In “The Best Ideas,” Suzanne Morse, a Professor at the University of Virginia explains that when exploring ideas on community development it can be hard to know which strategy to use. She pointed out that legislative strategies and policies are usually our initial thought, as well as specific examples of places and projects that have changed the future for communities. Even within the best examples are things that could have gone better or didn’t work out quite as they should. An example given was the housing and financial policies of the early Federal Housing Administration (FHA). With this policy in place there was still redlining and a lack of support for home ownership for minorities which contributed to the decline of urban neighborhoods.
Professor Morse believes that as we look toward the next hundred years of work in and with communities we must use strategies that prevent problems rather than react to them. She also wants us to include the “gold standard” of best practices when creating program initiatives. Best practices include ideas that have stayed with the issue for the long run, not being deluded by the positive and negative ebbs and flows that all social issues encounter.
According to the reading Professor Morse strongly believes that our lack of progress as a nation has rested less on political infighting over values and philosophy and more on our lack of consensus that the systemic issues of day-poverty, education attainment, and environmental quality-require by definition strategies for prevention and long term action.
She gave three ideas that she believes incorporate prevention and the ‘gold standard.” They encompass necessary elements of any change strategy: a structure for change, a vision for change, and a strategy for change.
1. Creation and expansion of community development corporations, CDC (and their intermediaries) – they understand community involvement, shared power, systemic issues, and holistic development from an individual and local perspective to a national reality. A critical piece of the CDC process is when residents see their neighbors as problem solvers, not just problems.
2. The practice of asset-based community development – this practice disassociates place and circumstance from individual capacities. It thinks of new creative ways to incorporate the capacities of people, the culture of the community, and the existing building and space. This concept challenges communities to think about and build on what they have, not what they don’t have; it helps people have “new eyes” about themselves and their surrounding; and it shifts the conversation from thinking of citizens as objects to fix to assets to tap.
3. Vehicles to provide affordable capital – is critical to: all phases to self sufficiency and that our financial support system be affordable, fair, and accessible, (particularly for women and minorities). One vehicle is micro lending, the notion that small loans can lead to big results has been a paradigm shift in the development world.
Professor Morse says that these three elements move us closer to Margery Austin Turner’s concept of place-conscious development. This approach thinks about how to revitalize the places in which people live, how to enable people to take advantage of opportunities that are located in different places around the region, and how to make connections between where they live and regional opportunities.
I was enlightened after this reading. I agree with the critical piece of the CDC process in that this approach/attitude will unite communities and increase positive outcomes for residents and their neighborhoods. I didn’t ask residents in the Ferguson community how they can see their neighbors as problem solvers, not just problems. Their answers may have redirected my ideas on community development. Social workers can use these ideas to strengthen their clients who can then strengthen their communities.
Questions: What strategy can you use in your assigned community to help your residents see their neighbors as problem solvers, not just problems? Do you believe that by providing vehicles to affordable capital people and communities will become self-sufficient? Why/Why not?
Neighbors as problem solvers. Just changing a person's thinking to encourage them to take ownership of a problem to encourage change, instead of perspective of powerlessness and thus victim mentality. This would be interesting to phrase into conversations when interviewing community members. "How do you see yourself responding to a need in your community?" Cheri
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