Washington State Family Policy Council Networks Promote Community Wellness

This month, Spotlight on Community Change celebrates Washington State Family Policy Council and its 42 affiliate Networks for their innovative combination of grassroots activism; community organizing, education and leadership; research application; interdepartmental dialogue; new funding; and systemic policy change.

“The Family Policy Council’s main tenant is that change must be driven by people in their communities; government programs alone are not sufficient to drive change. The Family Policy Council’s impressive results to date are built upon a comprehensive research-based, culturally adaptive understanding of what it takes to produce healthy and productive adults regardless of the circumstances they are born into.”

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Community Public Health and Safety Networks are empowering Washington State citizens to improve individual and community outcomes in the following 7 areas, recognized by Washington State legislature as interrelated, multi-generational and fundamental to cyclical poverty:

1. Child abuse and neglect
2. Domestic violence
3. Youth violence
4. Youth suicide
5. Teen pregnancy
6. Youth substance abuse
7. Youth dropping out of school

The 42 Community Networks are codified into state law, along with Family Policy Council, a state agency that supports the Networks by providing financial resources, technical assistance, the latest research, opportunities for peer learning and connections to state and local officials.

Washington State Networks are accountable to results, learning and continued assessment. In fact, Networks are contractually obligated to be flexible and adjust their actions as needed to ensure the best individual and community outcomes possible. Networks strive to increase community capacity to a "tipping point", when several indicators have proven to demonstrate better results at once.

Networks operate as grassroots entities with a powerful connection to state and local policymakers/ officials/ community leaders and the latest research. Structure, key issues and projects vary from Network to Network based on membership, community needs and funding opportunities.

Inclusivity and leadership development are essential to the Family Policy Council model. Interdisciplinary and diverse Network membership (each Network is required to include community residents as well as local officials and experts such as teachers, School Board members, police officers, advocates, county officials, academics, etc.) enables the groups to consider community problems from a holistic standpoint.

An example: Adams County residents mobilized to promote “safe community thriving,” a community value realized through community cafés and other conversational, community-building activities. After affirming their commitment to neighborhood safety, Adams County Network staff and local residents considered the roots of youth violence, using both research and community “dialogue, [which] led to unprecedented ways of thinking.” They discovered that delinquency, early school failure and lack of school readiness often precede violent acts and concluded that homeless children face tremendous barriers to school readiness and success. The Adams County Network has since applied for, and received, funds to address community homelessness, built three emergency shelters, developed a 10 year plan to address community homelessness and become the fiscal managers of the Homeless Prevention Rapid Recovery Program.

Research demonstrates the success of Family Policy Council (FPC) Networks’ ability to create concrete positive community change through grassroots activism and community empowerment. As compared to Washington State counties that do not have a Network, FPC counties have decreased both the number of social problems occurring at high rates and the rates of such problems. Network counties have saved an estimated $7 of public funds for every $1 invested by decreasing various Health and Human Services case loads and crime. Overall, FPC communities are more resilient and their citizens are less likely to endure Adverse Childhood Experiences (click here for more information about the groundbreaking ACE Study).

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For more information, check out the Family Policy Council website.

Like Washington State's Family Policy Council and Community Networks, the Center for the Study of Social Policy promotes community leadership, policy engagement, accountability to results and research-based interventions. CSSP’s Neighborhood Guide offers helpful tips on how to achieve positive change in your community.

Innovative Strategy to Reduce Hunger- Spotlight on the First Nonprofit Grocery Store

As part of the Spotlight on Community Change series, we highlight an innovative anti-hunger and community development strategy: Chester Community Food Center.

Chester, Pennsylvania is one of the hungriest communities in the United States. According to a report by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), 31% of Pennsylvania’s first congressional district, of which Chester is a part, cannot access and/or afford sufficient food. There has not been a grocery store within city limits for the past 10 years and at least 30% of the population is too poor to own a car, making it incredibly difficult for residents to access healthy food. Chester’s roughly 34,000 residents also endure the negative effects of concentrated poverty: over 50% live below 200% of the Federal Line and 15% are unemployed. Not surprisingly, the overweight/ obesity rate for Chester’s children is twice that of those living in the rest of Delaware County, where poverty is less common and grocery stores are more plentiful.

