|
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
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
Part
IV: Community Building Through Partnerships
Part III
presented examples of community-building initiatives that reflect
three key themes of community: engaging residents, setting standards,
and accessing opportunities. This section provides additional
examples of initiatives, selected to illustrate community building
through partnerships.
Forming
creative partnerships with appropriate public and private entities
can make it possible to implement comprehensive community-building
strategies to provide opportunities now lacking in the lives of
public housing residents. Among such underutilized resources are
community foundations; churches; trade unions; business associations;
universities and community colleges; and national community service
programs such as AmeriCorps*VISTA, RSVP, and the Civilian Conservation
Corps.
PHAs
have expressed pleasant surprise at how ready and even eager many
area institutions are to collaborate with PHAs and residents on
promising new programs, whether they involve providing volunteer
medical or nursing interns to help with immunizations or health
education or contributing matching funds, computers, or other
in kind support for a new onsite learning center. Indeed, such
partnerships have proven an effective way of using limited resources
to leverage much more substantial funding for projects ranging
from on-the-job training to home ownership programs for residents.
This
section highlights several examples of creative collaborations
that are delivering new services, providing a wide array of opportunities,
or otherwise helping residents of public housing move constructively
toward both sustained independence and a new sense of community
as a resource and a responsibility. Many others could be cited.
As in part III, attention is drawn to principles of community
building.
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Building
Bridges to Resources and Real Opportunities
The network
of partners created by the residents of Charter Oaks Terrace Development
in Hartford, Connecticut, with the assistance of the Hartford
Housing Authority (HHA), offers a stunning example of what such
community collaborations can accomplish.
In
1995 the Charter Oaks Tenants Association, HHA, Trinity College,
Capital Community-Technical College, and several other educational
institutions, including the local public schools, came together
to form a Campus of Learners Committee (COLC) for the development.
COLC's stated purpose was to help Charter Oaks residents break
out of their former isolation and position of dependency by creating
connections with outside resources and opportunities to realize
their goals and potential.
COLC
linked residents to existing job-training and educational programs
offered by the partner institutions and developed new programs
designed to meet unmet needs, not merely for adult residents,
but also for children as young as 6 months old.
Mary
Hooker Elementary School, which is attended by approximately 200
Charter Oak children, has the worst standardized test scores in
Connecticut. With the help of the COLC partnership and an investment
of $435,000 in network-accessible computers and a new media center,
the school is developing a modified magnet school program that
will enable parents to enroll their children in one of four special
"academies using curricula focusing on traditional education,
health and allied sciences, environmental studies, or the arts
to energize and engage children and give them a practical framework
within which to use and apply more conventional studies. A.I.
Prince Technical High School, where approximately 60 young Charter
Oak residents attend, has applied for and secured grants from
HUD, HHA, and the State of Connecticut to enhance its course offerings
in carpentry, asbestos and lead paint removal, electrical repair,
building maintenance, automotive repair, and healthcare technology.
About 100 adult residents of Charter Oak, meanwhile, were enrolled
at Capital Community-Technical College in courses in nursing and
other health fields, engineering, sciences, and the arts.
Selected
as one of HUD's 25 campuses of learners in October, 1996, Charter
Oaks Terrace is making imaginative use of state-of-the-art computer
and telecommunications capacities. Three computer learning labs
have been installed in Charter Oaks and other local public housing
developments. These facilities include special classrooms with
interactive video and computer-aided instruction, A $15,000 grant
from Southern New England Telephone funded the installation of
a high-speed frame relay among the seven principle partners of
the Campus of Learners and to the information superhighway. A
$200,000 grant from the National Telecommunications and Information
Infrastructure Assistance program of the U.S. Department of Commerce
funds employment of support staff to refine and troubleshoot the
network. One hundred children and teens at a time are being trained
in the use of the Internet. A community self-help desk serves
as an online one-stop shop for counseling and other support services
and is available to resident families. In the near future, adult
residents will be able to use special hookups with family television
sets to access the job finders web page of the State's labor department,
and children will be able to post homework with their teachers
the moment it is completed.
The
Community/Campus of Learners at Charter Oaks Terrace involves
many programs. The Campus of Learners L.E.A.P. Computer Lab, drawing
on a $50,000 Drug Elimination Program grant, enrolls more than
100 14-year-old youth who participate in a national model after-school
program using computers. Another program pairs high school seniors
with Trinity College students to receive stipends to mentor eight
younger schoolchildren on an ongoing basis. The children take
virtual vacations to other cities using the Internet and write
reports about their experiences.
