CPN is designed and maintained by ONline @ UW: Electronic Publishing Group.

Topics: Community

Repairing the Breach
Key Ways to Support Family Life, Reclaim Our Streets, and Rebuild Civil Society in America's Communities

Report of the National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys
Andrew J. Young, Chairman

Editor: Bobby William Austin

Writing Committee:
Paul Martin DuBois, Jacquelyn Madry-Taylor, Robert L. Green, George E. Ayers, Maralyn Melkonian, and Roscoe Ellis

Note: Preface, Prologue and Chapter 8 are included in this on-line document.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 1996 by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Preface: Public Ideas and Public Work

The rupture of American public life and discourse is evident everywhere. This report of the National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys is the beginning of an approach to repair society's breaches and restore our streets to safety.

The Task Force has provided information and ideas which organizations and individuals can use to begin transforming communities-and thereby assist boys and their families. We want to create long-term structures for sustained intervention for boys in trouble. We must have systemic change, in which many ideas are brought together, so that crime and violence are reduced and social life is made whole. We each have a part to play.

The Nation

First, the concept of the Human Condition and Human Development which focuses on the common good and connects human to human. Fair play, expanded opportunities, and the necessity of each person to contribute to society are ideas the nation must discuss.

Second, the concept of polis, signifying here that members of a society have both rights and duties. The rules of law and the etiquette of a community and society must be honored or the nation will pay the consequences.

Third, the concept of Public Work. This concept is defined through the following principles outlined by Dr. Harry Boyte:

• Public work involves the contributions everyday people make to the commonwealth. It involves non-violence and human dignity. It calls for creativity and individual accountability.
  
• Public work means learning to work effectively with people with whom you do not agree or may not even like.
  
• Public work involves craft and skills, as well as pride in work. Citizenship is public work that must be developed. No one is born into it.
  
• Public work is visible and involves civic storytelling about ordinary people doing extraordinary things for each other and the community. Public work puts experts on tap, not on top. Government officials must see themselves as citizens, working with people, not doing things to or for them. Our institutions must become civic public spaces.
  
• Public work means that different groups work together, with focus and seriousness, so that people can hear one another and understand each other's stories of injustice, deprivation, suffering, and oppression.
  
• Public work develops, in those people who do it, a sense of self, as well as skills and accountability.

Polis This theme, building on the concept of polis outlined above, is a comprehensive idea regarding the values, manners, morals, and etiquette needed for restructuring public life. It involves building a sense of community, and an understanding of both rights and responsibilities within the community.

Civic Storytelling This theme focuses on how these boys and their ancestors fit into American culture. It honors the ordinary citizen who becomes a hero by successfully creating public kinship. The arts, humanities, and education play a role and the civic story is told and retold to establish one's place in society and to create public kinship.

Grassroots Civic Leadership This theme aims to empower individuals to take control of their lives and communities through the development and use of effective leadership skills.

Common Good This theme focuses on creating the common good, using entrepreneurship, economic development, educational reform, and other ideas.

Restoring Community Institutions This theme focuses on reinventing and restructuring civil and social life in communities. It involves housing issues, the development of new philanthropic organizations, and the creation of new ways to deliver multi-focused, multi-purpose programming for boys.

Civic Dialogue This theme stresses that capacity and understanding are built through dialogue which overcomes hate and mistrust.

The work suggested by these themes can be accomplished by the cooperative activities of civic, social, religious, professional, business, governmental, and philanthropic organizations.

The Task Force recommendations involve the short-term in Project 2000, to last through the year 2000. They also involve the long-term, a twenty-year Generation Plan which will work to implement the recommendations of the Task Force.

Individuals

On the back of this book is a quotation from the Book of Isaiah. This quotation was used by Ambassador Andrew Young in a nationally televised sermon. The idea of repairing the breach and restoring the streets to dwell in was taken by the Task Force as a personal challenge as well as an injunction to each citizen of our nation to play a part in bringing wholeness to our fractured and disrupted world.

Boys and Men

If each of us joins in to work together, all our futures will be brighter.

Prologue: The Nation's Problem

MARK, if you please, the fact, for it is a fact, an ominous fact, that at no time in the history of the conflict between slavery and freedom in this country has the character of the Negro as a man been made the subject of a fiercer and more serious discussion in all the avenues of debate than during the past and present year. Against him have been marshaled the whole artillery of science, philosophy, and history. We are not only controlled by open foes, but we are assailed in the guise of sympathy and friendship and presented as objects of pity.

The strong point made against him and his cause is the statement, widely circulated and greatly relied upon, that no two people so different in race and color can live together in the same country on a level of equal, civil and political rights, and powers; that nature herself has ordained that the relations of two such races must be that of domination on the one hand and subjugation on the other. This old slave holding Calhoun and McDuffy doctrine, which we long ago thought dead and buried, is revived in unexpected quarters, and controls us today as sternly and bitterly as it did forty years ago. Then it was employed as a justification of the fraud and violence by which colored men are divested of their citizenship, and robbed of their constitutional rights in the solid South.

