The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

CommUNITY 2000

• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Civil Rights and Fair Housing Today
• CommUNITY2000: What is it? Why is it?
  • Purposes of CommUNITY 2000: Developing, Documenting and Reporting
  • Funding: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
  • Overview of Partners for First 18 Months
• Building Communities With a Menu of Strategies
  • Accomplishments for Modeling by Organizations Nationwide
  • Successful Strategies: The National Partners
  • Successful Strategies: Local Partners
  • Contact Information
• National Partners
  • Building Community Throughout the Country
  • National Advisory Board
• The Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston
• Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities
• Access Living
• The Fair Housing Council of San Diego
• Building Community for the Future
• Appendix A: Case Studies on Coalition Building Activities
  • Introduction
  • Case Study Methodology
  • City Approaches to Community Tensions
  • Cross Cutting Themes
  • Recommendations
• Appendix B: Census 2000 Charts
• Acknowledgements

Appendix A: Recommendations

For the most part, hate activity related to housing are the exception rather than the rule. For many communities, integrative moves by minorities are met quietly, without incident.

But any incident of hate causes enormous heartache for neighborhoods and communities. When housing-related hate incidents do occur, our research has revealed that the most effective counteraction will come through collaborative initiatives in our communities and neighborhoods that reach people where they live and engage people where they feel at home, physically, spiritually, and politically.

Accordingly, 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 will be most effective if they are broad-based in scope and include every relevant sector of the community.

While organizations such as the local fair housing center, intergroup relations organizations, civil rights groups, and other institutions concerned with community harmony are natural allies in efforts to formulate responses to community tensions, our research suggests that the most effective coalitions also include those who have a stake in the community more generally, such as houses of worship, local government agencies, law enforcement, and the business community. The media also plays an important role in this regard, serving as a useful indicator of public awareness of community tensions issues, and in the words of one advocate, acting as a "watchdog" when incidents occur.

Moreover, given projections showing vast suburban growth, there is a critical need for concomitant tools "for dealing with segregation and racial transition which can very rapidly transform a community."* Thus, to be most effective, advocates and institutions will need to reach out beyond their traditional constituencies within their areas, as well as beyond their geographical localities to formulate region-wide coalitions.

Maintaining communication among relevant community sectors is critical to effective inter-organizational collaboration.

Although the overwhelming number of people we spoke with in the course of our interviews expressed interest in, or recognized the importance of, maintaining good working relationships with other advocates in the community, the low number of collaborative efforts our research uncovered illustrates how difficult this may be to achieve in practice.

In some cities, groups keep connected through volunteer efforts for other organizations. Thus, for example, in Pittsburgh, the fair housing center has trained the staff of the local NAACP office to be testers. Similarly, in Cincinnati, the local National Conference for Community and Justice office uses staff of the fair housing center in their diversity trainings for the workplace, communities, and the like.

Creating a community-wide communication system can help link organizations and staff within a community. 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. These types of communication devices can also alert other sectors of the community when an incident occurs, serving as a catalyst for a more coordinated response. Moreover, through technology, advocates can accelerate the speed and ease with which information is shared, as well as extend dialogue beyond local boundaries. As an advocate in Omaha stated, the "single most effective thing was having a list-serv of people around the country" to talk to people around the nation about these types of issues.

Collaboration and coalition formation should extend to issues beyond community tensions response.

While response and counteraction efforts directed toward community tensions are important, 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 most communities, there are many organizations that are concerned with such issues; the Anti-Defamation League and the National Conference for Community and Justice are just a few examples. Yet, on the whole, there appears to be a perplexing and unfortunate separation between on the one hand, organizations that can be thought of as promoting the highest ideals of an inclusive America, and on the other, fair housing groups and law enforcement institutions that seek to enforce the laws defining the baseline behavior around the inclusion we expect from everyone.

Organizations that offer programs on prejudice awareness, religious tolerance, and conflict resolution can play an important role in complementing the efforts of institutions primarily focused on enforcing rules relating to anti-discrimination efforts, equality of access, and public safety. In fact, when such collaborations and coalitions are active, not only are enforcement and inclusion efforts reinforced, they also combine to strengthen a community's collective commitment to cooperation and inclusion across many lines of difference.

Awareness of available local resources, key organizations, and important contacts is critical to effective coalition building.

In the cities with the most effective approaches to community tensions response, advocates and institutions operated in a coordinated fashion, rather than in isolation. This type of coordination requires ongoing awareness and utilization of local resources and organizational services. Through the coordination of these resources and services, the work that individual organizations have accomplished separately can be magnified considerably.

Coordinating resources may extend to funding sources as well. The philanthropic community can play a critical role in encouraging coalition-building by making it a priority to fund collaborations. In New Orleans, for example, the Baptist Community Ministries requires all grant applications to be collaborative in nature, sending a powerful message to local community institutions about the need to work together.

Developing comprehensive prevention and response strategies requires expanded resources at the local, state and federal level.

In almost every interview with advocates across the country, lack of resources was identified as one of the main barriers to the forming or expanding of coalitions. For example, fair housing organizations often have only one or two staff devoted to fair housing enforcement for an entire metropolitan region. Without greater capacity, they must often resort to very limited proactive coalition-building and preventative efforts.

* Gary Orfield, Housing Segregation: Causes, Effects, Possible Cures. Cambridge: Harvard University, April, 2001.