"A unique dynamic is created when the insights and enthusiasm of local leaders are infused by the ideas and energy of the academic community. HUD encourages these partnerships because we know they work in small and large communities nationwide."
-- Andrew Cuomo Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Many institutions of higher education are located in neighborhoods that have inadequate housing, high rates of unemployment and poverty, and growing levels of crime, drugs, and other social maladies. Beneath these troubles, however, are valuable human, social, and physical assets that need to be recognized and developed as an essential strategy for community renewal. One form of these valuable resources is community-based organizations, known as community development corporations (CDCs), which have played a key role in the physical and economic renewal of many disadvantaged neighborhoods. By 1995 more than 2,000 CDCs were operating in the United States, and since then colleges and universities have been forming an increasing number of partnerships with CDCs to revitalize their neighborhoods. Since 1994 the process of forming higher education-community development partnerships with CDCs has been facilitated by HUD's Office of University Partnerships (OUP) through its Community Outreach Partnership Centers (COPC) and Joint Community Development (JCD) programs. Between 1994 and 1997, these two programs gave more than $40 million to more than 70 colleges and universities in support of their outreach and collaborative work for community development. HUD has published a handbook, Building Higher Education-Community Development Corporation Partnerships, that documents COPC and JCD initiatives to build partnerships with CDCs. The handbook:
Describes how colleges and universities have collaborated with CDCs for community development, providing numerous examples. The handbook has seven principal sections. The first section defines and discusses community development and CDCs. The second section identifies the nature and complexities of higher education-community development partnerships and the lessons learned from these partnerships. The third section considers the role and experience of colleges and universities in creating new CDCs. The fourth section identifies ways that universities can support and strengthen new or existing CDCs. The fifth section discusses university-CDC partnerships with affordable housing, commercial real estate, and other forms of physical development in neighborhoods. The sixth section examines how higher education institutions can work with CDCs in community economic development, focusing on ways of working together to increase employment of residents in sustainable jobs that pay family-supporting wages. The final section presents conclusions. There is also an appendix that provides definitions, explains how to incorporate a CDC, and lists board responsibilities. This handbook demonstrates that there is strong mutual interest and potential for collaboration between higher education institutions and CDCs. According to the handbook, successful university-CDC partnerships have:
Shared visions and philosophies of community development work. However, each successful partnership is unique—forged by a special combination of vision, leadership, and commitment from the community and from the university. Many more such connections are needed. The lessons recounted in this handbook can encourage many other CDCs and institutions of higher education to reach out to each other and establish new relationships to restore their neighborhoods. Order Building Higher Education-Community Development Corporation Partnerships free from HUD USER. Use the order form. |
