Building Inclusive, MultiCultural

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The Community Foundation for Greater New
Haven Angel Fernández-Chavero
Building Inclusive, Multi-Cultural Communities Ra
ce, Poverty, Regional Development A Local and
State Approach
19th Fall Conference for Community
Foundations Baltimore 2003
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Same Challenge

• Thriving Suburbs, Declining Inner City
• White flight, then middle class flight
• Most poor in New Haven most are minorities
• Systemic causes
• Jobs are elsewhere
• Bad schools
• Crime
• Racism

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Another Challenge

• Connecticuts Yankee independence
• Blamed for eroding economic competitiveness
• Greater New Haven region seen as stagnant
• All 169 towns compete against each other for
  ratables
• Very strong home rule tradition

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Regionalism Buzz

• Regional approaches seen as cure
• Cooperation good for economic development
• Could fill the doughnut hole

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Beyond Charity

• A Systems Approach
• From the top-down
• Encourage/incentivize governmental and other
  groups to cooperate across municipal boundaries
• Fund pilot or showcase projects
• Influence policy

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Beyond Charity

• A Systems Approach
• From the bottom-up
• Encourage broad-based, representative civic
  participation
• Catalyze resident activism
• Build support for policy changes
• And address race and equity issues

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Combined Issues gt Smart Growth

• Job training
• Workforce development
• Neighborhood revitalization
• New jobs
• Industry clusters
• Downtown revitalization

• Transportation reform
• Access to jobs
• Brownfield
• remediation
• Open space preservation
• Affordable housing
• Arts/Quality of life

Combined Issues gt Need Everyone
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Brownfields Open Space

• Naugatuck Valley
• Valley Council of Governments
• EPA Pilot Fund
• Naugatuck Valley Project
• Recruited residents to participate in planning
  and decision-making
• Housatonic Valley Association
• Planned with community on restoring greenway

Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Job
Creation
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Brownfields River

• Quinnipiac River Conservation and Development
  Corridor
• Regional Growth Partnership and 3 environmental
  watershed groups
• Conduct community outreach and planning
• mostly working class and minority

Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Job
Creation
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Regional Planning

• Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy
• RGP proactively included Empowerment Zone
  activists
• incorporates regional plan of development
• uses smart growth principles
• includes promoting the development of affordable
  housing outside the core city

Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Infras
tructural Housing/Land Use Reform
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Citizens Forums
Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Region
al Education Initiative

• Year One
• Expansion of airport
• Revenue-sharing for new development
• Year Two
• Expansion of preschool to all children
• Financing of local government services
• Uses Deliberative Poll method

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New civic tool

• Advantages
• All segments of the community included
• Could become a respected tool for achieving
  community consensus
• Excellent local coverage
• Attracted national funding (Ford, Carnegie)
• Political leadership engaged
• Nonactivists engaged -- new people!

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New civic tool

• Challenges
• Do stipends distort?
• Once engaged, how to follow up?
• How to harness new interest from political
  leadership?
• How to translate to policy changes?
• What if we dont like the opinion?

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Land-Use ( More) Reform

• Top-down
• Connecticut Regional Institute for the 21st
  Century
• Bottom-up
• CenterEdge Project by Archdiocese of Hartfords
  Office of Urban Affairs

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Regional Institute

• Targets state policy makers and opinion leaders
• Successfully won establishment of transportation
  policy board
• Published land-use policy recommendations
• Now working on sustainable development issues

Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Infras
tructural Housing/Land Use Reform
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CenterEdge Project

• Multi-year grass-roots education campaign
• Interdenominational faith network is organizing
  base
• Uses Orfield report and maps
• Graphics demonstrate how cities, suburbs, and
  rural areas have interests in common
• Makes compelling case for change in self-interest
  metropolitics

Regional Governance Regional Intermediaries Infras
tructural Housing/Land Use Reform
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Health Disparities
Regional Intermediaries

• New Haven Healthy Start
• Program based at The Community Foundation
• Challenges faced by constituents put a local face
  on national disparities debate
• Has launched an effort to reduce local
  disparities in care to African Americans and
  Latinos through public education

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Interracial Dialogue

• Uses Studies Circles methodology
• Conducts outreach throughout the region
• Three major successes
• Conducted a full project with all New Haven city
  government staff
• Hamden project conducted to improve
  community-police relations
• Secured federal grant to work with other
  municipalities on criminal justice issues

Regional Cooperation
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Communities of Color

• Community Foundation initiative
• To engage these communities affirmatively and
  respectfully
• To create a true partnership
• As donors who contribute substantially
• As knowledgeable allies who inform and work with
  us on critical community issues and priorities

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Lessons

• that we are (re)learning
• Continuously look at all our activities
  comprehensively at how they interconnect and
  that they must interconnect
• We may be local and regional, but we must also
  deal at the state level to gain policies that
  will give us the changes we seek
• We have the untapped asset of our donors who can
  help achieve change beyond their dollars

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Lessons

• that we are (re)learning
• Engage with, listen to, and work with all
  community sectors as true partners (community
  building)
• The best efforts are those that do include
  everyone a focus on diversity and equity issues
  in everything we do strengthens them immeasurably