In an effort to address Chester’s destitution, Philabundance, a hunger relief agency in Delaware Valley, is spearheading a project to create Chester Community Food Center, the first nonprofit grocery store in the United States. This project could not come at a more urgent time. The recent national economic crisis has resulted in increased hunger and decreased donations to community organizations that serve the neediest individuals, making development of a more financially sustainable model of emergency food delivery vital.

The Chester Community Food Center will combat hunger and high unemployment without putting further strain on the already strapped emergency food system. The center’s primary roles include:

1. Grocery store: Fresh fruits and vegetables, among other goods, will be sold at the lowest possible price. In contrast, traditional groceries set prices with the goal of making a high profit.

2. Sustainable food pantry: some items will be available free of charge

3. Convenient venue for SNAP outreach: SNAP, also known as Food Stamps, is an underutilized federal benefit. Those who qualify and enroll will be able to use their SNAP benefits at the food center.

4. Valuable asset to Chester’s local economy: The store is anticipated to create 20-25 new jobs. 

The food center, which is still in early planning stages, received a major boost recently from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funds activities and research dedicated to improving public health. United States Congressman Bob Brady, who represents Chester and parts of Philadelphia, has also helped raise start-up funds. Since food will be priced to cover costs, Philabundance hopes the center will eventually be self-sustaining. 

By providing healthy food at a low cost in a community currently lacking nutritious food options, Chester’s proposed food center will address both affordability and access. Philabundance describes their initiative as “a new kind of solution that addresses food insecurity and food access inequality while providing choice, dignity and respect,” central tenants of CSSP’s Constituents Co-Invested in Change work.

Hunger is a national issue. As recent reports by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA; Household Food Security in the United States in 2010) and the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC; two reports: Food Hardship in America- 2010 and A Half Empty Plate) prove, domestic hunger is not limited to Chester. Hunger resulting from an inability to access and afford sufficient food for one’s family, officially termed food hardship by FRAC and food insecurity or very low food security by the USDA, is a problem throughout the United States. FRAC’s national data show that 18% of Americans experienced food hardship in 2010. The USDA’s extremely conservative methodology (homeless individuals, for example, are not included in their sample) characterizes 14.5% of Americans as food insecure. 

Hunger is both more common and more problematic in households with children. The USDA reports that 20.2% of households with children are food insecure, as compared to 11.7% of households without children. Similarly, FRAC has shown that households with children were more likely to report an inability to access affordable fresh fruits and vegetables, a circumstance correlated with poor health, high stress, obesity, food hardship and poverty. Lifelong negative effects of childhood hunger include developmental delays, stunted physical growth, decreased academic performance and educational attainment and harmful behavioral, social and mental health consequences. 

In response, President Obama and his administration have pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015. As part of the First Lady’s Let’s Move Campaign, the Departments of Treasury, Health and Human Services and Agriculture have jointly committed to promoting increased access to nutritious food, especially in food deserts. The three Departments have created 19 grant opportunities for local community partnerships addressing food access problems.

In addition to Philabundance’s Chester Community Food Center, local anti-hunger organizations might consider these innovative strategies to promote access to nutritious, affordable food:

• Public-private partnerships to encourage and finance development of grocery stores in underserved communities: Fresh Food Financing Initiative

• Mobile food carts that sell fresh fruits and vegetables in urban and rural food deserts: New York City

• SNAP outreach campaigns in communities of high need: Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger

• Resident Engagement: CSSP's Atlanta Customer Satisfaction Work and Miriam's Kitchen, which is launching a new, client-informed advocacy campaign

• Urban farming: Growing Power and Greener Partners

• Education: Urban Nutrition Initiative
  

Community Revitalization in Camden

This week, we sat down with James Gibson, who leads the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s efforts to help promote responsible redevelopment initiatives in Camden, New Jersey. Through the Spotlight on Community Change Series, we hope to lift up community examples that demonstrate our vision of child, family and community well-being by promoting neighborhood strategies like workforce development, asset building, reading success, community development, organizational capacity and resident engagement.

You’ve had an extensive career in Urban Renewal. What lead you to Camden?

