30greensboro.pdf

Mike Cowhig

Jjithe

summer

of1994,Greensboro

was

oneofeight

North Carolinacities that applied forthe federal

En-terprise

Community

(EC)grantprogram,amajor

eco-nomic

and

community

development initiative ofthe

Clinton Administration.

The

EC

program offered cit-ies nearly S3 million in Social Service Block Grant

funds.

These

funds, unlike entitlement programs,

appliedto abroad range ofactivities and

came

with

few strings attached.

The

onl\- stipulation

was

that the funds be used to help reduce poverty in

"'dis-tressed" neighborhoods.

Charlotte

was

the onlyNorth Carolina citv' that

was awarded

an Enterprise Community'grant

among

the approximately 100 recipient cities nationwide.

Ahhough

Greensboro did not win a grant, it found

the application processto be a rewarding expenence

ina

number

of wa\s.

Enterprise

Community

Program

is

Atypical

Accordingto the

EC

applicationguidebook, "This

program

is the first step in rebuilding communities

in America's poverty-stricken inner cities and rural heartlands.Itisdesignedto

empower

peopleand

com-munities all across this nation by inspiring

Ameri-cansto

work

togethertocreatejobsandopportunity."

The

application

was

unlike typical government applications inthat it contained only a few pages of

formstofillout. However,itrequiredastrategic plan describing in detail the measures the

community

would

taketo reduce poverty andthe benchmarks it

Mike

Cowhig.

AICP.

is a

Community

Planner with

the City

of Greensboro Department

of

Housing

and

Community

Development.

Cowhig was

Team

Leader for

Greensboro

's Enterprise

Community

Strategic

PlanningProcess.

would

use to measure progress.

The

strategic plan

hadto includemeasures of progress like realistic

es-timates ofthe

number

ofjobsthat

would

be created.

The

applicationrequiredthatresidentsof"distressed"

neighborhoods participate in developing the

strate-gic plan, and that the plan include a

mechanism

for

continuous neighborhood-based planning. Clearly,

more

than a perfiinctorN' citizen participation

exer-cise

was

expected ofEnterprise applicants.

Four key principles underlie the Enterpnse

phi-losophy:

7.

Economic

Opportunity

Econormc

opportumty

means

jobsandwork, with em-phasisonprogramsthat create

new

jobs,provide

train-ing forupwardly mobilejobs, or help peopleto start

businesses.

The

kinds ofjobs and businesses created areimportant. Idealh,thejobs shouldoffer

opportu-nity for advancement, and the businesses should be

located in underserved neighborhoods. In the Enter-prise model, neighborhood revitalization starts with

the economic

mdependence

and self-sufficiency of

residents.

2. Sustainable

Community Development

Sustainable

community

development refers to the

physical environment of neighborhoods.

Are

they

safe? Is housing in

good

condition and suitable for

families?Istransportation available to residents?Are healthcare andother

human

services accessible?Are

learning resources and emplovinent opportunities

available in the

community?

These are basic needs

that mostpeople take forgranted, butformost

resi-dentsof

EC

neighborhoods theyrepresent barriers to

dem-VOLUME

21

NUMBER

2

31

onstrate that the

community

is willing to bring the

necessary resources tobear to meet these needs.

3.

Community-Based

Partnership

Broad participation from across the

community

is

fundamentalto the Enterprise approachto

neighbor-hoodrevitalization.

The

Enterprise partnershipstarts with those

who

will be directly affected

—

neighbor-hood residents.

They

are the ones with the best per-spective on

what

will

work

for their neighborhood,

and thereforethey

must

be involved inthe

planmng

process. Next, the partnership should include

stake-holders in the neighborhood such as

community-based organizations, housing and

community

devel-opment

nonprofits, and city andcounty departments

and agencies. Finally, the

partnership

must

include those

who

can channel

re-sources to the

neighbor-hood

—

political leaders, employers, churches,

phi-lanthropies,

and

educa-tional institutions.

