Little Village is serious about capturing all the public money it can. With a series of interviews of local leaders, it makes the case to residents that every person counted will make a big difference in how much money is allocated locally -- the equivalent over 10 years of another top-notch facility like Little Village Lawndale High School.
The leaders repeatedly stress that Census data is completely confidential and that it is not shared with any other government agency (such as immigration, a big reason that some residents haven't filled out the forms in the past). One priest even suggests that not being counted is a "social sin, a sin of omission."
It's in Spanish with English subtitles, and was produced by Enlace Chicago's Dahriian Espinoza, with help from Jaime de Leon. Check it out.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
The How and Why of Comprehensive Development
How does comprehensive community development actually get done? What's involved and how long does it take? How do politics, funding, and local rivalries factor in?
Those questions and others will be the focus of a new web site launched Friday by the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development. A brand-new venture of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Institute is targeted to community development practitioners, researchers, government officials, funders and others interested in the comprehensive approach to community building. From the web site's About Us section:
The Institute for Comprehensive Community Development was established to advance the field of comprehensive community development and the positive impact it has in urban and rural communities across the country. We do this by:There are opinion pieces, as well, plus case studies and a library that will build over time. If you're part of the action, check it out, add information about your organization, and tell others what you're up to.
- Building the capacity of community development practitioners;
- Providing on-site support and technical assistance to comprehensive community development initiatives in cities across the U.S.;
- Applying lessons learned through research and performance evaluation to continually improve on-going comprehensive community development initiatives and to develop new initiatives;
- Supporting the development of public policies which integrate government programs in order to effectively facilitate and support comprehensive community development;
- Communicating broadly the best there is in practice and theory in the field of community development.
The Institute is a place where the community development field can take what it learns from practice and use it as a base from which to provide training, to promote research in comprehensive community development, and to investigate the public policies that would best advance this work locally and nationally. The Institute is the locus where practice and theory meet, and where experimentation and innovation – grounded in real-world experience – flourish.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Big Boosts Coming for Neighborhood Small & Micro Biz
In last night's State of the Union address, President Barack Obama pledged $30 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) funds to community banks for small business loans.
Chicago is ahead of the curve on this one, to a smaller tune. Last November, City Treasurer Stephanie Neely announced the city would devote $5 million of Skyway lease funds to a loan fund for microenterprises--business with five employees or fewer. Accion Chicago has already received $750,000 and is making loans between $10,000 and $25,000 to qualifying businesses. You can watch her talk about it here.
According to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, a trade association supporting microbusinesses, these tiny enterprises generate 17 percent of the jobs in Cook County. Good things come in small packages, and it's good to see local and national government stepping up to support them as they spur economic recovery.
Chicago is ahead of the curve on this one, to a smaller tune. Last November, City Treasurer Stephanie Neely announced the city would devote $5 million of Skyway lease funds to a loan fund for microenterprises--business with five employees or fewer. Accion Chicago has already received $750,000 and is making loans between $10,000 and $25,000 to qualifying businesses. You can watch her talk about it here.
According to the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, a trade association supporting microbusinesses, these tiny enterprises generate 17 percent of the jobs in Cook County. Good things come in small packages, and it's good to see local and national government stepping up to support them as they spur economic recovery.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
School-Community Partnerships for Extended Learning
Catalyst Chicago just published a great set of stories on how Chicago might extend its abysmally short school day and year. The lead story shows how Marquette Elementary extended the day for its middle school students by one hour with money from Elev8.
To add real time to the system would require a generous infusion of cash. District officials and local nonprofits like the Academy for Urban School Leadership are pinning their hopes on the federal Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants as possible sources of money to extend learning time across the system.
At today's Catalyst/BPI policy luncheon, a city official made the case that out-of-school time programs will be essential however the effort to extend learning proceeds. "I don't think we're going to extend the school day or school year any time soon, given our budget constraints," said Mary Ellen Caron, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services. "Even if we do [extend school time], we still need to provide robust out-of-school time programming."
