HOPE VI: CCoommmmunity Buildingunity Building Makes aMakes a DifDifferferenceence February 2000February 2000 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Public and Indian Housing Office of Public Housing Investments Office of Urban Revitalization HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Difference February 2000 Prepared by: Arthur J. Naparstek Susan R. Freis G. Thomas Kingsley with Dennis Dooley Howard E. Lewis Prepared for: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Public and Indian Housing Office of Public Housing Investments Office of Urban Revitalization HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference Foreword t the beginning of a new centur y but HOPE VI aimed also to transform Athat will bring changes in so many lives. The program was designed to open spheres, our underlying thinking about new paths for public housing residents, public housing issues is also beginning linking them to jobs and a better futur e. to shift. This status report discusses that second set of goals: the supportive ser vices and Once we simply asked: “How can we community building efforts of HOPE VI provide affordable housing for poor in cities across the country. people?” Community building, as explained in Now, although the management and this book, is an approach that combats supply of public housing will always the isolation of public housing residents be critical concerns, we are beginning in several ways. It increases the skills of to pose a new, more complex question: individuals so they can take better “How can we transform our public hous­ advantage of mainstream opportunities. ing stock into bridges of opportunity It also strengthens public housing com­ to help people get out of poverty?” munities so they may better support the A large part of the answer, as is becom­ self-sufficiency efforts of individuals and ing increasingly clear, is to reduce the families. Also, it fosters partnerships isolation that separates public housing among housing authorities, residents, residents from the opportunity structures local organizations, and the business of the larger community. community that link residents with a world of resources that can help fuel Since its beginnings in 1992, the HOPE their quest for a better life. VI Urban Demonstration Program has worked to reduce isolation where it is The HOPE VI experience has much to most severe: in the largest and most dis­ teach those who cherish the goal of mak­ tressed public housing projects in the ing public housing into a bridge to a bet­ nation. The program set out to rebuild ter future, and this book captures many the physical plants of the developments, of these valuable lessons. —Andrew Cuomo Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Foreword i HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference Preface he HOPE VI program—as the negative habits, or the self-defeating atti­ Tevidence in this book demon­ tudes that are the legacy of growing up strates—is indeed cause for hope in in poverty and hopelessness. communities where once there was The innovative thinking that public none. Residents who once despaired of housing authorities and residents have changing anything about their situations brought to the HOPE VI process and are transforming their lives. Innovative the imaginative partnerships they have partnerships are being developed with forged with area businesses and other local institutions that reconnect long- institutions are heartening. Even better, marginalized people to mainstream they are replicable. opportunities. Public housing residents in growing numbers go to work each To that end, we have worked to fill this morning with a new look of pride in book with many useful—and sometimes their eyes, and they come home at the sobering—lessons learned, detailed end of the week with a paycheck in their examples, and practical tips on making pockets. And crime is being dramatically such programs work for people. Perhaps reduced by neighbors who are rediscov­ the most valuable lesson of all is that ering the link between their community’s there is no cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all prospects and their own. approach to achieving this kind of suc­ cess. As made clear by our pr ofiles of None of this is happening by accident, or seven housing communities and the simply as a result of the handsome new dozens of supplementary best practices buildings or freshly landscaped grounds included in the appendix, many different that are a part of physical revitalization approaches are possible and desirable. efforts. It is happening because of the Each community must find its own way, critical provision written into the original building on its own special mix of HOPE VI legislation to address people strengths and opportunities. The strate­ and opportunities as well as bricks and gies of community building must involve mortar. From the beginning, HOPE VI the genuine commitment of the housing has been about taking practical steps to authority to changing the way it operates create a community that supports family and thinks about both its function and life, children, and the aspirations of peo­ its residents. ple who have been marginalized and cut off from life’s opportunities. Readers are urged to visit HOPE VI communities, meet and talk with the r es­ HOPE VI offers residents ways to access, idents, and see these programs for them- pursue, and secure the benefits of these selves. Visitors will come away not only opportunities. In many cases, this first with a feeling of optimism, but also with means help dealing with health or family a sense of long-pent-up energy released problems, shortcomings in education, at last and applied to positive activities Preface iii HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference such as creating new hope for children, can help or hinder, thwart or jobs for their parents, and the kind of support the efforts of good people to communities anyone would want to live change the way things have been. HOPE in. This book is dedicated to that spirit VI is giving many public housing com­ and the people working to har ness it. munities an opportunity—and the means—to do just that. Systems alone, even reformed systems, cannot change people’s lives. But they —Arthur J. Naparstek Senior Associate, The Urban Institute Grace Longwell Coyle Professor, Case Western Reserve University iv Preface HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference Introduction OPE VI represents the most obligation to self-responsibility and Hdramatic change of direction in the giving back to one’s community.1 60-year history of U.S. public housing The Senate report commented that policy. The program promises nothing “Public housing residency, for many rea­ less than full transformation of the sons within the last two decades, has all nation’s most distressed public housing too often become a way of life, instead of projects—places that have been both a bridge to a better life.” HOPE VI was physically and socially devastated by intended to remedy this pattern by pro­ extraordinary concentrations of poverty viding supportive services such as literacy and years of disinvestment. training; job preparation, training, and Congress wanted change in 1993 when retention; personal management skills; it authorized $300 million in HOPE VI daycare; youth activities; health services; Urban Revitalization Demonstration community policing or security activities; funding. HOPE VI was aimed at r ebuild­ and drug treatment. Throughout the rest ing the most physically distressed public of the decade, Congress has continued to housing in the worst neighborhoods of support the program and, over 6 years, the nation’s largest cities, and it was has provided a total of $4.2 billion to intended to foster self-sufficiency and fund HOPE VI in approximately 130 empowerment among public housing public housing developments. residents. The program mandated not Housing authorities, residents, and their just bricks-and-mortar changes but also community partners have now accumu­ the provision of supportive services for lated more than 5 years of experience residents. According to a Senate report with this ambitious program. This publi­ on the 1992 bill that initiated HOPE VI: cation examines best practices that have The goal of HOPE VI is thr eefold: emerged from the community-building (1) shelter—to eliminate dilapidated, and supportive services side of HOPE and in many dangerous instances, VI. The HOPE VI program is known structures that serve as homes for both for its physical revitalization of hundreds of thousands of Americans; deteriorated, outmoded public housing (2) self-sufficiency—to provide resi­ projects and for its success in self- dents in these areas with the opportu­ sufficiency and community-building nity to learn and acquire the skills activities. These lessons in community needed to achieve self-sufficiency; and building may be applied to all ef forts to (3) community sweat equity—to instill increase opportunities for residents of in these Americans the belief that with low-income neighborhoods. The infor­ economic self-sufficiency comes an mation in this book, therefore, should 1Senate Report 102–356, Committee on Appropriations, August 3, 1992, p. 40. Introduction v HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference be of interest not only to public housing advocacy groups, service providers, and staff and residents, but also to local all others striving to alleviate poverty and national policymakers, along with through community revitalization and private-sector community stakeholders, the creation of sustainable communities community-based nonprofit organizations, for all. ❖ —Senator Barbara Mikulski vi Introduction HOPE VI: Community Building Makes a Dif ference Acknowledgments he authors wish to thank Andrew in fostering broad community TCuomo, Secretary of Housing and participation. Urban Development, for his unwavering We also wish to thank Milan Ozdinec, commitment to the inner cities of director of HUD’s Office of Urban America and this nation’s poor people as Revitalization, who provided a thought­ reflected in the support that the depart­ ful early reading of the manuscript; and ment has provided to this effort.