Focus Hope Revitalization
When was it organized?
2003
Who is completing this survey? Name and role with organization:
Debbie Fisher, Director of the HOPE Village Initiative
Choose one category that best fits your organization:
Community Development Organization (not sponsored by a church or agency or company)
Does your organization have paid staff?
Yes
If yes, how many?
12 in community and youth development.
What is the annual budget of your organization?
Focus: HOPE Revitalization: $1 million
Describe the streets or locations that define your organization’s overall focus area (north, south, east and/or west):
- The Lodge Service Drive and abandoned rail corridor — N
- Davison ‑S
- Dexter — W
- Hamilton — E
Describe in detail the work your organization does, within the role categories below, along with the specific geographic area in which the work is done. Refer to the definitions below of the community development roles we are inquiring about. Include any partner organizations you work with, and how the work is funded or otherwise resourced. Use extra pages if necessary. If your organization doesn’t do work in one or more of the role categories, just skip that portion of the survey.
Please describe the work your organization does inc community development:
Convening/Facilitating/Collaborations: General Description
- The Neighborhood Network Convening serves as backbone agency for an innovative neighborhood network of nonprofit organizations physically located in the neighborhood. It builds a seamless collective impact model for resident access to nonprofit services designed to build self-sufficiency and empower residents.
Convening builds social capital, builds neighborhood leadership capacity, brings a sense of hope, better coordination and communication and connection.
- HOPE Village Initiative Steering Committee (with residents, District 2 Manager, stakeholders and partner organizations) has monthly meetings to discuss issues for a common advocacy platform, develop ideas and plans, for example:
- Keep It 100! – a campaign to ensure that all 107 blocks of the HOPE Village are 100 percent clean, beautiful and safe. Brought in 10,000 volunteers over 3 days in 2015 to help with this work; did a smaller scale version in 2016 over 100 days.
- We have a Community Safety Action committee.
- We host candidate forums for local residents to hear views of all candidates.
- At the Urban Learning and Leadership Center, we convene residents and academic partners in a proactive approach to mesh local knowledge with academic resources to solve neighborhood problems.
Convening/Facilitating/Collaborations: Partner Organizations
- NSO
- Wellspring Lutheran
- Presbyterian Villages of Michigan
- Joy Prep Academy
- New Paradigm Glazer
- Parkman Branch of the Detroit Library
- Accounting Aids Society
- Thrive by Five Detroit (Starfish Family Services, Development Centers, etc.)
- Greater Detroit Centers for Working Families (LISC, United Way, Operation Able, Goodwill, SW Solutions, etc.)
- ProsperUS
- Oakman Blvd Community Association
- Pilgrim Village Association
- Dream of Detroit
- Churches
- WSU
- MSU
- U of M
- All levels of government (county, the city, the land bank, the state through a couple of different groups — MSHDA and MEDC)
Convening/Facilitating/Collaborations: Funders
- WK Kellogg Foundation
- United Way (for the neighborhood network)
- LISC
Convening/Facilitating/Collaborations: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- Convening builds social capital, builds neighborhood leadership capacity, brings a sense of hope, better coordination and communication and connection.
- Good progress on self-sufficiency for individuals.
- Over 500 cubic yards of dumping has been removed
- Boarded up 90% of the vacant homes.
- Lessons:
- Convening is foundation. It’s clear that no one organization can make change on its own; change is possible only through working together.
- Data sharing is difficult. It took over a year to negotiate data sharing agreements between nonprofits.
- You need to be clear about what the actual shared goals are and how you’re measuring progress towards those goals.
- Convening is hard to fund.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: General Description
- We hold monthly town halls.
- We host regular convenings of subgroups – education (collaboration with 482Forward), community safety, fresh/local food.
- We develop community leadership through training, capacity building and support of resident led projects.
Analysis around issues of race and revitalization is critical. People have been hit so many times in so many ways that they need the hope to believe that things can be different in the future.
- We focus on residents, including those typically missing from discussions. We provide transportation, pop up where people are already convening, in public spaces, in schools and in the library.
- We developed a community strategic plan and vision with over 500 residents over a one year period.
- We worked with 482Forward on education and parents were involved in advocacy.
- We assist with block club formation.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Partner Organizations
- Parkman Library
- 482Forward
- CTAC
- MSU
- WSU
- Detroit Future City
- EcoWorks
- CDAD
- U of M Detroit
- Public Allies
- VISTA program
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Funders
Kellogg
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- A HOPE Village neighborhood resident is the only parent member of the Coalition for the Future of Detroit School Children and ran for the Detroit Public School Board.
- HOPE Village residents are active attendees at 10th precinct CompStat and Community Relations meetings.
- When issues threaten the neighborhood, the residents show up. For example, there were close to 100 residents at zoning hearings.
- We have had residents at the forefront of the open space movement and received two of the first open space grants.
- As part of Keep It 100, 10 residents led projects that they planned and put together.
