Urban Revival BlaQ Ink'D is a new program presented by 4 Elements and sponsored by Worcester Common Ground with a mission to capture our city's youth through creativity and self-expression using urban art. During a 3 month session, our mentoring artist Mark Thomas has instructed youth on the enriched culture of hip hop, street art, and artistic skills. Using public art as a vessel for social justice this group of youth plan to revitalize abandoned buildings and empty spaces through miniature murals. They hope to feature their works in local art galleries and live art performances. These displays will provide an opportunity to build up their personal art portfolios, breathe life back into the community and break down negative perceptions that have kept them historically isolated.

To learn more about Urban Revival BlaQ Ink'D, check out their Facebook page.

On November 3rd, Joe Kriesberg, MACDC's President, was recognized by CHAPA with a Community Service Award for his incredible accomplishments successfully advocating for critical resources to further support and drive increased community economic development across the Commonwealth.  While the recognition by CHAPA is quite an honor, the comments LISC Boston Executive Director, Bob Van Meter, spoke to the genuine passion and character of Joe and how he has dedicated his professional career to advocating for issues and causes for which he deeply cares.  Bob's comments are below:---Thank you.  It is my pleasure and honor to present the next award.Joe Kriesberg has provided leadership at the state and national level for the community development field and all those concerned about low- and moderate-income neighborhoods for more than twenty years.Joe has served as President and CEO of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations for over thirteen years. I was board chair of MACDC in 2002 when we made the decision to hire Joe as President.  I count that as the best hiring decision I ever made.  It was in fact, a no brainer, as Joe had served very ably on the staff of MACDC since 1993.As President of MACDC, he has worked to increase the power and voice of CDCs and the communities where they work.  Joe initiated biannual MACDC conventions bringing together hundreds of leaders from all over the state.  These have now become a required stop for candidates for the Commonwealth’s corner office.He has led a renewal of the community development movement in Massachusetts by winning passage of a new enabling statue for CDCs and an updated state certification process that has focused on comprehensive approaches to neighborhood development.Joe led the way in founding the Mel King Institute for Community Building, which has proved an important and durable vehicle for building the capacity of CDC staff and leaders and allies.Joe has led on housing issues, serving as co-chair of Mayor Walsh’s transition team on housing and helping to win increases in housing resources at the city level.At a time when there was a void in national advocacy, Joe led the way in creating a new national voice for community development as a founding board member of the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations (NACEDA).  Joe has been a leader of NACEDA since its inception and speaks regularly to NACEDA member associations around the country.Though Joe never served as a CDC executive director or a project manager, he has demonstrated time and again the qualities that all of you know are key to success in community and affordable housing development, grit and persistence.His work to win passage of the Community Investment Tax Credit showed all of that.  Joe stayed focused on the goal and made it his job to insure that Governor Patrick and the legislature did too.  For a period of weeks when Governor Patrick’s support for the legislation was uncertain, Joe made sure that at every ground breaking or ribbon cutting where Governor Patrick appeared, he would be there and that the Governor’s office would be deluged with calls from community development leaders.   In the last days of this saga, Joe and the rest of the MACDC staff were on their annual summer outing, a walking tour of the African American Freedom trail on Beacon Hill, when they encountered Governor Patrick walking his dog and Joe crossed the street to speak to the Governor.  The Governor responded, “You can stop Joe. I will sign the bill.” And he did of course.MACDC won passage of the Community Investment Tax Credit and with Joe leading the way to help implement the credit, $4.7 million flowed to support CDCs across the state in the first year.I know Joe would want me to remind all of you tonight that we have the opportunity to invest $60 million in the future of our neighborhoods over the next five years using the 50% Community Investment Tax Credit, but we need all of you to join Joe in helping us make it a success.

Two military families will soon be able to put down roots in Worcester and Millbury. Recognizing the need for affordable homeownership opportunities for veterans and military families, Bank of America donated two properties to Project Homefront, an initiative spearheaded by Worcester Community Housing Resources. Project Homefront aims to provide the security and stability of homeownership to families who have served their country.

With their expertise in affordable housing development and rehab, WCHR fully renovated the two homes, transforming them into quality, family-sized housing. They worked with MassHousing to arrange mortgages for eligible buyers. WCHR will sell the homes to eligible families at affordable prices. Buyers will pay 60 percent of the sale price, and WCHR will cover the rest of the cost with a forgivable lien.

For Bank of America, the decision to work with a CDC like Worcester Community Housing Resources came down to shared values. “We share Worcester Community Housing’s commitment to honoring those who’ve served, and their track record of improving the community in meaningful ways made them an ideal partner for the home donations,” said Ed Shea, Bank of America Worcester market president.

This project gives military families the opportunity for homeownership and the stability that comes with putting down roots. After the sacrifices that these families have made in service to the Commonwealth and our country, they deserve nothing less than a place to call home.

MACDC applauds the Baker-Polito Administration’s new Real Estate Leveraging (REAL) Strategy that will use the public’s real estate assets to achieve important public policy goals, in particular the creation of new affordable housing and economic development opportunities.