4. Strategic Vision

For

Change

The

strategicplanmustset

realistic

and measurable

goals along with

perfor-mance

standards that

re-flecta sharedvisionof

how

the

community

intends to

respondtothe needs of

EC

residents. Forexample, a

commitment

onthe part of

the localjobtraining

program

toprepare 25

EC

resi-dents to take skilled manufacturing jobs should be coupled with a

commitment

by a local manufacturer

to hire those residents once they have successfully

completed training.

EC

funds might be used to

ex-pand the

program

so that an additional 25 residents

could receive training and be placed injobs.

Removing

Barriers to

Change

To

assistcommunitiesin implementingtheir

stra-tegic plans, the Clinton Administration promised to

remove

burdensome

programmaticregulations

when-ever possible, saying.

"To

accomplish this goal

we

will

work

with all communities that have submitted

a strategic plan for change, even ifthey do not

re-The

project

team

recog-nized

the

importance

of

engaging

the

community

in

the

strategic

planning

process

and

worked

hard

to

ensure

that

they

pro-vided

for

meaningful

public

participation.

ceive

Empowerment

Zone

or Enterprise

Community

designation.

We

will strive to

overcome

program-matic, regulator^', and statutory impediments to

en-courage

more

effective economic,

human,

physical,

environmental, and

community

development activi-ties."ItISleftto thelocal

community

to identifythose

rules and regulations that create roadblocks to

eco-nomic success.

The

example

most

often cited is

pub-lic housing requirements that discourage residents

fromtakingbetterpayingjobsfor fearoflosingtheir

eligibility. Grassroots participation in the planning process is essential inorder to learn

how

these rules affect people's lives.

The

Crew

of the

Enterprise

In Greensboro, the

DepartmentofHousing and

Community

Development

was

assigned the task of

preparing the Enterprise

Community

grant

applica-tion.

A

late decision to

ap-ply

meant

that the

depart-ment was

faced with

com-pleting a full

blown

strate-gicplaninalittleoverthree

months.

The

project team,

nicknamedthe "crew ofthe

Enterprise,"recognized the

importanceofengagingthe

community

in the strategic

planning

process

and

worked

hard to ensure that

they provided for

meaning-fulpublic participation.

In one respect the timing could not have been betterforthedepartment since theapplication project

followed on the heels of a

management

study that

included training in

team

building techniques.

The

EC

project gave department staffan opportunity to

put the

teamwork

skills they had learned into

prac-tice. For a fewmonthsat least, the entiredepartment

ftmctioned as a single team, with planners,

adminis-trative staff, and managers all working together to

meettheproject deadline. Enterprise

was

also an op-portunity to cultivate interdepartmental and

inter-agency team building since help

was

needed

from

other city departments, county government, and

so-cial service agencies.

Anotherbenefitreportedby Greensboroplanners

politi-cal, andprofessional boundaries. Housing and

Com-munity Development

staff

have always

worked

closelywithcertainagencies andorganizations inthe

community

in carr^'ingoutthedepartment's mission.

During Enterprise, existing working relationships

were strengthened and

new

relationships were

cre-ated. Moreover, the project brought togetherfor the

firsttime all ofthose organizationsthat have a

com-mon

mission to help the poor

—

social service agen-cies, nonprofit organizations,

community

develop-ment

corporations, the publichousing authority, city departments, colleges, churches, and charitable

or-ganizations. Enterprise opened people's eyes to the potential for collaboration and information sharing

among

these groups.

The

Application Process

The

first step in the application process

was

to

determineifGreensborometeligibilityrequirements.

This

was

done by comparing census data with

pov-erty thresholds. Wliile the phrase "poverty-stricken"

seemed too strong to describe any ofGreensboro's

neighborhoods, census figures

showed

thatthere

was

an area near the

downtown

with a significant

con-centration of low-income households. Five contigu-ous census tracts were found to have poverty rates

roughlythree times as high as the cit>' as awhole

36%

versus 12%. These areas contain most of the largerpublichousing communitiesandare the target

of

most

ofthe city's neighborhood revitalization and

affordable housing eiforts.

