galvan, before programs were designed and even before the demolition of inadequate housing.

The $40 million awarded by HUD to the Housing Authority of the City of E1 Paso (HACEP) under the HOPE VI program acted as a catalyst, providing a sudden opportunity to make a large-scale impact in a very short time at Kennedy Brothers. But management understood that the way HACEP went about the project could make or break its long-term possibilities. In fact, says HACEP's resident relations representative Samuel Silvas [15],"the PHA saw HOPE VI as an opportunity to "begin a new day" in El Paso public housing. So HACEP sought the residents' input before any demolition began or before plans were made for what would replace the razed structures.

"They started involving us in what they were doing," says Galvan. "It was clear that they really wanted to work with us." Interested residents were invited to participate in 3-day leadership-training sessions, she recalls, right alongside HACEP staff. "You got to know them- what they did for HACEP and how they felt about things. Before, we felt the staff looked down on us."

"The residents had been abused, neglected, and made to feel unwelcome when they came around," says Silvas. "It was like, 'What do you want?' as though they were an interruption- rather than the whole reason we were here. If HACEP's new management was going to have any credibility, that had to change for starters." Making housing office and maintenance staff realize they work for the residents, creating opportunities for residents and staff to get to know one another better and acquire some sympathy for the challenges each faces, and showing staff the satisfaction of completing a successful collaboration with residents were some of the ways HACEP succeeded in changing staff attitudes.

A newly energized resident council has, with the support of HACEP management and staff, helped launch a variety of self-help and mutual-support programs that are already having results. Weekly classes in home ownership, parenting education, self-esteem, drug prevention, computer technology, and other subjects draw between 30 and 70 residents each. Forty residents have earned their GEDs, 45 have completed citizenship requirements, and 20 are enrolled in entrepreneurship classes. Two resident-owned companies have already been created, access to public transportation has been restored by resident action, and crime at Kennedy Brothers has decreased dramatically.

Two years ago, Silvas recalls, the "obligatory" monthly resident meetings at Kennedy Brothers Apartments were rarely attended by more than 5 or 10 people. Meetings were unpleasant, frustrating occasions marked by bickering and shouting, occasionally even fist fights. Little was accomplished and people often went away angry and discouraged.

Meetings today are standing-room-only, regularly drawing 100-150 residents, and may go on for as long as 3 hours with hardly a person leaving. What accounts for the change? A combination of things, says Silvas, including training in running an effective meeting, a code of conduct, a focused agenda, and a much clearer sense of what the resident association's mission is—and what it is not. Individual disputes and resident complaints are seen as things that need to be resolved between residents and management. "To put resident representatives in the middle," says Silvas, "was to set them up for failure." Meetings focus instead on matters that affect the quality of life of the community as a whole.

The stated mission of each HACEP resident association is "to provide for expanded opportunities for participation by residents in the management of housing development affairs and in programs designed to improve community life." Elected officers have a clear sense of their individual roles and duties. They are trained in parliamentary procedure, which helps to keep discussions orderly and meetings on track, but are reminded, says Galvan, to "have fun, keep meetings lively, and not talk in a monotone." Perhaps most important of all, resident officers are trained in the art of setting specific, clearly defined goals, and using them to keep discussions focused.

"Dare to dream," Silvas tells each of the associations. "What do you want to see in your community in 5 years?" Each resident association, in conjunction with the development manager and the input of the public housing community, then prepares and submits no fewer than three goals or objectives for the year ahead. Focusing on objectives that are realistic and attainable in a period of several months-mounting a cleanup campaign, hosting a job or health fair, holding immunization sessions, developing a security plan in cooperation with the police department-is crucial to achieving a sense of progress.

Celebrating the fruits of collaborative effort and the recognition of individual and group contributions is also crucial. In 1995 housing staff invited resident representatives to a Thanksgiving celebration dinner at which housing staff served them and presented them with acrylic paperweight mementos, individually engraved with their names and the dates and nature of their service, in recognition of their contributions. "People were weeping," Silvas recalls. "Many of them had never been acknowledged for anything before."

All the problems these residents face, of course, are far from being solved. But one senses people moving from a situation of hopelessness and dependence into one of hope and the belief that they are building personal, and community, capacity for real change.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; build on assets; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Effective Resident Participation

The result: a mixed-income housing complex that integrates more fully with adjacent communities, a resident group that feels empowered and heard, and a multidimensional facility now underway, in the success of which the residents feel they have a stake.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies.

Effects of a Strong Resident Management Corporation

Launched as a pilot program in 1971, BHTMC had already created a community center, a health clinic, tutoring programs for young residents, and a community crime patrol that dramatically curbed illegal activity in those developments. Under the contract it would take on the responsibility of dealing with leaky roofs, malfunctioning boilers, unsightly debris, backed-up work orders, and approximately 4,000 broken windows.

With the power to hire its own staff, BHTMC began with a resident-staffed maintenance department and set about addressing problems, purchasing supplies, and entering into service contracts with various vendors. BHTMC also established new programs, including Head Start for preschoolers, daycare and job-placement centers, youth development and recreation programs, a food bank, a learning center, and a radio station that informs and entertains residents and has led to several careers in broadcasting. The station has made this resource available to its nonpublic housing neighbors, enabling staff from nearby schools to gain technical experience in educational broadcasting

These activities helped BHTMC contribute to the revitalization effort of the larger neighborhood. Seeing itself as an integral part of the larger community has been a key element of BHTMC's community-building strategy. BHTMC celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1996 with the grand opening of a 40,000-square-foot facility housing a new state-of-the-art health center and a Stop-n-Shop housing a new supermarket, the first in the neighborhood in 20 years. Both facilities will serve nonpublic housing families in the neighborhood as well.

The Stop-n-Shop is situated on a former toxic industrial site, which BHTMC cleaned up in return for a 10-percent ownership of the supermarket. BHTMC negotiated a deal with Stop-n-Shop: the first $100,000 in profits each year for the next 5 years will go into a community development fund for the whole neighborhood. A board that includes community and public housing residents will decide how the money is to be spent. Restoring such basic functions as food and health services makes residents' lives better, links BHTMC with the broader community, and improves the image and morale of the neighborhood.

The BHTMC board of directors consists of 12 residents who serve for 2-year terms and oversee an annual operating budget that exceeds $6 million. The board sets policy; hires an executive director to carry out its programs and policies; and employs approximately 60 persons in administration, management, maintenance, and security. Standing board committees have the responsibility for personnel, modernization, elections, and bylaws.

"The popular perception is that public housing residents don't care about their neighborhood-about every aspect of their lives," says BHTMC executive director Mildred Hailey. "Once there was no daycare available here, no health center, no place in the neighborhood to buy groceries. The residents wanted these things for themselves, so they organized, one by one, around these goals and were able to bring them to the entire community. That has given everybody hope."

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide access to resources and opportunities.

Resident Decision Making

Project Gain Sharing, an ongoing program implemented in 1992 by the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), ingeniously links the common interests of residents and authority in reducing the problems of spiraling vandalism and community deterioration with access to funds for a variety of other needs voiced by residents. The project demonstrates how community-building initiatives may take unique shapes from neighborhood to neighborhood. Under a special arrangement, dollars earmarked for maintenance and repair of vandalism to a specific building that are saved as a result of community policing efforts are transferred into a fund that will benefit the residents of that building. The resident councils have the power to decide how those funds will be spent.

These saved dollars typically may be used for such quality-of-life enhancing items as landscaping, gardens, installation of magnetic locks, the purchase of electronic entry cards, or the hiring of additional maintenance or security personnel.

