New Haven Independent

It began with a Conversation on Neighborhood Crime last July, when residents of the West River neighborhood came together to discuss the perceived increase in criminal activity in the neighborhood. From that conversation 15 to 30 neighbors began meeting on the fourth Tuesday of each month with one purpose: to make West River a neighborhood where people choose to live.

The group is a part of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven’s Neighborhoods of Choice program (NoC.) West River was selected in July 2008 as the second neighborhood in this CFGNH “Urban Initiatives” strategy. The goal is to replicate the successful results achieved in the Chatham Square section of Fair Haven.

The Neighborhoods of Choice program uses the Healthy Neighborhood framework following a Relational Culture methodology. The Healthy Neighborhood framework asks neighbors to plan activities that fall into four buckets:

• Market: how housing stock is priced. Is it staying vacant for long periods and why? Is it going to resident homeowners or investors?

• Physical Condition. How does the neighborhood’s public and private spaces look?

• Management. How a community identifies and comes together to resolve issues.

• Image. What residents, workers and others think of the neighborhood.

Relational Culture works towards the establishment of public relationships for the purpose of engaging in joint action.

“Basically it’s about getting people out of their houses and engaging with each other doing things to make this neighborhood a place where people live because they want to be here… not because it’s the only place they can afford.”

That’s how Rev. Kevin Ewing sees it. Ewing is the community organizer contracted by CFGNH to do the “on the ground work” with the residents in West River now and in Chatham Square until their contract ended in December.

“I think West River has as great if not a better chance at successfully building a strong community as Chatham Square,” he says. “West River residents have a history of organizing around the management of their neighborhood.”

He admits he may be biased. After all, he is a West River resident and president of the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation. “But I’m in this neighborhood because I choose to live here. I love it here and everybody that shows up at our meetings and our events show that they also love this neighborhood. Every person that takes the time to clean in front of their houses, plants flowers or gardens or anything like that is contributing to the community. We already have community here. We just want to make it stronger.”

West River residents have a long history of organizing. It began in 1982 (West River was officially deemed a neighborhood in the City of New Haven Master Plan in 1985) when some George Street resident grew weary of the trucks rumbling past their homes at all hours of the day. They successfully lobbied to have the Rte. 34 traffic rerouted to Legion Avenue.

From that success, they continued to work together forming the West River Neighborhood Association in 1986, which finally morphed into the West River Neighborhood Services Corporation (501c3) in 2005.

In July of 2000 the Board of Aldermen approved a plan developed by West River residents making it New Haven’s first and only Neighborhood Revitalization Zone. The West River NRZ committee has been meeting at St. Raphael’s Selina Lewis building at 8 a.m. on the last Wednesday of each month since 2000, missing only three meetings in that time.

Now the neighbors have put together an aggressive schedule of events for 2009 — all in an effort to make West River a “Green Neighborhood of Caring and Peace” (the neighborhood’s motto).

How do they plan to get it done? “Partnerships,” says longtime resident leader Jerry Poole. “West River residents have always worked well with each other, our surrounding neighborhoods, the city, the state and our small business community.”

They plan to continue with those longtime partners and establish new partners. For example, as a part of its Green strategy the neighborhood is partnering with Yale Community Carbon Fund in a pilot program to study the replacement of incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents, switching to low-flow shower heads and the installation of programmable thermostats in 30 homes this spring.

In addition, the neighborhood hopes to plant 15 trees.

To address Physical Condition the neighborhood has partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services to offer up to 10 residents an additional $800 each towards an IDA (Individual Development Account). They’ve also deposited $10,000 with NHS to help a first-time homebuyer purchase a house in the neighborhood. Funds for these two initiatives are from the Community Foundation as part of the NoC program and from other grants and donations found by the residents and their partners.

“We are only limited by our imagination and our will to work together to achieve our goals.” says Ewing. “We won’t attempt to do anything that the community does not have the energy to do. It’s a somewhat nuanced approached. You see, instead of us waiting for agencies to come offer us programs, we are deciding what we want to do then going to the proper agencies and asking them to help us do it. Notice I said ‘help us do it.’ It won’t work if we, the residents, aren’t willing to make it work.”

This group has already shown that they are ready to work. Last year they pulled off a powerful celebration of the International Day of Peace at the International Peace Garden at West River. They also hosted a well attended Pancake Breakfast at the Christian Love Center, a local congregation, the Batter Terrace Block Party and a snowed-out Holiday Party that turned into a New Year Kickoff Party. Most exciting to many residents was setting up their Christmas tree in Monitor Park. The tree was donated by Yale Forestry Club (along with 10 additional trees free to residents) and was decorated with solar powered Christmas lights.

“We hope to make this an annual event and expand on it each year.” said West River resident John Fitzpatrick, who led the Christmas tree charge. “At first I was a little disappointed that the Holiday Party fell through (six resident volunteers and 15 kids showed up in the snowstorm), but then I thought, hey… we proved we could pull it off. We proved that residents from all over the neighborhood could come together and pull off a party.”

“If we can do a party” Ewing says, “why can’t we come together to do bigger things? See, that’s how Relational Culture works. The power is not so much in what you do but in that you are doing it together. That’s how you build a strong community.”

You may ask how any of these things address the crime issues that started this conversation. “It’s about taking back our community.” says Ewing. “We are using the neighborhood in the way that it was intended to be used. We’re taking back the streets by using them. We’re using our parks, our churches, our schools. We’re coming out of our houses and getting to know our neighbors. We’re getting to know the children. We’re finding out the needs, desires, and dreams in our community. We’re doing things together. We know we’re not going to get everybody on board. That’s OK. We also know that we will continue to have crime. That’s why we have our police partners. But in the meantime the rest of us are not going to be intimidated into our homes. The more of us that are out there working together… greeting each other on the streets… engaging in conversation… seeing who is moving through our community… building relationships, the less room there is for crime.”

The next West River Neighborhood of Choice meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 24, 6 p.m. at 730 George St.. The group meets the fourth Tuesday of each month.
For more information email Kevin Ewing here.