Last year, candidate Charlie Baker spoke at the MACDC Convention about leveraging the state’s real estate assets to create more housing. Now, Governor Baker is turning that pledge into reality.

We are particularly pleased to see that this proposal emphasizes housing production generally and affordable housing specifically.  This will require a creative, flexible and entrepreneurial approach – precisely what Governor Baker presents with this program.  This approach requires balancing the need to generate revenue with the need to provide land at a price that allows the creation of affordable housing, without using limited public housing subsidies to pay for public land.

MACDC also supports the focus on creating economic development opportunities outside of Greater Boston where housing costs are less expensive, but economic growth has been slower.

MACDC and its members stand ready to partner with the Baker-Polito Administration to transform these under-used public assets into homes and jobs across the Commonwealth.

On September 29th, Urban Edge welcomed Frank Shea as their new Executive Director.  Prior to joining Urban Edge, Frank was the Executive Director of the Olneyville Housing Corporation in Rhode Island for fifteen years.  During this time, Frank grew the organization from two staff to fourteen with an annual operating budget over $1.5 million.

On September 15^th MACDC joined with partners from the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, MAPC and CHAPA and testified before the Joint Committee on Community Development and Small Business in support of legislation to update the Commonwealth’s zoning laws. S.122, An Act Promoting the Planning and Development of Sustainable Communities is co-sponsored by Senator Dan Wolf, Rep. Sarah Peake, and Rep. Steve Kulik who noted “Our zoning laws are widely known to be as antiquated  and as out of touch with the modern world as any you’ll find anywhere in the country.”

S.122 will encourage new jobs and more housing, offering new models and resources for community planning and additional safeguards for public health and natural resource protection. Massachusetts and, in particular, the Greater Boston region will undergo dramatic changes in population over the next 25 years. More than a million workers will retire during this time, and we will need to attract younger workers from other places to sustain and grow our economy. With this shift in demographics and housing needs, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) and other experts suggest we need to build 500,000 new housing units between 2010 and 2040; 87 percent of that projected housing need is in Greater Boston, approximately two-thirds of which should be multifamily housing.

The bill presents a balanced, well-crafted approach that offers greater certainty and predictability for developers and property owners, enhanced protections for important natural and agricultural landscapes, and an enhanced set of tools and incentives for local officials and citizens to guide and shape the future of their communities. MACDC members have a long track record of balancing these three goal. CDCs work collaboratively with local residents and local governments to identify community goals and develop projects with strong local support. Over the years, our members have developed more than 17,000 apartments and hundreds of homeownership units as well as dozens of commercial buildings and green spaces. CDCs will benefit from the additional and expanded definitions and authorizations for many useful zoning techniques, including cluster development, inclusionary zoning, and variance provisions that will facilitate more community-scale residential projects as well as a consolidated permitting process that will benefit larger, more complex projects.

In 2008, at the height of the recession, the staff at Nuestra Communidad Development Corporation began to notice a pattern. As homes in their Roxbury, MA neighborhood became foreclosed and abandoned, neighbors began to increasingly complain about violent and criminal activities in or near the properties.  They also felt that the police were not helping.

“People were angry. They felt like the police weren’t doing enough, that they didn’t care.” said Monica Dean, Director of Community Organizing and Resident Services. “Neighbors accepted activities like prostitution as the norm because it wasn’t being addressed. They would call and nothing would happen”

Public health research has shown that fear of crime in a neighborhood has a negative impact on mental health and overall wellbeing, even if people are not directly affected by the crime.  Dean, who lives in the neighborhood, noted how crime affected her:

“Public safety just has a huge impact on your health and overall wellbeing. If you live in an environment that is safe, you are happy, you are comfortable, you’re not stressed.” said Dean, “You’re not planning your day around how to protect yourself.”

To confront the safety issues in the neighborhood, Nuestra CDC developed its Community Safety Initiative (http://nuestracdc.org/community-safety-initiative).  The initiative identified problem areas, redeveloped abandoned property and created coalitions of residents, police and other nonprofit organizations to address safety issues.

Nuestra CDC’s approach is one that has worked across the country. As addressed in Bill Geller and Lisa Belsky’s Building Our Way out of Crime: The Transformative Power of Police-Community Partnerships, communities in Charlotte, NC, Minneapolis, MN and Providence, RI have reduced crime and violence through similar approaches of addressing blight and creating community-police partnerships.

While these partnerships can be lasting and productive means to ensure safe communities, they can also be difficult to begin and navigate. There are some best practices, many of which Nuestra used along the way:

Use data to inform approach

Nuestra CDC’s first step was to work with the police and use their crime data to create a map of where crime was taking place in the community.

“Sure enough there was a connection between the vacant property and the drug dealing and prostitution that was going on” said David Price, Executive Director.

