Seward Redesign Inc
Report date
January 2019
What has been most instrumental to your progress?
Seward Redesign organized and facilitated twelve Management Committee meetings attended by staff from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, Hennepin County Public Works, Minneapolis Public Works, community organizations (with leadership from residents themselves), and local businesses. We made progress in these meetings by increasing collective understanding. MnDOT and Public Works staff developed a better understanding of community needs and desires, and community members developed a better understanding of how financial and technical constraints limit the range and timelines of improvements.
The City requested a traffic study of an improvement the community has desired since at least 1985: a mid-block pedestrian crossing between Seward Tower West (low-income apartments occupied primarily by East African immigrants) and a park across the street. The City was swayed by the study, which concluded that the improvement would result in acceptable traffic operations, and agreed that the improvement was acceptable from an engineering perspective. We then held a meeting to unveil the design at the proposed site with Tower residents and City Council Member Warsame.
The City requested a traffic study of an improvement the community has desired since at least 1985: a mid-block pedestrian crossing between Seward Tower West (low-income apartments occupied primarily by East African immigrants) and a park across the street. The City was swayed by the study, which concluded that the improvement would result in acceptable traffic operations, and agreed that the improvement was acceptable from an engineering perspective. We then held a meeting to unveil the design at the proposed site with Tower residents and City Council Member Warsame.
Another activity that provided rich results was targeted community engagement events with East African residents. In late April, we held an open house meeting to review ideas to improve the freeway crossings at Riverside Avenue, 25th Avenue, and the pedestrian bridge near 22nd Avenue. We wanted to deliberately engage people who are usually underrepresented in infrastructure planning processes.
To that end, we designed every aspect of the event to be accessible and attractive to low-income neighbors and East African immigrants. We promoted the project through flyers and sidewalk decals with information in Somali, Amharic, and Oromo. The event took place on a Saturday in the community room of Seward Tower West, which was a convenient location for the low-income residents of the 320-unit apartment building. We leveraged our connections in the community and asked the Seward Towers Community Organizer to promote the event by word of mouth. We catered the event with sambusas from a local café. Professional interpreters helped us gather information from residents who spoke Somali, Oromo, and Amharic. The engagement activities were designed to be easy and fun for children and adults.
To that end, we designed every aspect of the event to be accessible and attractive to low-income neighbors and East African immigrants. We promoted the project through flyers and sidewalk decals with information in Somali, Amharic, and Oromo. The event took place on a Saturday in the community room of Seward Tower West, which was a convenient location for the low-income residents of the 320-unit apartment building. We leveraged our connections in the community and asked the Seward Towers Community Organizer to promote the event by word of mouth. We catered the event with sambusas from a local café. Professional interpreters helped us gather information from residents who spoke Somali, Oromo, and Amharic. The engagement activities were designed to be easy and fun for children and adults.
Key lessons learned
Even though Seward Redesign has been working in the Seward neighborhood for 50 years, it took new strategies and tactics to build trust and encourage participation in communities that have been underrepresented in past planning processes, namely on the West Bank where we are less well-known. Our engagement through the Seward Neighborhood Group was effective at reaching a large number of people, but that group tended to have higher educational attainment and skewed white. In order to engage low-income renters, people of color, and recent immigrants, we had to intentionally find culturally-competent outreach staff and tailor efforts to be accessible and attractive to those groups. See our answer to Question 1 for details on those efforts.
Skepticism and engagement fatigue are obstacles to participation. Some community members expressed skepticism of this process because of the past actions of agencies. The phrase “safe streets” disturbed one younger resident of the West Bank, who shared that he had been harassed for socializing outside by people who wanted to “make the streets safer.” After facilitators clarified that the goal was to design pedestrian-friendly places with fewer car crashes, he enthusiastically joined in the discussion. The exchange was a good reminder to pay close attention to language, and to avoid terms that can discourage participation because of their connotation in marginalized communities.
Other community members were skeptical because of past inaction; many longtime Seward residents have been advocating for pedestrian safety improvements for decades. They wanted assurance that this process will lead to substantial change, even though past efforts had not. This skepticism serves as a motivator for our work; we use it as a reason to push public agencies to be more transparent and accountable, and we strive to respect community members’ time and input by following-through.
Other community members were skeptical because of past inaction; many longtime Seward residents have been advocating for pedestrian safety improvements for decades. They wanted assurance that this process will lead to substantial change, even though past efforts had not. This skepticism serves as a motivator for our work; we use it as a reason to push public agencies to be more transparent and accountable, and we strive to respect community members’ time and input by following-through.
Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving
Inclusive. The inclusive element of the community innovation process has been most important to making progress in our work. We have deliberately engaged historically-underrepresented communities to generate ideas for improvement and to increase their capacity to understand transportation issues. We have aimed for inclusion by identifying place-based social networks in low-income housing complexes- both formal and informal- and designing engagement events to be attractive and accessible by hiring interpreters, developing visually-engaging material, and hosting in convenient locations- meeting people literally where they are and using culture as a resource.
Collaboration has been essential as well. By sharing information from the community to government public works agencies, and sharing information from public works agencies with the community, all parties have gained greater understanding of community needs and technical constraints.
Collaboration has been essential as well. By sharing information from the community to government public works agencies, and sharing information from public works agencies with the community, all parties have gained greater understanding of community needs and technical constraints.
Other key elements of Community Innovation
Seward Redesign’s biggest competitive advantage is our 50-year presence in the neighborhood and ongoing tangible results in real estate and infrastructure development. We are a credible organization because our work has an everyday impact on community members’ lives; through the 776 units of affordable housing we have an ownership stake in, and through the 42 commercial and industrial tenants (who are overwhelmingly immigrants, people of color and women) we serve, who in turn provide valuable goods and services to residents.
In Redesign’s experience, innovation is only possible because of the trust we have built by being a sustained, reliable agent for community-led change.
In Redesign’s experience, innovation is only possible because of the trust we have built by being a sustained, reliable agent for community-led change.
Understanding the problem
In our grant application, we identified the need to design improvements to the crossings of I-94 so that the transportation network serves the people who live in the neighborhood, and not only motor vehicle traffic. This has remained the focus of our work. We have gained more clarity and definition from our work with Community Outreach Specialist and West Bank resident Ayan Isaq , who has been key to organizing West Bank residentspeople from underrepresented groups. Through contracting with Ayan, we have established productive collaboration with groups of West Bank-based Somali neighbors and we have identified resident organizations in public housing. Input from these connections has led to improved street designs, and greater capacity in underrepresented communities to understand transportation issues and to effect change.
If you could do it all over again...
Working with mariginilazed community members depends so much on interpersonal trust. Ideally, Redesign would have identified and hired Ayan earlier. Ayan’s personal connections with the East African community in Seward and the West Bank, her ability to speak Somali, and her natural community outreach skills have enabled her to organize and publicize meetings resulting in turnout that Redesign could not have achieved on our own. Other engagement partners in the immigrant community had been less reliable and effective than Ayan.