Joy-Southfield Community Development Corporation, Inc.
When was it organized?
2001
Who is completing this survey? Name and role with organization:
Executive Director, David J. Law, PhD
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, what is your FTE staff? Within that, what is full time and what is part time?
6
2 FTE; 4 PTE
What is the annual budget of your organization?
291,600
Describe the streets or locations that define your organization’s overall focus area (north, south, east and/or west):
- Greenfield Rd — E
- Rouge Park — W
- Dearborn — S
- Plymouth Rd — N
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 in community development:
Convening/Facilitating: General Description
- We’re a neighborhood leader in the area of community health and economic development.
- Commercial corridors work to develop work around economic development, which includes business associations, working with the City and County Roads Commissions and law enforcement.
- We have CDBG — NOF projects.
- We offer free or low cost home improvements through a volunteer core of churches from across the United States and Canada. We have three community gardens in cooperation with local elementary and middle schools and University of Michigan student base.
- We’ve operated a farmer’s market since 2010 and teach a variety of education, nutrition and cooking classes for youth and seniors.
- We’re Involved in a public advocacy regarding public health and other issues around lack of health care and sustainability.
Even the most well-intentioned ideas will fail without community input or buy-in.
Convening/Facilitating: Partner Organizations
- Covenant Community Care
- Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance
- DPS
- Brothers on Patrol
- Black Family Development
- Developing Kids
- Detroit Impact
- Friends of Rouge Park
- Boys and Girls Club
- Multiple other associations and block clubs
- Joy Community Association
- Franklin Park
- West Outer Drive Civic Association
- Far West Association
- Warrendale
- Warren Avenue Community Organization (WACO)
- Plymouth Southfield Association
- St. Suzanne Cody Rouge Community Resource Center
Convening/Facilitating: Funders
- CDBG — NOF (HUD — City of Detroit)
- Kresge Foundation
- Erb Family Foundation
- Trinity Health & St. Mary Mercy Hospital
- Covenant Community Care Sub-lease Agreement
We’ve had different funders throughout our lifespan We’ve changed based on not being a free clinic anymore.
Convening/Facilitating: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- We have good resident involvement.
Lessons:
- Even the most well-intentioned ideas will fail without community input or buy-in. For example, a developer can come in and build a bunch of new houses, but if they build them in areas where no one wants to live then they will go unsold and become a blight in the area (this is just an example not something that has happened to our organization).
- We make sure to always have residents involved.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: General Description
- We have three steps to creating economic development plans for the commercial and industrial corridors. In all three phases, multiple gatherings have occurred in which the community was involved in design and placemaking initiatives.
- Downtowns of Promise Commercial Corridor Redevelopment Strategy (MSHDA)
- Going Green for Growth (WSU CUSP)
- Project for Public Spaces — Farmers Market Improvements
- Stein Playfield is a 25-acre park next to Cody High; nearly 3 million dollars have been invested in the park, primarily based off of the drawings and input of the students.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Partner Organizations
- Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance (They’re the key group that deals with community engagement.)
- Friends of Rouge Park
- Joy Community Association
- CompStat
- Warrendale Community Organization
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Funders
- MSHDA
- Skillman Foundation
- Wayne State
- DTE
- Erb Family Foundation
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- Cody Rouge in 2008 had highest rate of homeownership in city of Detroit, but in 2009-10 had the highest rate of foreclosure in the city and now 50/50 homeownership rental.
Lessons:
- You have to speak to the demographic.
- Large-scale projects often take multiple years and your resident base has somewhat changed by the time the project is completed. The voice of the people may change slightly. Our demographics have changed over the last six years
Economic Development: General Description
- We’ve concentrated on commercial corridors and new business start ups.
- We work on job creation and are the sole community working through EcoWorks, which has a grant with the city and the EPA to create jobs around asbestos and lead abatement and water storage and retention. We’re working with the city and EcoWorks specifically to create jobs.
- We’ve created an economic development model entitled “Going Green for Growth” and have multiple blue green infrastructure projects collecting gallons of water on the main commercial corridors in the parks and in the residential areas.
- Over 4,000 trees have been planted in the community and other green initiatives are underway to help attract green industry businesses to the Cody Rouge community.
- An industrial and commercial vacant property assessment has been completed for three intersections with water catchment and beautification projects that collects 21,600 gallons of water each before entering the combined water sewage run off. This is done naturally with layered drainage multiple shrubs and trees that act as placemaking and beautification projects above ground.
Having a strong relationship with local businesses is ESSENTIAL and there still must be community input so that the community at large will support your commercial corridors.
Economic Development: Partner Organizations:
- EcoWorks
- The City of Detroit
- EPA
- Greening of Detroit
- Erb Family Foundation
- DWSD — put up 23,500 in matching funds that came through department of transportation
Economic Development: Funders
- Erb Family Foundation (engineering and plans)
- Kresge Foundation
- Department of Transportation
Economic Development: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- We’ve created an economic development model entitled “Going Green for Growth” and have multiple blue green infrastructure projects collecting gallons of water on the main commercial corridors in the parks and in the residential areas.
