CommUNITY 2000: Case Study
Introduction
At the beginning of the 21st century, the dominant social justice issue in the nation continues to be the persistence of racial isolation. According to research compiled by Professor John Logan of the Lewis Mumford Center for Comparative Urban and Regional Research, "the 2000 Census shows little change in community integration despite growing ethnic diversity in the nation." This analysis of residential patterns finds that with few exceptions, white, black, and Hispanic people continue to live in neighborhoods that are not significantly integrated. Since 1990, this continuing pattern of segregation has persisted, even in the wake of great population shifts of minorities from cities to suburbs.
Successful neighborhood integration is central to the American ideal of equal opportunity. Among the questions raised by data suggesting the United States' failure to achieve higher levels of integration are the following:
- How do neighborhoods create inclusive communities that welcome every resident?
- How can local governments, advocates and other sectors of the community come together to respond to or reduce tensions that naturally occur as residents begin to live in integrated communities?
- What are communities doing now to alleviate the problems that arise when people chose to live in more integrated communities?
All Americans have a stake in resolving these important questions, for the consequences of failing to do so are severe. Recent years have witnessed too many painful reminders of how attacks against innocent people driven by irrational hatred threaten the very body and soul of America. Not only do these crimes have devastating effects on the victims, their families and friends, but hate crimes are acts of violence against the American ideal: that we can make one nation out of many different people.
Yet while victims of bias-motivated crimes such as James Byrd and Matthew Shepard have garnered national attention, many incidents of non-criminal or non-violent bias-motivated behavior do not make the headlines; nor do the misperceptions and negative stereotypes that can make members of communities fearful of groups viewed as posing as a threat. From killings and beatings to acts of arson and vandalism to physical and verbal assaults, these bias-motivated behaviors injure or even kill thousands of people, terrify countless others, divide Americans against each other, and distort our entire society.
Executive Summary
At the beginning of the 21st century, the dominant social justice issue in the nation continues to be the persistence of racial isolation. According to an analysis of residential patterns compiled from the most recent census data, the continuing pattern of segregation seen in analyses of previous census data has persisted, even in the wake of great population shifts of minorities from cities to suburbs.
Recognizing that dealing with existing community tensions, as well as working to prevent their development, is an important element of ensuring equal housing opportunity, the Leadership Conference Education Fund (LCEF), in conjunction with the National Fair Housing Alliance, and local partners in Boston, Chicago, and San Diego, has launched CommUNITY 2000, the nation's first housing-related community tensions program. CommUNITY 2000 has been conceived in response to the need to address a complex problem in a strategic and coordinated manner, both on a national scale and in the local sites.
Toward this end, LCEF has sought to uncover the approaches that communities have taken to address tensions, as well as the barriers that neighborhoods face as they seek to foster more inclusive communities. Our report brings together findings from interviews with advocates and other local entities across the country. Our goal was to assess several issues:
- The potential for the formation of coalitions among fair housing groups, intergroup relations advocates, civil rights organizations,and "mainstream" organizations in communities other than the CommUNITY 2000 pilot sites.
- The effectiveness of coalitions in instances where they do exist and the barriers to their formation in instances where they do not.
- Where collaborations do exist, the factors that are most relevant to the creation, as well as the depth and breadth of such collaboration.
Our study focuses on ten cities: Atlanta, GA; Cincinnati, OH; Durham, NC; Houston, TX; Louisville, KY; New Orleans, LA; Omaha, NE; Phoenix, AZ; Pittsburgh, PA; and Richmond, VA. We conducted interviews with advocates in each of the cities to explore the factors that appeared to drive the level of collaboration that actually existed there. Our interviews also helped us identify cross-cutting themes reflecting the factors that, in general, appeared to influence collaboration and coalition building between different groups likely to be concerned with tensions in their communities. During the course of our field research, we looked for patterns in the types of coalitions formed, any specific reasons or catalysts for the formation of a coalition, as well as any similarities (and unique circumstances) that have prevented coalitions from forming in areas in which appear ripe for a coalition to exist. Based upon the interviews and analysis, the report's major findings are as follows:
- Of the ten cities studied (each of which have fair housing organizations), our research revealed few examples where the fair housing center is at the center of community tensions response. These examples included Cincinnati and Durham, where the local fair housing center is integral to the community's collective response. More typically, however, the local fair housing center's role in the cities we studied was limited to referring cases to HUD for investigation, with little work done with the victim, other agencies, or the community.
