Housing GSO: HRA Greensboro Affordable Housing Plan

NEIGHBORHOOD REINVESTMENT

Key Partners • City of Greensboro – NDD, Planning • Neighborhood associations • Local institutions

IMPLEMENT COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIPS & ENGAGEMENT | Overview

An effective neighborhood stabilization effort involves active community engagement and working with existing neighborhood leadership. The City should coordinate with a range of partners, including strengthening Greensboro’s existing nonprofit housing delivery system, to successfully implement neighborhoods interventions and create self-sustaining residential markets. Each of the City’s partners will provide different skill sets and play an active role in ensuring the success of the process. Neighborhood groups can identify problem properties, build neighborhood pride through events and programs, market new homeownership opportunities, and establish neighborhood reinvestment committees that have input on public investment processes. CDCs and non-profits can manage household intake processes for programs, undertake rehab and beautification projects, and engage in marketing efforts on behalf of the target neighborhoods. Institutional partners can make investments to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods surrounding their campuses and assist residents in identifying problem properties. Finally, Greensboro’s government agencies can work to improve the efficiency of their service provision and interdepartmental communication, invest in quality of life improvements, and establish an inter-agency workgroup to coordinate public investment and services. Municipal departments and other partners should also incorporate educational components into their work to promote acceptance of new housing products, including affordable housing, as necessary elements of a healthy city. The City should build community partnerships and undertake regular engagement activities to include residents as full-fledged partners in the neighborhood reinvestment process . Successful neighborhood reinvestment will not be accomplished via top-down methods alone, so investing in on-the-ground capacity and building neighborhood buy-in will be key to the City’s success.

Action Steps

1. Organize quarterly meetings to bring together municipal departments and community groups in each candidate neighborhood 2. Develop program for neighborhood captains to do homeowner education about preventative maintenance

3. Deploy approach in candidate neighborhoods

HR&A Advisors, Inc.

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