SoutheastNeighborhoodStrategicActionPlan_January1995_Current

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Southeast Quality of Life Strategic Neighborhood Action Plan An important aspect of recreating a sense of community is structure. Neighborhoods have both formal and informal structures. These elements link residents together and cause them to function as a neighborhood rather than independent and isolated individuals. Crime, transients, empty lots, boarded up houses, language barriers, and the stresses of daily existence sever the physical and emotional ties between individuals and cause these structures to breakdown. This breakdown has left the SEQL neighborhood fragmented. 1. SEQL as a Formal Neighborhood Structure The first structural element that must be reinforced to recreate the sense of community is the SEQL organization. SEQL must become a formal and recognized neighborhood organization. It must develop an institutional identity separate from the group of interested individuals who came together around areas of mutual concern. To do this will require the commitment of individual residents to act as the legal trustees of the neighborhood. Moreover, the institution must share the confidence of the neighborhood as a whole. Building confidence in the SEQL begins with the establishment of a formal legal structure including bylaws, a Board of Directors, officers, 501(c)(3) status, committees, and procedures for operations. This confidence is upheld through the leadership and actions of the trustees of the organization in such actions as the publication of established meetings dates, creation of a formal line of communication between residents and the Board, and the development and carry forward of projects which benefit the neighborhood as a whole. Before SEQL can embark on the successful implementation of a neighborhood strategic plan it must create the structure of its organization to support such a plan. 2. Knowing the Neighborhood: The Neighborhood inventory A second aspect of a sense of community is knowledge about the parts that make up the whole of the neighborhood. Numerous participants in the neighborhood meetings suggested the need and desire to know and use existing resources from within the neighborhood. The resources of and for the neighborhood refer not only to its access to essential services such as health care, groceries, child care and the like but more importantly to the resources of individuals such as the knowledge of the elderly and the energy of youth. The assets of the neighborhood could be developed and better utilized by the 58