Once

the eligibility question

was

answered and the decision to apph'

was

made, planners began to de\'ise a strategy for recruiting broad participation fromacross sectionofthe community.

The

first step

was

to invitestafffromcit>' andcounty departments,

nonprofitorganizations,

human

serviceagencies,and

community' leaders to a series ofbriefings about the

Enterprise Community' initiative.

From

these

brief-ingsa consensusemergedabout

what

shapethe

plan-ningprocess

would

take. Emphatically, it

would

be a process that effectively reached the grassroots level,

A

task force

was

formed to oversee the project.

Itincluded individuals

who

control vital

community

resourcessuchaspoliticians,employers,andcolleges anduniversities, as wellasrepresentatives from

com-munity-basedorganizations.

The

task force

was

sub-divided into four working committees focusing on

economic

development,

community

development, education, and

human

services. Inaddition to weekly

meetings, the task force hosted three public

work-shops in the

EC

area.

The

public workshops were advertised inthe

community

withthe help ofthe po-lice department's

Neighborhood

Resource Centers

and the Greensboro

Housing

Authority's resident

councils

who

distributed leaflets to

more

than 7,000 households. Transportation andchild carewere pro-vided to anyone

who

needed it, and the workshops were well attended.

Despitethis efforttoinvolveresidents,there

was

stilldissatisfaction

among

some

taskforcemembers.

They

pointed out that neighborhood residents were not well representedontheworkingcommittees.

And

indeed,whileopento the public andheldina

conve-nient location, theseweeklymeetings were dominated

by

stafffrom city and countydepartments, nonprofit

organizations,and

human

service agencies.There

was

persistentgrumblingthatthis

was

"businessasusual" withthebureaucratscontrollingthe process.

The

com-munity development committee in particular spent

the majority ofits timetrying to resolve the issueof

participation. In the end, this committee convinced

the rest ofthe task force that a large portion ofthe

budget shouldbe reserved forprograms designed

by

residents through a neighborhood-based planning process.

In response to the concernthatcertain segments

ofthe

community

werenot well represented, aseries

of workshops were scheduled in the neighborhoods

at times

more

convenient to residents.

The

"mini-workshops" as they were called, wereheld at

home-less shelters, branch libraries, public housing

com-munities,and

community

centers.

The

meetings were

facilitated

by

an employee of one ofthe community-based nonprofits

who

is well respected in the

neigh-borhoods.

The

mini-workshopstargetedyouth,

home-less people,

young

motherswith children, andothers

who

would

not likely have participated otherwise.

They

gave planners an opportunityto hear firsthand

about the problems ofcrime, drugs, homelessness,

andjoblessness.

They

heard

young

mothers complain that they could not take their children to a nearby

park for fear ofgangs, and elderly residents told of

being afi'aid to leave their

homes

because of drug

activity on the sidewalks.

They

listened to a

young

homeless

man

argue thatthe hours foradmittanceto

the homeless shelter should be

more

flexible to

ac-commodate

his

work

schedule.

The

task force meetings were not always pleas-ant and occasionally harsh

words

were exchanged. Local planners and social workers were confronted

b>'longtimeresidentswith deep resentment aboutpast

VOLUME

21

NUMBER

33

been imposed on their neighborhoods without their

consent. There wereturf issues

among

agencies and

organizations, and

some

fledglmg organizations

clearlyfeltthreatenedbytheprocess.Others objected

totheCit>'sroleasfacilitator,andthecomplaint"this

is

more

ofthe

same"

was

heardoften. Nevertheless, after twelve

weeks

of meetings, a plan emerged.

While

far from perfect, the plan

was

unanimously

endorsed by the participants.

Strategic

Plan

Highlights

"The

Enterprise

Community

strategic planning processhas revealedGreensboro asa

community

on thethresholdofreinventing

it-self as a 21st centun,' city."