Focus on redevelopment in problem areas

After the mapping exercise, Nuestra CDC immediately filed code violations with the city to secure and clean up vacant buildings. They then bought some of the properties and worked to place residents into them. They began to have regular meetings where the police and community members would discuss problem properties in the area and create joint plans to address them. They also did larger multifamily development projects on vacant land in the area, where crime had been taking place even before the recession.

Take time to cultivate lasting relationships

Nuestra had to forge stronger relationships between the police and their organization as well as between the police and the broader community.

“One of the first things to do as a CDC is to get to know your local precinct captain at the police station.” said Price, “Find someone who understands community policing”

Nuestra brought their police officer partners to trainings on crime prevention provided by Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and NeighborWorks. Attending the trainings together allowed the organization and police department to get to know one another and also to make sure both were learning the same skills and approaches to community safety.

To facilitate relationships between police and community members, they organized weekly meetings between to discuss local crime, and also organized block parties to give police officers opportunities to get to know residents and build trust. Building mutual trust throughout the neighborhood made it easier for community members to call the police during an incident.

Engage partners

Once Nuestra had built up partnerships between residents and the police, they noticed that an important demographic was missing from their program: youth. Teenagers were the most likely to engage in gun violence in the neighborhood.

Nuestra did not have capacity as an organization to engage local youth, but they knew that Teen Empowerment, another Boston based organization, specialized in it. Nuestra provided one of their underutilized community rooms to Teen Empowerment and helped them expand their programs into the neighborhood.

Since working with Teen Empowerment, Nuestra has seen an increase in teen volunteers at their events. By getting to know young people, they have been able to tap into networks of youth and reach out to those engaging in criminal and violent activities. This year, Nuestra had the highest level of attendance ever for their youth peace march (shown in picture)

Now the recession is mostly over and crime levels have gone down, but the Community Safety Initiative still thrives. The partnerships that were developed have remained strong and are now working towards new challenges.

“Now that we’ve brought crime down, what neighbors really want to do is change the image of the neighborhood.” said David Price, “We have shifted our focus from preventing crime to neighborhood beautification by improving storefronts or adding new street art.”

While issues of violence and crime in any community will differ based on local circumstances, the approach of forging partnerships between police, community developers and residents, using data and redeveloping neighborhoods  is one that is adaptable to every community. As Nuestra CDC has also shown, the program can evolve to tackling new challenges as they emerge, creating truly resilient and thriving communities.

The Mel King Institute offered a training, Community Safety Seminar: Safe Streets, Sound Neighborhoods on September 21^st with the Local Support Initiatives Corporation. Check out the storify on the training.

Island Housing Trust Executive Director, Philippe Jordi, provided exceptional remarks at their annual event on August 16th.  They were also published by the MV Times.

"Have you ever stood outside on a clear Vineyard night and gazed at the mass of stars the Island sky offers us? I know I have, and I know that what I find fascinating about the night sky is that if you try to focus on an individual star, it immediately disappears from sight. The only way to appreciate the magnitude of each star is to take in the expanse of the night sky as a whole." CONTINUE READING

Cambridge based Just-A-Start Corporation just announced having received a $200,000 grant from the JP Morgan Chase Foundation for their 23 year old Biomedical Careers Program. This nine-month, tuition free program prepares Cambridge area adults with low-incomes for Biomedical Careers.

Starting a business is hard work. But Cassandria Campbell and her business partner Jackson Renshaw were determined to make it happen. Their goal was to bring fresh, locally-grown food to neighborhoods in Boston where healthy and affordable food can be hard to find. They created Fresh Food Generation, a farm-to-plate food truck and catering business that would source ingredients from the greater Boston area.

Cassandria and Jackson needed help to get off the ground, and they found it in Dorchester. Years ago, Dorchester Bay Economic Development Corporation saw the old, vacant Bornstein and Pearl Meats factory as a potential resource for growth in their community. They partnered with Crop Circle Kitchen to revitalize this former community landmark into a state-of-the-art culinary incubator. Dorchester Bay EDC spearheaded the $14 million project, and Crop Circle Kitchen shared their expertise in what food businesses need to get started and keep growing.

This collaboration produced the Bornstein and Pearl Food Production Center, a 36,000 square foot facility specially outfitted for food trucks and small enterprises. The Center provides businesses with commercial kitchen equipment and space to operate, as well as specialized technical assistance and access to capital.  By the end of 2014, there were 17 businesses and 71 people working there. And these businesses are growing.

Fresh Food Generation now employs five people and serves roughly 3,000 customers each month. For Cassandria and Jackson, it has been “the ideal kitchen space for us to start and build our company…Crop Circle has whole-heartedly supported our mission and has helped us work towards achieving our goals. The staff helped us streamline our operations so we were more efficient in the kitchen and helped us connect to funding and catering opportunities.”

Small businesses like Fresh Food Generation play a critical role in increasing access to healthy, local food in underserved communities. But they can’t do it all on their own. In the Pearl Food Production Center, the ingredients are all there for these businesses to grow.

Check out the MACDC GOALs report.