NEIGHBORHOOD BUILDING

Neighborhoods in the City of Reading are faced with numerous challenges. The city has seen a loss of over 3,000 jobs in the past two years. The city’s only hospital will be moving to the suburbs in the near future taking with it another 600 jobs and changing the face of emergency medical care for many of the city’s most vulnerable residents. Unemployment grows while the number of students completing high school dwindles. Schools in some Reading neighborhoods see the entire student population turn over in the course of one school year.

Housing in the city is by and large affordable, but much of the available housing stock is in substandard condition. For example, a home that can be purchased for $20,000 will require that much in repairs just to bring the property in compliance with the city’s building code. Lack of green space and off-street parking send prospective homeowners (and responsible landlords) to the suburbs to look for homes. Crime, litter and disorder quicken their flight.

Neighborhood Housing Services of Reading’s Neighborhood Building Initiative targets resident associations in Reading neighborhoods that experience the worst of the above—Sixth Ward Concerned Citizens, Dare 2 Care of the 15th Ward, and the Southeast Community Council. Over the next two years, we hope to expand that list to include the five or six neighborhoods in the city hit hardest by blight and disorder. Through this initiative, we hope to organize the residents and help them recognize the assets they have within their communities, and help coordinate resident-driven plans and projects to make their neighborhoods stronger.

The purpose of the Neighborhood Building Initiative is to improve the physical and social conditions in the target neighborhoods. While there are many special programs supporting home purchase financing, there is little good accomplished by these programs if the homes are in crime-ridden areas, or are surrounded by environmental problems such as deteriorating playgrounds (or none), trash piles or vacant buildings. Through this Initiative, NHS will provide necessary resources to resident groups in those areas to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods. Sometimes it will include ‘taking back’ the neighborhood from criminals; other times it will entail cleaning up public and private areas from trash; still others may need to concentrate on job development. In most cases, all of the above will apply.

The goal of the Neighborhood Building Initiative is to increase resident involvement in Neighborhood Associations in the Initiative’s target areas, and to increase the involvement and impact of the activities of those Associations. In most cases, neighborhood associations in Reading in low-income areas lack three things they need to be successful.

1. Resources. Neighborhood Associations in areas of Reading experiencing the most neighborhood problems (Crime, Blight, Trash, Disorder, etc.) lack the means to access financial assistance to stage successful neighborhood improvement activities and outreach. They lack the resources to apply for grants (grant writing experience, people with the requisite skills and time, nonprofit status, etc), and their neighborhoods are such that fundraising opportunities are limited.

2. Organization. Resident Groups in those areas also lack organizational structures to coordinate successful activities and maintain an active membership. The organizational and administrative burden invariably falls on one or two individuals in the group, and success is impeded by burnout and lack of follow-through.

3. Momentum. Success breeds success in resident activities as in most other things. A neighborhood group cannot sustain itself in the absence of meaningful, successful activities. Once a group is able to move past the barriers mentioned above, resident organization becomes like a snowball falling down the mountain: speed, size and impact all increase rapidly, and the struggle goes from ‘getting things moving’ to ‘staying on course.’

NHS’ Neighborhood Building Initiative provides the means for Resident Groups and Neighborhood Associations to overcome these three barriers to successful resident-driven neighborhood improvement activities in several ways. The foremost of those is in the support of NHS’ Director of Neighborhood Building (DNB). The DNB is a nonprofit professional experienced in strategic community planning, community organizing, grant writing and nonprofit administration. His role is to work with resident groups in NHS’ target areas to help those groups:

1) identify neighborhood needs and resources

2) develop strategies to improve resident involvement in the groups

3) develop plans for and implement successful neighborhood improvement activities

4) obtain resources for the implementation of those activities.

Operation Facelift
Neighborhood Housing Services of Reading’s annual Neighborhood Improvement project, Operation FaceLift, is held each year in celebration of National Homeownership Week. Operation FaceLift solicits volunteers and contributions from the Berks County Community to improve the environment and appearance in neighborhoods in the City of Reading. NHS’ Neighborhood Building Department works with community organizations and Neighborhood Associations to plan and carry out a resident-driven, volunteer-based neighborhood improvement project for a target area in Reading.

Operation FaceLift Goals

• Increase participation in area Neighborhood Associations in the area by at least 50% over the next year.
• Promote inter-Neighborhood Association cooperation.
• Remove litter and trash from the target area
• Improve the appearance of the target area by planting flowers along its length.
• Involve at least 500 volunteers.
• Improve at least 75 homes.
• Increase the visibility of Neighborhood Associations in the community.
• Obtain pledges from 200 residents to keep their homes in a neat, trash-free condition.
• Provide “momentum” for future successful community activities.
• Increase lines of communication between Neighborhood Associations and community organizations and institutions (churches, government, schools, nonprofit organizations, etc).

The primary goal of this project is to improve resident involvement in the community, particularly in regard to participation in the Neighborhood Associations in the area. To that end, the event will include regular and frequent opportunities for the Associations to interact with the residents and volunteers and solicit their participation in resident group activities and membership.