This is where community partners come in. Today's lunch featured the dynamic duo of Lila Leff, executive director of the Umoja Student Development Corporation, and Sean Stallings, until recently the principal of Manley HIgh School. Umoja has long partnered with Manley, and under Stallings' leadership the partnership went deeper and pushed the school in a positive direction. Both of them talked turkey about the challenges schools and outside partners face in working together--the importance of shared vision and hard conversations to make sure both parties are on the same page. Both said if the meeting of minds isn't there, you've got to walk away, even when that is hard.
"As a school person, we're inundated with programs. They're all over the place," said Stallings. School leaders have to be willing to weed out the ones that don't fit the vision, and support the ones that fit well, including pushing staff to get on board with the partnership.
From the nonprofit community side, "being a critical friend is really important," Leff emphasized. "At every place we operate, we operate as a thought partner with the school." Partnerships may start off with everyone thinking they are on the same page, but as the real work begins "the conversation gets messy, louder, a little hostile sometimes. We've learned to say 'let's have the tough conversations.'" As it has expanded its partnerships with more schools, Umoja has also learned to judge when it can help a principal move a faculty in the direction of supporting youth development and promoting youth voice, and when it can't. "We try to help the principal think like a community organizer about the school." When that's not possible, Umoja pulls out--and has done so "on occasions that almost fill one hand." Leff acknowledged.
During questions and answers, someone asked whether there's training for schools and community groups to partner successfully? "No," said Leff. "It has really been a process of inventing it," and talking with others involved in the work. "It is an art and a science. Both these roles need to be honored."
On a more hopeful note, Suzanne Armato of the Federation for Community Schools said her group offers a two-day training on this topic. For more information, check out the Federation here.
To add real time to the system would require a generous infusion of cash. District officials and local nonprofits like the Academy for Urban School Leadership are pinning their hopes on the federal Race to the Top and Investing in Innovation grants as possible sources of money to extend learning time across the system.
At today's Catalyst/BPI policy luncheon, a city official made the case that out-of-school time programs will be essential however the effort to extend learning proceeds. "I don't think we're going to extend the school day or school year any time soon, given our budget constraints," said Mary Ellen Caron, Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services. "Even if we do [extend school time], we still need to provide robust out-of-school time programming."
This is where community partners come in. Today's lunch featured the dynamic duo of Lila Leff, executive director of the Umoja Student Development Corporation, and Sean Stallings, until recently the principal of Manley HIgh School. Umoja has long partnered with Manley, and under Stallings' leadership the partnership went deeper and pushed the school in a positive direction. Both of them talked turkey about the challenges schools and outside partners face in working together--the importance of shared vision and hard conversations to make sure both parties are on the same page. Both said if the meeting of minds isn't there, you've got to walk away, even when that is hard.
"As a school person, we're inundated with programs. They're all over the place," said Stallings. School leaders have to be willing to weed out the ones that don't fit the vision, and support the ones that fit well, including pushing staff to get on board with the partnership.
From the nonprofit community side, "being a critical friend is really important," Leff emphasized. "At every place we operate, we operate as a thought partner with the school." Partnerships may start off with everyone thinking they are on the same page, but as the real work begins "the conversation gets messy, louder, a little hostile sometimes. We've learned to say 'let's have the tough conversations.'" As it has expanded its partnerships with more schools, Umoja has also learned to judge when it can help a principal move a faculty in the direction of supporting youth development and promoting youth voice, and when it can't. "We try to help the principal think like a community organizer about the school." When that's not possible, Umoja pulls out--and has done so "on occasions that almost fill one hand." Leff acknowledged.
During questions and answers, someone asked whether there's training for schools and community groups to partner successfully? "No," said Leff. "It has really been a process of inventing it," and talking with others involved in the work. "It is an art and a science. Both these roles need to be honored."