The

summary

report for

Greensboro's strategic plan

begins with this bit of

hyper-bole

which

reflects the

overarchingthemethatpeople

should be

empowered

to help themselves. "Reinventing"

within this context refers to the evolution ofthe relation-ship

between

helpers

and

helped:

"To

achieve their vi-sion, the residents of

Greensboro's

Enterprise

Community

would

place a high priority on getting good

jobsthatpayaliving

wage

for

meaningful work,

and on

startingtheir

own

businesses.

They

also placea high

prior-ity on

empowering

people to help themselves, on

educa-tional and other programs to

help childrenandyouthto

grow

up asproductive

citi-zens, on partnerships oflocal organizations, and on

public safety,

good

housing, and accessible child care."

The

goals of Greensboro's strategic plan were

developed in four areas:

community

development,

education,

human

services, and economic develop-ment.

Community

development goals included

im-proving housing and public safety and fostering

neighborhood self-help. Education goals included

provisions for

more

accessible learning, mentoring,

and other effortstokeep teenagers inschool.

Human

services goals included increased self-sufficiency,

better access to services, improved health programs.

The following is a breakdown ofhow funds

would have been allocated ifGreensboro had

receivedan EnterpriseCommunity grant:

NeighborhoodEmpowerment $ 1^00,000

Small Business Development $ 500,000

SubstanceAbuse and Other

KeyHealth Issues $400,000

CommunityAccessto Services $ 350,000

Mobile Educational Services $ 150,000

EmploymentSupport (child

care and transportation) $ 150,000

SubstandardHousing Prevention $ 100,000

CommunityLearning Centers $ 100,000

and care for children and the elderly.

Economic

de-velopment goals included job training and

employ-ment networking, efforts to assist small and

neigh-borhood businesses, and improved child care and

transportation.

Neighborhood

empowerment was

thecornerstone

of Greensboro's strategic plan and reflected the

de-bate over

who

makes

decisions for neighborhoods:

"A

gradual understanding emerged that a

neighbor-hood

empowerment

process

must

come

fromthe

En-terprise

Community

initiative,andit

must

bestrongly

grassroots driven. Consensus emergedthat

neighbor-hood

empowerment

is a mega-goal that underlies all

other goals. Otherpriorities included"real"jobsthat

are meaningful, with decent

pay, sincethisisakey to

self-esteem and solving problems

such as crime; financing for

new

businesses because they

will create jobs; ensuring that neighborhoodresidents are

ac-tivelyinvolvedinplanning and staffingprograms;programsto involve youth in solving

com-munityproblems; and the

cre-ation ofpartnerships oflocal

organizationsthat can

make

a

difference."

While the goal of

neighbor-hood

empowerment

received

thelion's shareofthefiinds in

Greensboro's proposed

bud-get, the task force

was

reluc-tant to design specific

pro-grams

until aplanning process could be put in place that

in-volved residents. Past

pro-grams had

failed, they rea-soned, becausethis involvement

was

missing on the front end.

They

recognized that it

would

take time,

but proposed building

upon

the neighborhood

orga-nizing

work

ofgroups such as the Greensboro City

Wide

Poor People's Organization, Project

Greens-boro, Project Homestead, Bennett College

Commu-nity Development Corporation, and the Greensboro

Episcopal Housing Ministry.

Greensboro has an enviable record inthe areaof

affordable housing, yet the strategic plan

recom-mended

that these efforts be redoubled because of

the growing need.

The

plan cited Eastside Park, a

neighborhood revitalization project sponsored

by

coali-tionoffive Rotar>'Clubs, asamodelforfiiture

neigh-borhoodrevitalizationefforts. Neighborhoods United

and

the City of

Greensboro

partnered with nine nonprofits to renovate houses and provide the ser-vices needed to restorethis once vibrant community.

Substandard and boarded-uphouseswereanotherkey

commimity

development issue in thatthey represent

wastedresourcesanddiscourage

home

ownership and

neighborhood re\'italization.

The

plan points out the need for

North

Carolina enabling legislation that

would

give local housing inspectors

more

authority to correct housing conditions.

