Thank you, Barb Lickness, for your comments on this. I live in the Jordan
neighborhood and I have worked for the neighborhood organization for the
past nine months. Prior to that, I was moved to volunteer as a board member
which, I guess, would count as citizen participation. For four years, I
have been the Cookie Lady in my area, inviting 4-12 children into my house
every week to make cookies to take home. That doesn't show up in the
statistics at all, but I think it is indeed citizen participation--at least
participation in my community in ways that build community.
Our neighborhood has struggled for years with how to get greater citizen
participation. What do you count as participation? If you count attendance
at our monthly community meeting, we have failed miserably. However, there
are other measures that may be much more accurate.
NRP Phase I funding for improvements, rehab and purchase affected 442 homes
in Jordan, or approximately 25% of all the housing. We put up funding for
extra police presence because citizens wanted more police on the streets.
That affected a large segment of the neighborhood. We have been doing
barbecues as an outreach method this summer and have been in touch with
roughly 500 residents in that way. We held a 40th anniversary celebration
in 2004 which was attended by 500-600 residents. Our outreach coordinator
has talked to more than 3,000 people one-on-one in the neighborhood and
found jobs for 60-70 youth or more. In all these ways, we have been highly
successful.
NRP Funding has allowed us to take care of basics and given us the space to
be creative in finding the ways that work to connect with our residents.
Attendance at meetings is the least productive way to do that.
Representatives from the African American community have told me, "We don't
respond to flyers and attend meetings. We are looking for the one-on-one
contact, the personal invitation, the opportunity to build trust." In our
outreach to the Hmong residents, we have been told the same thing. So we
are adapting our approach to the cultures that live here and learning new
ways to hear from our residents. And one-on-one takes time when the
neighborhood population numbers 9,000 and you have 3 people working in the
organization.
I have begun to realize how arrogant we are when we insist that everyone in
a neighborhood must follow the "white" tradition and respond in the required
fashion (get a flyer--attend a meeting) so the numbers can be counted. I
have made more personal and deeper connections with folks in my neighborhood
by stepping outside of that frame.
Dorothy ("Dottie") Titus, Jordan
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