The Negro is now a member of the body politic. This talk about him implies that he is regarded as a diseased reminder. It is wisely said by physicians that any member of the human body is in a healthy condition when it gives no occasion to think of it. The fact that the American people of the Caucasian race are continually thinking of the Negro, and never cease to call attention to him, shows that his relation to them is felt to be abnormal and unhealthy....

I have said that at no time has the character of the Negro been so generally, seriously and unfavorably discussed as now. I do not regard discussion as an evil in itself On the contrary I regard it not as an enemy, but as a friend. It has served us well at other times in our history, and I hope it may serve us well hereafter. Controversy, whether of words or blows, whether in the forum or on the battlefield, may help us, if we but make the right use of it. We are not, however, to be like dumb driven cattle in this discussion, in this war of words and conflicting theories. Our business is to answer back wisely, modestly, and yet grandly.
(Excerpted from a speech by Frederick Douglass)

One Hundred Years Later

Speaking at the 27th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, on April 16, 1889, Frederick Douglass defined with great clarity the central questions that were raised in that day, and 100 years later are being raised once again. In Douglass' words our business is to "answer back wisely, modestly, and yet grandly." The questions that are raised are neither isolated nor without merit. They are raised by ruling elites and by ordinary citizens. They are being raised by communities, by religious leaders, and by the parents of many of the young men who are the subject of this report. Most importantly, these are questions that are being raised by the minority group in which these young men are co-members. It so happens that these questions are framed today around the issue of a particular portion of African-American men and boys who are not a part of either the legitimate economic structure or the body politic of the country. Nor are they in community with their own ethnic group; rather, they pose a critical problem of interpersonal violence on the corridors and thoroughfares through which all Americans must pass. Consequently, the issues raised here have to do with how to assimilate, integrate, and restructure the lives of a particular group of individuals who, it would appear, have either lost their direction or lost hope, or both. All of these things combined pose a threat and disruption to the normal process of social life within communities and on the nation's streets.

What Douglass did in his speech was to outline his general sentiments regarding questions concerning the character of the African-American and his participation in normal American life as well as his ideas for the need of the African-American community of the late 19th century to determine its own character and fate apart from verbal and political attacks upon its being. The question in its broadest sense that Douglass sought to answer in the late 19th century and that must be answered now in the late 20th century is

How can a group be protected from public dissection as if it existed as a mere aberration in the society, and how to create for that group a concept that is able to sustain it as a self-respecting minority group within the majority society?

This requires an assessment of the problems that are inherent within the particular group of young men who are at the heart of the issue and who, for a number of reasons not always of their own making, find themselves outside the mainstream, unable to regain entry into the general society. They see their living conditions, as well as the culture that they have created, used by others as the reasons for their own destruction and for the decline of American civilization.

Even though a segment of African-American men may be isolated from American society, they arc crucial to its psyche. They are scapegoats, a political football, and the perfect multimedia ratings getter. This Task Force seeks to lay the groundwork for long-term sustained approaches to putting these issues to rest.

Background To The Task Force Report

Leadership grantmakers seek to bring about creative responses to the challenges facing society through a strengthened, enlightened, and broadened leadership. A critical issue facing the United States is the deepening crisis surrounding a segment of the African-American male population. A strengthened, enlightened, and broadened group of leaders should be able to design workable solutions that can deliver the appropriate economic and human services to this population. Consequently, a strategy that supports new community leadership, focusing on multiple interventions for these young men, boys, and their families, is crucial.

In March 1991, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation consulted with 34 individuals with first-hand knowledge of the issues facing certain African-American men and boys. The Foundation invited editors, ministers, scholars, and community leaders—specifically, community practitioners, those who are actively engaged in making a difference for young men in their respective communities. These practitioners are the people who have direct knowledge of and relationship to the problems. They are the people who can demonstrate some manner of success with their interventions. For this working consultation, the Foundation sought people who could help shape its response to the crisis through leadership grantmaking.

They made it clear that there would be no "quick fix," that time and money would have to be invested, and that the issues had to be raised at the national level so all Americans could be made aware of what was happening. They were just as emphatic in stating that there are persons who have been successful in changing the lives of young men in crisis, and that these persons should be recruited to begin a national dialogue, through which these destabilizing forces could be counteracted.

A national conference led by grassroots and community practitioners was held in Washington, D.C., in 1992. This event, sponsored jointly by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and the National Urban Coalition, highlighted the need for a vision that would encompass all persons who work with these young men and their families.

From the discussions among community practitioners and the scholarly papers presented, there came advice and recommendations that led to the development of a vision statement and the establishment of the National Task Force on African-American Men and Boys. The emphasis throughout all these deliberations was on the centrality of viewing this issue in a holistic way and understanding that a national dialogue was necessary to reach solutions.