Expanded and

im-proved communit\' policing

was

seen as the answer

to neighborhood safety issues. Greensboro's pilot

Police Neighborhood Resource Centers infour

pub-lic housing communities has proven ver\' successfiil

andshouldbeexpanded. This

program

relieson

com-munication and partnership building with

neighbor-hood

groups infighting crime.

The

educationstrategy basically calls fortaking

advantage ofGreensboro's wealth of educational

re-sources, fromits public schoolsystemtoits five

col-leges anduniversities, as well as Guilford Technical

Community

College.

The

strategy

emphasizes

mentoringandsupportiveservicesfor

young

children to help

them

before they have problems in school. It

also includes the creationofaccessibleand

non-struc-tured environments where

young

people and adults

can be exposedto

new

technologies and mformation

tools and canseek careerguidance. Education

Com-mittee

members

wereespecially interested

m

the role

oftechnology, hence the recommendation for

mo-bile learning services, such as the

Tech

Mobile or

Computer

Mobile. Tlie plan recognizes the Chavis

Lifelong Learning Library as a model for

commu-nity resourcecenters. At Chavis, abranch library in

theproposed

EC

area, a coalitionof60organizations

work

topromote readingand literacy and providean

array of supportive educational services.

Human

service strategies focused on fixing

pro-grams

that have built-in disincentives to self-suffi-ciency or that actually encourage dependency. For

example, in

some

instances welfare benefits can be

lost during job training or before the individual has

become

self-sufficient. Accessibility to services

was

also identified asanissue.However,

when

it

was

sug-gested that outreach facilities be placed

m

the

EC

neighborhoods, residents objected strenuously that

they

would

furtherstigmatizetheirneighborhoodsand hurt revitalization efforts.

From

that point thefocus

shifted to information about services, transportation and access to services, and affordability.

The

plan

recommends

that

human

serviceinformationbe

com-piled,alongwith informationabouthousmg,job train-ing, child care, transportation, andmore, andbe

dis-tributed to residents.

A

computerized

Community

In-formation

Network

could be operated fi"omresource

centers located in existing neighborhood facilities such aslibraries or recreation centers. Otherpartsof

the

human

service strategy include a coordinated

ap-plication systemforall

human

services, andtraining for neighborhoodresidents to operate affordable day care, transportation, and other services.

The

final pieceofthe

human

services strategyis toaddress the special needsofyouthandtheelderly, andtoinvolve

them

m

planmng, developing, and implementing

so-lutions.

The

Future

Although Greensboro

was

not

awarded

an

EC

grant, a

number

of activities are

underway

that are either directly or indirectly related to the strategic

planning process:

ConsolidatedPlanning

and

the

Community

Resource

Board

The

City's ConsolidatedPlanning process began shortlyafterthe

EC

application projectandbuilt

upon

the strategic plan.

The

Consolidated Plan pulls to-getherthreeFederalprograms and

two

locally-fiinded

programs administered by the Department of

Hous-ing and

Community

Development in a comprehen-sive and integrated strategy to address the needs of

allthecity'sneighborhoods.

The

cornerstoneisa five-year strategic plan that continues the

neighborhood-based planning strategy that

was

launched

by

the

Enterprise

Community

initiative.

The

primary goals

are to build the problem-solving capacity of

neigh-borhood organizations in order to bring all ofthe

community's resources to bear in addressing these

problems.

The

plan is predicated

upon

collaboration betweeneducationalinstitutions,

human

service

agen-cies, nonprofit organizations, churches. City and

County

departments, and charitable organizations.

The

Community

Resource

Board

(CRB)

was

created

in 1995 to

make

recommendations to theCity

Coun-cil regarding the allocation of housing and

commu-nity development resources. Conceived in a climate

of heightened competition, the

CRB

is responsible

for ensuring that increasingly limited resources are

usedasefficientlyaspossibleandare allocated

VOLUME

21

NUMBER

35

Mayor

's

Committee

on

Community Economic

Development

Inthewinterof1995,Greensboro

was

invited to participate in the National League ofCities'

Urban

Poverty and Cities Initiative, an experiment in team

building to enable

communities

to create

public-private partnerships.