Meanwhile, managers of NYCHA model buildings selected for participation in the Gain Sharing program have reported a significant decrease in the day-to-day management problems in those facilities. NYCHA reports overall decreases in the model buildings of the monthly costs of repairing damage resulting from vandalism. Police reported 85 percent fewer crimes in two model buildings than in their nonparticipating counterparts during the same period. Weapons offenses decreased by 57 percent and total arrests in the area declined by 16 percent.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; build on assets; involve communities of manageable size.

Build Resident Capacity

In 1988 the first resident management council in Dallas public housing was established in response to a vote of the residents of Rhoads Terrace, 95 percent of whom voted to establish such a council. Residents saw the creation of such a body as the first step, they said, in breaking out of the physical and economic isolation that denied them not only important opportunities but access to many of the goods and services other Americans enjoy as a matter of course.

The Meadow Foundation of Texas became partner to the effort, agreeing to contribute $96,000 which, along with a $60,000 Resident Management Technical Assistance Grant from HUD, would be used to pay for training and other startup costs. For the next 3 1/2 years, 17 council members met once or twice a week with Dallas Housing Authority (DHA) staff on all levels, learning about building management, budgeting, and handling personnel. Of the 15 residents who completed the full course of training, 9 joined the Rhoads Terrace management board. Six residents participated in an intensive hands-on maintenance training program where they learned to repair household equipment such as stoves and plumbing and to do basic electrical repair. Five now work for DHA.

Meanwhile, in late 1991, with the support of a second HUD grant, the new Rhoads Terrace Resident Management Corporation (RTRMC) entered into a dual management arrangement with DHA and assumed responsibility for processing resident applications, conducting resident orientations, and monitoring DHA's training program. DHA continued to oversee maintenance and set the rent structure.

In stages RTRMC took over responsibility for most aspects of the operation, filling the staff positions of, among others, the executive director, executive secretary, manager, and management clerk. A professional accounting clerk was retained by the corporation to help manage the development's complicated finances. RTRMC assumed full responsibility for the management and maintenance of Rhoads Terrace in April 1995.

Accomplishments along the way demonstrate the holistic approach of this initiative, including successful crime reduction and substance abuse recovery programs, adult education, family counseling, Head Start, healthcare and job-placement services, a laundry and affordable food co-op, an onsite police substation, and a community center. RTRMC introduced aerobics and dance classes, along with soccer, basketball, and volleyball for resident youth.

Created in response to the community's perceived needs, RTRMC continues to solicit feedback and fresh input from Rhoads Terrace residents and meets monthly with the service providers to discuss how best to meet those needs.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Figure 5

Lessons Learned About Engaging in Governance Seek the input and cooperation of residents before undertaking significant changes such as demolition or major planning studies. Foster respect for residents among staff Strive for a sense of order and purpose to resident meetings. Provide resident representatives with training in goal setting and in running effective meetings. Encourage long-term goals, but set short-term, realizable objectives Regularly recognize the contributions of individuals and groups and celebrate even small successes. Frankly recognize cultural differences and take them into consideration in all planning and community processes. Develop a clear statement of mission that focuses on enhancing the quality of life and expanding opportunities for the community as a whole. Discourage resident representatives from becoming involved in individual disputes, which are more properly settled between residents and management. Support resident initiatives that lead toward greater self-reliance and self-responsibility for individual residents and families and expanded opportunities for the community as a whole. Take on short-term, visible, relatively simple problems first to give residents confidence that what they do can make a difference.

Building Involvement Through Community Service

Engaged in community service projects through such programs as VISTA, AmeriCorps, Learn and Serve America, and the Civilian Conservation Corps, public housing residents are learning the satisfaction of investing in the future of their community, while the community in turn invests in the residents' future in the form of stipends, job-skills training, and enhancement of self-esteem and self-respect.

Give Residents a Voice and a Role To Play

Principles illustrated: Be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

The Portsmouth Redevelopment and Housing Authority in Portsmouth, Virginia, uses community service to offer residents a voice in the affairs of local elementary and secondary schools through participation in community education teams. The teams were developed in response to the expressed desire of residents whose children attend these schools, to increase the number of public housing students who graduate from high school. Residents also wanted to increase parental involvement in the schools and to develop a better relationship among school officials, teachers, and public housing residents.

As a result of a series of meetings involving residents, school officials, school board members, PHA staff, and representatives of other local agencies, six community education teams were formed. Each team includes public housing residents, students, teachers, school officials, community leaders, and community volunteers. Each team also has its own stated mission, with clearly defined goals and objectives reflecting the needs of adults, youth, and the public housing community.

In addition to serving as liaisons between the schools and the residents, teams monitor truancy problems and address concerns expressed by parents and teachers. Teams help parents monitor their children's academic performance, set up tutorial programs, and help students prepare for the Virginia Literacy Passport Test. The program is coordinated through the PHA's Comprehensive Grant Program with in-kind support from the Portsmouth Public Schools.

Principles illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Under a $500,000 contract with the Milwaukee Housing Authority, the Milwaukee Community Service Corps (MCSC) replaced 1,400 basement windows in resident units with watertight cinder blocks and new dryer vents. The State was persuaded to waive wage ceiling requirements (usually set at minimum wage or slightly higher) for corps members on this project on the grounds that resident participants were not merely performing traditional community service but training to become employable.

Working in pairs under the supervision of union masons and a crew supervisor, 20 public housing residents learned how to use such tools as concrete diamond saws and power mixers. In 1996, 16 of the participants worked with MCSC under the Youth Apprenticeship Program geared toward young people who want to enter the skilled trades.

MCSC meanwhile has negotiated another contract with the PHA to handle all of the recycling in its highrise buildings. The assignment includes educating other residents about the necessity and practice of recycling, a concept with which many are unfamiliar. This contract has turned the perennial problem of trash collection into an asset as well as a consciousness-raising opportunity for the community while enabling young adults to learn employable skills in a growing field.

Principles illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Use Community Service To Develop Leaders

An innovative community service program developed by the Oakland Housing Authority called It Starts Now uses community service to directly involve young people in the rehabilitation of their public housing neighborhood. It Starts Now also includes leadership training designed to prepare participants to take on oversight roles in the planning and implementation of community development activities.

Developed in conjunction with the Asian Community Mental Health Services, La Clinica de la Raza, the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation, and the East Oakland Youth Development Center, It Starts Now is a promising example of how PHAs can help build the capacity of residents to do more for themselves and their communities.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Help Residents Learn Transferable Skills

The PHA invited a team of resident volunteers to help architects design living units that meet real human needs. To give them a sense of the flexibility of such arrangements at the design stage and hands-on experience in exploring options, residents were encouraged to move portable walls, appliances, and cabinets on rolling casters until the configurations appealed to them.

The team then prepared a Design Menu Book of possible workable plans and tested the alternatives by bringing other residents into those physical settings. Preferred configurations were then gathered into a Design Recipe Book that the PHA used to guide redevelopment of Parkside.

Parkside's management and residents were so pleased by the success of the process that they will adapt it for use in planning community and social services.

The design project is a fine example of how a community service project can develop highly practical skills such as drafting, interior decorating, and manipulating basic elements of design, as well as a way of approaching problems and opportunities that may be useful, for example, in planning a family's future. For people who may have had few opportunities to develop such skills and may have a limited sense of what their options might be, learning how to think about a problem or the opportunity at hand and how to evaluate the alternatives can be highly practical skills indeed.

The Parkside project also illustrates one of the key principles of community building: The most effective strategies are those that combine the technical expertise and knowledge of professionals with the input of neighborhood residents, who must live with the results and bring the practical perspective of daily living to the choices that are made. Inviting such input offers residents an opportunity to make an investment of knowledge, ideas, and energy in their community's future.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; and build partnerships.