Vison Statement

We will support communities characterized by service and a keen sense of ethical behavior and moral responsibility. In these communities, we will continue to develop individuals and families who give voice to an innovative and entrepreneurial impulse. We will work to create communities grounded in cooperation, industry, self-reliance, and prosperity. We know this quest to be a cultural mission, as we reexamine and strengthen our ancient African sensibilities and as we grow, develop, and inform our American experience. We envision this mission as one of reclamation—reclamation of the common good and our common culture, as well as reclamation of the neighborhoods and institutions which nurture our families. We understand that once this internal healing is begun, its effect will be the healing of a nation.

This statement crafted from the conference which recommended the creation of the National Task Force has guided the work of the Task Force and the preparation of this report.

The Task Force consists of forty-seven individuals. The Chairman is the former Ambassador to the United Nations and former Mayor of the City of Atlanta, Andrew J. Young, who now serves as co-chair of the Atlanta Olympic Committee. The Task Force Co-chairs are the Reverend Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, and Mr. Bertram Lee, the President/Director of Albimar Communications, Inc., in Washington, D.C. The Task Force Executive Director is Bobby Austin of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, MI.

Click here for a complete list of task force members.

The National Task Force held its first Meeting April 6, 1994, in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It completed its year-long deliberations by meeting in Washington, D.C.; at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee; and at The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change, Atlanta, Georgia. In this Report the Task Force is now prepared to share its findings, thoughts, and recommendations regarding the future of African-American men and boys in American society.

Dialogue with community leaders and citizens initiated this entire process. It is necessary, therefore, to go back to the African-American community to discuss with them our recommendations. As such, the Kellogg Foundation has joined with the Kettering Foundation to use their National Issues Forum to create an Internal Dialogue with African-American citizens reflecting on these issues. In this way, the Task Force will be able to do something that has rarely been done before: create a living document that includes many viewpoints and creates continued dialogue into the future, a dialogue that is supported by scholarship and practical experiences and contains recommendations that have been and can be widely discussed in community forums, university classrooms, and within the halls of government.

Chapter 8: Restoring Community

Background

A good community, at its core, is a place of peace and safety that provides opportunity for full human development. The well-being of a community is the sum of its physical, economic, and social natures. It is easy to see a community as a place: homes, schools, streets, parks, churches, shops. These make up the physical infrastructure of community; their soundness and attractiveness is essential for a good community. Community also includes economic infrastructure: jobs, businesses, education, sources of capital and investment. Without economic life and opportunity, a community cannot meet its material needs and a good quality of life cannot be enjoyed. Most importantly, perhaps, community is a social and political organization which embodies elements necessary for getting (or keeping) its physical and economic life. These less tangible elements make up a social infrastructure which creates the polls, a place where people strive to meet their needs, have cultural and historic bonds, and which is characterized by a sense of community. Social infrastructure is built on public kinship and civic storytelling, which give people a place in their society; and on an understanding of a common good expressed through a civic and civil dialogue in which all members of the community can participate. Social infrastructure encourages and reinforces expected and accepted behavior that protects, cares for, and enhances the well-being of the community and its individual members. Restoration of community means rebuilding its physical, economic, and social infrastructure. Restoring community is a circular process: it is restoring peace and safety; it is restoring the physical environment; it is restoring economic opportunity, social comity and political discourse; it is creating a polis. Each part feeds upon the other parts.

Much of the poverty in America is concentrated in places where the physical, economic, and social life of the community is deteriorated or destroyed. The prevailing public mythology is that great effort and expenditure has been focused on these places and that nothing works, nothing can be done to reverse negative conditions and rebuild neighborhoods, create opportunity, and restore the social infrastructure of community. This is simply not true. The fact is that much has been learned and accomplished in the last generation and much is being and can be done if the will and commitment is forthcoming from within these communities and from the larger society.

A Story of Rebirth in the Nation's Capital

The story of one such devastated community and its rebirth can be found in the nation's capital. This community was described by the national media as a "murderous, filthy, broken down slum." The neighborhood, known as Paradise at Parkside, is located less than two miles from the Capitol of the United States. The community is approximately 6,000 people in an area which was developed over several generations. Beginning in the 1920s, families began settling in the area, buying lots for home-building and escaping the slums and alley dwellings of segregated Washington, D.C. Apartments and shops for an emerging black middle class were built by African-Americans and supported by a strong black church organization in the 1940s and 1960s. However, by the mid-1980s, breakdown of the social, economic, and physical infrastructure brought chaos and despair to the community. The combination of joblessness, drugs, and crime overwhelmed the neighborhood. Housing was in a physically deteriorated condition. The neighborhood was under siege from drug dealing and it had become the largest and most violent open-air drug market in the region. Children could not play outside or walk to school in safety. Police were reluctant to come into the neighborhood. There were calls for the National Guard. Almost everyone with the opportunity to move out did so. Most had no choice but to stay. Some had the courage to stay and take a stand for the community.

