cli: understanding your neighborhood economy

10/23 NeighborWorksCLI, Louisville KY; Understanding Your Neighborhood Economy; Lee Ann Adams

Key Concepts in Community Econ Dev

1. Comm. econ dev

a. Improving econ conditions: decreased cost of living, increasing income, improving financial stability

b. Enhancing quality of life: fostering growth of creative and cultural industries, creating attractive and healthy environment

Really good comm. dev can displace people.

2. Attributes of an ideal local economy

a. Econ vitality: provides good jobs, good services, productive activities and full utilization of human and physical resources

b. Econ equity

c. Econ security

d. Econ quality

e. Econ empowerment: local ownership

Comm Econ Dev Term:

1. Community Benefits Agreement

2. Development Subsidies

3. Social Enterprise

4. Small Business

5. Microenterprise

6. Employment Multiplier—when new jobs within community generate related jobs

7. Local multiplier effect—number of times a $ invested in labor is recycled on other items w/in community

8. Capital leakage--$ leaves community when goods are purchased elsewhere

9. Import substitution—local work that replaces the need for importing those goods or services

10. Green jobs

11. Smart growth

Key players in neighborhood economies are residents, neighborhood associations, educational institutions, local/state/federal govts, financial institutions, corporations, private developers, cdc’s.

Adams laid out the typical process for both private and publicly initiated development.

Strategies for improving your neighborhood economy:

1. Select guiding principles

2. Improve econ conditions through reduction in cost of living or increased income. Encourage asset accumulation.

a. Reduce cost of goods/services

b. Reduce time/travel costs

c. Increase demand for labor

d. Improve labor safety

e. Increase asset building

Raising property taxes will usually result in higher cost of living w/in neighborhood.

3. Local first campaigns. Chicago studied that big box stores do not result in increased jobs as they replace local ones. The tax revenue generation is negligible b/c the low wage jobs often push residents onto public assistance.

4. Anchor institutions.

5. Commercial district revitalization

6. National Main Street program

7. Workforce dev

8. Growing good neighborhood jobs

NW CLI 135 Strategies for Creating Great Neighborhoods

10/22 NeighborWorksCLI, Louisville KY; Strategies for Creating Great Neighborhoods; Michael Schubert

MS manages Milwaukee Housing Initiative, which affects middle neighborhoods, not high or low income ones. Built organization framework. Has consulted for 20 years focusing on neighborhood change. Worked for Richard Daly Jr. as Housing Dir for a couple of years. Before that, he worked at National Housing Services of Chicago for 14 yrs.

Most goals are working with people in neighborhood and attracting new people. That’s redevelopment. Neighborhood confidence matters—keeps folks engaged and need to build it. Things can change positively if folks are engaged.

Course objectives: understand the components of what makes a great neighborhood; understand the ‘neighborhood story’ and how to shape it, present some important ideas about neighborhood change—connect strategies to build on strengths and overcome obstacles.

What makes a great neighborhood? Good people, safe/clean, economy, blight is not focus though may be present in some degree, visible pride. Neighborhoods have names. Each has hst and stories. A great neighborhood is a place where it makes econ and emotional sense for neighbors and other stakeholders to invest and a place where neighbors can successfully manage day to day issues and are connected to each other in positive ways. Doesn’t mean that a neighborhood is problem free. It is a place where neighbors have capacity to manage problems.

Principles of Neighborhood Change: Neighborhoods are always changing. The tenor of change is driven by how people read who’s moving in and who’s moving out. What about gentrification? MS says class doesn’t matter, find positives. Markets are so soft now that there isn’t any gentrification. There is speculation and this is on the whole negative. In ‘80’s, there was anti-speculation ordinances. One had a high tax on flipping properties in less than a year. Small developer has always been great asset to neighborhoods. Over the Rhine Cincinnati was mentioned [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-Rhine].

Many make the mistake of thinking of neighborhoods as projects. They are systems. Do things to suggest a positive future. Neighborhoods improve when residents feel confident.

Work with realtors. Market and sell. Give people a sense of control. Build on strengths; don’t just focus on negatives.

How do you create great neighborhoods? 1)know the neighborhood: who’s there, geography, market, neighborhood story. The neighborhood story is the narrative people inside and outside tell about the neighborhood. What 3 things do you want people to say about the neighborhood? One can learn the story by: walking & talking, listening and engaging and analyzing data.

2)have the right language. What does positive change look like? What outcomes do you want? What are the real issues?

3)right strategies and right program tools. Don’t have a crime watch but a welcome committee. Don’t focus on affordable housing but housing demand. How? Understand the market: who to market to and what does this group want. Understand neighborhood: what can it provide, what’s the message, and how do you reach them with the message? Use market to benefit the community. Activities need to reinforce positive image.

