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A request for consideration for The California Collaborative: A 21 st Century Neighborhood Management System

Deep Driver: Strengthen the core of Louisville Metro to ensure balanced growth across the region; in particular, protect, strengthen, connect and revitalize Louisville’s urban neighborhoods.

1. How would this project improve educational attainment or community revitalization in the specific four neighborhoods?

A cadre of residents emerging from the California Neighborhood envision a bold and innovative approach based on national best practices—but rooted in the strengths, talents and aspirations of the generation who today call California home.

The California Collaborative is a concept conceived and developed by residents of the California neighborhood community. With friends and other neighborhood stakeholders, they will launch a neighborhood management system in the California Neighborhood, using as inspiration the NeighborWorks America model for a robust neighborhood revitalization.

The goal is to strengthen, connect and network the efforts of residents and other stakeholders in making California a Neighborhood of Choice. The California Collaborative would embrace and aid other California-based resident associations, and in time, with strategic input from all who are vested, this entity will assume its most effective institutional form.

New Directions Housing Corporation—an agency borne from Saint William Church at 17 th and Oak streets—will serve as the first fiscal agent to the California Collaborative.

The California Collaborative will indirectly impact everyone in the neighborhood, and direct impact will involve 25 percent of households within the first two years of implementation. We are re-engineering diverse neighborhood systems so that they intersect through the HUB of the California Collaborative, not to suggest that folks seek permission but to encourage synergy, communication and networking to increase results.

We see synergies and power between the groundwork accomplished by Making Connections Louisville, the concept of Robust Revitalization coming from NeighborWorks America, and the fundamental strengths of California’s people. We know that The Network has traction in California, but why are our membership numbers less than that of other neighborhoods? Neighborhood leadership is hungry for results, and there is a fundamental awareness that
The Network is a key to successful advancement. NeighborWorks America advances the operational advantages of what it calls “Robust Revitalization”, which recommends that we polish the neighborhood image, improve housing and physical conditions, enhance the market, and kindle the social fire that makes California different from any neighborhood in Louisville.

2. How have residents been engaged in the development of this idea?

California residents have been involved in conceptualizing a California Neighborhood Management System. Some of these activities include: (a) participation in the past five NeighborWorks America Neighborhood Institutes, (b) Neighborhood Assessment Plan survey, (c) Resident Learning Agenda Project with CRN, (d) Making Connection Louisville Network Nites, (e) Network Celebrations 2006 and 2007, (f) Study Circles, (g) Neighborhood Cleanup After Talks, (h) Mayor’s Community Conversations (Victory Park Issues), and (i) meetings with Councilman Unseld and Metro Government officials around reviving work started in 1982 on a California Neighborhood Plan. In future, residents will be part of continuous measurement, using the metrics of the Response Based Accountability process.

3. How will collaboration with other organizations help to achieve the goals of project?

In addition to Making Connections Louisville, other groups at work in the neighborhood include California Federation (a.k.a. The California Block Club Federation, Inc., the oldest group, founded in 1978), G-Block (active youth who regularly clean lots and interact with the elders of the 101-unit California Square senior citizen complex), Date Street Block Club, California Community Association Neighborhood Watch, California Neighborhood Coalition, and the Saint William Block Watch.

The California Collaborative will be comprised of all groups who wish to convene, and will establish collaborative agreements with organizations, businesses, communities of faith, and other key stakeholders. Organizations, to date that have expressed an interest in working collaboratively in new ways to develop the potential of the California neighborhood include New Directions, Breaking New Grounds, California Federation, Inc., The California Neighborhood Coalition, Habitat for Humanity, University of Louisville Signature Partnership Initiative, Kentucky Center ArtsReach Program, and YouthBuild Louisville. Many have stepped forward to join the California Collaborative and here is a short description of the dreams that are easily woven into our vision:

Champions and longtime neighborhood friends as ArtsReach, a Kentucky Center for the Arts Program, and the University of Louisville Signature Partnership, will add support to residents’ voices, to establish, implement, and manage strategies that develop a positive image of California, as a green and wireless community with a vibrant arts beat.
Habitat for Humanity, YouthBuild Louisville and New Directions Housing Corporation are strategizing new ways for their actions to dovetail, to improve physical conditions and appearance within the neighborhood. This new platform, built from the perspective of the California Collaborative, will create a continuum stretching from chores done by youth volunteers to new construction to comprehensive rehabilitation.
California’s society is rich with faith communities, clubs and networks of friends. These natural assets are essential elements of the larger scheme of the California Neighborhood as a place where people choose to live.
California is ripe with potential as a proving ground for neighborhood-serving micro-business. One venture seeking to launch from California is Breaking New Grounds. In the near future, California will be a wireless neighborhood, where green technologies and microenterprises thrive, block to block. Our history will suggest our future. Where Victory Gardens once grew will be lot-sized Urban Farmettes. The Arts and Crafts bungalows that shelter our people will shine again, as agencies and individuals find ways to reinvest, improve and enhance properties.

We are informed in our strategies, thanks to the ideas identified and prioritized by residents in the 2007 Neighborhood Assessment Project survey conducted by The Center for Neighborhoods. This collaboration is open, and still emerging. We welcome others, like The Center for Neighborhoods, who share the vision and have at their hearts the belief in California’s success. We thank The Center for Neighborhoods and participating residents for the following data, quoted in the 2004 Neighborhood Snapshot: Survey participants ages ranged from 20 to 70 years and 45% had lived in the California for 1-4 years, 29% (5-10 years), and 26% (greater than 10 years). On a four point Likert scale (1 = Poor, 2 = Fair, 3 = Good, 4 = Very Good), Only 4% of residents rated the quality of life in the neighborhood as very good while 60% of residents felt the quality of life in the California neighbors was fair. Key areas identified by residents as needing improvement were: (a) neighborhood image (e.g., street, sidewalk, and landscaping maintenance, garbage and litter control), (b) lack of new residential and commercial construction (coffee shops, cafes, health clinic, small businesses), (d) lack of resident involvement in solving neighborhood problems (e.g., drug dealing, prostitution, gang activities).

4. How is this project creative or innovative?

The California Collaborative is built on the strong foundations laid by many others, but is compelled to frame a future inclusive of the values of inclusivity, creating a table where differences are celebrated, but not at the expense of progress. Friends from NeighborWorks America are excited by what they’ve seen in California. The potential is very evident to them. A healthy neighborhood is a place where it makes economic and emotional sense for people to invest their time, money, and energy and where neighbors successfully manage neighborhood-related issues and neighborhood change. Strategic revitalization results in increased community capacity. Residents are optimistic about their future, feel they have control over their surroundings, can respond to community dynamics, and are connected to each other and the region. Successful revitalization approaches should be context-based, collaborative (synergistic process between community residents and key stakeholders), comprehensive (includes public, private, and nonprofit sectors and accounts for the neighborhood’s place in the larger geographical picture), equitable (respects cultural diversity and motivations of residents and key stakeholders), and sustainable (builds community capacity to ensure ongoing neighborhood self-management).

The California Collaborative Outcome Matrix

American Planning Association "Viewpoint" article, July, 2008