I find this article highly insulting to every neighborhood I know that participated in the NRP program. The author of the article must live under a bushel with no candle. Even the Loring Park neighborhood, which I admit has a lower percentage of residents of "people of color", but which has a much more "diverse" population base than many other neighborhoods, had made pains to include all the residents of the neighborhood in the process from the very beginning. A vast majority of our residents are renters and many came to meetings to give their views and input into the process. Over the years a majority of our Board have been renters AND people of a very diverse background, more than I bet of the authors neighborhood. About 1/3rd of our Phase I allocation went to make major improvements to Loring Park. People from all ethnic backgrounds came to NRP community meetings to say what they thought the park should look like. The basketball players who came to the meetings to make sure that the courts stayed, belonged in large part to what "ethnic group" Ms Thomas? Guess Ms. Thomas did'nt make any of those meetings to see who came? The neighborhood listened to their concerns and made sure that the basketball court was part of the renovated park. Our neighborhood organization CLPC worked very hard last year to get $1,000,000. in NRP affordable housing funds to see the expansion of the Jeremiah Housing Program become reality. Perhaps Ms. Thomas should contact Jeremiah to see what percentage of residents at Jeremiah are "people of color" and who came to neighborhood meetings to support their programs expansion. The Loring Park neighborhood did, we feel, the best we could do to include everyone who lives, works, visits or owns property in our neighborhood. We had no control however who would CHOSE to show up to the meetings that discussed NRP plans for the improvements in the neighborhood. Richard Anderson President Citizens for a Loring Park Community CLPC
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