On a more hopeful note, Suzanne Armato of the Federation for Community Schools said her group offers a two-day training on this topic. For more information, check out the Federation here.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Stimulus, Neighborhoods and Schools
A couple of recent news items from the Chicago Public schools related to stimulus spending have caught my attention. First, today's hot CPS story is the announcement of details about the district's $30 million, stimulus-funded plan to reduce youth violence. WBEZ's Linda Lutton did a good overall piece on it, which you can read or listen to here. Back in September when the plan was first announced, Englewood pastors loudly complained about a Philadelphia-based agency taking on the task of, and the pay for, working with at-risk youth. For the next five months, the district's chief executive officer, Ron Huberman, zipped his lip about the plan.
According to the Catalyst Notebook blog, Huberman unzipped his lip at a press conference at Englewood's Robeson High School yesterday just enough to let us know that the work with high-risk youth will now be split among community agencies, plus the Philadelphia group, Youth Advocate Programs. Looks to me like the pastors' voices were heard. The Philadelphia group will be paid to work with the 250 highest-risk students, while community agencies will be hired to work with another 2000 students. The two efforts will eat up $10 million, or one-third of the total funds available. Another $2 million will go toward community patrols to ensure students have safe passage to and from school, like the effort Huberman helped kickstart last March in Little Village, which I wrote about here.
I certainly hope this will be an opportunity for NCP neighborhoods with strong antiviolence work in place, like Little Village and Auburn Gresham, to put more gas in their tanks, as well as helping other neighborhoods plant new efforts or help their seedling projects grow.
Second, last week Mayor Daley and the district announced significant new bonds for school construction made possible through stimulus. According to the press release, CPS used approximately $22 million for emergency repairs at Bond, Caldwell, Ebinger, Harlan, Gallistel, Schneider, Sumner and Yale schools, plus $7 million to renovate four CPS turnaround schools: Bethune, Dulles, Fenger, and Johnson. While urgent repairs are key in an underfunded system with decades of deferred maintenance, and turning around a school ought to include needed repairs, only one of these schools (Ebinger) is on the heavily overcrowded Northwest Side. And none of the early spending addresses the long-neglected problem of overcrowded schools on the Southwest Side. (Full disclosure: I'm a Southwest Sider, though I don't live in the bull's-eye of the overcrowding zone.) Back in 2005 a colleague and I analyzed where the kids were and where CPS capital dollars went; the numbers didn't match up well. You can read our analysis here.
Back then, the district cried poor, saying there was no money left to address overcrowding. Well, there's new money now. Unfortunately, there's a lot of new faces in district leadership, which means new priorities and lost institutional memory. Let's hope some of it gets spent this time on longstanding overcrowding in places like Chicago Lawn, Gage Park and Brighton Park. Jimmy Dispensa (head of demographics for CPS), can you put a bug in Ron's ear on this?
According to the Catalyst Notebook blog, Huberman unzipped his lip at a press conference at Englewood's Robeson High School yesterday just enough to let us know that the work with high-risk youth will now be split among community agencies, plus the Philadelphia group, Youth Advocate Programs. Looks to me like the pastors' voices were heard. The Philadelphia group will be paid to work with the 250 highest-risk students, while community agencies will be hired to work with another 2000 students. The two efforts will eat up $10 million, or one-third of the total funds available. Another $2 million will go toward community patrols to ensure students have safe passage to and from school, like the effort Huberman helped kickstart last March in Little Village, which I wrote about here.
I certainly hope this will be an opportunity for NCP neighborhoods with strong antiviolence work in place, like Little Village and Auburn Gresham, to put more gas in their tanks, as well as helping other neighborhoods plant new efforts or help their seedling projects grow.