- A HOPE Village documentary was produced in 2017 to talk about the neighborhood both at the time of the 1967 rebellion and afterwards.
Lessons:
- It’s all about relationships.
- Having a sense of who is not here is important.
- Analysis around issues of race and revitalization is critical. People have been hit so many times in so many ways that they need the hope to believe that things can be different in the future.
- A range of communication tools is critical – NextDoor HOPE Village, social media, texting, calling.
Economic Development: General Description
- Center for Working Families is a key strategy, focused on helping residents to “earn it, keep it and grow it.”
- one on one financial coaching and empowerment
- access to income supports
- job pathways
- To support the CWF strategy, Focus: HOPE attracted a credit union into the neighborhood.
- We have entrepreneur development and technical assistance:
- ProsperUs regular trainings
- Connecting entrepreneurs to business opportunities
- Motor City Match and NEIdeas participation
- Co-working space
- Activation of local public spaces for small business sales.
- We’ve worked to revitalize Davison and Linwood commercial corridors, including façade renovation.
- We’ve developed economic clusters based around fresh and healthy food and food systems.
- Community gardens
- Links with local food processors
- Housing Development:
- New tax credit developments – land acquisition and resource aggregation for three large subsidized housing developments
- Brownfields Redevelopment:
- A park and former gas station site have been remediated
- Brownfields cleanup of vacant industrial site
- Sustainability:
- Community art and placemaking: youth portraits mounted on vacant buildings
- National Sunshot competition to look at solar development
- First LEED Platinum home rehab in the city underway
- Motown Movement home showcasing DIY renovations
Economic Development: Partner Organizations
- U of M — Graham Institute (broad integrated baseline assessment to figure out where the vacant lots are)
Nothing’s easy. Every housing development has had many layers of financing.
- Detroit Future City
- City of Detroit
- Detroit Land Bank
- NSO
- Detroit Black Community Food Security Network
- Detroit Food Academy
- Presbyterian Villages of Michigan
- Wellspring Lutheran
- MDOT
- SW Solutions
Economic Development: Funders
- Kresge Foundation
- HUD
- MSHDA
- LISC
- City of Detroit
- Brownfields TIF
- EPA
Economic Development: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- Increased credit scores
- Increased family wealth and income
- Over 100 new or existing small businesses assisted
- Over 200 housing units created or built in the last 10 years
- Three brownfield sites remediated
Lessons:
- Nothing’s easy. Every housing development has had many layers of financing.
- Early community input on development projects is important even when they are just an idea
- Finding ways to build resident ownership is really important and also hard to do
Resident Support: General Description
- Focus: HOPE as a whole serves residents throughout the metropolitan area.
- Food program – serving seniors with monthly food packages. Services in the food centers also include: DTE utility assistance, tax prep, health screenings.
- The breastfeeding class is hosted by Black Mothers Breastfeeding Association.
- Parent support for our early education parents – training and empowerment
- Resident led project support in HOPE Village
Resident Support: Partner Organizations
- St John’s Health Systems
- BMBFA
- DHHS
- DTE
- DESC
- Accounting Aid Society
- Christ Church Cranbrook
Resident Support: Funders
- Corporate funders
- Commodity supplemental food from federal government
- Smaller donations from individuals
Resident Support: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- Monthly food packages for 41,000 people.
- More than $2 million dollars in tax returns at our food centers.
- Employment trainings have helped over 12,000 people.
Lessons:
Jobs and economic opportunity are the key; they’re transformative.
Community Planning and Advocacy: General Description
Community Planning:
HOPE Village residents recently completed a year long strategic planning and visioning process looking at assets, changes and ideas that need to be moved forward — a comprehensive 15 year plan. We involved 500 people over the course of the year.
People outside of the neighborhood tend to listen more if we can come together as a whole and show up and show out at different things; a lot can be accomplished this way.
Advocacy:
- 482Forward — education advocacy.
- Community safety – issue advocacy re vacant properties, blight, tax foreclosure
- Zoning issues
Community Planning and Advocacy: Partner Organizations
- Detroit Future City
- Michigan Voice
- U of M (Dow Fellows)
- 482Forward
- WSU
- EcoWorks
- CURES (WSU) — an environmental Wayne State based center
Community Planning and Advocacy: Funders
Kellogg
Community Planning and Advocacy: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- A Community Strategic Plan and Vision
- Prevented two environmentally problematic facilities from opening in the neighborhood.
- Changed the site plan for new Dollar Tree in neighborhood.
- Ten resident leaders leading advocacy groups.
- Resident planned candidate forum for District 2 candidates.
Lessons:
People outside of the neighborhood tend to listen more if we can come together as a whole and show up and show out at different things; a lot can be accomplished this way.
Convening/Facilitating/Collaborations: Frequency Rank
5
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Frequency Rank
5
Economic Development: Frequency Rank
4
Resident Support: Frequency Rank
3
Community Planning and Advocacy: Frequency Rank
3
This information is current as of 12/31/17