- The media can play an important role in a community's collaborative response or prevention efforts. In several cities, the media was used by advocates to publicize incidents or tensions, catalyze a community-wide response, or make prevention efforts more widely known. Sadly, in many cities, this resource is underutilized.
- Most of the inter-organizational collaboration occurs in reaction to high profile incidents of violence. This is true even in the cities with the most sophisticated approach to collaboration. This study did find, however, that some areas were beginning to take a more pro-active approach with respect to specific issues such as support for state hate crimes legislation, or for greater public education about hate crime issues.
- Unfortunately, high profile incidents that are generated by police actions create a unique dilemma since ideally, police departments should be represented and active in any coalitions formed to address community tensions.
- Advocates sometimes focus on only the most egregious, violent, or controversial incidents in their communities, thereby ignoring some underlying, "simmering" tensions within a community. In order to ameliorate community tensions, it is important for advocates to also address any community activity that raises tensions between groups, such as racially-motivated rallies, name-calling, and other incidents not rising to the level of a hate crime. Not only can these incidents be precursors for more egregious activity to come, they themselves can send a message of fear and terror to their intended victims, as well as the broader community in which these individuals live.
- Those seeking to form coalitions often encounter a pervasive tendency for individual organizations to guard their "turf." Simply put, according to many of the individuals interviewed, some organizations in their community have established a niche with respect to certain issues or constituencies and are reluctant to allow other organizations to share in "their" work.
- The research revealed that while most fair housing organizations recognize the need for collaboration to uphold the rights of individuals to live in the community of their choice, in many areas of the country, despite the clear connection between housing discrimination and housing-related community tensions, these linkages do not extend to institutions critical to effective community tensions response. The research demonstrates that in most of the cities we studied, with respect to community tensions issues, fair housing centers tended to operate in isolation, neither reaching out to, nor contacted by, other organizations, even in the wake of bias incidents that were related to housing.
Based upon the overwhelming evidence suggesting that fair housing organizations, community organizations, government entities and local advocates do not work in a systemic and coordinated matter to respond to or prevent tensions within communities, CommUNITY 2000 offers the following recommendations as a starting point for effective collaborations directed toward the problem of housing-related community tensions:
- Collaborative efforts to address issues of housing-related community tensions are most effective if they are broad-based in scope and include every relevant sector of the community. While community based organizations, fair housing organizations and local advocates often form the basis of community response and prevention efforts, the most effective coalitions also incorporate other entities that serve the community more generally such as houses of worship, local government agencies, law enforcement, and the business community comprise the most effective coalitions.
- Maintaining communication among relevant community sectors is critical to effective inter-organizational collaboration. Mechanisms such as phone trees, e-mail distribution lists, newsletters (offline and online) and web sites are relatively simple to create and can help facilitate communication and information exchange among advocates.
- Collaboration and coalition formation should extend to issues beyond community tensions response; attention should also be paid to the root causes of community tensions, to break down the barriers that separate us, and to foster greater understanding and mutual respect for difference.
- In the cities with the most effective approaches to community tensions response, advocates and institutions operated in a coordinated fashion, rather than in isolation. Through the coordination of these resources and services, the work that individual organizations have accomplished separately can be magnified considerably.
- Developing comprehensive prevention and response strategies requires expanded resources at the local, state and federal level.
The findings and recommendations in this report represent information gleaned from interviews with local advocates across the country. Additionally, they represent the experience, research, and expertise of the CommUNITY 2000 partners, both locally and nationally. We hope our experiences can be combined with the collective experiences of other advocates throughout the nation. Our goal is to form a more comprehensive strategy for alleviating and reducing tensions, thereby ending the persistent pattern of racial isolation and creating more inclusive communities.