Figure 6

Lessons Learned About Community Service Community service projects can be highly useful in fostering civic engagement among residents, as well as in providing them with the firsthand experience of what such engagement can accomplish. Community service projects are most effective when they address issues or problems that directly concern residents. Having residents work constructively together on a project that benefits the entire community helps to build a sense of community that makes other undertakings possible. Each team should create for itself a statement of its mission that relates the work at hand to the larger goals and long-term interests of the community. Each project should have clearly defined goals and objectives that relate directly to the expressed needs of the community. Community service projects can be an effective way to identify potential resident leaders, who should then be offered special leadership training. Outside professionals can play an important role in helping residents see their options in a given decision and gain the skills needed to evaluate alternatives (for example, the kinds of questions that need to be asked). Seeking residents' input and helping them visualize how their ideas might be realized builds their self-confidence in managing problems and encourages them to think creatively about solutions.

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Setting Community Standards

One of the more difficult things public housing residents in some places have had to endure is a level of anarchy- with its crime, violence, vandalism, and lack of respect for individual rights-that other communities would not be expected to accept. Much or most of this behavior in many places can be shown to originate with outsiders to the neighborhood who are drawn to a situation marked by powerlessness and lack of serious enforcement.

Broken windows that go unrepaired, overflowing trash receptacles, litter, neglected lighting in common areas, and graffiti, say felons, are signals that nobody is looking out for this neighborhood, that enforcement of codes is lax, and that a victim mentality probably prevails. The recent wave of renewed attention to such matters by PHAs is therefore a welcome development.

The President's "One Strike and You're Out" guidelines provide incentives for PEIAs to aggressively track crime-related problems in their developments, cooperate with local law enforcement and local courts, and implement stiff applicant screening and tenant eviction procedures to prevent crime and illegal drug use. Clear declaration and rigorous enforcement of tough expectations, along with a careful screening of new applicants, is making a difference in many places but the active involvement of residents in establishing and enforcing behavioral standards for their own community is the real key to success.

"Community building," says facilitator Henry Izumizaki, who has been working with public housing groups in a number of cities, "is about coming to understand your role in these things-in crime reduction and in maintaining public safety. It is about coming to see the 'me' in 'we,' and starting to ask, 'What can I do to improve this situation?'" Neighborhood-based institutions, especially new ones created by residents, can become an important means of connecting neighbors to one another and reinforcing shared values and standards, including those of hard work and self-discipline.

Such values can be taught to young people and reinforced by group activities like cleanup drives and resident staffed maintenance projects. Public housing residents can escape the victim mentality and discover, along with a new sense of responsibility, that others share their values and are willing to invest some of their time and energy in achieving goals they share for their community.

The two major program thrusts in this area involve community-driven efforts to reduce crime and violence, and support of the family in its basic work of instilling and nurturing community values.

Link Crime Reduction Programs to Community Values

The missing ingredient has long been the empowerment and involvement of residents. The key, say participants, is the yoking of community resources with community values. Programs dealing with the reduction of crime and drug use in public housing neighborhoods are practical applications of those values as well as a means of helping residents experience the power of collective resolution and commitment.

Reduce Crime by Strengthening Community

With the approval and encouragement of the residents and the use of modernization funds, the authority reconfigured living units and surrounding areas to create defensible spaces to minimize access by strangers and maximize positive interactions by members of the community. Maintenance and quick turnover of~ vacant units have become a priority, as they are throughout CMHA today, where the number of security personnel has been increased from 14 to more than 200 in the past 2 years. CMHA has also hired and promoted experts in community policing, administration, and housing authority issues to head its police force, which is now the third largest certified public housing police department in the country and has the authority to arrest.

New narcotics and SWAT units combat drugs and related crime, using such resident-friendly police methods as bike patrols and a K-9 unit of drug-sniffing dogs. New lighting and fencing increases security. But critical components of this comprehensive effort in Renaissance Village, residents say, have been heavy resident participation in community policing workshops and training seminars provided by CMHA and enforcement by both management and residents of a resident-designed covenant.

This decision to collectively endorse and publish a set of explicit conduct expectations of all persons who reside in or visit Renaissance Village was key, residents say. "We, the Residents of Renaissance Village desiring to live in a secure, wholesome and drug-free community, enter this covenant with one another," begins the agreement on values and behavior, which is quoted in its entirety in part II of this report.

The covenant established in everybody's minds the idea that individuals have a part to play in keeping Renaissance Village "a secure, wholesome and drug-free community." Negative behaviors that will not be tolerated- indeed, will result in expulsion from the community-are explicitly named, along with positive behaviors ("maintaining family . . . educating ourselves and our children . . . being honest and trustful in our relations with one another") that are expected of community members and visiting family and friends.

Only three evictions have been necessary because crime in the Renaissance Village section of King-Kennedy-once regarded as the most dangerous public housing community in the city-has dropped sharply: from 1,046 police calls in 1993 to only 239 in 1995. CMHA's insurance rates have decreased and families are on a waiting list for available units. Life may be a long way from perfect in Renaissance village, but at least it is safe and sets a good example.

The word has gone out to criminal types as well as to average citizens that people there look out for one another and resent the intrusion on their turf of people who do not belong. Residents will report a strange presence, will turn the person in, and will cooperate with the police and the courts to lock intruders up. They see Renaissance Village as their community and they know their role in making it work.

The very perception of safety, say CMHA officials, has opened the way to other opportunities, such as onsite social services that support a drug-free environment, encourage community ownership, and increase self-esteem.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Enforce Community Standards

One lesson is that a strong, clearly worded lease agreement makes the process of eviction much easier. In Toledo, Ohio, for example, the Lucas Metropolitan Housing Authority (LMHA) instituted in 1994 a "One Strike" lease and lease enforcement policy that has proven extremely effective, resulting in the eviction of 41 tenants for drug or other criminal activities last year. Incidents of drug-related crime fell from 277 in 1993 to 86 in 1996, while overall crime figures in LMHA declined from 579 to 186. Perhaps just as important, a recent resident survey indicated that more than 75 percent of residents felt safe living in LMHA, an increase of 22 percent in less than 2 years.

LMHA has developed a good working relationship with local law enforcement officials and judges, often inviting them to participate in LMHA open houses and openings of such facilities as new police substations or childcare centers. LMHA is enabled to respond promptly to reported disturbances and, when appropriate, take action by having ready access, at its police and sheriff substations, to the Law Enforcement Access Data System, which maintains records on local criminals.

Public housing residents support and are involved in all aspects of LMHA's crime prevention strategy. Residents sit on a grievance panel that hears eviction cases; indeed, the resident council has been deeply involved in designing and implementing tougher lease enforcement policies and procedures.

In Macon, Georgia, the Macon Housing Authority (MHA) scans public arrest records daily and investigates all resident complaints within 24 hours. Residents who violate the anticrime lease provisions are given the option of moving out or being evicted. Drug related evictions from MHA have decreased from 21 in 1992 to only 8 in 1995, while the vacancy rate in MHA units went from 8.9 percent to 1.1 percent in the same period, a change MHA attributes to a greater sense of safety.

Applicants for residence in Greensboro, North Carolina, public housing are screened for past drug or criminal activity and are required to submit a police report on all household members 16 years of age or older before eligibility is determined. Applicants with criminal records are ineligible for admission to Greensboro Housing Authority (GHA) communities. GHA rejected 92 applicants on these grounds in 1993, 120 in 1994, and 96 in 1995. Is it an accident that drug arrests, which reached a high of 576 in 1990, had fallen by 1994 to 231?

Since many of those arrested for criminal activity at public housing developments are not residents, one of the conditions of parole for persons convicted of drug-related offenses in public housing is that they not trespass on GHA property.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Involve Residents in Anticrime Strategies

At present, approximately 15,000 residents participate in resident patrols throughout New York City. As part of NYCHA's model resident patrol program, they are trained in the skills necessary to succeed and remain safe. Buildings with active resident patrols, says NYCHA, report less crime and less vandalism, as well as a higher level of community cohesion and trust between neighbors, than buildings without resident patrols. In focus groups, residents of patrolled buildings say that they are proud to live in their neighborhood and that they believe they have some responsibility for preserving this positive sense of community.