A

team from Greensboro

composed

of city staffand

community

leaders at-tendeda

workshop

hosted

by

the League andthe City

of Charlotte, along with teams from Boston, Little

Rock,and

Oklahoma

Cit>'. That expenenceledtothe creation ofthe

Mayor's

Committee on

Community

Economic

Development.

The

stated goalofthis

com-mittee is "to create the publicwillthat is essential in

order to begin the task ofaddressing the economic

needs of neighborhoods. This partnership

must

in-clude corporateas well as

community

leaders work-ing collaboratively to link residents of poor

neigh-borhoods with the economic resources of our

com-munity."

Over

the last year the committee has been working onastrategytoengagethebusinessand

cor-porate leadership in a neighborhood economic

de-velopment

program

by convincing

them

thatthe

well-being of the entire

community

is jeopardized

when

even one neighborhood suffers frompoverty.

Community

Information BrokerProject

Because Greensboro submitted an

EC

applica-tion, the City

was

invited to participate in a unique telecommunications study called the

Community

In-formation Broker project sponsored by the

Depart-mentof

Commerce

andtheNorthCarolinaClientand

Community

Development Center.

The

project is ex-ploring

ways

that telecommunications and the

infor-mation

highway

can assist communities in

imple-mentingtheir

EC

strategic plans.

The

premiseis that residents of poor neighborhoods do not share in the economicbenefits ofelectronic networkingand other

telecommunicationstechnologies.

The

projectis

test-ing a

new

model

—

community

information brokers.

These are individuals

who

would

serve as

network-ingintermediaries fortheircommunities.

They would

demonstrate the potentialoftheinformationhighway

to enhance the capacity of organizations and

agen-ciesthat serveresidents of poorneighborhoods, since

this technology is usually beyond their reach.

The

project

was

a

good

fit for Greensboro since the

EC

strategic plan emphasized the potential ofcomputer

technology and the information

highway

to create

economic opportunity for

EC

residents.

Statewide Networking

Greensboro is participating in a networking

ini-tiativeoftheNorth Carolina Divisionof

Community

Assistance for

EC

applicantcommunities.

The

Divi-sion,which ispartofthe North Carolina Department

of

Commerce,

played a key role in the application process for the state's Enterprise

Community

appli-cants. Divisionstaffcontinuetolookfor

ways

tohelp

unsuccessful

EC

applicants implement their

strate-gic plans using other resources.

The

Division has hosted several meetings (some via teleconference)

where stafffrom the various communities can

ex-change information about progress they have

made

in implementing their strategic plans, and they can

learn about other federal and state programs. Cur-rently, the Division of

Community

Assistance is

partneringwiththeUniversityofNorthCarolina

Cen-ter for

Urban

and Regional Studies on a grant pro-posal on behalf ofthe state's

EC

cities to the

Envi-ronmental Protection

Agency's

Brownfields

Eco-nomic Redevelopment

Initiative.

The

project will

study the economic redevelopment potential of

con-taminated,vacant, orunderutilizedsites incentercity neighborhoods.

The

project will focus on sites that

could have economic development benefits for

resi-dents of

EC

neighborhoods.

Summary

Although Greensboro

was

not one ofthe cities

awarded

an Enterprise

Community

grant, the city benefited from applying. Cityplanners

now

have an

action plan for the economic revitalization of poor

neighborhoodsthatcanserve thecommunity'foryears

tocome. At its heartis theconceptofhelpingpeople to help themselves.

With

this plan in hand,

commu-nity-based organizations and residents can seek

as-sistance fortheir neighborhoods fromany

number

of

sources.

Many

ofthe recommendations in the plan

are ver\' practical solutions to neighborhood prob-lemsthatdonot necessarily costalotofmoney, such asseeking strongerhousing code legislation.

The

EC

strategic planning process demonstrated the advan-tages ofcollaboration and

was

a catalyst forthe

for-mation ofan informal coalition ofneighborhood

or-ganizationsandresidents.

Most

importantly,this part-nership includes local government departments and

agenciesas well as theleadership ofthe private