Transformation

Over the last decade, from 1985 to 1995, the community has been transformed. Its physical infrastructure has been rebuilt; its economy has improved with opportunities for jobs, education, training, new business development; and, most importantly, its social infrastructure has been restored. This was and is being accomplished through the participation of many neighborhood residents and action by neighborhood institutions. Commitment and investment of the larger community has also been forthcoming. The public sector, at both the local and federal levels, committed resources. Members of the private sector, including developers, businesses, and philanthropic organizations have been active participants and investors.

The Paradise at Parkside transformation has been brought about through a progressive partnership among the people who live in the community, its organizations, and the public and private sectors of the larger community which participated in an inclusive planning and investment process to bring about change. The joint effort has carried out a comprehensive redevelopment of the area:

• Renovation of all 1,700 multi-family housing units in the community.
• Public housing home ownership conversion by the Kenilworth Parkside Resident Management Corporation.
• Planned cooperative conversion of rental housing by the Paradise Resident Cooperative Corporation.
• The restoration of garden apartment complexes creating open space designed for community recreation and interaction.
• Development of community facilities including a community center, day-care center, laundry, and learning center.
• Creation of new home ownership opportunities for moderate-income home buyers; 100 homes have been completed, over 130 more are in development.
• Retail, commercial, and health facilities created and planned.
• Employment and training programs.
• Youth mentoring and college bound programs.
• Partnership between residents and police in a successful community policing program.

Restoring Peace and Safety

The beginning of the transformation was the commitment to restore peace and safety to the community and rebuild its social infrastructure. Before any physical or economic rebuilding could take place the problem of drugs and violence had to be addressed. It was confronted by an alliance of community residents, citizen patrols by members of the Nation of Islam whose Mosque was located in the neighborhood, businesses, public agencies, and the media. The attention of the media was captured when a local drug dealer, walking through the neighborhood with his sawed-off shotgun, was confronted by an unarmed Nation of Islam citizen patrol. In the scuffle that ensued, the drug dealer was disarmed and a local reporter covering the story was caught in the melee. As a result, media attention stayed focused on the neighborhood. This incident turned out to be a transforming event. It made people aware that the problems flowing from drugs in the community could be confronted, challenged, and turned back. The community rallied and consistent opposition from residents and their supporters forced drug dealing out of the neighborhood. The drug activity left the community, dispersed, and never reconcentrated. The community's victory lead to further alliances which brought economic and physical redevelopment.

Today, comprehensive neighborhood redevelopment, including a successful community policing program which created a partnership between residents and police, has resulted in a stunning turnaround in the quality of life and the peace and safety of the community.

Since 1987, the height of crime and violence at Paradise at Parkside, the crime rate has dropped significantly. Cocaine distribution dropped from 700 incidents to less than 10; robbery from 33 to 5, shootings from 47 to 2; homicide from 6 to 0; burglary from (60 to 8; destruction of property from 42 to 12; auto theft from (60 to 15; disorderly conduct from 775 to 75; juvenile crime from 21 to 8; and person carrying a weapon from 123 to 5. This extraordinary reduction in crime demonstrates the value of effective, smart public investment and committed public/private partnerships.

Homes, Jobs, and Education

The Paradise at Parkside community has attracted over $50 million in both public and private investment. A Washington-based community development company, Telesis Corporation, organized a wide array of public and private lenders and investors to redevelop existing housing and to build new homes. The Trust for Public Land, a national nonprofit land conservation organization, played an important role as an interim land owner for the construction of new homes. The AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust provided over $10 million in pension fund investment for rehabilitation and new home construction. The Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) provided over $11 million in a mortgage-backed security to guarantee the pension fund investment as well as direct financing. Private investors provided over $2 million in equity investment in return for tax benefits. Local banks have provided over $10 million in home mortgages to new home buyers and will continue to finance home ownership as more homes are built. Fannie Mae is providing construction financing for new homes. NationsBank, Riggs Bank, and an insurance group are looking at the possibility of new long-term financing for further neighborhood development.

While the private sector has been a strong and effective partner in neighborhood revitalization, the role of the public sector has been critical to success as well.

Local government provided funding for the development of new infrastructure: streets, sidewalks, water and sewer connections Over $3 million of local funds were invested in these essential building blocks. Local government also provided loan guarantees for home construction funding. Local agencies were partners in establishing and staffing a day-care center and an after school learning center.

The federal government was a critical partner in many ways. Federal funds were made available to local government for physical development through the national community development block grant program. The federal government provided mortgage guarantees to home buyers as well as "soft" second mortgages to make home ownership more affordable. Low-interest loans were also provided. Grants were provided by the federal government to build the community facilities, including the day care, community, and learning centers. And federal funds were provided to conduct employment, training, and education programs which resulted in over 100 residents being placed in jobs, including jobs created by the ongoing construction at Paradise at Parkside.

Job training and education services included personal evaluations; career/skill aptitude assessment; job coaching and peer group support; job placement; personal credit and financial planning; basic skill training and referral in math, reading, and writing; and comprehensive referral services for off-site employment skill training health maintenance, and family support services.