Across the river in Morristown, New Jersey, meanwhile, a group of women residents outfitted in white baseball caps and black windbreakers carry walkie-talkies and patrol the Manahan village complex nightly. They are the Manahan Village Mothers Crime Patrol and their tips have helped local police fight drug trafficking in the complex. "Just our presence intimidates [the criminals]," says Teresa Brown, whose jacket bears on its back the outline of an eye and the words "We See and Care." The logo, and the women's very presence, puts troublemakers on notice, she says, that "we care about our community, and they just can't come in here and have a free-for-all."

One woman remains in her apartment to serve as a "base," monitoring the group's calls about suspicious activity and, if necessary, alerting police headquarters. Local law enforcement officials credit part of the women's effectiveness to their intimate familiarity with the neighborhood and its potential trouble spots, and their ability to recognize which clusters of youth belong there-and which do not.

In Savannah, Georgia, in similar recognition of the special perspective and familiarity with the local community that residents bring to the work of early intervention, 26 people have been employed as resident consultants in the Savannah Housing Authority's (SHA's) drug elimination program. But the consultants, who include both youth and adults, do not tip police about drug use or crime. Instead, it is the job of the Neighborhood Residents at Work to provide early, confidential intervention or to refer other residents to treatment, as well as to assist with other activities at SHA's prevention resource centers.

A 1994 survey of SHA residents found that 70 percent of residents were familiar with the activities and services offered by the centers, and-a source of hope-that fully two-thirds believed that the drug problem is solvable and that the centers and resident workers were making a difference.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Acknowledge and Deal With Cultural Differences

Cultural and language differences among Asian-Americana (Cambodians, Laotians, Chinese, and Vietnamese) as well as other nationality groups (Samoans and Ethiopians) had to be frankly recognized and dealt with constructively, management and residents agreed, if community building was to be possible. So simultaneous translation in as many as half a dozen languages, sometimes with the aid of headphones, has become a part of resident council meetings.

In fact the council decided in winter 1995 to hold meetings in Cambodian and Vietnamese to help English speaking residents appreciate the complications associated with dependence on translation.

Such educational opportunities are not uncommon at Holly Park, but an effort is also made to celebrate different ethnic traditions. In 1995 a multicultural holiday party featuring food, dances, storytelling, and cultural displays sharing the rich heritages of different residents was attended by several hundred residents, many of whom commented on the "beautiful" experience.

The pride in one's background that these various forms of recognition foster and the affirmation of personal and group dignity that they represent are viewed as important steps in building a larger sense of community among the residents, not to mention in reducing the potential for conflict.

Bringing in professionals to give training seminars in appropriate conflict resolution techniques can also help reduce violence substantially.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Use Community Service To Teach Positive Community Values

In addition to learning such skills as scrubbing, water-blasting, and painting, the participants in the Graffiti Removal Adolescent Summer Program (GRASP) also learned some important habits they will need in the world of work. The rate of pay-from $4.20 to $8.00 an hour-was determined weekly based on each individual's record of attendance, attitude, and accomplishments. Along with this monetary incentive, there were negative consequences such as warnings, unpaid days, and even dismissal for inappropriate behavior.

Interviewed later, the GRASP participants agreed that graffiti removal is hard work, but that the experience was rewarding. One youth remarked that the program had made him and his friends less anxious about getting a job because after the experience with GRASP, the idea of a job was no longer daunting. By the end of the 10-week program, 1,000 units had been scrubbed clean and repainted. And with them, one suspects, these young residents' pride in their surroundings increased. A year later, the graffiti had not returned.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Figure 7

Lessons Learned About Linking Crime Reduction Programs to Community Values Resident involvement is critical to the long-term success and sustainability of crime reduction in a public housing community. Workshops and training seminars in community policing and security increase the self-confidence of residents and maximize their effectiveness. Some form of public commitment by residents to one another can be an effective tool for containing crime and other destructive behavior. The commitment can take the form of a resident-created covenant that expresses residents' shared values and goals and expresses their personal pledge to fulfill their mutual responsibilities. Such a covenant must include the promise of taking responsibility for alerting visiting friends and relatives to its terms and to the community's intolerance of violations. PHAs must show that they are serious about enforcing the standards articulated by the resident community. A strongly worded lease agreement can make the process of avoiding troublemakers much easier. Additional helpful strategies include involving local legal-aid attorneys in the creation of such an agreement, audio- or videotaping prospective tenants' assurance that they understand the terms and implications of the agreement, or showing a pre-leasing training video to educate potential residents. A good working relationship with local law enforcement officials and the courts, including providing ready access to criminal records, can help screen out potential problem residents and avoid troublemakers within civil rights laws and other local or Federal regulations. Because they know the "hot spots~ or problem areas in their development, induding the time of day or circumstances in which certain problems are likely to occur, residents can be powerful allies to police and PHAs in planning better security arrangements. PHAs should involve resident representatives in designing and implementing lease enforcement polices and procedures. Trained residents can often make effedive early interventions, including confidential referrals to drug treatment programs, to eliminate problem behavior before it escalates if PHAs make it clear that they will back up resident complaints and honor confidentiality. Acknowledging cultural differences and finding construrdive ways to promote and teach tolerance can be important parts of any strategy for reducing conflid and violence among residents. Bringing in professionals to give training sessions in nonviolent conflict-resolution techniques can also help reduce violence substantially. Community service projeds can be used effedively to teach young people positive attitudes and a sense of their shared stake in the community

The Key to Strong Community Standards
Throughout history, the family unit has been the fundamental mechanism of socialization and values education. When the family fails to fulfill these functions, the community suffers. When the community fails to support its families, they are left at the mercy of powerful negative forces. What hurts one, hurts the other. What strengthens one, strengthens the other [16].

Programs and supportive services that address the self-sufficiency and preservation of the family are a highly effective means of helping a community establish and maintain its standards and core values.

Keep Families Together and Goal-Oriented

The Family Restoration Program's ambitious goal of reuniting 100 families has begun modestly with 5 men who, with their wives' or girlfriends' approval and the promise of guaranteed employment with HHA's modernization program, have moved back in with their families and resumed an active role in the lives of their children. HHA hopes other men who feel responsibility for their families will be attracted by the incentives of a regular salary and the State's agreement not to arrest them for unpaid child support if they voluntarily enter the program, which includes a payback plan. HHA also agrees to freeze the family's rent for 18 months.

A similar program strategy for reinforcing family values has been adopted by the Rising Tide program in Cleveland, a collaboration of CMHA and the Urban League, and by the Baltimore Housing Authority, which has given returning fathers jobs in lead paint abatement. These programs are good examples of creative linkages between programs meeting different needs to reinforce behavior that benefits both the family and the community.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Help Families Reach Independence Goals

The need to coordinate these services for maximum efficiency and effectiveness has led to a case management approach that has taken the form in some places of family investment or family resource centers, an exciting concept that is central to community building because it puts the family's and community's stated needs, rather than the needs of a bureaucracy, at the center and organizes everything else around it.

Thus re-imagined and reorganized, public housing can become not a way of warehousing the poor but a useful mechanism for helping people on their way to self-sufficiency and independence, as well as a schoolroom and laboratory where people can acquire the skills and the self-confidence that will enable them to stay self-sufficient.

