The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

In the health care professions these days, the focus has shifted from exclusively caring for the sick to keeping patients well. Doctors practice preventative medicine. Children go for "wellness" visits. In much the same way, Phase I of CommUNITY 2000 established a precedent in the fair housing arena for nurturing a culture of wellness in our nation's communities.

By recognizing that enforcing fair housing laws and fostering community goodwill should go hand-inhand; by developing strategies to reduce, respond to and reconcile community tensions, both nationally and locally; and by detailing successful strategies in a user-friendly "Menu of Strategies" that encourages replication, CommUNITY 2000:

• Laid the groundwork for continued successes in Phase II of the project, a coalition of the original national partners and local partners in Boston and the North Carolina research triangle region.

• Created a community tension reduction prototype useful for any organization or individual seeking to build more harmonious communities in the future.

CommUNITY 2000's successes were rooted in a strategy to build coalitions, exchange information and maintain flexibility. The project's emphasis on constant interplay between the national and local partners led to the following positive outcomes:

• CommUNITY 2000 local partners fulfilled the national partners' oversight and monitoring requirements, yet retained autonomy and discretion when executing their local objectives. This ensured that each project reflected a combination of local experience and national perspective.

• CommUNITY 2000 balanced local control of programs with national coordination of the overall project. This created a structure that offered the best chance for local and national efforts to continue beyond the term of the grant.

• CommUNITY 2000 called for programs that shared common elements, yet fit particular circumstances. This addressed the need to respond to local conditions while developing national approaches that could be replicated by other communities.

• CommUNITY 2000 generated a wide range of activities. The variety and scope of projects allowed for some concrete outcomes in the short run, and laid the groundwork for some broad-based change in the long run.

• CommUNITY 2000 worked to prevent and respond to community tensions with an innovative, two-pronged approach that was adopted by each national and local partner: Combat hate with a rapid response system; Combat apathy and ignorance with education and public outreach.

• CommUNITY 2000 streamlined communication between the national and local partners. It created an internal, secure "Intranet" website, and matched local and national staff members to work together.

• CommUNITY 2000 capitalized on the extensive contacts of the national staff, Advisory Board and local partners to bring together groups from the fair housing and hate crimes prevention camps that had not been not familiar with one another.

• CommUNITY 2000 expanded and enhanced fair housing organizations' scope and effectiveness by providing training and technical assistance from leading hate crimes experts.

In the short term, CommUNITY 2000 is advancing Phase II, which began in December 2000, and will end in 2003. The Phase II partners expect to accomplish the following:

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund and the National Fair Housing Alliance will:

• Continue to bring together coalitions of national and local organizations with expertise in civil rights, fair housing and hate crimes to advance a national tension prevention agenda

• Pay particular attention to specific tensions surrounding the growth of non-English speaking communities in previously homogenous areas

• Develop and implement an evaluation component

The Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston will:

• Foster goodwill among young people, who tend to be the most likely to commit hate crimes

• Expand awareness of housing rights among disabled persons who live in group homes. The housing center also will work with Access Living of Chicago to further this goal

• Reach out to the region's non-English speaking populations and make them aware of their rights.

North Carolina will:

• Operate within the framework of a "Regional Working Group" composed of community groups throughout the region. The working group will focus particularly on the area's growing Latino and Asian Pacific American communities.

• Hold a regional CommUNITY 2000 Summit to build coalitions and prevent duplication of resources and efforts among civil rights groups

• Capitalize on the strengths of those coalitions to reach out to the wider community, including business leaders, civic and political leaders

In the long run, all of CommUNITY 2000's participants — from the local partners in both Phases, to the national partners, to the Advisory Board members — will continue to promote harmonious communities across the nation for years to come.

"We're a diverse country and we're becoming more so," said Karen McGill Lawson, Executive Director of LCCREF. "Even if people want to wall themselves away, surrounded only by their own little group, that's not very practical or realistic. We have no choice except to learn to live together, and so we may as well do it right. This is the great promise of America."