North End Woodward Community Coalition (NEWCC)
The Storehouse of Hope Emergency Food Pantry and The Storehouse of Hope Community Land Trust
When was it organized?
The North End Woodward Community Coalition began in 2010 but incorporated and completed the 501 c3 process in 2014. The Storehouse of Hope was organized in 2008 and received 501 C3 in 2009.
Who is completing this survey? Name and role with organization:
Reverend Joan C. Ross serves as Board Chair for both organizations
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?
NEWCC has 4‑part time Digital Stewards in the EII Program and 1‑part time Network Manager overseeing that program and we are currently looking to bring on a Station Manager for WNUC 96.7 fm Community Radio and a part time underwriting manager. The Storehouse of Hope and the Storehouse of Hope Community Land Trust has 1‑part time CLT Steward.
What is the annual budget of your organization?
NEWCC in 2017 the budget was $207,000, projected for 2018 is $400,000. The Storehouse of Hope operates with an annual budget under $50,000.
Describe the streets or locations that define your organization’s overall focus area (north, south, east and/or west):
- All over the city: Storehouse of hope has the only community land trust in the city. They have houses in all seven districts. We work on transit issues all over the city.
- Northend: Grand Blvd — S
- Highland Park — N
- I75 — E
- Woodward — W
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 hold meetings and work on all the transit issues and other environmental issues.
- We’re always engaging residents.
- We operate the Storehouse of Hope food pantry. We have residents in twice a month for the mobile food pantries. We talk about issues and advocacy work.
There’s always a fight over the slice of pie. I fault foundations and the way that they approach the community. Some of it feels intentional.
- Through the radio, we host meetings.
- There are 14 area block clubs that we meet with often. Euclid Street is the one we meet with most often.
- We meet with a lot of other organizations.
- With two other communities, we’ve formed the Equitable Internet Initiative, which is the people’s network. We have 20 houses on the Northend wired for our internet. We’ll be increasing that to 50 houses by the end of June. The families get 25MB of internet. Allied Media and Detroit Digital Justice got a grant of $147,000 for to purchase equipment and get the digital stewards trained to install internet.
- We’ve partnered with Solidarity to do outreach for a program that we’re working on. They’ll probably handle 15–20 community members.
Convening/Facilitating: Partner Organizations
- CDAD
- Detroit People’s Platform
- Grace in Action
- Church of the Messiah
- Allied Media
- Detroit Digital Justice
- People’s Water Board
- We the People
- Blessed Sacrament Church
- Euclid Street Block Club
- Solidarity
Convening/Facilitating: Funders
- General Operating
- Allied Media
- Detroit Digital Justice
Convening/Facilitating: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- NEW CC is the internet provider for the North End. With two other communities, we’ve formed the Equitable Internet Initiative, which is the people’s network. We have 20 houses on the North End wired for our internet. We’ll be increasing that to 50 houses by the end of June. The families get 25MB of internet.
- We’ve held trainings for youth to teach coding.
- We host advanced trainings for people to provide internet.
Lessons:
- The community is anxious for all of the control and access to the internet and the air waves. It’s great to see them come out and be engaged.
- People co-opt your ideas and information, take them in the wrong direction and that becomes harmful to the process that you started.
- There’s always a fight over the slice of pie. I fault foundations and the way that they approach the community. Some of it feels intentional.
- People don’t use their creative power to see how they can build from what another person has done. If you sit down and let God give you a “God idea,” you can come up with something that adds to what has already been done. We’re now trying to build work to give rise to a sustainable community.
- We must consider what we have to do to make the community equitable and not erase anyone’s work.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: General Description
- We teach beatmaking, master editing and podcasting.
- We’re opening another studio for editing. To have that kind of equipment and availability in the community means that all of it is ours. We didn’t get any foundation money for the radio station.
If other people aren’t hiring us, we need to stop begging and find a way to hire ourselves. It shouldn’t be a stipend, but a living wage.
- All of the work that we do leads to jobs — we can employ a station manager, editing manager, underwriters, internet installers and receptionists. They all live in the Northend. The principle is to circulate the dollar in our community.
- We’ve held trainings for youth to teach coding.
- We host advanced trainings for people to provide internet.
- We have a small board because, because of the FCC, board members have to have a criminal background check. We have three board members and an advisory board of five people.
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Partner Organizations
- Solidarity
- CDAD
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Funders
- Allied Media
- Detroit Digital Justice Coalition
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
All of our board members went on one trip out of the area. They went to places like California, Germany, Minnesota, DC.
Lessons:
If other people aren’t hiring us, we need to stop begging and find a way to hire ourselves. It shouldn’t be a stipend, but a living wage.
Economic Development: General Description
- The Storehouse of Hope/Community Land Trust owns property and we do development through them.
- The next project we’re working on is an economic development project in partnership with Storehouse of Hope. The next phase will be in 3 communities: Northend, SW Detroit and Islandview.
We’ve got to create jobs that carry us into the future. We’ve got to find a way to see past today and see into a brighter future. We have to open our thinking.
- In 2013, we put up our own lights. There are now 10 lights on private property because we’re interested in transit and we had children standing on corners and we couldn’t see them in the morning. We worked with neighbors to fix broken lights. Since then, we’ve put up solar lights and that was first real work.
- The lights have small rain gardens around them. These came as part of the funding package from the US Green Building Council. We got $5,000 from Freshwater Future for the lights/rain gardens.
- We do work around transit.
- We, along with Storehouse of Hope, created Solar Neighbors of Detroit LLC — a for profit company.