4)the right organization does the right things. Gave Layton Boulevard West Neighbors and Enderis Park in Milwaukee as youtube participants.

5)know if things are changing. Results push us forward. Evaluate what you are doing. Generate outcomes, not just output.

What undermines efforts to create great neighborhoods? Folks invested in maintaining a culture of dependency so that a neighborhood becomes a group of clients instead of citizens. He referenced James McKnight’s work on this. Also know that things perceived are real in their consequences. Planning is not the new doing. McDonald’s doesn’t blame me when I don’t buy a hamburger—if what we aren’t doing isn’t working, maybe it’s not good enough. Sometimes there are one or two buildings that symbolize decline; addressing these may have a great impact.

FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE

NW CLI Rocky Mountain Plenary

10/22 NeighborWorksCLI, Louisville KY; Building Leader & Sustaining Communities

Rocky Mountain District Plenary, Fred Chapin

Each NW group (i.e. Waco) will write an action plan on Sat. This session is to get ready for that action plan.

Action plan purpose: take what you learn and apply it (project, event, activity), produce new leaders. Start with desired end and work backwards. Define results, document results, report results to NW America so they can report to Congress. Each team will get $2000 to go towards their action plan. This can be combined with other sources of funding.

Past examples of action plans: websites to provide communication outlets, murals (Waco did this in E Waco), beautify community gateways, community stories.

Neighbor Works Community Leadership Institute plenary session

10/22 NeighborWorksCLI, Louisville KY; Building Leader & Sustaining Communities

Opening Plenary. John Santer

This CLI has over 1000 people. 20% of participants are not directly related to NW. NW America provides opportunities for affordable housing, works to improve lives and strengthen communities by financial support, tech assistance, and providing training.

Dorothy Mae Richardson was a mom in Pittsburgh who started National Housing Svcs 42 yrs ago. That became NW. In 1978, Congress made Natl Reinvestment Corp, now NW America.

NW is 230 community based orgs in 50 states. There are 8 geographic districts. Each NW is autonomous. 33% serve rural areas. Neighborworks.org is website. NW served 1 million homeowners since 2007 and issued $629 million in grants.

Susan Naimark, Dir., Community Building & Organizational Progress NW

NW has 3 divisions: training, community building & organization, and field ops. There are 3 elements to community building: resident leadership, resident organizations, and relationship building. This yields effectiveness, inpact and sustainability.

First CLI in 1995. They have had 28 since. First natl CLI was in San Jose in 2008. CLI’s provide chance to learn, discuss community issues.

Lisa Thompson, New Directions Housing Corp in Louisville Director

Louisville crosses KY-IN state line. New Directions works on both sides of the Ohio river. She likes community based coaching.

Dr. J.Otis Smith, Philadelphia professor, keynote speaker.

Good communication allows for discussion on a range of things. 3 toughest leadership challenges/hidden opportunities in plain sight: knowing where you want to go and where you can go [opie clip]; attracting and listing to folks that aren’t clones (this is risky but not listening has consequences) [office space clip]; doing something that matters to you and your neighbors.

2/3 of residents want fairness and respect. This is a leadership asset in plain sight.

Theories: stereotypic vulnerability—the stereotyped start to believe the stereotype; and learned helplessness—past treatment can affect the present [mouse shock experiment example, research on mouse showed that it took 23x to get out of corner].

community leadership

One of Calvary's own, Chad Klawetter, works for NeighborWorks. NeighborWorks sponsors Community Leadership Institutes at various times in various places. These CLI events provide education, networking opportunities and demonstrations of best practice in community revitalization.




NeighborWorks has invited me, Rev. Oliver from Greater New Light and a minister from Antioch to attend the latest CLI in Louisville, KY, that starts today and goes through Sunday (I'll be back on Sat night for those interested). Some questions that we will consider during this event include:

--How do we best define Sanger-Heights as a "healthy" or "revitalized" neighborhood? What does it look/feel/sound/operate like? How do we measure progress toward this goal or vision? Who should own the outcome?

--What community assets and strengths might we want to include in developing a strategy for making Sanger-Heights a healthier neighborhood? How can we use subsidy strategically?

--Do our residents have the capacity and willingness to manage change in the neighborhood? How can we help equip them?

I've provided a link to their website about the CLI and, as a copious notetaker, I'll post regular updates about the event.





http://www.nw.org/network/training/specialized2/cli.asp

consecration sun

We had a wonderfully faithful response at Consecration Sunday. Over 60 families/individuals filled out 2011 pledge cards. Most of those indicated a willingness to increase giving next year as an act of worship and faith in God for provision.