San Antonio Housing Authority's Self-Sufficiency Program is helping public housing residents and families in Section 8 housing work their way off public assistance within 5 years by meeting educational and career goals they have defined with the help of service coordinators. Approximately 600 families are currently enrolled in the program, which began in 1993. Thirty families have graduated early after successfully meeting the educational and career requirements that enabled them to get off public assistance. Several women have successfully launched small businesses involving everything from child daycare to landscaping, and now employ other individuals, thereby enabling them and their children to end their dependence on welfare.

Families who choose to participate are assigned a trained services coordinator who assesses their needs and helps them develop a written services plan. The coordinator then arranges for the family's access to these services, which are provided by a partnership of agencies and organizations in the San Antonio area.

The program addresses the educational component first: Do family members need GEDs? Do they want to obtain college degrees? For those individuals who are not interested in furthering their education, an economic development component of the Self-Sufficiency Program trains residents to start their own businesses. Currently 23 resident-owned businesses employ a total of 130 public housing residents. Three of these businesses are now totally independent of the Self-Sufficiency Program and have contracts with the City of San Antonio, nearby military bases, and private-sector businesses. They produce an average annual income of $40,000.

The South Bend (Indiana) Housing Authority is establishing a "housing university" designed for resident self empowerment. Serving all public housing communities in South Bend, it will network with area schools, community centers, service agencies, and churches. Each family will develop its own education and training program called a Family Empowerment Plan.

South Bend has developed a partnership with the Community Learning and Information Network and Technology Lab 2000 to provide a technology enriched curriculum for all residents,with classes for children K through 12; childcare, life-skills, and employment skills training for adults; and teenage pregnancy counseling and conflict resolution for youth. Residents in the 88-family Monroe Circle development will be tied to a contract pledging them to participate in the Alonzo Watson Housing University program. Dropouts must surrender their family's space to another family on the waiting list.

Concentrating the program participants in a single residential setting in which everyone is committed to the same program and similar goals is seen not only as a practical means of providing supportive services, such as childcare and counseling, but also as a way of maximizing mutual support among participating families. A sense of community among these families is an important component in their progress toward self-sufficiency and the realization of their individual goals.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Invest in Strengthening the Family

Funded through HUD's FIC program, these centers are multifaceted resources that provide the critical support resident families need in what might be seen as three phases:

• The center pulls together the resources needed to stabilize a family whose progress is blocked by problems such as domestic violence, health problems or substance abuse, or a financial crisis.

• A family coach or facilitator sits down with the family to identify its goals in such areas as employment, education, housing, or personal areas of importance; the assets it possesses; and the available programs and resources that can help the members reach their goals.

• The center helps connect participating families with resources and opportunities, shows them how to invest their personal and material assets, and makes sure they have the supporting services they need to stay on track along the way.

Montgomery County's Middlebrook Square FIC, one of three such centers in the county, offers everything from assistance with getting a driver's license to help with homework. Other programs include pregnancy prevention, men's and women's support groups, development of budgeting skills, boys and girls clubs, job skills training, childcare, and a computer lab.

The Montgomery County Housing Authority (MCHA) pays the salaries of center staff, and the county provides vans to transport residents to program connected destinations. A growing number of partner institutions contribute additional funding or inkind services.

Each FIC is guided by an advisory committee appointed by the resident council. Ongoing assessment of residents' needs is done through personal interviews and public forums. MCHA reports drops in violence, drug abuse, and referrals to child-protection agencies. GEDs and job interviews are up and the centers are so busy they are making plans to extend their hours to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Use Integrated Human Services To Reinforce Family-Strengthening Values

The center functions as an integrated resource for neighborhood families, many of whom live in the overcrowded tenement apartments that are home to thousands of first-generation immigrants (mostly from the Dominican Republic). More than 650 parents take classes there every week, and the center has been praised by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development for its comprehensive approach to meeting students" needs.

The neighborhood still has one of the highest murder rates in the city and a large drug trade. But student test scores, once among the lowest in New York City, have risen every year since the center was opened, and attendance for both students and teachers is high. Has the center been successful in reinforcing values considered positive to most communities? Only time will tell. But suspensions and truancy have almost been eliminated, say school officials, and the school is free of graffiti.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Figure 8

Lessons Learned About Strengthening Families and Community Standards Linking resumption of parental responsibility, particularly for adult men, with other incentives such as employment or job-training opportunities can be an effective way to support the integrity of families and reinforce behavior that benefits both family and community. State governments and other agencies, as well as PHAs, can help support this process by agreeing to waive certain policies or rules for families participating in such programs. Trained service coordinators or family coaches can play a very helpful role in getting families to articulate their goals, identify the supportive services or resources they need access to in order to achieve those goals, and make the necessary connections with those agencies. A family should write out its goals and each family member should commit to them as to a contract. Programs may link progress toward these goals to incentives such as housing or access to certain supportive programs. A realistic strategy aimed at helping resident families achieve their aspirations will likely include a case management approach to coordinating support services. Creative partnerships or collaborations with area organizations can help provide social services, access to education, and other needed services. Building a sense of community among participants in family self-sufficiency programs is an important key to the success of individual families. A Family Investment Center can provide an important array of resources to resident families whose path to success may be blocked by family or individual problems, educational deficits, or other impediments. An integrated approach to human services is an effective way of reinforcing positive values that will benefit not only the individual involved but the entire community.

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Increasing Access to Opportunities

• The satisfaction and the security of being self-sufficient-being able to support themselves and their families with dignity, and not having to depend on someone else for basic necessities.

• A decent roof over their heads in a safe neighborhood whether they are renters or homeowners.

PHAs and residents are working together in many places these days to develop and implement strategies that link residents to jobs or new business opportunities and strategies that offer a range of housing options. The following examples illustrate programs that offer these two types of opportunities.

But creating opportunities, PHAs are coming increasingly to understand, is not enough. The common belief that all Americans have an equal opportunity to find a good job and a decent place to live does not mean that all Americans have equal access to those opportunities. The reality is that many public housing residents and other inner-city residents find themselves blocked from realizing these goals by circumstances, lack of the requisite skills or education, and the absence of necessary social networks.

To qualify for a given job, an individual must have not only the requisite level of education and perhaps even special training, but also access to timely information about what specific positions are available or are going to be available. Having someone who knows you put in a good word, as every middle-class job-seeker knows, never hurts.

Social scientists call this intervention or leverage. And it is one of the things that are missing, note scholars such as William Julius Wilson, in neighborhoods where social institutions have broken down and most of the working population has moved to the suburbs. Most inner-city residents do not even hear about jobs, much less know someone on the inside, who can recommend them to the boss or the personnel department.

The community-building approach attempts to remedy this problem. Some of the new job-training and placement programs (such as JobNet in Portland) play a brokering role- matching individuals with specific positions and building relationships with area employers that go beyond simply filling vacant positions-and this kind of bridge-building is paying off. "The more formal the network [intervention]," San Francisco's Center~ for Community Change concludes, "the stronger the outcome for low-skilled workers who are most often left out."

Use Job-Linkage and Job-Creation Strategies

PHAs around the country are working closely with resident councils to find ways to create new employment opportunities of their own. This involves assessing unmet needs in the public housing or surrounding community and becoming aware of material or human resources that could be marketed, invested, or otherwise built on to improve the neighborhood's economic base.

Link Residents to Employment in Realistic Ways

Since 1988, more than 3,200 housing residents have completed the rigorous 3-week training course in job readiness, and 80 percent have found full-time employment as tellers, data entry specialists, customer service agents, graphic artists, receptionists, electrician's helpers, and construction workers. Two out of every five working STRIVE alumni use their new positions to move out of public housing. Others are able to improve their family's standard of living.

A unique feature of the program is its postgraduate follow-through. STRIVE uses computer tracking and regular contact with employers to monitor each graduate's progress. Graduates are provided lifetime access to STRIVE resources and have an open invitation to return to the educational center for targeted skill enhancement, additional placement, counseling, and support. STRIVE also maintains an active alumni association. Alumni contribute suggestions on curriculum improvement and job opportunities and serve as role models to program participants.

