Barriers:

1
Barriers
Community Nonprofit Leaders Views of Barriers
SURVEY ANALYS I S

• We asked community leaders - from your
  perspective, what are the barriers to preventing
  county-wide
• improvements to the quality of life? The areas
  mentioned by the most respondents included lack
  of coordination
• and collaboration, insufficient economic
  resources, lack of a regional approach, vision,
  and attitudes. Presented
• here are a few verbatim comments for each area.
  These quotes are examples but do not fully
  capture the
• breadth or richness of all of the comments. A
  full list of verbatim comments is available at
  http//ccwc.ewashtenaw.org.
• Lack of coordination and collaboration
• Governmental units not working closely with each
  other.
• Lack of coordination between various NFP
  organizations government agencies. Too much
  spent on overhead.
• Too many governmental jurisdictions to work
  through to get anything done and partisan
  elections at the township, city, and county
  level.
• Fragmented governance (a. Cities vs. County, b.
  Unrealistic perspectives of community leaders
  failure to appreciate importance of planning, c.
  Inadequate/inappropriate public funding
  mechanisms (e.g., no AA income tax).
• Money, time, integration of services from the
  many agencies addressing social needs.
• Silo mentality between cities and townships.
  Instead of working together as a County, we
  continue to maintain distinct cities and
  townships with duplicate administrative overhead,
  etc.
• Lack of knowledge or coordination of existing
  services.
• Using resources effectively and where they are
  most needed. Making expertise of academic
  institutions and businesses available at a local
  community level.

2
Barriers
Community Nonprofit Leaders Views of Barriers
(continued)
SURVEY ANALYS I S

• Economic Resources
• Lack of financial resources are a barrier to
  implementing all the needed services in the
  community.
• Cost of infrastructure for each community to
  recreate things like recreation centers when
  there could be several to share within the
  county, with adequate transportation to allow for
  citizen use.
• Finding funding for needed improvements, from a
  resident base already paying high taxes.
• A large number of not-for-profit organizations
  competing for the donor dollar and duplication of
  services between organizations.
• Funding, funding, funding Although I dont
  believe one should simply throw money at issues
  and assume they will go away. There are many
  wonderful programs that are available in
  Washtenaw County, and, instead of providing
  programs/services, people spend their time trying
  to raise enough money to continue. Those
  organizations with some money have to choose
  between so many worthwhile programs. It is very
  frustrating.
• I think were at risk of forcing nonprofits to
  chaw money by creating programs to match
  funders interest du jour, rather than to create
  (or operate successful existing) programs and
  collaborations based on need, expertise, and
  ability.
• Lack of a Strong Regional Focus
• Lack of regional planning and cooperation between
  cities, villages, townships, counties, and other
  Southeast Michigan governments.
• The lack of active communication at the county
  level regarding the job loss rate. . . A
  county-wide proactive plan needs to be
  established to actively recruit mass job
  production throughout the entire county. Loss of
  manufacturing jobs, in particular, needs to be
  addressed and a plan of action put in place as a
  reactive measure. Cooperation between local
  municipalities to build consensus.

3
Barriers
Community Nonprofit Leaders Views of Barriers
(continued)
SURVEY ANALYS I S

• Lack of a Strong Regional Focus (continued)
• Lack of a comprehensive plan that has support
  from the population throughout the county (too
  disjointed between townships and the cities of
  Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti).
• Lack of coordinated planning thoughtless growth
  and development.
• Lack of ability to perceive outlying communities
  as equal partners in improving quality of life
  and lack of vision in identifying areas in which
  their needs differ from those of the larger
  cities.
• Vision
• Lack of direction and cohesiveness of funding
  programs to address the major issues. Not enough
  funding for programs that keep problems from
  happening, like supportive housing, so that we
  arent dealing with the expensive process of
  waiting until a situation is on fire before
  community resources kick in.
• Priorities too geared to short-term solutions,
  funding for fix-its, rather than foundational
  programs, voter apathy.
• Too many people looking at the big picture and
  not at the individual problems of the
  underprivileged.
• Attitudes
• It is a challenge for all aspects of the
  community, including government, to learn to
  respect the viewpoints of diverse organizations
  and come together to work for the common good.
• Public ignorance of the impact of the problems
  (thinking that the quality of life of all
  residents is not a communitys responsibility).
• Not in my backyard attitude.
• Too much prejudice of new residents vs. old
  residents. Also too much racial prejudice in an
  area that like to pretend to be liberal.