Neighborhood Development
We Can't Just Talk About It, Local Residents Are Getting Organized!
Neighborhood and Leadership Development is a core part of the focus we have in low income communities.
If we cannot address the smaller issues in our neighborhoods,
how will we ever have success in the dealing with larger issues impacting our communities?
We Believe in Having a Community Voice
We work to improve neighborhood issue areas of concern through a very strategic organizing drive process that allows local residents to become engaged and introduced to organizing at a level they are comfortable with. Through door to door outreach and one on one conversations with neighbors and local residents, community people are able to talk about local issues and engage in a conversation around their vision to improve local concerns, how we could get others in the community involved and are able to talk about the importance of leadership in order to address local issues in the neighborhood.
People in the community are introduced to both our membership and opportunities to create a community action plan to begin to address issues that local residents identify they want to address. This very model allows our organization to use our organizing drives as a vehicle to move larger issues campaigns through both education and action.
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Successes from the 2011 Summer Building Efforts in Ward 14: Vacant lots continue to flood low income neighborhoods in Dorchester and Mattapan. Vacant lots attract issues such rodents, hazardous wastes, drugs, derelicts, and lowered property value for the surrounding homeowners. There is no issue better to train and develop residents on how the power of organizing can create positive changes in their neighborhoods. New residents living on Callender St, Oakhurst St and surrounding streets, decided to have a community walk through with the City’s Neighborhood Service Department to share their concerns and demands around maintenance and clean up of vacant lots in Dorchester. Our members were successful in getting 11 out of 12 vacant lots cleaned up and the work with the Neighborhood Service Department and Councilor Yancey’s office was a true show of neighborhood power for NEU4J members who worked collectively on the issues on their streets and in their block.
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Ongoing Effort, Building off of 2011 into 2012 : Imagine walking down their street or sitting in your living room and BOOM, a car crashes into you or your home! Imagine calling both the City and State and no one hears your voice on the need for traffic improvements as a result of car crashes and speeding in your neighborhood. Local residents living on and near Morton St have been living with this problem for over 10 years and didn’t know how to deal with this local community concern. A group of new NEU4J members decided it was time to step into action! Over 35 residents organized a neighborhood action on Morton St with the local City Neighborhood Service Department on this issue. Some of the concerns and changes our members have identified were the need to place stop signs on streets lacking proper traffic signs, the need to repaint and add cross walks, the need for cement barriers to block cars from hitting pedestrians and homes as a safety precaution and a new team effort between the City and State in order for improvement to take place. Working with State Representative Russell Holmes, the City’s Department of Neighborhood Services and the Highway Department there is currently a strong community engagement process taking place to ensure our community has a voice on this issue. With over 200 petitions collected and over 60 residents involved in actions, meetings and events on this issue….our members continue to work on this issue and are currently waiting to review the traffic audit to determine next steps on this effort in Dorchester. Too Be Continued.... If you live in the neighborhood and care about improvement to Morton St and Blue Hill Ave get in contact with our community organizer, today to learn more about the local efforts to Save Morton St! |
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Builing Leaders in Boston, Trainings with NEU4J
How to identify issues and potential solutions How to work in a democratic space with other neighbors Learn to make a strategic plan on addressing local issues Working with local City and State Officials How to conduct door knocking and phone banking How to run a meeting and an action And more…. 617-265-7100 Call Us |