Economic Development: Partner Organizations
- Storehouse of Hope
- CDAD
- Soladirty
- Grace in Action
- Residents
Economic Development: Funders
- US Green Building Council
- Freshwater Future
Economic Development: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
We’ve created living wage jobs and sustainable jobs.
Lessons:
We’ve got to create jobs that carry us into the future. We’ve got to find a way to see past today and see into a brighter future. We have to open our thinking. We can’t limit to what we’ve seen done; we have to do something different. We have to make people say “wow.”
Resident Support: General Description
- We have a community land trust with Storehouse of Hope. There, we have one person that’s a steward of the houses. They help residents. For example, one young man lost his job after he moved into his home so he’s gotten behind in his rent. Rent is 30% of a residents income, but we pay the water bill and the taxes. We’ve worked out a budget with him and he’s doing community service to make up for the rest of his rent (like sweat equity).
It’s hard to take all of the years of history that people have and help them see differently. We’ve been taught how to beat the system and fight stuff. It’s hard to teach people that the community land trust is there to help.
- If the residents can’t pay rent or electric bills, we work with them to find the necessary resources for them to get help.
- We hold trainings for internet installation, etc.
Resident Support: Partner Organizations
None
Resident Support: Funders
None
Resident Support: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
- We bought houses from the auction so that people wouldn’t be displaced.
- The radio station is for the community. People say they’re scared to talk, but we’ve provided a platform for the voices of people that are deliberately silenced.
Lessons:
- It’s hard to convert people from the tenant landlord mentality where the landlord was the bad guy.
- It’s hard to take all of the years of history that people have and help them see differently. We’ve been taught how to beat the system and fight stuff. It’s hard to teach people that the community land trust is there to help. It’s hard to take someone and put them into a brand new structure system and to teach people what a land trust is all about. Most land trusts aren’t there to keep people from being out on the street.
- People are hard to tell their stories on the air.
- It’s hard to get people to understand that you cannot let people take your voice and you have to tell your story.
- The idea was we wanted 100 voices on radio every week. One day people are going to say we have to do an independent media. It’s like putting a tool in the tool box for the residents. They need to know that there’s a place that they can be heard.
- Stay ahead of the curve.
Community Planning and Advocacy: General Description
- We got the Community Benefits Ordinance started. We asked Brenda Jones and Joanne Watson why the people who were creating the QLine weren’t talking to community members about it. They had “community engagement” but it wasn’t real engagement. We asked Jones and Watson why we couldn’t have benefits. They told us about a resolution in 1984 that stated it was a good idea to engage community, but it wasn’t a law. We worked with Sugar Law and we helped formed the Equitable Development Coalition and from that the ordinance came into being. The People’s Platform and other organizations (34 total) came together to work on the Community Benefits Agreement. Detroit is the only city in the country that has a CBO on the books as a law. This year, it becomes important that we get amendments to that ordinance so that it’s in the people’s favors.
- We’re combatting the notion that water and sun aren’t human rights.
Community Planning and Advocacy: Partner Organizations
- CDAD
- People’s Platform
- Sugar Law
- Equitable Detroit
Community Planning and Advocacy: Funders
Buck Award for CBA work ($1,500)
Community Planning and Advocacy: Important Outcomes or Lessons
Outcomes:
Detroit is the only city in the country that has a CBO on the books as a law.
Lessons:
- People don’t understand the CBA. It has to be legislative, legally binding and enforceable; it can’t be left to the whims of Council and it has to be community driven for it to be meaningful and equitable — at least in Detroit.
- Detroit was really down; and, in order for people to get back to themselves, it has to be people driven.
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
5
Resident Engagement/Empowerment: Frequency Rank
5
Economic Development: Frequency Rank
5
Resident Support: Frequency Rank
5
Community Planning and Advocacy: Frequency Rank
5
Can you please point us to other organizations in Detroit — especially in your immediate neighborhood — that are doing community development work? (Organization name, contact name, email, phone)
- Euclid Street Block Club: NormaNHeath6552@gmail.com, 313–228-3025
Background Information:
- NEW CC is the child of The Storehouse of Hope. In 2010, Storehouse of Hope convened a group of transit riders that we were serving through our food pantry in the effort of helping people get jobs and identifying barriers and issues at the center of people’s lives. We formed a group of transit riders that were pretty lose in structure in 2010.
- At the same time, in 2011, we filed a Title 6 complaint against DDOT around the proposed bus cuts that were happening in 2012 — when we lost almost all of our bus service (lines and hours of operations). It was the worst cut that we identified in Detroit.
- The organization then focused on the M1 that was supposed to link job centers. We began to talk about why don’t we have benefits when these things come into our community. In 2012, the M1 died just before Christmas and what was resurrected was the Qline. It was a system only meant to go 3.3 miles and it didn’t bring benefits to our community. We used that structure and made it tighter.
It was a system only meant to go 3.3 miles and it didn’t bring benefits to our community. We used that structure and made it tighter.
- We began to look at issues that affect transit citywide. We set goals and framework around transit justice issues. In 2013, the window opened for community organizations and nonprofits to have access to radio so Northend Woodward Community Coalition came into real life. We got our 501c3 status and we put in an application for a radio station in 2014.
- We had to apply to Canada and the United States. Color of Change in California helped us as well as an engineer out of Oregon helped us get a signal and get approved. In 2015, we were approved to operate WNUC 96.7 FM Detroit’s only terrestrial radio station with a satellite signal. We have an expected audience reach of 300,000 people. We broadcast to Midtown, Downtown, Highland Park, Hamtramck, Northend, New Center and some of Southwest Detroit.
This information is current as of 2/28/18