The last
of these resources, the self-help desk, is a key feature of the
new center, which will include a "one-stop shop" for support services
such as substance abuse counseling.
Families
have a number of incentives to participate in the Charter Oak
Family Self-Sufficiency and Family Investment Center programs
coordinated by COLC. One such incentive is the new welfare reform
measures adopted by the State of Connecticut, which give families
21 months to find employment and become self-sufficient before
their AFDC payments are terminated, although an acute shortage
of childcare complicates the picture. The first group of affected
residents will terminate AFDC in the fall of 1997. Another recent
development that presents both the impetus and the opportunity
to take active steps toward sustainable independence is HHA's
receipt of $41 million from HUD to demolish Charter Oak's 1,000
aging units and replace them with 363 duplexes and single-family
homes.
Seizing
the moment, COLC has offered residents the opportunity to qualify
for the 500 jobs that the project, which includes a 25-acre economic
development site, will generate. With funding and technical assistance
from the State's departments of Labor and Social Services and
the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), Capital Community-Technical
College has developed a training course in lead abatement. A local
labor union trained 15 residents in asbestos removal, training
that would qualify them for a union card, which would in turn
make them eligible for job placement and benefits. Several residents
have already been hired at $20 an hour to work on other asbestos-removal
projects.
Demolition
offers a further incentive to Charter Oak families to get involved
in Family Self-Sufficiency or Family Investment Center programs:
Those who participate in these programs and establish a positive
track record will be considered first for the new housing. Model
duplex and single-family homes are being built by HHA so residents
can see concrete examples of the opportunities to which an investment
of their time and skills will give them access. Residents are
referred to appropriate COLC partner institutions for job-skills
or educational training and connected, as needed, to the social
services that will enable them to continue to pursue their stated
goals.
To
further encourage residents in their progress toward self-sufficiency
and to minimize the drain on their fledgling resources, HHA has
agreed not to raise the rent immediately after the head of the
household finds a job. Instead, as a family meets its goals, the
rent differential is placed into an escrow account where it can
accumulate toward the eventual realization of other goals, such
as sending a family member to college or making a down payment
on a home.
Thus
a network of partners working together under the coordination
of the Campus of Learners Committee, on which residents themselves
play an active role, is able to provide resident families with
a range of opportunities and the help, contacts, and specific
training they need to gain access to those opportunities-and,
it is hoped, to independence that they can sustain over the long
haul.
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.
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Addressing
Health Problems
The Mount Hope neighborhood of the South Bronx boasts the unfortunate
distinction of being the congressional district with the highest
percentage in the Nation of families that live below the poverty
level. But programs focusing on placing residents in jobs encounter
a formidable barrier in the form of the chronic health problems
of many of these residents.
It
became clear that addressing the high rates of hospitalization
from substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, pneumonia, asthma, and bronchial
infections, as well as the alarmingly high infant mortality rate,
was a priority for the neighborhood and a critical component of
any effort to help Mount Hope's residents progress toward self
sufficiency and independence.
A
significant factor was the unavailability of easily accessible,
coordinated health services; another was the tendency to delay
seeking appropriate care.
To
address these problems, a neighborhood-based, multifaceted resource
named the Mount Hope Family Practice was established in 1995 as
a collaboration between the Mount Hope Housing Company (MHHC)
and the Institute for Urban Family Health. As an extension clinic
of the latter's licensed New York State diagnostic and treatment
center in Manhattan, the new facility provides residents with
continuity of care (someone who knows the family's and individual's
whole health picture and history), health education and preventive
care, specialty services, and referrals.
Seeing
primary health care as a fundamental component of its community-building
strategy for the neighborhood, MHHC has trained its social service
staff to perform health services outreach in the community and
ensures that participants in any of the company's other programs
are linked to the family practice as well. Before opening the
new facility, staff conducted intensive health education workshops
to seek resident input and build consciousness among residents
around the need for primary health care.
In
response to that input, the practice provides x-ray and mammography
services and has hired Spanish-speaking staff. It has created
15 new jobs in the community. During its first year, the Mount
Hope Family Practice logged 8,000 visits by neighborhood residents.
Twice that number are eventually expected.
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.