- Over 4,000 trees have been planted in the community and other green initiatives are underway to help attract green industry businesses to the Cody Rouge community.
- An industrial and commercial vacant property assessment has been completed for three intersections with water catchment and beautification projects that collects 21,600 gallons of water each before entering the combined water sewage run off. This is done naturally with layered drainage multiple shrubs and trees that act as placemaking and beautification projects above ground
Lessons:
- The market is continually changing.
- Having a strong relationship with local businesses is ESSENTIAL and there still must be community input so that the community at large will support your commercial corridors.
- We can’t just fix locations (beautify); we must have jobs.
Resident Support: General Description
Working with the residents in the community keeps us grounded at a grassroots level, which is sometimes hard when working on large-scale initiatives. It’s important because it keeps the work personable and keeps a strong bond of being part of a community.
- We have health and education classes.
- For 12 years, we operated a free medical clinic in the area seeing about 3,000 visits a year, but the need continued to grow more than could be handled.
- In 2014, we teamed up with Covenant Community Care, which offers more services and staffing to see 5,000 to 6,000 clients per year at this location.
- We have created a farmer’s market to offer fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally. We offer education in the form of nutrition and cooking and excessive classes with local elementary schools and senior citizens.
- Each year, we offer free or low cost home improvements to residents using volunteers from churches or organizations (occasionally business and mosques).
- Each year, we complete home repairs for between 20–30 residents a year plus multiple community clean ups, board ups, park improvements and mowing of vacant properties.
Resident Support: Partner Organizations
- Motown Mission Experience
- Friends of Rouge Park
- Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance
- Joy Community Association
- Franklin Park
- West Outer Drive Civic Association
- Far West Association
- Warrendale
- Warren Avenue Community Organization (WACO)
- Plymouth Southfield Association
Resident Support: Funders
- Motown Mission Experience (churches bring their own money)
Resident Support: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- For many years, we housed a free medical clinic in the area seeing about 3,000 visits a year, but the need continued to grow more than could be handled.
- We teamed up with Covenant Community Care, which offers more services and staffing to see over 5,000 residents a year at this location.
- We have created a farmer’s market to offer fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally. We offer education in the form of nutrition and cooking and excessive classes with local elementary schools and senior citizens.
Lessons:
- You have to keep residents involved/create buy-in.
- Working with the residents in the community keeps us grounded at a grassroots level, which is sometimes hard when working on large-scale initiatives. It’s important because it keeps the work personable and keeps a strong bond of being part of a community.
Community Planning and Advocacy: General Description
Community Planning:
- We completed three community assessments and plans.
- The first was completed as part of the MSHDA grant “Downtowns of Promise”. Cody Rouge was the only neighborhood in Detroit selected by MSHDA to create a downtown corridor (2010); then we worked with the community through Michigan State University to envision with charettes what our commercial corridors could look like. There were 7 visioning sessions with the community during this process. There were 6 during the Downtowns of Promise, including the ones in the schools for the charettes.
- Our last one, in 2013, was done as a master’s level capstone project for Wayne State in which an economic development model for our commercial corridors was completed.
- There were five community gatherings built off of the two previous plans to help complete this project and then we have been in the implementation or building stage from this study. We’ve done over 23 million dollars of road work.
- Community plan developed by the kids for Stein Playfield.
- Recently a study was completed by the University of Michigan students on water retention and placemaking initiatives in the Warrendale community of Cody Rouge. Lawrence Tech was introduced to Friends of Rouge so master plan was completed for Rouge Park with the Friends of Rouge Park and LTU.
Community Planning:
- I participated in LEAP and Detroit Future City’s plan.
- Jefferson East Business Association came up with our streetscape plan. When the city government came back, we said that’s the planning department’s job. I don’t have the legal nor philosophical objective to do that.Even if we had a board made up of all residents, we’re not the professional leadership of a democratically elected government. We’ve shied away from the planning.
- We have plans for specific projects and the neighborhood planning we leave to the city.
It takes a village to build a block.
Community Planning and Advocacy: Partner Organizations
- Wayne State
- MSU
- LTU
- University of Michigan
- UM-Dearborn
- MSHDA
- Skillman
- Wayne County
- City of Detroit Planning and Development
- City of Detroit Parks and Rec and General Services
- Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance
- Greening of Detroit
- Life Remodel
- The schools of Cody High School
- Friends of Rouge Park
- Various other organizations
Community Planning and Advocacy: Funders
- MSHDA
- Skillman
- Wayne State
Community Planning and Advocacy: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- We’ve done over 23 million dollars of road work.
- Community plan developed by the kids for Stein Playfield.
Lessons:
- It takes a village to build a block.
- All opinions are valuable.
- Nothing can be done without multiple partnerships and collaborations.
Finally, please rank each role 1 to 5, with 5 being the most frequent role, and 1 being the least frequent role carried out by the organization.
Convening/Facilitating: Frequency Rank
2
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Frequency Rank
1
Economic Development: Frequency Rank
5
Resident Support: Frequency Rank
3
Community Planning and Advocacy: Frequency Rank
4
This information is current as of 3/6/18