The STRIVE program has been successfully replicated in Chicago, where it has already resulted in the placement of more than 650 people, primarily public aid recipients and public housing residents.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Collaborate To Provide On-the-Job Training

As of early 1996, 102 public housing residents have been involved in the Step-Up program, which first tackled the rehabilitation of an entire housing development. Forty-four of its 46 graduates have been offered permanent jobs in construction at an average wage of $8.42 an hour. Thirteen of those residents now hold labor union positions, 14 more are enrolled in union apprenticeship programs, 3 are employed in nonunion construction jobs, 11 work in nonconstruction-related jobs, and 3 are involved in an entrepreneurial training program.

Residents of Baltimore's Lafayette Courts public housing development who are 18 to 30 years old are being trained in plumbing, electrical maintenance, painting, and plastering under a project started with HOPE VI money in collaboration with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and an organization called Civic Works.

In the first phase of the project, participants spend 6 to 12 months at Civic Works being brought up to speed in pre-employment and general skills. They then enter a 30-month AFSCME apprenticeship program that provides them with specific job training. Nine former Lafayette Court residents graduated from the training program in January 1996 and have successfully completed their probationary period working as apprentice maintenance mechanics for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Open New Technological Opportunities

One of the oldest and most successful computer programs in public housing was established in 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska, by the Omaha Housing Authority (OHA). Though focused primarily on improving the academic performance of resident children, OHA's computer centers also use volunteer tutors and support from the local community college and Creighton University to offer programs for adults in literacy, basic education, and GED preparation. At Gateway Center, residents are using business and accounting software to do the bookkeeping for a resident-owned business that manufactures and installs windows.

A computer learning and training center known as the Edgewood Connection is bringing technology and job opportunities to public housing residents of Edgewood Terrace in Washington, D.C. Residents are taught to use computers, modems, printers, various software programs, multimedia programs on CD-ROM, and the resources of the Internet by professional computer instructors from Futurekids Computer Learning Centers, Inc., one of the partners in the Connection project.

Since June 1995, 15 residents have graduated from the adult job training course. The first class of eight graduates has moved into full-time positions with Edgewood Technology Services (ETS), an employee-owned data servicing corporation sponsored by the Hamilton Securities Group that is based at Edgewood Terrace. Employees earn $10 an hour and receive benefits.

Six of the seven graduates of the second class are participating in a workstudy program at ETS in which they work part-time for $6 to $7 an hour while improving their computer skills. They will receive first consideration for any job openings at ETS. Twentyfive youth and 25 seniors from Edgewood Terrace have also attended classes at the computer center, which has become the heart of a new, comprehensive community service center that will offer a wide range of services to residents.

At the Elm Terrace public housing development in New Haven, Connecticut, a resident-owned business called Elm Haven Communications specializes in all aspects of communications media, including video production, audio recording, computer art and design, and online activities. Participating residents go through a training program similar to an apprenticeship, taking classes in video editing, desktop publishing, and online editing. They practice their skills on real projects such as a promotional video for the firm that is redeveloping Elm Terrace, a youth newsletter, and videos to accompany the New Haven Housing Authority's grant applications. If the projects make money for the businesses, the participants are paid for their work like regular employees. Residents hope that Elm Haven Communications, started with HOPE VI funding, will soon be self-supporting, and that participants will graduate into regular jobs in the communications field.

Many participants are 15 or 16 years old, notes economic development coordinator Andrea Scott, so the program is providing them valuable job experience early. Scott is negotiating with a local cable TV station about setting up a satellite studio at Elm Haven Communications to do some local broadcasting.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Create Access to Job-Related Information

These projects will also enable residents to connect directly not only to a vast array of outside resources such as universities, community colleges, and other institutions (including the World Wide Web), but with each other, creating genuine "communities of learners."

Residents of public housing will be able to use the Campus of Learners program in much the same way as college students spend a certain number of years in an intense and sheltered learning environment to broaden their education and learn professional skills before moving out into the marketplace. The campuses are already forging innovative collaborations with area educational institutions.

In Denver's North Lincoln Park community, for example, all 206 units are being wired to bring computer technology into lower income households. Thanks to a unique public-private partnership involving the Denver Housing Authority; Telecommunications, Inc. (TCI); the Community College of Denver; the University of Denver; and the Denver School District, every household in the North Lincoln Park community will have access to a network of educational resources and an array of family services, as well as multiple employment and training programs.

In collaboration with TCI, the Denver Housing Authority will also provide access to computer-learning services at an onsite Family Learning Center at North Lincoln.

Churches, businesses, and civic volunteer organizations are expected to develop strong mentoring and leadership networks to strengthen the new educa tion ethic HUD's Campus of Learners program will foster in public housing and to help residents hone their new found communications skills. And the possibilities for creating new jobs and services are limited only by the imagination and ingenuity of the residents.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Build Job Skills and Create New Businesses

Two or three times a year, a 12-week course is offered utilizing the expertise of SBA's SCORE/ACE Program personnel and of other persons experienced in such subjects as startup capitalization, business management, legal issues, and personnel management. Follow-up technical assistance is provided during the periods between sessions.

By early 1996, more than 1,000 residents had participated in the program and more than 100 new businesses had been launched. Of the 64 participants in one recent class, 19 succeeded in creating their own businesses. The program has already been replicated by the Indianapolis, Indiana, HOPE VI project.

Principles illustrated: Tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; be holistic in outlook and integrative in character; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Serve Community Needs With New Jobs and Resident-Owned Businesses

The Oklahoma City Housing Authority's (OCHA's) comprehensive strategy for enhancing security at OCHA developments, for example, called for the installation of specially manufactured security screens on all ground-floor windows. OCHA officials perceived the requirements as an opportunity to achieve several different goals of the community at once. Not only could meaningful work be provided to residents while the community's general level of security and feeling of safety was enhanced, but the experience might provide the basis for a profitable employee-owned business.

Two consultants were brought in to work with the resident crew members, schooling them in the various skills needed to run a business. The residents attended monthly meetings dealing with the special challenges faced by minority business enterprises and went on field trips to local manufacturers and other businesses that had begun as very small operations and grown into multimillion-dollar companies.

A-1 Security Screens, as the new company is called, was launched in the spring of 1995 with 8 employees-all OCHA residents-and a contract to install 868 security window screens at OCHA's Ambassador Courts development. The company, current working on its sixth contract, now installs security doors as well as screens and windows. All five of its earlier contracts were fulfilled on time even though drawings had to be revised, new prototypes built, and prices refigured to meet each new situation's different specifications-evidence that the OCHA residents had learned their lessons well and mean to stay in business.

OCHA freezes the rent of any residents receiving wages from a resident-owned business for 18 months. This provision has enabled all eight employees to remain in public housing while they get their business up and running successfully.

The Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles (HACLA), working in conjunction with area corporations, has developed and launched five resident-owned businesses. Under HACLA's Joint Ventures Construction Companies program, private sector partners use both classroom instruction and on-the-job training to teach motivated public housing residents basic construction and business management skills. The companies also provide the general contractor's license, insurance and bonding coverage, administrative personnel, and equipment. As a result of this program, six resident-owned businesses are now performing construction and modernization work, water and sewage system repairs, and door replacement for HACLA, work that would previously have been contracted out. These efforts have included a joint venture water- and sewer-line replacement project totaling $600,000 and another construction project budgeted at $1 million. The program was possible, and residents were paid reasonable wages during the training phase, because of part of a $26.8 million grant from HUD earmarked for construction, modernization, and management improvements under the Comprehensive Grant Program.