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Combating
Substance Abuse
In Cleveland
the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority's (CMHA's) Miracle
Village offers a stunning model of how comprehensive community
building can be used effectively in a public housing context to
reduce drug abuse and develop family self-sufficiency.
With the
help of Federal (modernization grant) funds, CMHA renovated some
of the worst vacated apartments in Cleveland's Outhwaite Homes
and, under an innovative partnership with MetroHealth Medical
Center, created a residential drug treatment program for women
that involves their dependent children, supports the integrity
of families, and creates a drug-free community for them to live
in.
The
comprehensive character of this approach is clearly the key to
its success, says program director Ann Sowell. Miracle Village
is the first program of its kind to link substance abuse treatment
with health care, housing, education, childcare, and other family
services, and supportive programs leading toward full-time employment.
The results are impressive.
In exchange
for signing a pledge to keep herself and her family drug and alcohol-free
and to participate in various classes, a woman with a history
of drug dependency can receive comprehensive (including group
and individual) chemical-dependency treatment as well as family
medical and dental services, daycare, school liaison services,
nutritional counseling, wellness education, GED preparation, vocation-readiness
training, vocational training and job placement, after-school
programming for children, evening family groups, parenting classes,
help with budgeting, transportation, exercise classes, and educational
cultural exposure field trips.
All
of these activities are designed to give these women and their
families alternate scenarios for their lives and the skills they
will need to begin that journey. Resident Hattie Jackson puts
it this way: "It's about getting back your respect-your respect
for your kids, and their respect for you."
The
first step is getting sober, according to resident leader Annie
Antoine. "You got to step through that door." Once those children
can let go of the responsibility of covering for their mother,
"you'll find most of their own 'behavior problems' will often
clear up."
Other
partners in this highly successful program include a community
settlement house, a private vocational agency, the city's recreation
department, a publicly funded parenting program, the county department
of human services, local churches, a community health facility,
a mobile dental van, volunteers from the local recovering community,
a transitional housing program, and an outpatient chemical-dependency
treatment program for spouses and/or significant others.
To
qualify, a woman or couple must have custody of children under
age 13, be eligible for (or currently living in) CMHA housing,
be willing to be drug tested on request, complete a pretreatment
program at MetroHealth Clement Center for Family Care, be willing
to participate in the 21-month Relapse Prevention Program, and
give evidence of the desire and commitment to maintain an alcohol-
and drug-free home.
After
meeting requirements for acceptance into Miracle Village, a family
moves into a renovated apartment in CMHA's Outhwaite Homes Estates.
For the first 90 days, the mother participates in a highly structured
24-hour program.
After
successfully completing the intensive 90-day program, the family
moves to a nearby apartment where they will continue to receive
a wide range of supportive services for up to 21 months that includes
continued treatment, health care, housing, and employment support.
Since
early 1996, 193 women responsible for 461 children have gone through
or are currently participating in this program. At least 65 percent
of these women have remained alcohol and drug-free, and 42 women
have completed the full 21-month program. Twenty-five women are
known to be employed: 18 of them have adequate benefits to enable
them to go off welfare. Nine women are currently enrolled at Cuyahoga
Community College, 3 more have already received their associate
degrees, and 15 are attending intensive GED classes.
As
for the children: 21 babies have been born drug-free during the
program or followup period; 65 children have been reunited with
their mothers; and school-age children's grades have improved
significantly.
Principles
illustrated: 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.
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Helping
Families Acquire Survival Skills
The Center
for Family Life in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn provides
comprehensive personal and social services to children and families
to "buffer the negative influences of the environment on children,
youth, and families that lead to delinquency" as well as "to counter
the forces of marginalization" that make families feel powerless
and isolated, according to program documents.
The
Center provides intensive short or long-term counseling to families
in crisis to reduce the likelihood of long-term problems or family
breakup as a result of overwhelming internal or external problems.
Women's support groups and therapeutic activity groups for children
and teens are also provided, as well as family-life education
and discussion groups in which the whole family participates.
Under
the terms of its contract with the city's Child Welfare Administration,
the Center is expected to serve at least 29 families a month who
are referred by the agency for documented abuse or neglect, plus
another 187 families referred from other sources or that come
in on their own.
Individuals
trained in early childhood education provide supervised, stimulating
activities for small children, while in an adjacent room, the
mothers learn parenting skills and get mutual support for the
challenges they are facing and help in evaluating and dealing
with school-related and other behavior problems. The Center also
gives workshops for parents in English, Spanish, and Chinese at
area public schools and other sites, and it hosts community forums
on a variety of topics as well. A Parent Advisory Committee advises
the Center on matters of policy and planning.