My experiences in other communities allowed me to walk into Camden and know that there were larger external forces mixed in with racial segregation that put minorities at a disadvantage. I do believe that there are essentially two factors that I have seen that impact the ability to affect community positively.  First, we have to have current accurate information about the conditions and situation in which we’re working whether it is a community or a neighborhood or a city. We have to know the facts. What is it that is causing or has caused the problems that the people are feeling or the blockages to opportunity? What seemed to be the reasons or the factors that contribute to these conditions? The second thing we have to do is find out what are the true strengths that could be brought to bear to address those factors? You can’t just look at a project, you can’t just look at a neighborhood…you have to look at all the pieces.

Camden was originally part of Making Connections initiative.  The key elements of Making Connections: asset building, reading success, community development, organizational capacity and resident engagement are very important. The service oriented focus of Making Connections did not, however, work in Camden.  Camden required us to create a context of opportunity and paths. It’s the opportunity that lifts people out of poverty not just services. There has to be attention to policy determinants of opportunity creation as well as the foreclosure of opportunity.  A lot of the issues are embodied in policy mal-focus and if you cannot address those issues then you don’t get to the seminal casual factors. You can be very busy with projects and it’s like running in place. How do you begin to develop the deep paths to opportunities? But it’s not either/or. You have to focus on tangible things that address the people that you’re working with and the communities that they’re in.

When you first began your work, what were the conditions like in Camden?

The people in Camden were polarized. There was enormous factionalism. The people were bitter. They were surrounded by white suburbs and they felt cheated and used and abused.  State policy was convinced that the problems of Camden lied in mismanagement of the government. The tax base decreased and the property taxes increased. This pattern was occurring in neighborhoods across the country. Once the civil rights laws began to pass and there was more mobility for education and skilled blacks. People in Camden were pointing fingers at each other. The political machine was dominated by whites. Blacks and Hispanics and poor and working class whites made up the majority of Camden. There was no middle class and there was very little tax revenue. The systems and the skill base of municipal workers had deteriorated. As your tax base shrinks and private employment leaves the jurisdiction, government employment becomes the most valued. The jobs that stay around are government jobs. Increasingly, politicians put the bulk of Camden’s resources into employment and not deteriorating systems.

What needs to be done to improve the community?

You have to build a tax base and identify the causes and impediments to developing the tax base. One way to do this is to build coalitions in the surrounding suburbs. You also have to invest in the people who have been out of the labor force for so long. They have now developed attitudes and behaviors that are not conducive to the workforce. They have to now be re-oriented. Oftentimes, these individuals may need drug treatment services, job training and other vital supports. This is hard but doable. The state has to invest just as it disinvested. Engaging with anchor institutions (i.e. universities and hospitals) is important. They also generate substantial revenue by spending millions of dollars every year on purchasing equipment and other resources. More importantly, anchor institutions support employ the low-skilled workforce. Those jobs have fewer benefits, lower wages, and people can work full-time or part-time. If you can get anchor institutions to understand how they can improve the area in which they are located, then you can succeed. There is also work to be done through the city as well. The low-skilled workforce needs to be supported with child care and out of school time programs.

An important aspect of the work at the Center for the Study of Social Policy is Constituents Co-Invested in Change. Can you talk to us about the importance of residents taking ownership for the city’s recovery?

Resident engagement can either be relevant or busy work. It’s important to understand why you are engaging residents and how you plan to do so.  Manual Pastor stratified community improvement into project orientation, policy orientation, and political mobilization. Sometimes when people decide to engage with residents it’s not necessarily about improving their opportunities. Working with community residents must be done the right way. There are simultaneous paths [to community building], not just one. 

Where is Camden now in terms of the city's revitalization efforts?

The initiative that we’re creating now is focused on the stimulation of Camden by 2026. A Path Forward for Camden laid out a set of principles that needed to be addressed to improve the conditions in Camden. The Senator elected from Camden passed legislation that created a recovery program for Camden. It was like a receivership in that the authorities of the mayor and the city council were vested in a Chief Operating Officer (CFO) appointed by the Governor.  Implemented in 2003, the program put seed investments in the universities and in the hospitals to improve their offerings, allowing these anchor institutions to hire more staff. The Casey Foundation provided funding to the major business and leadership group, Greater Camden Partnership, which provided a secretariat for the major anchor institution. In 2006, we engaged Urban Strategies, Inc. [and] they  found the developer McCormick Barron Salazar. Their development plan would be preceded by human development planning. With a comprehensive redevelopment plan like this one, you have to have a human capital dimension that says here’s what’s going to happen to the people here as we also add market rate housing so that we’re not leaving anyone behind. In addition, to the for-profit money, we had to coordinate those investments with government and with philanthropy. In 2008, the first full recovery plan was put together and passed the legislature.