Second, last week Mayor Daley and the district announced significant new bonds for school construction made possible through stimulus. According to the press release, CPS used approximately $22 million for emergency repairs at Bond, Caldwell, Ebinger, Harlan, Gallistel, Schneider, Sumner and Yale schools, plus $7 million to renovate four CPS turnaround schools: Bethune, Dulles, Fenger, and Johnson. While urgent repairs are key in an underfunded system with decades of deferred maintenance, and turning around a school ought to include needed repairs, only one of these schools (Ebinger) is on the heavily overcrowded Northwest Side. And none of the early spending addresses the long-neglected problem of overcrowded schools on the Southwest Side. (Full disclosure: I'm a Southwest Sider, though I don't live in the bull's-eye of the overcrowding zone.) Back in 2005 a colleague and I analyzed where the kids were and where CPS capital dollars went; the numbers didn't match up well. You can read our analysis here.
Back then, the district cried poor, saying there was no money left to address overcrowding. Well, there's new money now. Unfortunately, there's a lot of new faces in district leadership, which means new priorities and lost institutional memory. Let's hope some of it gets spent this time on longstanding overcrowding in places like Chicago Lawn, Gage Park and Brighton Park. Jimmy Dispensa (head of demographics for CPS), can you put a bug in Ron's ear on this?
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Broadband, Narrow Minds
I've been on this Earth and around this town long enough that virulent sourness about what sounds to my ears like positive lifting up of poor people and communities of color rarely surprises me too much.
Even so, I had a hard time swallowing the anger expressed in many of the comments following the Chicago Tribune's article about Mayor Daley's Dec. 21 announcement about the city's attempt to seek federal stimulus funding for a technology initiative in five neighborhoods that are part of LISC/Chicago's New Communities Program.
This will provide broadband Internet access, installation of public computer terminals, and technology education in Auburn Gresham, Englewood, Chicago Lawn, Pilsen and Humboldt Park, which research has shown have a relative lack of this increasingly vital 21st century infrastructure.
A bit more over the top than most, but not a whole lot more, was this screed by someone billed as "steadfast14":
(You can read them all here while they last, if you haven't already heard enough. Or, you can find links to the Tribune's and other news organizations' stories here.)
I will refrain here from any snarky reference to steadfast14's education level or likelihood of MENSA membership, but does it occur to him/her that increased access to job boards like monster.com or Craigslist might provide a path to employment for "those who haven't worked" -- who, by the way, are pretty numerous in communities of many stripes right now?
Does steadfast14 stop to think that the increased access to computers and skills they provide might provide hope for young people who might otherwise be tempted by the quick bucks that, indeed, cause certain communities to face disproportionate amounts of crime?
That the vast majority of people from these communities don't participate in that crime, and that many are trying to build communities where they can "dare walk alone at night"?
Would he/she really prefer, even if statistics back up the claim (and no references are provided) that residents of these communities continue to "use a disproportionately high amount of state services ... on your dime?"
Does the status quo better fit steadfast14's definition of "Brilliant!!!"?
Or, is it Smarter to provide infrastructure and supports to "teach a man to fish," 21st century-style?
Even so, I had a hard time swallowing the anger expressed in many of the comments following the Chicago Tribune's article about Mayor Daley's Dec. 21 announcement about the city's attempt to seek federal stimulus funding for a technology initiative in five neighborhoods that are part of LISC/Chicago's New Communities Program.
This will provide broadband Internet access, installation of public computer terminals, and technology education in Auburn Gresham, Englewood, Chicago Lawn, Pilsen and Humboldt Park, which research has shown have a relative lack of this increasingly vital 21st century infrastructure.
A bit more over the top than most, but not a whole lot more, was this screed by someone billed as "steadfast14":
I love how the first "Smart Communities" are most likely populated by some of the dumbest people in the city. What is the high school graduation rate for the people living in the first "Smart Communities?" How many have obtained college or professional degrees? I am sure Englewood has a disproportionately high concentration of MENSA members.
Isn't it great when you see a something that you have to pay for yourself given to those who haven't worked to enjoy it? Isn't even better when those same recipients come from the area of the city where much of the crime comes from and where the inhabitants use a disproportionately high amount of state services others are forced to pay for? Now parts of the city where you don't dare walk alone at night will have high speed internet access, on your dime. Brilliant!!!