Principles
illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social
and human capital by strengthening families and helping residents
overcome personal barriers; provide a holistic approach to these
activities.
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Addressing
Teens' Physical and Emotional Health
At the Plumley Village public housing development in Worcester,
Massachusetts, a special program has brought together support
services identified by residents as gaps in the neighborhood service
delivery system. The program draws from a variety of resources,
using a coordinated approach.
The Worcester
Youth Guidance Center provides tutorial help for children and
teens, counseling for individuals and families, and summer youth
employment training, as well as weekly consultation and support
to the development's Youth Leaders staff, and support for young
girls. The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program offers educational
and recreational activities for girls between 11 and 15, and a
program called "For Guys Only" provides support around issues
important to young males in the 11-to-14 and 15-to-20-year age
groups while young people of both sexes are trained under the
HIV/AIDS Peer Education Program to work with other teens in prevention/
education programs and supportive activities.
The Plumley
Village Health Services Center provides HIV testing and screening
for other health problems, family planning services, immunizations
and other preventive care, "healthy homes" education, midwife
services, and prenatal care.
Principles
illustrated: Reinforce community values and build social and human
capital; develop creative partnerships to provide residents with
access to resources and opportunities.
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Helping Residents Acquire Education and Skills
To Succeed
The residents
of Seattle's Holly Park development expressed a strong interest
in finding employment in the construction trades, so the Holly
Park Community Council and the Seattle Housing Authority (SHA)
approached the Seattle Department of Parks and Recreation, the
Private Industry Council, the Holly Park Community Council, and
the Washington Service Corps for their help in creating such an
opportunity.
The
result was the Holly Park Apprenticeship Program, a 9-month program
that would prepare as many as 40 residents between the ages of
16 and 30 for the apprenticeship examinations required to enter
the building trades. Participants were divided into teams and
set to work for $4.90 an hour on a variety of trades-related community
service projects that included building rehabilitation, new construction,
maintenance, and landscaping.
Each
resident who completes the program and wishes to pursue further
education or training receives a $2,362 stipend to be used for
tuition and supplies or for paying back student loans already
incurred. Some graduates have found jobs with the building and
renovation work planned for Holly Park. An important component
of the program is an array of support services including childcare,
career planning, and resume preparation as well as training in
money management, conflict resolution, communication, and leadership
skills.
Understanding
that for many people, access to education is critical to achieving
any degree of sustainable independence, the San Antonio Housing
Authority (SAHA) has formed partnerships with local universities
to make educational opportunities accessible to residents. Thanks
to a special arrangement with San Antonio College, college courses
are now being offered right at the Mirasol Homes development for
residents and people living in the surrounding neighborhood participating
in its Family Self-sufficiency Program. Another partner, the Second
Chance Program, has agreed to provide critical supportive services
such as textbooks and tutoring, the opportunity to learn from
a professional on the job, childcare, and transportation.
At
Spring View Apartments, Texas A&M University and St. Philip's
College are collaborating with the Family Self-sufficiency Program
to create a learning center. Besides housing video conferencing
equipment and computers for use in literacy and other classes,
the center will provide a variety of electronic services including
access to the Internet, which will help residents to improve the
language and reading skills that have created barriers to advancement
and to break out of the isolation that has excluded them from
access to developing opportunities.
Principles
illustrated: Involve residents in setting goals and shaping strategies;
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.
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Opening
a Wide Range of Opportunities
A variety of partnerships has enabled the Schenectady Public Housing
Authority (SPHA) and its residents' council to offer a wide range
of opportunities and support services to residents. These range
from classes in nontraditional occupations for women to home-based
Head Start (which includes one-on-one parent counseling) and childcare
available 17 hours a day (the Schenectady YWCA provides personnel
and supervision; SPHA provides the space and building maintenance
services). Further examples:
- Fourteen
residents who were high school dropouts are now taking classes
and engaged in on-the-job training in construction, leadership
development, and esteem building, and graduates move into Section
3 employment opportunities under a partnership called Youth
Build/ Schenectady. The partners include SPHA, Better Neighborhoods,
Schenectady County Community College, Carver Community Center,
the Schenectady Boys and Girls Club, and Schenectady Job Training
Agency.