In Los Angeles' Estrada Courts, 39 public housing residents have completed a training program in property management. Under a contract negotiated by the newly formed Estrada Courts Resident Management Corporation (ECRMC) with HACLA, graduates of the program are providing onsite landscaping and general maintenance services as well as water and sewer repairs. In a joint venture with a local nonprofit organization, ECRMC was recently awarded a contract with the City of Los Angeles for infrastructure retrofitting that provided employment for 23 residents.

The residents of the Rhoads Terrace public housing community in Dallas, Texas, decided their community needed an alternative to both the high-priced convenience stores nearby and the food vans that visited their neighborhood daily. The nearest supermarket was 5 miles away, posing a serious logistical problem for families without cars and parents of small children. The high crime rate of the neighborhoods they would have to cross to get to that store posed an additional deterrence.

So in February 1993 a food co-op employing public housing residents was established in a new building constructed specifically for that purpose in the Rhoads Terrace complex. Membership is free and restricted to Rhoads Terrace residents, and the members are surveyed periodically to determine their grocery needs. Unlike many traditional co-ops, where members must first place an order then come by several days later to pick up the food, groceries and other items are available for immediate purchase at Rhoads Terrace co-op.

So far, the co-op stocks only basic items. But residents say it is a handy and inexpensive place to pick up such staples as milk, soap, and diapers while doing wash in the new coin-operated laundry next door. A stated community priority is being met once again by the residents themselves, three of whom are earning wages while learning such skills as keeping inventory, dealing with wholesalers, and operating cash registers. To date, one resident has secured a job at an area grocery store, and another has secured a position with the Dallas Housing Authority.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Turn Natural Aptitude and Life Experience into Marketable Skills

Of the 128 daycare providers operating in the community, it was discovered, only three were licensed-that is, trained and certified to handle the many problems and challenges involved in caring for infants and young children.

ECI developed a 9-week training program in home daycare that provided instruction in both child development and responsible small business operation to help residents with a special aptitude or practical life experience in caring for infants and young children qualify for licenses. ECI then created the Eastside Day Care Homes Cooperative to coordinate the effort with its neighborhood housing development program. ECI offers renovated homes for sale or rent to qualified daycare entrepreneurs.

In Baltimore, 27 public housing residents have been trained as daycare providers under a program operated by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. The availability of certified providers has enabled the housing authority to staff 11 daycare centers located in its public housing communities. Thus they are creating jobs, marketable skills, and an entrepreneurial career path for those who show an aptitude for this work, while addressing the stated needs of residents for a safe and stimulating place to leave their children when they report to school or work. This is yet another example of meeting multiple goals with minimum expenditure of resources.

Principles illustrated: Emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Identifying and Investing Community Assets

One asset discovered was the presence of salvageable items in a group of public housing apartments slated for demolition; another was their own energy, ability to use a few simple tools, and willingness to work. Resident council president Lucinda Galvan and her fellow representatives requested permission from the Housing Authority of the City of El Paso (HACEP) management to go into those buildings before the wrecking ball struck and remove 226 commodes. With the help of a few borrowed tools and the loan of two large HACEP trucks, the residents sold them to the water company to be broken up for road-fill material, earning $16,425.

After paying those who had done the work, the resident association netted approximately $11,000 to help pay for various activities and items to benefit the community-such as mats for aerobic classes and corsages for all of the mothers in the community on Mother's Day. The pride involved in such modest gestures and the sense of the community doing for itself and its own should not be underestimated. The resulting surge in energy and group self-esteem, say residents, was crucial in mobilizing their neighbors to take control of neighborhood security.

As the crime rate dropped sharply, the perceived safety and comfort level residents and outsiders alike began to feel at Kennedy Brothers became another asset on which to build. A newly confident resident association contacted its representative on the city council and invited her out to Kennedy Brothers. As a result of actions she took following her visit, residents no longer have to walk eight blocks to catch the bus, which now comes into Kennedy Brothers every hour on the hour until 7 p.m., and local pizza shops are making deliveries again for the first time in years.

The resident association subsequently raised another $4,000 when a local market was found for old stoves and refrigerators. Kennedy Brothers craftswomen have purchased materials with which they make piñatas and other items for sale.

"I can't tell you how much it means to us that Mr. A. [HACEP director Roberto Alvarado] and his staff have been so supportive of us in all this," says Galvan. Good relations between residents and management are another asset possessed by Kennedy Brothers, and Lucy Galvan and her fellow residents are actively building upon it.

The dollar figures are still small in the larger scheme of things, and life at Kennedy Brothers is still very much an uphill struggle for many families. But with these salvage projects, Galvan and her fellow residents have taken a small but important step. They have moved from seeing themselves merely "as people with . . . needs to be met by outsiders" and as "consumers of services," in the words of social thinker John L. McKnight, to seeing themselves as "producers" of services and as members of a community that has marketable assets. "We are currently looking at screen doors and windows," says Galvan.

Principles illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies; emphasize assets; tailor unique strategies for any given neighborhood; reinforce community values and build social and human capital.

Figure 9

Lessons Learned About Job-Linkage and Job-Creation Strategies Social networks that conned residents with actual job opportunities and influential people who have an interest in them are a critical part of a job-linkage strategy. The more formal the network, the stronger the outcome for low-skilled workers. For many chronically unemployed persons, employment-readiness training is key to keeping a job. To be truly employable, individuals need not only marketable skills, but also a positive attitude and good workplace habits. Follow up counseling or support may be necessary in some cases. Assessing the services and/or products needed by area residents and businesses is a good way of generating ideas for new resident-owned enterprises. The flow of public dollars into a neighborhood can generate opportunities for on-the-job training for residents and even entry into labor union jobs or other private-sector employment. Computer technology, such as that available under HUD's Campus of Learners initiative, can give residents access to job-related information, job-training programs, GED or literacy programs, and other resources. Access to a personal computer can be a powerful incentive for residents to participate in an educational program. Part-time jobs can help graduates from a computer class continue to improve their skills. Churches, businesses, and civic volunteer organizations can provide mentoring and leadership programs for residents. Community service programs can be useful partners in building job skills and launching new businesses. The SBA and local business organizations can provide expertise in helping residents initiate and manage a small business.

Create a Range of Housing Options

Of course, reasserting the competitiveness of these neighborhoods necessarily entails reestablishing those amenities that would make them desirable locations in which to live, conduct business, and raise a family. These amenities can include adequate and affordable housing, a grocery store, or even a golf course.

Public housing residents are being given an opportunity to literally buy into their neighborhood and its future through creative home ownership programs. One such innovative arrangement is called mutual housing, in which residents engage regularly in a set number of hours of community service or maintenance work in return for shares in housing owned and managed by a resident organization. Other arrangements involve converting public housing into home ownership units and making home ownership opportunities available to public housing residents and other low-income people through creative financing.

Home ownership is not only an important piece of the American dream of individual fulfillment, it also is widely recognized as something that is "good for the community." This is all the more true for public housing communities, where the prospect of owning one's own home has been shown to be a powerful incentive to pursue additional education, acquire new skills, find new or better employment, increase income, and begin to build savings toward achieving family goals.

A home is an asset that increases in value, can be used as collateral for loans to finance further education for family members or launch a new business, or support retirement. Home ownership contributes to the stability of families and neighborhoods by providing a sense of security, allowing parents to create a more nurturing environment for their children. Homeowners are also more likely to keep up and improve their property and care about the public property nearby; to remain gainfully employed, taxpaying citizens; and to take a more active interest in the life of their community.

For these reasons, HUD has historically supported efforts at increasing home ownership among public housing residents that have included such measures as increased access to financing, education, and counseling for first-time buyers; and reduced mortgage closing costs and down payment requirements. As part of a stepped-up commitment at the Federal level to make the benefits of home ownership more accessible to qualified public housing residents, several PHAs around the country have been exploring imaginative arrangements, with what seem to be promising results.