To address the concerns neighborhood residents held for their youth, a number of educational, social, and cultural programs for residents were developed by public and private sponsors and the residents.

Young People On the Rise (YPOR), begun in 1987 by twenty-seven youth, is a student-run program for junior and senior high school students. Students elect their own officers and plan much of their schedule of activities. YPOR provides educational, leadership and career opportunities and training, with a special focus on self-esteem, cultural awareness, college entrance skill, and college enrollment

The Paradise Learning Center is open during the school year on weekdays. It provides drop-in individual and group tutoring, computer training, and other activities. It is operated by the D.C. Public Schools and is staffed by a D.C. teacher and two teacher assistants. The After-School Program gives young children the opportunity to read, watch movies, and play board games.

There is a Paradise Day Care Center, run by the D.C. Department of Recreation and Parks. It is open weekdays and offers Day Care and Headstart. Health and health-related concerns are served by: the Abundant Life Clinic, a private clinic, which offers a wide variety of progressive health services, including general medical examinations, weight loss, nutrition counseling, and HIV and AIDS treatment; D.C. Healthy Start, a program designed to reduce the rate of infant mortality, which is particularly high in this section of the city; and Narcotics Anonymous, a support group for those who have overcome narcotic addition and are dedicated to leading drug-free lives.

Building Social Infrastructure—Inclusive Planning

The restoration of the Paradise at Parkside community was influenced by a community-wide process that helped shape the programs and the overall direction of the development. Throughout the process, the Paradise/Parkside Community Consultant Board, which included neighborhood residents, a representative of a local city council member, neighborhood commissioners, tenant management, civic organization officials, and directors of community services and development corporations, conceived and designed major components of the Paradise/Parkside Master Plan. The Paradise/Parkside Master Plan set the policy and timetable for the entire project, thereby empowering the community to determine which community needs would be addressed first.

To further identify community needs and to encourage community-wide communication, the Board organized half a dozen focus groups to hold discussions on topics of vital interest to the community.

The group advanced three major themes. First, there was grave concern over danger in the neighborhood. Second there was a need for adequate services, including educational, medical, and social services, and retail and commercial business. Third, there was a desire for self-determination in the development process.

The Paradise/Parkside Community Consultant Board helped to form a new social infrastructure for the community. In addition, the determination of residents to confront drug dealing and the violence it brought to the community led to new relationships, including a profound partnership with police and other law enforcement authorities in efforts to clean up the neighborhood.

The lessons learned during this period were formally incorporated into a community policing program called Koban. Started in 1994, the Koban at Paradise is based on Japan's implementation of the old neighborhood beat cop. Metropolitan Police Department officers live and work full time in the neighborhood. The police officers serve as mentors, confidants, and counselors to the residents, with a special focus on youth. The Koban community space serves as a safe haven for youth and functions as a resource and service referral center for all residents. Family counseling and support for youth are central to the Koban concept.

The combination of resident involvement, police activism, work by members of the local mosque of the Nation of Islam, and the Koban project has been remarkably effective.

Guiding Principles

The Paradise at Parkside community development is illustrative of other successful efforts around the country to restore community. One such project is located in Cleveland, Ohio. Called the Renaissance Village, this renovated 90-unit portion of the 1,021 unit King-Kennedy Project, in one of the poorest neighborhoods, has been amazing. The planning used a concept called defensible space, the following ten applications are at the heart of the idea:

• Subdivided this estate into villages.
• Offered recreation at local facility. Designed walkways to allow for a variety of uses.
• Provided new opportunities for children to play.
• Improved overall appearance.
• Provided each unit with its own front door, eliminating interior public space in each building.
• Cut off vehicular access for interior zones.
• Constructed a six-foot-high perimeter fence.
• Involved residents and management in the design.
• Set up areas to promote social interaction.

Successes are happening everyday and they share common guiding principles:

• Human potential is the most valuable community asset.
• Investments in programs and activities which enrich human potential have a positive return—the benefit is greater than the cost; education and training are the primary means to economic independence and empowerment.
• Effective programs depend on motivated, competent people providing sustained personal attention to achieve a positive outcome.
• Communities and people must have a meaningful role in planning and taking initiatives to benefit them and their neighborhoods.

The public should be made aware of the enormous success of many programs underway in communities throughout the United States: to redevelop neighborhoods, repair and build new physical infrastructure including, decent, affordable housing and necessary facilities such as day care, community and learning centers; to train, educate, and counsel people to be productive members of the work force and the community; to restore peace and safety to communities through community policing and other innovative programs; and of the many other efforts that are restoring the physical, social, and economic life of communities through public and private partnerships. This is not well known. The public perception is that "nothing works" and that public investment in these areas can have little or no beneficial effect. The public needs to be educated to the fact that partnerships of public and private action and investment have been successful in changing negative conditions in communities and that positive returns have resulted.