Urban expert David Rusk lists Camden as one of the 24 U.S. cities past the “point of no return”, due in large part to the high income and racial disparities between the city and neighboring suburbs. What are your thoughts?

Has Camden reached a point of no return? I think David Rusk couldn’t see a way through. It’s daunting. But, to say it’s past the point of no return, I’m not sure there’s a need to return.  When you look at Camden it’s like Arlington to Washington. It shares the same airport, it has a thriving central city across the river, it couldn’t have come anywhere near building the subway system but it's part of the subway system. It is closer to downtown Philadelphia than most parts of Philadelphia. They are in the process of cleaning up lots so it doesn’t look so derelict. There are a number of changes occurring in Camden right now. Plus, I’m an eternal optimist so I do believe Camden can and will get better. 

Resources:
From Community Building to Equitable Development: A Journey from Projects to Policy in the Struggle for Community In Urban America, CSSP

Gathering Resident Input to Improve Youth Outcomes: The Listening Project

CSSP’s work in communities has been guided by the notion that service, system, policy and community improvements are most effective and sustainable when community residents are fully engaged as partners and leaders. Residents know best what resources are available (or lacking) in the community, how families are experiencing existing systems and what solutions might best address community needs. 

Through the Spotlight on Community Change Series, we hope to lift up community examples that demonstrate our vision of child, family and community well-being by promoting neighborhood strategies like workforce development, asset building, reading success, community development, organizational capacity and resident engagement. The Listening Project in Windham County, Vermont serves as a prime example of how one community was able to create a youth agenda driven by the recommendations of residents throughout the County.

In 2007, Youth Services, an organization committed to providing programs and services that promote the healthy development of local youth and families in Windham County, Vermont, embarked upon qualitative research entitled the Listening Project: Giving Voice to Adolescent Youth Living in Difficult Circumstances.  This research was part of a comprehensive Youth Opportunity Planning Process aimed at developing a strategic plan to guide the organization and the community in serving the County’s youth. 

The Listening Project was initiated by interviewing twenty young people from a broad cross section of the County about what it would take for a young person in Windham County to feel empowered, valued and successful in their life. The interviewers consisted of teams of trained youth and adults.  In addition to data collected from the one-on-one interviews, Youth Services convened local meetings to  encourage more community input for the strategic plan.  For example, the Board of Youth Services, which consists of about 15 youth representatives, conducted a two day workshop to review the research collected from the Listening Project.  In addition, 60 community partners joined with a team of youth to hold a full day learning session with town government, state government, and law enforcement around youth issues.

In these meetings, improved transportation services emerged as one of the important priorities that should be addressed in order to better support youth in the County.  Partnering with the Windham Regional Commission, Youth Services began to develop a project that would improve the coordination of services amongst existing transportation services and identify what is needed for an improved transit infrastructure.   In March 2011, Youth Services and the Windham Regional Commission convened the County’s four school supervisory union superintendents, school bus service providers, and the region’s transit providers to discuss immediate and long-term opportunities.  Follow-up meetings are now taking place to explore coordination of services beginning with the 2011-12 school year.  All fourteen legislators representing the region are aware of this initiative, and have signed on to a letter in full support of the effort.

For more on Resident Engagement.  

Resources:

Spotlight on Community Change Series, CSSP  

A Community Network, Powered by the People

Recently, we sat down with Bill Traynor to learn more about Lawrence CommunityWorks (LCW), a nonprofit community development corporation working to transform and revitalize the physical, economic, and social landscape of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Through this interview and the others that follow, we hope to lift up community examples that demonstrate our vision of child, family and community well-being by promoting neighborhood strategies like workforce development, asset building, reading success, community development, organizational capacity and resident engagement.

Describe to us, the mission/approach of Lawrence Community Works.

Starting Out: Great communities [exist] when people are pitching in and bringing their best stuff to the table. The environment in Lawrence did not invite people to be productive or hopeful. It did not invite people to engage or give of themselves. When people do not feel valued and people do not feel tolerated, it becomes necessary to change those conditions.  Looking at this environment, we knew we wanted to create an alternative environment where people feel valued and have opportunities to build their own economic strength.