(You can read them all here while they last, if you haven't already heard enough. Or, you can find links to the Tribune's and other news organizations' stories here.)
I will refrain here from any snarky reference to steadfast14's education level or likelihood of MENSA membership, but does it occur to him/her that increased access to job boards like monster.com or Craigslist might provide a path to employment for "those who haven't worked" -- who, by the way, are pretty numerous in communities of many stripes right now?
Does steadfast14 stop to think that the increased access to computers and skills they provide might provide hope for young people who might otherwise be tempted by the quick bucks that, indeed, cause certain communities to face disproportionate amounts of crime?
That the vast majority of people from these communities don't participate in that crime, and that many are trying to build communities where they can "dare walk alone at night"?
Would he/she really prefer, even if statistics back up the claim (and no references are provided) that residents of these communities continue to "use a disproportionately high amount of state services ... on your dime?"
Does the status quo better fit steadfast14's definition of "Brilliant!!!"?
Or, is it Smarter to provide infrastructure and supports to "teach a man to fish," 21st century-style?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Changing the Face of Science, One Neighborhood at a Time
I've blogged here before about the idea of community science workshops where neighborhood kids and families could go mess around, build rockets, and so forth. Earlier today my friend Gabrielle Lyon took the idea a few steps farther in an op-ed piece on the Huffington Post. Gabe is the co-founder of Project Exploration, which expands access to science by
connecting minority youth and girls with scientists and creating opportunities for youth to explore scientific problems alongside them. Project Exploration is one of Elev8 Chicago's extended-day providers. Their Sisters4Science program is going great guns with middle school girls at Reavis Elementary and Perspectives Calumet Middle School. For a taste of what they are all about, read the article here.
connecting minority youth and girls with scientists and creating opportunities for youth to explore scientific problems alongside them. Project Exploration is one of Elev8 Chicago's extended-day providers. Their Sisters4Science program is going great guns with middle school girls at Reavis Elementary and Perspectives Calumet Middle School. For a taste of what they are all about, read the article here.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
A Couple Links
I thought these unrelated links would be of some interest to the Community Beat community:
* National syndicated columnist Neal Peirce of Washington Post Writers Group covered innovative methods to combat youth violence, with a nod toward Chicago's CeaseFire program. http://citiwire.net/post/1480/
* The MacArthur Foundation has posted a video of Adolfo Carrion, urban affairs director for the Obama White House, giving an address to LISC/Chicago's recent "Chicago Rising" gathering. http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4284677/apps/s/content.asp?ct=7655857&utm_source=pubaff&utm_medium=email&utm_content=enews&utm_campaign=nov09_enews&tr=y&auid=5623653
* National syndicated columnist Neal Peirce of Washington Post Writers Group covered innovative methods to combat youth violence, with a nod toward Chicago's CeaseFire program. http://citiwire.net/post/1480/
* The MacArthur Foundation has posted a video of Adolfo Carrion, urban affairs director for the Obama White House, giving an address to LISC/Chicago's recent "Chicago Rising" gathering. http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.4284677/apps/s/content.asp?ct=7655857&utm_source=pubaff&utm_medium=email&utm_content=enews&utm_campaign=nov09_enews&tr=y&auid=5623653
Monday, October 19, 2009
Marquette Students Tour the "Information Neighborhood"
Tomorrow afternoon, Trib columnist Clarence Page will visit Marquette Elementary to talk with middle schoolers about the news business and why news is important. About 150 6th-graders have been gearing up for the visit by studying a curriculum developed by the News Literacy Project. Last week Chicago coordinator Peter Adams told me about one of their activities--exploring the "information neighborhoods" in a newspaper--page one, metro, sports, advertising inserts. "We go through and talk about who produced this, what its goal is, things like that," to better understand the relationship between advertisers, reporters and the paper as a whole.