A small, but representative, example of such a partnership is the Stay-in-School" program operating in Dade County, Florida. The Stay-in-School program is funded by the Dade County Public School System and the Florida Private Industry Council. This is a program that provides counseling and summer jobs to high-school students at risk of dropping out. Young people who do not finish high school are twice as likely to be unemployed as those who graduate; three and a half times more likely to be arrested; six times more likely to be unwed parents; and seven times more likely to be welfare dependent. Avoiding the negative costs associated with dropping out is critical to the community and finishing high school is critical to individual accomplishment. The Stay-in-School program has been in operation for eight years and has served over 8,000 at-risk students. It has reduced the drop-out rate among these students from 60 percent to under 8 percent. It has a 93 percent success rate and it costs approximately $2,200 per student per year, a fraction of the negative costs that would be incurred if the student dropped out. The heart of the program is counseling and mentoring of young people by caring individuals provided through over forty community organizations throughout the county. The Stay-in-School program demonstrates that outcomes can be changed dramatically for the better with a relatively small investment. There are hundreds of such examples. Yet, these stories are not being told and funding for such programs is being cut back.

The negative costs of deteriorated communities and wasted lives are significant. The Bush administration once estimated that the costs of conditions such as incarceration, illiteracy, unemployment, and bad housing are in excess of $750 billion dollars annually. The public needs to be made aware that there are cheaper solutions.

We must revive meaningful public policy discussions about what is working, at what cost, with what positive results as part of a new National Conversation about creating positive change, expanding opportunity, opening doors to better education and jobs, and improving the quality of life for all citizens, including those stuck in impoverished communities.

Grassroots planning and activism should be supported and reinforced. The last twenty-five years have witnessed the rise of over 2,000 neighborhood organizations all over America, grounded in an dedicated to the revitalization of their communities. This grassroots revolution has begun to take off and needs to be supported by the larger community with attention, resources, and alliances.

Foundations, for example, can be much more supportive of these organizations which deliver an array of services and carry out redevelopment work at the community level. Particularly in the area of housing, neighborhood development corporations can benefit from Program Related Investments from foundations which would provide needed seed capital and predevelopment costs for community projects. Such investments would be repaid from construction and permanent financing obtained by the development corporation. While some foundations have been a source of such capital, many others could be.

The public sector, particularly the federal government, should be a more efficient, effective, and stronger partner with citizens and the private sector in the restoration of America's communities. Although the loudest political rhetoric today is calling for diminishing or eliminating the role of government in many areas, government is and must continue to be a source of investment and a financing partner. Poor communities are not spread generally across America, but are concentrated and often comprise a large part of a particular political jurisdiction. Therefore, local tax dollars are often not available from a broad and diverse tax base, but confined to the tax base of the poor community. This severely limits public resources at the local level. As a result, municipal services and investment in public infrastructure, for example, decline or do not get made. No nation can be great without great cities. A discussion of urban policy must return to the national dialogue and the withdrawal of resources from urban communities by the federal government must be reversed.

A new base for rebuilding HUD into a stronger partner can be found in the work carried out by almost five hundred communities all over America in response to HUD's call for the creation of Empowerment Zones. Empowerment Zones, created by federal legislation in 1993, were intended to focus attention on distressed urban and rural communities and to engage communities in the development of comprehensive strategic plans to link economic, physical, and human development reflecting all of the community's needs. Hundreds of communities undertook this grassroots planning effort involving wide citizen participation to produce strategic plans. The plans were comprehensive in identifying issues, needs, resources, opportunities, short-term and long-term goals, a vision of the community's future, and a timetable and plan for implementation. These plans, which were submitted to HUD in June of 1994, contain a wealth of information about how communities saw themselves and what they believed needed to be done to bring about their restoration. Only nine communities were selected for the Empowerment Zone program, but the process engaged in by ordinary citizens and local leaders all over America resulted in these plans. They were produced from the "bottom up," and should be used to structure public policy, a new HUD, and the public-private partnerships needed to carry out the plans. HUD and others working with HUD, perhaps through a foundation or university, could analyze, organize, and publish the information that came out of this remarkable planning process to guide future activity, investment and planning.

A Model For Citizen-Led Neighborhood Planning

Citizen-led community planning can be an effective means to building social infrastructure. It is also a way for a community to access successful programs so as not to "re-invent the wheel." A model for resident-led neighborhood planning for community restoration projects is currently being used for redevelopment of the Ellen Wilson neighborhood in Washington, D.C., This neighborhood is a racially and economically diverse community that is planning the redevelopment of an abandoned public housing project in the heart of Capitol Hill. This planning model, developed by the Youth Policy Institute of Washington, D.C., is premised on the belief that a community united around a common history and core set of common values can achieve significant and lasting change in even the most distressed neighborhoods. Real community involvement is a vital component of any plan. The plan must not only be supported by local residents and organizations, but must be actually shaped by them. Therefore, the goal is simple: to provide residents the opportunity to shape the programs that will benefit their families and their community.

