The Role of Neighborhood Residents in Directing Neighborhood Change

Foundation Village NFC and Highpoint NFC

December 2-4, 2001

Staff Session

It is critical for staff to comprehend the distinction between delivering services and building community.

   

Service Delivery

Community Building

1

Unit of action

Target group

Natural community (neighborhood)

2

Overall goal

Improvement in functioning

Collective efficacy (capacity for collection action)

3

Scope of intervention

Individuals and families

Conditions of life (context/environment)

4

Focus

Traits, symptoms, characteristics

Relationships, networks

5

Basic tactic

Casework/remediation

Capacity building

6

Methodology

Deficits based

Strengths based

 

Neighbors Session

The proper, powerful roles for residents in directing community change include at least the following:

  1. Setting the agenda for change or development

    2. This includes deciding what is important, what comes first, and what are the values we are seeking?

  2. Identifying resources in the neighborhood as a foundation for change

    3. Neighbors should play a central role in conducting or assisting with the inventory of neighborhood assets.

  3. Accepting and assigning responsibility

    4. Neighbors must step forward and accept responsibility for much of the work and help to divide up tasks among themselves and their supporters (e.g., NFC staff, FSC staff).

  4. Holding people and institutions accountable

    5. Neighbors are in the best position to demand that politicians, school board members, institution directors, local leaders, police and county officials do their jobs. Neighbors also have the moral standing to hold each other accountable for behavior that influences the health, safety, security and peace of the neighborhood.

  5. Setting standards for conduct in the neighborhood

    6. Neighbors decide, within the framework of community-wide laws, what is tolerated and what is not tolerated. They determine through their actions or silence what gets fixed or repaired and what is let go. Neighbors also influence each other’s behavior by modeling standards of conduct.

  6. Expressing ownership of public space

    7. Through action or inaction neighbors communicate who owns the public areas of the neighborhood. Neighbors can communicate powerful messages by acting on behalf of public order, whether it be picking up trash, fixing graffiti or calling the police. Neighbors organize, staff and participate in neighborhood rituals and institutions that express ownership, including crime watch, block parent clubs, trick-or-treating, "take back the night" demonstrations, and other initiatives.

  7. Engagement in governance

    8. Neighbors are the only group authorized to vote on their own behalf. They have opportunities to exercise power by attending meetings that affect the neighborhood’s agenda, and exercising their voice through their representatives.

  8. Building capacity in the neighborhood

    9. Neighbors can bring new skills, relationships, institutions and other resources into the neighborhood. They can work to make resources more accessible to other neighborhood residents, or make the resources work better.

  9. Strengthening social networks

Neighbors are able to establish new relationship with others within the neighborhood, and sometimes can build new bridges with people and institutions outside the neighborhood.