CommUNITY 2000: Goals
Recognizing that addressing existing community tensions, as well as working to prevent their development, is an important element of ensuring equal housing opportunity, CommUNITY 2000 brings together a national and local coalition of organizations with extensive experience and expertise in intergroup relations, hate crimes, fair housing, and related civil rights issues. Guided by a distinguished and diverse advisory board, the CommUNITY 2000 partnership is working to:
- Develop and implement local programs to prevent and respond to prevent and respond to housing-related community tensions;
- Document the process and outcomes of each local initiative; and
- Research and generate a menu of promising approaches as well as a recommended core structure to assist other communities in transition.
The major components of CommUNITY 2000 include:
- Local programs for promoting positive intergroup relations
- Creation of response networks for effective tensions and hate crimes response and reconciliation
- National response manual and guide with recommended protocol for fair housing groups to use when housing-related tensions occur in their communities
- National and local environmental scans identifying other relevant programs around the country
- Case studies of ten cities around the country identifying factors that influence how communities address their respective level of tensions
- Integration of technology into program activities
- Distribution of resources and tools for improving intergroup relations to local fair housing centers around the country and other organizations that work on related matters
- National and local program evaluation to appraise the impact of the project by assessing strategies developed to prevent, respond to, and reduce fair-housing related tensions
- Final report and recommendations, published in a format that enables other communities nationwide to read about and replicate successful fair housing- related community tensions reduction initiatives.
By designing CommUNITY 2000 programs for national replication, and augmenting these strategies with a national environmental scan identifying other programs around the country, we will be able to generate a menu of approaches and recommend a core structure to assist other communities in their efforts to prevent and reduce community tensions.
Through community2000online.org, we will share information about national and local program activities, as well as ideas about how individuals and organizations can promote positive intergroup relations and housing access, and prevent hate crimes and hate-motivated behavior. On the site you will find:
- detailed information about each of the national and local partners involved in the project;
- community-oriented factual information;
- a searchable database of promising programs and library resources including curricula and reports;
- newspaper articles about fair housing, hate crimes, and diversity; and
- in-depth descriptions of strategies for alleviating tensions in your community.
Contact us if you have any questions or comments about community2000online.