The centerpiece of the neighborhood planning process is the convening of bimonthly "town meetings." In the early stages, neighborhood residents discuss the common issues that are of concern to the community, such as crime, economic development, health care and education. In each area, residents work to identify the specific problems that they want to see addressed, and engage in a dialogue to set consensus goals for the community.

At later town meetings, discussions move from dialogue to decision-making. A team of "resident facilitators" lead their fellow residents through a series of strategic planning sessions. The facilitators are members of the community engaged in hands-on leadership training. Issue by issue, the community looks at its problems, looks at the goals it has set, and looks at the options for solving those problems and meeting those goals.

The planning process includes two additional steps. First, the Comprehensive Objective Research on Policy Solutions (CORPS) brings together a baseline of local and national information that is presently not available. Second, this structured information is made available in a way that empowers residents to make real decisions about what will be implemented in the community.

The CORPS

Local university students participating in an unique service/learning project provide the information that makes this planning possible. CORPS students are trained in an "action research" methodology. This methodology enables them to analyze programs systematically.

The CORPS researcher will complete a "Taking Stock" and a "Best Practices" analysis. The "Taking Stock" analysis will be both a needs assessment and a hard examination of demographic data and existing programs in the targeted neighborhood. The "Best Practices" analysis will be an examination of model programs local and nationwide in the issue areas that residents have identified.

Once both analyses have been completed, residents will know the extent of the problems in their neighborhood, the current programs and their scope, the cost, and the concrete options available for meeting service gaps and needs.

Resident Facilitators and the Empowernet

The role of the ``resident facilitators" is to organize, motivate, and energize the community: organize residents to participate in the planning process; motivate residents to tackle complex issues and work towards consensus; energize the neighborhood to support and implement the final plan. To complement the planning process a community-based computer network called Empowernet will be established. Empowernet is an advanced database and communications network that will be connected to the YPI database and will also house the CORPS analyses. Empowernet will serve as an on-line bulletin board and a tool for interactive participation and will be linked to local organizations and sites at libraries and public schools.

Capacity-focused Approach

At the core of community restoration is how one approaches communities. It is obvious that the Task Force approach is one of optimism. The positive attributes of these communities are the citizens who live and work there. One of the most essential areas for restoring communities is an adequate assessment of the community itself and for that we recommend the work of Dr. John L. McKnight of the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Northwestern University. This excerpt from the work Mapping Community Capacity by McKnight and John P. Krutzman expresses the approach that is endorsed by this Task Force when working with low-income communities.

Traditional Needs-Oriented Solutions

This approach is accepted by most elected officials who codify and program this perspective through deficiency-oriented policies and programs. Then, human service systems—often supported by foundations and universities—translate the programs into local activities that teach people the nature of their problems, and the value of services as the answer to their problems.

As a result, many low-income urban neighborhoods are now environments of service where behaviors are affected because residents come to believe that their well-being depends upon being a client. They see themselves as people with special needs to be met by outsiders.

[This] is the predictable course of events when deficiency and needs-oriented programs come to dominate the lives of neighborhoods.

The Capacity-focused Alternative

The alternative is to develop policies and activities based on the capacities, skills, and assets of low-income people and their neighborhoods.

There are two reasons for this capacity-oriented emphasis. First, all the historic evidence indicates that significant community development only takes place when local community people are committed to investing themselves and their resources in the effort.

The second reason for emphasizing the development of the internal assets of local urban neighborhoods is that there is very little prospect that large-scale industrial or service corporations will be locating in these neighborhoods. Nor is it likely that significant new inputs of federal money will be forthcoming soon. Therefore, it is increasingly futile to wait for significant help to arrive from outside the community. The hard truth is that development must start from within the community and, in most of our urban neighborhoods, there is no other choice.

Unfortunately, the dominance of the deficiency-oriented social service model has led many people in low-income neighborhoods to think in terms of local needs rather than assets. These needs are often identified, quantified, and mapped by conducting "needs surveys." The result is a map of the neighborhood's illiteracy, teenage pregnancy, criminal activity, drug use, etc.

But in neighborhoods where there are effective community development efforts, there is also a map of the community's assets, capacities, and abilities. For it is clear that even the poorest city neighborhood is a place where individuals and organizations represent resources upon which to rebuild. The key to neighborhood regeneration is not only to build upon those resources which the community already controls, but to harness those that are net yet available for local development purposes.

Recommendations

The Task Force recommends:

• The public be made aware of the enormous success of many programs under way in communities throughout the United States; to develop neighborhoods, repair and build new physical infrastructure including decent, affordable housing and necessary community facilities such as day-care, community, and learning centers; to train, educate, and counsel people to be productive members of the work force and the community; to restore peace and safety to communities through community policing and other innovative programs; and of the many other efforts that are restoring the physical, social, and economic life of communities through public and private partnerships. The public must be educated to the fact that partnerships of public and private action and investment have been successful in changing negative conditions in communities and that positive returns have resulted.
  