Today, letters and pledge cards will go out to member who were not present on Sunday. We hope to report a grand total sometime in November.

Thanks to the Diaconate for passing out the cards. As spiritual caretakers of the church, their involvement displayed that this Sunday was not about finances but about Worship. Thanks to the Finance committee for collecting and tabulating the results so far. And thanks to Rita for providing some great chicken tortilla soup.

One more point, last year we had a few youth pledge part of their income (allowances, odd jobs, etc.). This year, we also had some children make monthly commitments. Most of these are below a $1 but the amount never matters. What matters, and is a testament to Calvary and their parents, is that they understand that ultimately God provides and that God entrusts some of the work of His kingdom to us. Wonderful news!

parking and postmodernism

Funny story from Sunday night. Maybe ironic would be a better description. Getting to it, the youth and Mikal Klumpp and Cody Phillips and I carved pumpkins this past Sunday evening. While we trying our artistic skills on the innocent gourds, one of Waco's finest rolled in. Evidently, someone has abandoned an old car on the lot across Homan Ave. from the church. This is the lot that the church owns. The officer came by to tell us about this having been alerted to it by neighbors that face the lot on 19th St. These neighbors wanted the City to tow the car as it interfered with their parking; the twist being that they wanted a car towed from a church lot so they could continue to park on said church lot.





In a very tenuous segway (think irony), I had a conversation with a Truett student last week. It wasn't a Calvarian Truett student but one that was still church shopping and sought me out. She wanted to talk about post-modernism. Post-modernism is a loose school of thought that rejects all claims of propositional truth. There are only perspectives and assertions, nothing foundational that has universal appeal. Jean Francois Lyotard's work in 1979, The Postmodern Condition, is the corpus for this.

There is an inherent contradiction to postmodern thought: the only truth is that there is no truth. That in itself is a truth. This is a foundation for something built upon an absence of foundations.

Whatever the current thought trend swirling around our culture matters little to the Church. I actually think the Church does better when it is not the dominant culture. The Church survives when it is taken as a given; the Church thrives when it is the minority facing an opposing culture. If it's the postmodern culture, let's have at it.

inerrancy or interpretation

I mentioned a Christianity Today article in my message last week that featured the current head of Southern Seminary in Louisville. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2010/october/3.18.html

In the article, Mohler makes a profound admission. He states that the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention wasn't about the bible itself but rather how to interpret the bible. For years and years, fundamentalists crusaded to defend the Holy Writ. Words like 'inerrant' and 'inspired' were thrown out. That became the litmus test, for these pharisees, on whether or not a Christian was a true-believer.
In truth, that wasn't it at all. I don't believe the bible contains errors. I do believe that it is the inspired word of God. Believing that doesn't mean that I have to interpret Genesis 1 as occurring in 168 hours.
Fundamentalists really want control. Using some buzz words doesn't yield that control. Determining how scripture is to be interpreted, that does. Of course, arguing that scripture has only one interpretation negates the power of the Holy Spirit and denies the Reformation's argument for the perspicuity of scripture that Luther fought so hard for--but hey, the lust for power is a strong temptation.
To sum up, the battle from 1979 to whenever was a battle of hermeneutics, not a battle for the bible. I'm pleased that a fundamentalist finally fessed up to that.

non-profits and poverty

The Waco Tribune had an interesting article last week about McClennan County's poverty rate. The article had the temerity to ask why the poverty rate continues to increase despite the plethora non-profits and social services in the area. It's a great question that is rarely asked.

To be fair, college students count toward the poverty rate, according to the Chamber of Commerce. Students don't have much income and technically fall below the poverty line. As Baylor's student population increases, as I understand it did this year, the county's poverty rate will increase too. For the sake of argument, let's discount the increase in the poverty rate and take it as static.

The lousy economy certainly comes into play as more individuals and families face challenges. That aspect can't be overlooked.

However, the Trib question remains. There are some interesting non-profits and social service agencies doing their thing in Waco and the surrounding area. Are they largely ineffective? The flip side to this is that perhaps they have kept the poverty rate from increasing at a geometric rate. That's a possibility.

I recall my time in Trenton. There were some great non-profits there. Isles, Inc. and the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen probably typify the best of them. There were also a lot that served as vehicles to provide jobs to supervisors and staff, rather than trying to get folks to a level of self-sufficiency. The point of every social service non-profit should be to put itself out of business. Some really try to do that; many lock clients into a level of dependency to insure continued funding of the agency. There is a lot of money in fighting poverty.


Calvary is working through When Helping Hurts. It challenges some basic assumptions, many maintained by the Church, in dealing with poverty. Join us on Sun mornings in the Fellowship Hall, 9:30, or on Wed nights in the College SS room at 6:30pm.