- The Human
Resources Center in Albany offers 10-week courses for women
residents in such subjects as carpentry, plumbing, electrical
repair, painting, building maintenance, auto mechanics, video/
audio equipment repair, small appliance repair, locksmithing,
truck driving, and security.
- Residents
registered with the Resident Self-Employment Program who aspire
to become family daycare providers can qualify for a job in
the YWCA Day Care Center through a course offered by the Capital
District Child Care Coordinating Council.
A self-employment
coordinator acts as an advocate for residents seeking to launch
new businesses with venture capital loans from the Schenectady
Local Development Loan Fund (CDBG-supported) or the nonprofit
Capital District Community Loan Fund. The NAACP/Better Neighborhoods,
Inc., Minority Contractor Training Program is providing residents
who are already in the contracting business or wish to establish
themselves as Minority Business Enterprise and Women Business
Enterprise contractors with training in reading blueprints,
bonding/property/ liability and worker-compensation insurance,
specification reading and bid writing, understanding certifications
involved in government procurement contracts, estimating,
and other business skills.
Because
many residents have been forced to decline job offers for
lack of transportation, SPHA has arranged for low-cost or
free driver education
Figure 11 Lessons Learned About Partnerships
Partnerships
in service of community building must have parity between
the community sector, the public sector, and the private sector.
The community sector includes the residents of public housing
development and perhaps the surrounding community. The public
sector includes the public housing management and other local,
State, or Federal Government agencies involved. The private
sector includes businesses and nonprofit organizations. Typically,
every sector defines the problem or the challenge differently.
For example, local government might envision and measure a
need in terms of an assessment inventory, census results,
or crime statistics. A business entity may see an opportunity
in terms of the results of a market research study. Residents
typically define the problem in terms of their feelings.
Some
community-building projects have difficulty getting started
because of this difference in approach among the partners.
One of the first major hurdles, therefore, is to make sure
that the problem, the opportunity, or the mission is defined
in a way that all parties can buy into it. This communications
obstacle must be overcome before it is possible to establish
a working partnership.
Functional
partnerships may not form automatically, despite the best
intentions on all sides. Sometimes a capacity-building process
is needed. To initiate this process, one leading partner,
often the PHA, brings all parties together, often with the
help of a facilitator. The purpose is to help all parties
communicate more effectively and define the issues so that
all of the participating parties see problems from the same
perspective.
The
partnerships described in this section enable PHAs to extend
beyond their own organizational limitations to conned residents
to the resources they need to grow in independence. It is
dear that the programs made possible through these partnerships
offer needed services that help residents overcome personal
and institutional barriers to independence. Beyond this, however,
each partnership demonstrates that it is possible—if
only in a small way—to overcome the isolation that has
in the past cut off public housing residents from fuller participation
in the life of the larger community and its resources and
responsibilities courses for Family Self Sufficiency (FSS)
program adult participants and accompanied individuals to
lending institutions as advocates for car loans. VISTA volunteers,
working as FSS "Project Linkage Service Representatives,"
transport residents to job interviews, college admissions
intake appointments, and drug-treatment intake appointments.
Supportive
health services are provided through SPHA's FSS Case Management
Program by special arrangement with Schenectady Family Health
Services and the Schenectady County Public Health Department.
Services include general medical care, immunizations, prenatal
services, family planning, health education, and nutritional counseling.
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.
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Part
V: Conclusion
The many
examples of constructive programs and partnerships now producing
positive results in public housing around America are a cause
for hope. They offer persuasive evidence that public housing,
long seen by many Americans as a symbol of hopelessness, can become
a useful tool for helping disadvantaged families move toward sustainable
independence.
Even in the
inner cities, where it has long battled adverse circumstances,
inadequate resources, and shortsighted planning, public housing
has the potential of becoming a model for rebuilding the social
fabric-and through it the economic and social well-being-of our
deteriorated inner-city neighborhoods.
The key to
this transformation, growing evidence suggests, is in developing
collaborative strategies that reflect what we have come to know
about how community is created and sustained.
The work
of community building begins by recognizing the often unseen and
unexploited strengths of a neighborhood and the natural propensity
of neighbors to come together around matters of shared concern.
It asserts that the most sensible way to attack poverty in the
long term is to build on those strengths and support these indigenous
efforts to build and sustain community.
This requires
a willingness to break with old ways of doing things and thinking
about problems, for community building is about more than demolition
and remodeling. It is also about restructuring the all-important
human dimension of a neighborhood, with its attitudes, its relationships,
and the expectations or lack of expectations people have about
one another.
