Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association
Report date
April 2017
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
One significant component of our project early on was for the Arts on Chicago Leadership Team and Artist Cohort to engage in a series of deep dive learning sessions about Development. This series of 5 trainings laid a foundation for deeper knowledge of the world of development, existing systems and how they operate broadly, and how community voice can be effectively inserted into these larger ongoing processes. They also provided insight into how and where citizens, community based organizations, and community partnered efforts can potentially impact these broader systems and/or policies. They also helped us collectively explore and better understand the scale of development, what the external pressures are, and whom the “players” are in shaping development across housing, businesses, and infrastructure.
During Phase 2 of our innovation project we expanded the core group to include a 24 member Community Advisory Committee which diversified the network of stakeholders and representative perspectives in the process. This group in particular expanded the discussion and advocacy for what issues are particularly relevant for our communities. This also deepened the conversations and challenged the process and dialogue to be more inclusive and accountable to stakeholders positions, and to a social justice framework.
The last phase of our work was an effort to synthesize 18 months of work and community dialogue into a “Plan”. Through a series of unfortunate challenges (having key consultants drop out of the process due to external factors) the process bogged down which I will speak to in the “Key Lessons” section. The onboarding of Yvonne Cheek of the Millennium Consulting Group was critical to our ability to move forward towards organizing the immense amount of information, diverse points of view, and desired collective action.
Key lessons learned
Cross sector partnership is a messy and, at times, difficult process. Due to the loss of key consultants throughout our two year process, we were often stuck in an endless loop of meetings and planning processes that lacked clarity and expert outside stewardship to advance the collective work. Our leadership team has been working together in different capacities for over ten years. This work, and our partnerships, have always aligned across broad intersecting goals. Yet the Creative Community Development Plan required a more critical call to action, and a deeper commitment to both tactical work and new systems of organizing. For our group, and given the scope of this process, moving beyond our initial aligned goals towards concrete shared values and a plan to put those plans into action was a challenge.
The pressing issues of gentrification and displacement are difficult concepts to unpack with a large, diverse, cross sector group of community stakeholders. There are many varied opinions and definitions of what gentrification is, and how it operates within our neighborhoods. Not having a single, data and research driven definition to work from made for an unwieldly process. Even the City of Minneapolis does not define Gentrification. The closest hard definition is coming from the good research work at CURA, but that was not available during our critical engagement phase. What is equally challenging is collectively defining (with specificity) what the neighborhoods meta aspirational vision is. There are pieces of this work happening through community partner organizations (example: CANDO and Bryant Neighborhoods Community Benefits Agreement drafted for the new Seward Coop Friendship Store), and work that started in our CIG process that has been in development through connected-tangential work (example: a cohort of people and organizations working to advance a Commercial Land Trust model in partnership with the City of MPLS and the CLCLT, and the Good Space Murals projects).
Reflections on the community innovation process
Increase collective understanding and generate ideas. Without the deep dive learning sessions, there would have been no way to understand how the cross sector group of neighborhood based, arts human service based, and local elected intersect broader community development. Just beginning to understand the immense scale of physical development projects, the complexity (and financial scope) of development, and how community voice/agency is embedded (and more absent) from community development processes helped lay the ground work for more targeted/right sized work. It also illuminated the many critical gaps of expertise (not having a CDC that works specifically in this local geography, not having a research partner to support data driven decision making) that will need to be courted for future work.
Progress toward an innovation
There have been generative smaller scale steps and progress made over the past year towards achieving our innovation, and the work continues to be codified and articulated in the approach of each of our teams work. PPNA has developed and initiated a focused set of business support services to local area small businesses, meeting and filling a vital need left from the dissolution of the 38th and Chicago Business Association in 2016. Through this reorganizing effort, PPNA has established and articulated a clear structure for how the neighborhood association will support the many needs of businesses (including arts businesses) through a more focused and sustainable approach. PH+T is actively participating in three separate groups working on; the feasibility of a Commercial Land Trust (with Council Ward 9, CLCLT, City of Minneapolis); a Community Commercial Cooperative (with Council Ward 8); and the creation of an African American Museum In The Streets - arts based historic preservation project (alongside Council Ward 8, the MLK Legacy Council, and several other community based partners in Bryant/Central Neighborhoods). Innovation is connecting efforts that amplify one another.
What it will take to reach an innovation?
More time and resources towards supporting the capacity of these initiatives. After two plus years of difficult planning and ideation, we have finally arrived at a stage where we are ready to begin implementation. One of the critical needs to advance this work is the resources to hire an individual with community development expertise to serve in the primary role of advancing the work on behalf of all of the members. We lack the person who will be the binder or through-line to keep the momentum moving forward. Without that we will be challenged to maintain the deeper, interconnected approach to the innovative work.
What's next?
We will share our Creative Community Development Plan with you, it is currently in final design/publishing phase. We see the next steps involving; Plan is published and disseminated via traditional outlets as well as artist public art engagement, host community feedback and dialogues, continue to secure resources for the implementation phase of the work (tactical steps outlined in the plan), and (with resources) the onboarding of a key staff/contractor to serve as the point person across all of the creative community development activities.
If you could do it all over again...
There are many small but critical points along our two year project that challenged our ability to advance the work with clarity. Things that we learned: Clear definitions of gentrification based in research is a starting point for better, more concise dialogical process, losing consultants on such a long process can be hard to overcome and critical information gets lost in process/transitions, better clarity around stated collective outcomes would help illuminate where we each play a role in advancing/achieving them as well as a baseline for how community members see themselves aligned or in opposition of our stated values and proposed solutions. Engaging in a large scale, group led initiative is challenging and requires a sustained focus. So much of this work is dependent on the individuals who show up to lead and carry the work forward. People come and go, staff turn over in critical positions, partners capacity shrinks leaving significant gaps. For this type of partner led initiative to advance, it will be critical for there to be a clearly defined role/position that is paid to move the groups forward. It cannot rest in the hands of an ad-hoc volunteer governing body.
One last thought
But, adding to point above. People have stayed at the table for a couple of reasons: long-term commitment to community, ability of collective work to advance/add capacity to individuals work, and we need to practice patience. This level of partnership and community engagement requires both more time and more structure than we anticipated, but everyone is still at the table and committed to moving forward.