What We Do: All that we do in terms of our programmatic environment, homeownership center, family asset building, and the movement city youth work is about building assets.  At Lawrence CommunityWorks people can be productive in a thousand different ways. We created [physical] spaces that people can come together in. Through neighbor circles, 8-10 families come together 3 times over the course of a month for dinner and conversation. They get to know each other, talk about the neighborhood or the city, and decide as a group if there is something that they can do together to help build community in Lawrence.  This has been very successful because we create spaces where people belong.

The Network: All along, we were looking for a container or a form to organize this idea. We started looking into networks. A network is a loosely affiliated collection of people that are all doing things together and are part of the same path. We consider the network a club for people. If you are working on building your assets or are willing to help other people do the same thing, then this club is for you. You can decide what to do, you can come and go as you please.

It appears, that LCW grew out of community organizing, how did you, Bill, first become involved with community organizing?

I grew up in Lawrence, Massachusetts.  [In the mid-80’s] I started working in the community as an organizer and the organization that I worked for was a statewide group. After my organizing years, I decided to go to graduate school for management. I ran a Community Development Corporation for seven years. Based on that experience, I started a company called Neighborhood Partners, where I worked largely with foundations around issues of resident engagement. I spent eight years doing this foundation work. [Then] I committed 1/3 of my time to spend a year at MIT connecting with a group of students interested in community work. Based on what I had been finding out and the connections that I had made, we developed a community organizing project in the place I grew up, Lawrence. Those three graduate students from MIT that helped me early on still work at Lawrence Community Works today.

The Constituents Co-Invested In Change work at the Center for the Study of Social Policy advances the belief that service, system, policy and community improvements are most effective and sustainable when the people are fully engaged as partners and leaders. How would you explain the term “Co-Investment”? In what ways, is it different from ‘community engagement’ or ‘community empowerment’?

Community engagement is about creating an environment that those people should be a part of instead of thinking about what you yourself would want to be a part of. Co-investment is always a deal, it’s always a give and get, it’s never one way. We want to make sure that the give and get is always present. The other part of co-investment is that we don’t succeed if everyone isn’t giving their best stuff. As the President, I raise money, I make sure I don’t consolidate power. Every member has to bring their best stuff. We net value when we co-invest. It can’t be me sacrificing myself, it’s me having a value in doing this work.

A healthy network has to have a lot of co-investment opportunities. It has to be that I can come in and I get very involved. The trap [is thinking] that there is nowhere else for me to go and I have to commit my life to this thing. Most people are not going to want to do that.  We don’t want people to do that. I want it to be cool for you to take a break. There are so many ways for people to be engaged. You have to do what’s best for you.  

In light of the current recession, what was the most difficult financial decision you’ve had to make?

We have had to have modest layoffs or furloughs. We also haven’t given our staff raises in a couple years. We have had some pain along those lines because we have had to sacrifice some of our ability to be innovative and creative. It has been compromised in part because we have to work too hard to support our programs through fundraising. What really suffers is this sense of we can dream up the next thing and make it happen. I worry that we work hard to maintain that spirit.

How do you use data to drive your community work?

Not enough. We use program data that we generate for different funders and we have some network data that we’re trying to use to figure out whose involved and how they’re involved. Increasingly we’re using community data to inform the network. For example, we’re taking the idea of family asset building to create a campaign called Lawrence Saves. (Lawrence Saves is LCW’s financial literacy effort that has helped hundreds of Lawrence families learn how to manage money and make investments in new homes, businesses and education in Lawrence.)We consider it a good example of us being more focused on how we use data to drive thinking and campaign formation.

What advice would you give to other communities that want to adopt an LCW approach/model? 

Learn from doing and don’t sit around and think about it. It’s experimental and innovative and we make it up as we go along. One of the dynamics that I confront when I’m out and helping communities is that they want to think through all the way to the end. My advice is that if you can find five people that are willing to do a neighbor circle, then you’ll learn so much. From early on we said, let’s just start. Start with what we know. We have to create room where people are having fun. It didn’t matter whether it was a sewing club or a savings club. As long as people feel connected to each other and want to come back, then we’re on the right track.