It is about
building a community that nurtures the values and aspirations
of its members, supports a culture of work and independence rather
than a victim mentality and a dependent way of thinking, and allows
families to pursue their lives and do their work in relative comfort
and security. The
question may be asked: Is the purpose of community building merely
to make deteriorated inner-city neighborhoods better places to
live, or to help people escape them? The goal of community building
is to produce people who have the capacity to take advantage of
the range of life's opportunities while building a community that
offers a higher quality of life for its residents.
Some public
housing residents, as they achieve self-sufficiency and independence,
may choose to make their homes or operate businesses in these
new, reinvigorated neighborhoods, while others may choose to move
on to other opportunities and other settings. Community building
enables families and individuals, by working together for their
common advancement, to achieve the self-confidence and economic
independence that will allow them to make that choice. Meanwhile,
community building strengthens the social networks of public housing
communities and works to mitigate their obstructive isolation
from the mainstream economy and the larger society.
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Endnotes
1.
John McKnight and John Kretzmann, Mapping Community Capacity
(Evanston, IL: Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research,
Northwestern University), May 1990.
2.
Claudia Coulton et al., An Analysis of Poverty and Related
Conditions in Cleveland Area Neighborhoods (Cleveland, OH:
Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change, Case Western Reserve
University, 1989).
3.
For more information, see U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development, Public Housing That Works: The Transformation
of America's Public Housing , May 1996.
4.
William Julius Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner
City, The Underclass, and Public Policy (Chicago, IL: University
of Chicago Press, 1989).
5.
Judith Gueron, "Linking Residents to Work: State-of-the-art
in Connecting Resident Training and Welfare Reform Initiatives,"
speech at the 1996 Public Housing Summit, Washington, DC, May
29, 1996.
6.
Dr. Carl Bell, "The Overlooked Citizens of Our Inner Cities,"
speech to The Friday Forum at City Club of Cleveland; Cleveland,
OH, June 28, 1996.
7.
See Ivan Light, Ethnic Enterprise in America (Berkeley,
CA: University of California Press, 1972); George J. Borhas, "Ethnic
Capital and Intergenerational Mobility," Quarterly Journal
of Economics , February 1992: 123-150; Alejandro Portes and
Julia Sensenbrenner, "Embeddedness and Immigration: Notes on the
Social Determinants of Economic Action," American Journal of
Sociology 98:1320-1350.
8.
Stephen Rathgeb Smith, "Social Capital, Community Coalition, and
the Role of Institutions," unpublished manuscript prepared for
delivery at the annual meeting of the American Political Science
Association, New York City, September 1-4, 1994.
9.
Anne C. Case and Lawrence F. Katz, "The Company You Keep: The
Effects of Family and Neighborhood on Disadvantaged Youth," Working
Paper No. 3705, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1991.
10.
See Sheldon Cohen and Leonard S. Syme, eds., Social Support
and Health (New York: Academic Press, 1986); Jonathan Crane,
"The Effects of Neighborhoods on Dropping out of School and Teenage
Childbearing," in Christopher Jencks and Paul E. Peterson, eds.,
The Urban Underclass (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution,
1990); Redford B. Williams et al., "Prognostic Importance of Social
and Economic Resources Among Medically Treated Patients with Angiographically
Documented Coronary Artery Disease," Journal of the American
Medical Association 267:520-524, January 22/29, 1992.
11.
Donna Higgins, unpublished study (Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease
Control, 1995).
12.
In the Midst of Plenty: A Profile of Boston and Its Poor
(Boston, MA
13. Report and Recommendations , Cleveland Foundation
Commission on Poverty (Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Foundation, 1996),
p. 27.
14. Daniel Kemmis, The Good City and the
Good Life (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1995).
15. An example of a community-building facilitator.
16. Arthur J. Naparstek, "Community Virtues:
The Impact on Families," in Family: The First Imperative. A
Symposium in Search of Root Causes of Family Strength and Family
Disintegration, William J. O'Neill, Jr., ed. (Cleveland, OH:
William J. and Dorothy K. O'Neill Foundation, 1995).
17. Mittie Olion Chandler, Virginia O. Benson,
and Richard Klein, "The Impact of Public Housing: a New Perspective,"
Real Estate Issues, Spring/Summer 1993.
Manual
Index
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
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