Make Home ownership Possible

To facilitate purchase, 30-year first mortgages were offered to eligible residents at below-market rates. Proceeds from sales of units in College Courts, the authority's first home ownership project, were used to make subsidies available to these buyers. Interest-free second mortgages forgivable after 5 years were also made available.

Principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and condominium fees were not allowed to exceed 35 percent of total household income. Monthly payments ranged from $209 to $324. And, to help ensure success, the authority also provided resident counseling and a self-sufficiency program for families involved.

With the participation of the LHSC, an additional 107 condominium units, including a 24-unit condominium that contains 12 units accessible to persons with disabilities, have been developed at 3 other sites and sold to residents of public and assisted housing and other low-income families.

Principles illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Home ownership as a Stabilizing Factor

The mortgage is amortized over 30 years at what amounts to the current monthly rental rate. A second trust held by HACO makes up the difference between the first mortgage and the appraised purchase price of the unit. To date, 16 of 220 single-family, scattered-site units acquired by HACO for this purpose have been sold. Proceeds have been used to build two additional units for sale and to support short-term financing arrangements for families that could not immediately qualify for a mortgage.

Applicants for the home ownership program operated by the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority (RRHA) in Richmond, Virginia, must be able to show at least one family member with stable employment, a household income of at least $14,000 a year, acceptable credit, a good history of rental payments, and no criminal record. They may be current public housing residents, participants in the Section 8 program, or eligible for either program.

After participating for no more than 3 years in a lease-purchase arrangement and homeownership counseling provided by RRHA, applicants will receive financing through RRHA and a number of local banks. Thirty-four townhouses at the newly rehabilitated Carver development and approxi mately 100 scattered-site units will be sold for between $50,000 and $62,000. RRHA also operates an urban home steading program that has made it possible for more than 93 first-time homeowners to purchase and rehabilitate vacant and abandoned homes.

Principles illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Do Home Ownership Programs Work?

A second program established by the housing authority in 1994, HOMEWARD, made 35 single-family, scattered-site units available to public housing residents and Section 8 participants with household incomes of at least $12,000 a year from nonpublic assistance sources. Families wishing to purchase these units on a lease-purchase basis must obtain private financing. All 35 units are presently occupied by families who expect to complete a home purchase within 5 years.

Principles illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

Substitute Sweat Equity for Cash

Determined to pursue its dream, the Low Cost Tenants Association (LCTA) asked the nonprofit corporation The Community Builders (TCB) for help in securing the necessary financing. Battling skepticism that a group of Boston public housing tenants could successfully operate its own housing, TCB finally managed to negotiate two mortgages, the first one underwritten by HUD's Shared Risk Program in the form of an unprecedented loan. The group then generated another $6.3 million in gross equity by tax credit syndication through a limited partnership with the residents' limited equity cooperative as general partner.

Mutual housing has been used with success in public housing neighborhoods in Stamford and Hartford, Connecticut. At Parkside Gables in Stamford, boarded-up buildings and other drug-dealers" havens have been replaced by attractive white-trimmed beige-and-terra-cotta townhouses with individual entrances and their own garages. Stamford police say the development is refreshingly free of burglary and drug activity. Residents credit that freedom to the strong feeling of community that prevails. Park Terrace, a 42-unit mutual housing development in nearby Hartford's Frog Hollow section, is organized on the same principles, with similar results.

"Mutual housing is run like a co-op," explains Peter Wood, executive director of the Mutual Housing Association of Southwestern Connecticut, which built and manages both developments, "but families have no equity stake in the units." They can, however, enjoy the security of lifetime residency. "Since the nonprofit association owns and manages the housing," notes Wood, "there is no danger of it being sold off."

Families sign a membership agreement with the local mutual housing association and pay a membership fee ($2,500 in Connecticut), on which they will accrue interest at 5 percent. (Lower income families can choose a payment plan.) Resident families pay between 25 and 30 percent of their income annually to cover housing charges. Residents who are laid off or retire pay the same percentage of their reduced income.

The project uses Federal funding received through programs such as HOME as capital equity to develop mutual housing communities at an average cost of $95,000 per unit in construction costs plus 20 to 25 percent in final, "soft" development costs. Resident membership fees cover operating costs.

Residents (and those on the waiting list) also spend roughly 10 hours a month performing various chores such as landscaping or serving on the management board of the complex, which handles a wide range of matters involved in operating the residential units. Residents may also make use of employment programs, computer training centers, and neighborhood watch programs offered by the association for their benefit.

And sometimes they choose to move on.

"Mutual housing gives families the ability to stabilize themselves financially," says Wood, "and to take a big step toward home ownership" In the 41/2 years since Parkside opened, 16 families have taken their accrued interest and left to become first-time homeowners.

Reinforce community values and build social and human capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with access to resources and opportunities.

The Continuing Need for Rental Housing

One of the strengths of New York's public housing has been its traditional mix of welfare families and working families, which has been an important factor, observers believe, in fostering economic and social stability.

Milwaukee's goal in Hillside is to create such attractive well-maintained, secure, crime-free housing that working families will also want to live there, as has happened in Boston's Harbor Place development.

Other promising examples of mixed income housing have been success fully developed, or are now underway, in Montgomery County, Maryland; Columbus, Ohio; and elsewhere. Key lessons here, say those involved in creating economically integrated housing, include the following:

• Rental or for-sale units must not differ externally from one another in quality of materials or design, eliminating visual signs of the traditional stigma attached to public housing.

  Housing design should be similar to that of the surrounding neighborhood to combat the historic isolation of public housing.

• The layout and design of units must meet family needs and encourage the formation of community ties and consciousness, to help minimize tensions within families and build supportive relationships among neighbors.

• Project design must contain sufficient green space to avoid the density that has led to so many problems in traditional public housing.

This section has presented many examples of community-building strategies being pursued around the country. These strategies can strengthen communities by fostering involvement, setting values, and providing access to opportunity. Part IV presents additional examples of community-building strategies that operate through public-private partnerships with local institutions.

Figure 10

Lessons Learned Concerning Housing Options Reasserting the competitiveness of a declining neighborhood entails restoring the amenities that make it a desirable location in which to live, run a business, or raise a family. Economically integrated or mixed-income housing can be a viable way, not only of helping stabilize a neighborhood, but of reconnecting housing residents and public housing residents to the larger community. Sweat-equity arrangements can help public and providing young people with alternative life scenarios and exposure to a culture of work. Programs can effectively use opportunities for home ownership to reinforce responsible habits of behavior by linking eligibility to such habits as holding a job for a certain period of time and making rent and utility payments on time. PHAs can convert underutilized public housing stock into home ownership opportunities for residents. Nonprofit partners help develop and market such property. Subsidies, such as those available through special HUD programs, can make home ownership affordable for low-income families. Creative financing arrangements with foundations or banks and other lending institutions can help keep rents and housing costs affordable. Maintaining current rents or housing costs is important for creating opportunities for public housing residents. Sweat-equity arrangements can help public housing residents move toward home ownership The external construction or remodeling of public housing units in mixed-income developments must not differ in quality, materials, or design from units designed for higher income households. The design of housing intended for public housing residents should be similar to that of housing in the surrounding neighborhood. The design and layout of units should meet family needs and encourage the formation of community ties and consciousness. Projects should plan sufficient green space to avoid the density that caused or aggravated many problems in traditional public housing.

Manual Index

Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction

I. Community Building: Emerging as a Key Strategy for the 21st Century
What Is Community Building?
Principles of Community Building
Why the Community-Building Trend Is Emerging Now

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

V. Conclusion
Endnotes