Nov/Dec 2003
Issue #132
Women at Work
Over the last several years in these pages we’ve explored the tension between development and direct action. Neither is mutually exclusive, of course, but development and organizing draw on different skills and resources in ways that can place one in conflict with the other. Still, there are CDCs that find ways to do both. And how they mobilize their communities sometimes has less to do with confrontation than with simply providing new models of thinking and behavior. Protip Biswas describes yet another option for CDCs: strategic restructuring that invites a range of partnerships, including staff sharing, to reduce expenses without stinting on services. Also in this issue, Dede Leydorf guides us through the private and public resources that can help people with disabilities purchase their own home.
Home Girls in the House
Women in Construction at first attracted older women but soon the project drew interest from younger women fresh out of high school, too.
Strategies For Survival
When the SUMMECH Community Development Corporation of Atlanta lost its development director in early 2003, the organization was left with several projects in the predevelopment stage and little capacity to […]
New Beginnings
When Barbara Pesante lost her sight five years ago after a staph infection injured her optic nerve, she tried unsuccessfully to obtain assistance in her homeland, Puerto Rico. Only after […]
Blocking Crime: How Block Clubs are Saving Chicago’s Neighborhoods
Several agencies came together in 1996 to clear drug dealers from the corners and vacant lots in the 800 block of North Harding Avenue. The effort, dubbed the “Super Block Project,” involved the city of Chicago, police officers from the 11th District, the West Humboldt Park Family and Community Development Council and Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago, a nonprofit agency that helps poor families with home ownership.
What the Movies Miss About Community Development
After a recent viewing of the movie Duplex I was reminded of how little the popular cinema helps us understand urban and housing issues, gentrification, rent control and the forces […]
When CDCs Do “More”
For CDCs to stay alive and relevant they must diversify funding and activities, and keep a running dialogue with their communities, among other things. Bill Rohe, Rachel Bratt and Protip […]
Shelter Shorts
Nothing We Can Do The reach of Georgia’s Fair Lending Act was shortened considerably when the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency exempted nearly 2,500 national banks from […]
Finding Funding Online: The Internet as a Fundraising Guide
At the beginning of 2003, nearly 81 percent of the 100 largest foundations and more than 1,600 of the 59,000 independent foundations provided information on the Internet. With more private […]
Tracking the Homeless: An Overview of HMIS
In Massachusetts a few years ago, data from homeless shelters revealed that a majority of residents had entered the system almost directly from foster care, prison or hospitals. As a […]
New Jersey’s Campaign Against Lead
The effects of lead poisoning on a child’s physical and emotional development and cognitive ability are well known. An investigation that ran two years ago in the Star-Ledger of New […]
Telling the Community Development Story
Comeback Cities, by Paul Grogan and Tony Proscio. Westview Press (www.westviewpress.com). 2000. 285 pp. $17 (paperback). House by House, Block by Block, by Alexander von Hoffman. Oxford University Press (www.oup.com). […]
When CDCs Do "More"
For CDCs to stay alive and relevant they must diversify funding and activities, and keep a running dialogue with their communities, among other things. Bill Rohe, Rachel Bratt and Protip […]