Building Neighborhood Capacity Program Announced

Today, the Department of Justice announced the Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP) – a place-based initiative designed to help persistently distressed communities build the infrastructure and capacity needed to ignite positive change in neighborhoods that have historically faced barriers to revitalization. Eight neighborhoods in four cities throughout the nation were selected to participate in this groundbreaking initiative. These cities and neighborhoods are:

• Flint, MI (Wards 1 and 3) 
• Fresno, CA (El Dorado and Southwest) 
• Memphis, TN (Binghampton and Frayser) 
• Milwaukee, WI (Amani and Metcalfe Park) 

The Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) was selected as the training and technical assistance provider for BNCP and will use its decades of experience in public policy, research and work with communities to help the BNCP neighborhoods build the capacity that is needed to engage in effective and sustainable community change. Helping these neighborhoods to build accountable partnerships among local organizations and use data to make decisions about the effective solutions or programs, for example, may spark renewal and much needed change in these neighborhoods. To learn more about the capacities that CSSP believes are essential to community change, check out our Community Capacity Framework.

In addition to providing the BNCP neighborhoods with technical assistance, CSSP and its federal partners will be launching the BNCP Resource Center. Throughout the BNCP, the Resource Center will provide access to tools, resources and best practices that can be utilized by any community interested in this work. Stay tuned for our blog for more information as the BNCP Resource Center is launched on Friday, August 3rd.

As part of the Obama Administration’s Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative, BNCP is a partnership between the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Justice and Treasury. Together, these federal agencies have collaborated to address the interrelated challenges of concentrated poverty, high rates of crime, low-performing schools, inadequate access to housing and healthcare and the absence of economic vitality. Today’s announcement adds BNCP to the spectrum of NRI programs, including Promise Neighborhoods and Choice Neighborhoods, that target federal funds to neighborhood-driven revitalization efforts.



Stay tuned to our blog for updates about BNCP, NRI and other community change efforts.