Where do you see LCW in the next 5 to 10 years?

I hope we’re going to have a lot more members and a lot more campaigns like Lawrence Saves. We’re trying to get beyond our programmatic foundation to develop more of a network through other organizations and institutions in order to increase our influence without increasing our size.

Today, Lawrence CommunityWorks has a membership of thousands of Lawrence families and has generated over $25 million in new neighborhood investment, including 60 units of affordable housing on 15 abandoned and vacant parcels, a new community center, two new playgrounds and a range of family asset building and youth development efforts. Most important, Lawrence CommunityWorks has become one of the major forces for equitable development and economic justice in Lawrence, and one of the most dynamic and effective Community Development Corporations in Massachusetts.

Spotlight On: Holistic Community Revitalization

How Holistic Community Revitalization Works, Purpose Built Communities 

Recently, Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity highlighted an approach to community change that has produced significant results for children and families.  In 1995, local police called the East Lake neighborhood in Atlanta, Georgia a "war zone." The area had a $35 million annual drug trade, a crime rate 18 times higher than the national average, chronic unemployment, and a failing school where only five percent of fifth graders met state standards for math. Over the past two decades, however, East Lake has adopted an innovative approach to community transformation called Holistic Community Revitalization.  Because of this approach, the East Lake neighborhood is now a thriving, mixed income area with both the “physical infrastructure and community support that families need to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.”

According to Purpose Built Communities, rather than tackling problems like rising crime rates, failing schools, or declining property values in isolation, a holistic approach addresses challenges – in education, housing, recreation, transportation, and community services – in a carefully planned, thoughtfully coordinated way. This coordination leads to better outcomes for children and families in underserved communities, like East Lake.The following are some of the essential components of a successful holistic community revitalization effort:

• Single-purpose, local lead organization to sustain the initiative over time and keep partners working together toward the shared long-term vision
•  Neighborhood focus to deliver a deep and lasting impact on a defined neighborhood rather than minimal impact across an entire city
• Cradle-to-college educational continuum to ensure that children learn, thrive, and are prepared to compete successfully in the workforce of tomorrow
• Mixed-income housing to build a healthy, sustainable community of choice
• Regulatory flexibility to deliver solutions that address unique community needs
• Time, plus patient, long-term commitment of resources to achieve meaningful, sustainable outcomes
• Collaboration and partnerships to accelerate progress and realize efficiencies offered by best-in-class for-profit, nonprofit, and public sector partners
• Commitment to results, assessment, and improvement to ensure that the initiative continues to deliver on the initial promise, as well as respond to the community’s evolving needs and opportunities

Initially, when the groundbreaking revitalization effort began in East Lake,  the East Lake Foundation organized a group of dedicated residents, as well as public and private partners, to engage in a planning process that would result in a healthy, sustainable community. The revitalization effort transformed the area by:

• Replacing dilapidated public housing with best-in-class, mixed-income apartments that draw a diverse mix of families
• Fostering “Cradle-to-college” educational opportunities by replacing a failing public school with a public charter school that serves students from age three through grade eight. 
• Restoring the private East Lake Golf Club to excellence so that it now hosts an annual pro golf tournament. (Proceeds from the club and the tournament benefit the East Lake Foundation)
• Building a second golf course for public play, which also serves as home to The First Tee^® of East Lake, a year-round life skills and golf instruction program that helps children develop values, life skills, and academic success
• Attracting diverse commercial development, including a grocery store and two bank branches, as well as the East Lake Family YMCA

Since the success of the holistic community revitalization in East Lake, other communities have sought to replicate the effort. For instance, after Hurricane Katrina, the Bayou District Foundation in New Orleans planned a holistic revitalization of the Gentilly community.Today, a thriving residential community has replaced the former Saint Bernard Parish housing community site and new K-12 schools are now in the works. 

For the East Lake residents, the community transformation has exceeded their wildest expectations. Children attend schools in which 99 percent of fifth graders meet math standards. The former "war zone" has seen a reduction in violent crime by over 95 percent. The revitalization continues to deliver measurable economic benefits. 


Resources: 

Miracle at East Lake, East Lake Foundation  

Holistic Community Revitalization, Purpose Built Communities

Growing Hope, Transforming Lives: Why Holistic Community Revitalization Works, Spotlight on Poverty