Last Friday students examined digital and viral media hoaxes to learn more about what a reliable source is. I know firsthand the worth of activities like this. Back in 2006, my neighbor Daniel, then 12 years old, stopped me on the street and said, "Mark Ecko tagged Air Force One."
"What?" I responded, shocked.
"Yeah, he tagged it. It's on You Tube," Daniel told me. So we went in my house and watched the video. (You can see it here.) It was so well done it had me going for a minute. Then we looked for reliable news stories about his feat and quickly discovered it was a very clever fake--he rented a Boeing jet and painted it to look like Air Force One. According to Ecko's own website, the fake was so good it had the military double-checking whether anyone had been on the runway to shoot it.
If people like me, who've worked in news, and even the Pentagon are doing double-takes at a video hoax, how is a 12-year-old supposed to know it's not true? That's what the News Literacy Project hopes to teach--the skills to separate the fact from the fiction, opinion and advertising that dominate the media landscape, especially in new media. It's great work, and more Chicago schools are looking to get on board in 2010. For more about the News LIteracy Project and tomorrow's event, check out this article on the LISC/Chicago website.
Last Friday students examined digital and viral media hoaxes to learn more about what a reliable source is. I know firsthand the worth of activities like this. Back in 2006, my neighbor Daniel, then 12 years old, stopped me on the street and said, "Mark Ecko tagged Air Force One."
"What?" I responded, shocked.
"Yeah, he tagged it. It's on You Tube," Daniel told me. So we went in my house and watched the video. (You can see it here.) It was so well done it had me going for a minute. Then we looked for reliable news stories about his feat and quickly discovered it was a very clever fake--he rented a Boeing jet and painted it to look like Air Force One. According to Ecko's own website, the fake was so good it had the military double-checking whether anyone had been on the runway to shoot it.
If people like me, who've worked in news, and even the Pentagon are doing double-takes at a video hoax, how is a 12-year-old supposed to know it's not true? That's what the News Literacy Project hopes to teach--the skills to separate the fact from the fiction, opinion and advertising that dominate the media landscape, especially in new media. It's great work, and more Chicago schools are looking to get on board in 2010. For more about the News LIteracy Project and tomorrow's event, check out this article on the LISC/Chicago website.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Life After 2016
Well, Chicagoans, by now you know we didn't get the bid. But take heart, we've made a splash on the world stage and we're still a great city to come and visit, or to be a tourist in your own town. Mark you calendars for October 10, when the Burnham Plan Centennial will sponsor a new round of community showcase tours.
Our friend Mandy Burrell Booth at Metropolitan Planning Commission put it well, writing in a Facebook status update: "It's time to move on. The Olympics were just one opportunity of many to reinvest in Chicago neighborhoods that are ripe for redevelopment." You can see her take on the neighborhoods here.
On Worldview today, Jerome McDonnell asked, "Does Chicago need a Carnival to spice things up?" But I think we're plenty spicy as it is. This weekend I expect to visit the Little VIllage Arts Fest and stop by Delicias Mexicanas for a Mexican hot dog--with bacon. Mmmm...bacon...mmmm....Gotta love the Hog Butcher to the World, whether or not the IOC loved us enough this time.
Our friend Mandy Burrell Booth at Metropolitan Planning Commission put it well, writing in a Facebook status update: "It's time to move on. The Olympics were just one opportunity of many to reinvest in Chicago neighborhoods that are ripe for redevelopment." You can see her take on the neighborhoods here.
On Worldview today, Jerome McDonnell asked, "Does Chicago need a Carnival to spice things up?" But I think we're plenty spicy as it is. This weekend I expect to visit the Little VIllage Arts Fest and stop by Delicias Mexicanas for a Mexican hot dog--with bacon. Mmmm...bacon...mmmm....Gotta love the Hog Butcher to the World, whether or not the IOC loved us enough this time.
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