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What makes Holistic Neighborhood Development unique?
Place-Based
One of the greatest indicators of one’s life-long economic mobility is the neighborhood in which one lives. HND asserts that place is the most important factor to consider when seeking long-term outcomes, and it is one of the most neglected lenses within traditional poverty alleviation tactics. Place allows us to go deep, work broadly, and invest in the long-haul for real results.
Proximity
We cannot solve anything from a distance. We have to draw near, enter into relationship, and open ourselves up to the possibility of mutual transformation. Transactional giving between strangers will never end poverty. You cannot serve someone out of poverty. HND leads with neighboring and relationship.
Integrative
Poverty is neither caused, sustained, or solved by any one thing; it is the dynamic intersection of multiple factors, systems, and circumstances. The “holistic” dimension of HND is about committing to comprehensive engagement that seeks innovative, integrative strategies for long-term outcomes.
Agile
Cities, people, opinions, policies, and economies can all change in the blink of an eye. Strategies that worked last year might night work in the next. Work done for months may come up empty and expectations may get upended at a moment’s notice. HND can create real change because it is flexible and adaptive, constantly committed to the best, healthiest approach, even if that means a radical course correction mid-stream. We do not seek the perpetuation of our program; it is always about the thriving of a community and whatever it takes to make that happen.
Impact-Oriented
Results matter. Not activity, not busyness, not arbitrary program numbers, but impact. They may be hard to come by, hard to define, or hard to measure, but they are core to what it means to commit to HND. We want to see lives and communities thriving, not dependent on external support year after year. We do not settle for less than true and lasting change.
Data-Driven
Flourishing communities is not just a big vision for us. It is a process we have developed with tools to track and measure the health of a place. This process will define and create the strategies that will lead to long-term, lasting change in your neighborhood.
Why Multi-Family Rental is Good For Everyone
It is common to hear people talk about the housing crisis facing our cities. What is less common is to hear people talking about one of the main reasons we are facing this crisis – exclusionary zoning, which creates a level of restriction resulting in low supply despite soaring demand. One crucial way to not only meet the volume of the demand but to address affordable access also is by promoting more multi-family housing (and the zoning changes that would allow for it). This is not without significant controversy, though. There are many fears supported by myths about the impacts of multi-family housing. Joining Shawn to talk about why multi-family rental is actually good for everyone is FCS Senior Director of Community Development, Marvin Nesbitt, and special guest, Jim Brooks, Purpose Built Communities’ VP of Housing and Community Development.
The Beauty and Challenges of Developing Single Family Housing
Founded in the late 19th century, South Atlanta was a thriving Black mixed-income neighborhood with Black businesses, churches, and other institutions that fostered a strong fabric of connection and belonging. As years of disinvestment harmed the neighborhood, many of the single family homes went vacant and eventually blighted. At FCS, we quickly realized that if we were going to partner with this place to produce a flourishing neighborhood, we were going to get into the work of buying, rehabbing, building, and selling single family homes. In today’s episode, Shawn is joined by Cynthia and Marvin to discuss the many things we have learned by entering into the beauty and challenge of single family housing.
Is Mixed-Income Housing the New Gentrification?
Gentrification is a word that has lost its context, simply coming to mean that the wealthy are getting nice, new things built for them and legacy residents, who are disproportionately lower-income people of color, are getting displaced. Their history and legacy are getting replaced one coffee shop and brewery at a time. This narrative makes headlines, but is it the story that is actually playing out? FCS has said that a healthy mixed-income strategy can do development without displacement. But is a mixed-income approach just a new term for the same traumas being visited upon historically Black and brown neighborhoods? Join Shawn Duncan in conversation with Jim Wehner, Joi Jackson, and former South Atlanta neighbor, Lisa Haygood.