• The Paradise at Parkside model developed in Washington, D.C., should be replicated in five selected communities around the country.
  
• Grassroots planning and activism be supported and reinforced. The last twenty-five years have witnessed the rise of over 2,000 neighborhood organizations all over America, grounded in and dedicated to the revitalization of their communities. This grassroots revolution has begun to take off and needs to be supported by the larger community with attention, resources, and alliances. Foundations, for example, can be much more supportive of these organizations which deliver an array of services and carry out redevelopment work at the community level.
  
• Foundations can also fund neighborhood planning efforts to be undertaken as described in this report.
  
• The public sector, particularly the federal government, should be a more efficient, effective, and stronger partner with citizens and the private sector in the restoration of America's communities. Although the loudest political rhetoric today is calling for diminishing or eliminating the role of government in many areas, government is and must continue to be a source of investment and a financing partner.

Task Force Members

The Task Force consists of forty-seven individuals. The Chairman is the former Ambassador to the United Nations and former Mayor of the City of Atlanta, Andrew J. Young, who now serves as co-chair of the Atlanta Olympic Committee. The Task Force Co-chairs are the Reverend Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, and Mr. Bertram Lee, the President/Director of Albimar Communications, Inc., in Washington, D.C. The Task Force Executive Director is Bobby Austin of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, MI.

The other members of the Task Force are as follows:

• Ewart G. Abner, Executive Assistant to the Chairman, Gordy Company, Los Angeles, CA
• Dennis Archer, Mayor, Detroit, MI
• George Ayers, President, Ayers and Associates, Reston, VA
• Lerone Bennett, Johnson Publishing Company, Chicago, IL
• Chuck Blitz, Executive Director, Social Ventures Network, Santa Barbara, CA
• Senator William Bowen, Grandin House, Cincinnati, OH
• Peggy Cooper Cafritz, Founder/Vice President for Development, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Washington, D.C.
• Milton Davis, National President, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Tuskegee, AL
• Tommy Dortch, ACMC-Atlanta, Inc., National 100 Black Men, Atlanta, GA,
• David Driskell, Professor of Art, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
• Gerald Freund, President, Private Funding Associates, New York, NY
• Anthony Fugett, Director, TLC Beatrice International Holdings, Inc., New York, NY
• Jeffrey Furman, Board of Directors, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Ithaca, NY
• C. E. Gibson, President, Federation of Masons of the World and Eastern Stars, Detroit, MI
• Tyrone Gilmore, Sr., Grand Basileus, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., Spartanburg, SC
• Joseph J. Givens, All Congregations Together, New Orleans, LA
• John Goss, IBPO-Elks of the World, Knoxville, TN
• Robert L. Harris, Grand Polemarch, Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc., San Francisco, CA
• Frances Hesselbein, President/CEO, Peter F. Drucker Foundation, New York, NY
• Vernon Jarrett, Columnist, Chicago Sun Times, Chicago, IL
• Timothy Jenkins, Publisher/CEO, Unlimited Visions, Inc., Washington, D.C.
• Sharon Pratt Kelly, Mayor, Washington, D.C.
• Debra Lee, President/CEO, Black Entertainment Television, Washington, D.C.
• Reverend Michael Lemmons, Executive Director, Congress of National Black Churches, Washington, D.C.
• Rick Little, President, International Youth Foundation, Battle Creek, MI
• O. C. Lockett, President General, Grand Masonic Congress, USA, Detroit, MI
• Haki Madhubuti, Founder/Publisher, Third World Press, Chicago, IL
• Marilyn Meikonian, President, Telesis Corporation, Washington, D.C.
• E. L. Palmer, Executive Director, Comprand, Inc., Chicago, IL
• N. Joyce Payne, Director, Office for the Advancement of Public Black Colleges, Washington, D.C.
• Wilbur Peer, Administrator, Rural Development Administration, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C.
• Huel Perkins, President, Sigma Pi Phi Fraternity, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
• John Perkins, President, John Perkins Foundation, Pasadena, CA
• Henry Ponder, President, Fisk University, Nashville, TN
• Reverend Samuel D. Proctor, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
• Kay George Roberts, Professor of Music, University of Massachusetts, Cambridge, MA
• Michael Schultz, Producer/Director, Four Winds Film Corporation, Santa Monica, CA
• Georgia Sorenson, Director, Center for Political Leadership, and Participation, University of Maryland, College Park, MD
• Nelson Standifer, Director, Midnight Basketball Leagues, Inc., Hyattsville, MD
• William Stanley, National President, Phi Beta Sigma, Atlanta, GA
• Joe Stewart, Senior Corporate Vice President, Kellogg Company, Battle Creek, MI
• Bernard Watson, Chairman, HMA Foundation, Inc., Philadelphia, PA
• Robert L. Watson, President/CEO, Lauren, Watson and Co., Phoenix, AZ
• Cordell Wynn, President, Stillman College, Tuscaloosa, AL

Back to Community Index